Thoughts on McKinley or Discovery?

[Anonymous]

The Nottingham/Discovery parents who say you can't make changes to relieve McKinley of some of its "burden" of 800 students without major increased transportation costs are full of it. The planning units that got moved from Tuckahoe to McKinley (and should've been moved to Nottingham) are not one bit closer to Tuckahoe than they are to McKinley or Nottingham. Transportation costs. Please. Spare us your bogus rationalizations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McKinly folks, which planning units do you think should go elsewhere if they redraw the boundaries?

It depends where the numbers play out. One option is to shift some current Nottingham and Glebe units to Discovery and then McK units to Tuckahoe and Glebe. I don't have time to look up specific PU numbers right now but a lot of moving needs to occur. The incompetence of the APS staff continues to astound me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McKinly folks, which planning units do you think should go elsewhere if they redraw the boundaries?

It should be the planning units that border the most under-enrolled elementary schools. McK's footprint is huge now (check out the ES boundary map)- there are places where it touches Nottingham, Tuckahoe, Glebe, and Ashlawn. It also comes within a block of Discovery, which has never reached full enrollment (and is not projected to ever reach it).

Moving planning units sucks for everyone. That's why it would have been nice for APS to get it right the first time.

[Anonymous]

Elementary boundary map: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ESZones_Letter_2017.pdf

Planning unit map: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PlanningUnits_Letter.pdf

[Anonymous]

Clearing up the McK mess involves cascading boundary changes b/c it's unlikely they'd transfer from McK to Discovery or McK to Jamestown. However, since McK touches 4 other schools, the shifts can happen.

[Anonymous]

Here are the updated projection numbers from this spring:

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SpringUpdate_and_Revised_FallProjections17-26_Final.pdf

APS revised to show McK hitting 780, but the PTA and CA presidents argued that was too low because it didn't include the ongoing high-density construction currently in progress Westover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are the updated projection numbers from this spring:

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SpringUpdate_and_Revised_FallProjections17-26_Final.pdf

APS revised to show McK hitting 780, but the PTA and CA presidents argued that was too low because it didn't include the ongoing high-density construction currently in progress Westover.

This fall's count, now at 800, still doesn't account for the families who will be moving into the Westover affordable housing apartments and luxury townhomes over the next year. It's only going to get worse.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like y'all need to get organized and figure out who you want to kick out to other schools. Hope it's none of the planning units that just moved in the last few years, I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that to those kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like y'all need to get organized and figure out who you want to kick out to other schools. Hope it's none of the planning units that just moved in the last few years, I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that to those kids.

This is partly why we're in this mess, the zero-sum approach that people like the Nottingham parents used. These are kids, and they are all negatively impacted by the overcrowding situation. Nobody wants to move, it's disruptive, but if the SB and APS staff would appropriately do their jobs and use accurate data they could have made different decisions. The question is whether it's now bad enough to do something for 2018 rather than letting these 800 kids suffer the consequences while waiting for the 2019 shifts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are the updated projection numbers from this spring:

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SpringUpdate_and_Revised_FallProjections17-26_Final.pdf

APS revised to show McK hitting 780, but the PTA and CA presidents argued that was too low because it didn't include the ongoing high-density construction currently in progress Westover.

This fall's count, now at 800, still doesn't account for the families who will be moving into the Westover affordable housing apartments and luxury townhomes over the next year. It's only going to get worse.

Says who?

[Anonymous]

APS needs to say that anyone moving into McKinley mid-year will be offered a spot at one of the neighboring schools. This is ridiculous.

And, 9:08, the planning units that could move most easily are THE ONES THAT NEVER SHOULD HAVE MOVED IN THE FIRST PLACE. I've talked to families who transferred with younger kids and they would happily move once more to go to a less crowded school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are the updated projection numbers from this spring:

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SpringUpdate_and_Revised_FallProjections17-26_Final.pdf

APS revised to show McK hitting 780, but the PTA and CA presidents argued that was too low because it didn't include the ongoing high-density construction currently in progress Westover.

This fall's count, now at 800, still doesn't account for the families who will be moving into the Westover affordable housing apartments and luxury townhomes over the next year. It's only going to get worse.

Says who?

See upstream in the thread, 795 was the number reported to PTA leads direct from the school administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like y'all need to get organized and figure out who you want to kick out to other schools. Hope it's none of the planning units that just moved in the last few years, I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that to those kids.

This is partly why we're in this mess, the zero-sum approach that people like the Nottingham parents used. These are kids, and they are all negatively impacted by the overcrowding situation. Nobody wants to move, it's disruptive, but if the SB and APS staff would appropriately do their jobs and use accurate data they could have made different decisions. The question is whether it's now bad enough to do something for 2018 rather than letting these 800 kids suffer the consequences while waiting for the 2019 shifts.

Nothing is happening for 2018, the board has said that definitively because the elementary boundary review isn't happening until the spring and won't be done until after families have had to make decisions about applying for choice/transfer options based on the current understanding of what their neighborhood school will be.

[Anonymous]

Nothing is happening ever. If the SB moved the PUs when the numbers that Chadwick had showed overcrowding, if the SB decided to move the units when construction wasn't done and the numbers were already showing problems, if the SB refused to publish corrected numbers (that a McKinley mom had to figure out herself) until "too late" to do anything............

You guys, the SB isn't going to do anything to help McKinley. You need to go private, move to Discovery or just get over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like y'all need to get organized and figure out who you want to kick out to other schools. Hope it's none of the planning units that just moved in the last few years, I'm sure you wouldn't want to do that to those kids.

This is partly why we're in this mess, the zero-sum approach that people like the Nottingham parents used. These are kids, and they are all negatively impacted by the overcrowding situation. Nobody wants to move, it's disruptive, but if the SB and APS staff would appropriately do their jobs and use accurate data they could have made different decisions. The question is whether it's now bad enough to do something for 2018 rather than letting these 800 kids suffer the consequences while waiting for the 2019 shifts.

How is it not a "zero-sum" issue, as you put it? These kids have to go to school somewhere, so the only way McKinley's numbers go down any time soon is if other schools' numbers go up. What alternative do you see?