Arlington school boundary petition

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP -=- Why the eye rolling? It is well known in the ATS community that when Arne Duncan was appointed, he called the principal at ATS to find out how his kids could get in. She told him that they'd go at the bottom of the wait list for their grade.

If I had a nickel for every APS/Arne Duncan reference....

Seriously, is there really no one else of any interest whose kids attend APS? What will you do when he leaves the area?

I know of a fmr Redskin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.tbp.org/pubs/Features/W07Brown.pdf

Science is like learning a foreign language. It is better and easier to learn when young. This is not how the US model works.

This is why science majors can easily float into liberal arts (I had an Engineering degree teaching my lit classes, etc.) and I minored in English as a Biochem major, but late in life it is very hard for somebody who focused on liberal arts with only the requiste math/science classes for 13-15 years to all the sudden make the switch from "English or Poly Sci or Sociology' into Biochem, Engineering, Chemistry, etc. It does happen (I have a friend that was an English major at UVA that is now an OB/GYN) but it is usually an anamoly.

Teaching scientific concepts and math young does not need to be done at the sacrifice of English, reading, etc. as the scores at STEM and specialized schools like ASFS show. In fact, it can help strengthen them. After all, reading is very much decoding. I agree that countries like China, etc. have swung too far the other way. There are no Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. It is rote learning in a specific model, but I don't think that is what anyone is suggesting here.

Look at the girls in science program in DC and try and tell me it is not beneficial to offer this type of learning at a young age.

Ok, English minor. When referring to a PERSON, you use the pronoun WHO, not THAT. Also, any good English student knows not to leave a dangling "this," particularly in written form. Better stick to science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.tbp.org/pubs/Features/W07Brown.pdf

Science is like learning a foreign language. It is better and easier to learn when young. This is not how the US model works.

This is why science majors can easily float into liberal arts (I had an Engineering degree teaching my lit classes, etc.) and I minored in English as a Biochem major, but late in life it is very hard for somebody who focused on liberal arts with only the requiste math/science classes for 13-15 years to all the sudden make the switch from "English or Poly Sci or Sociology' into Biochem, Engineering, Chemistry, etc. It does happen (I have a friend that was an English major at UVA that is now an OB/GYN) but it is usually an anamoly.

Teaching scientific concepts and math young does not need to be done at the sacrifice of English, reading, etc. as the scores at STEM and specialized schools like ASFS show. In fact, it can help strengthen them. After all, reading is very much decoding. I agree that countries like China, etc. have swung too far the other way. There are no Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. It is rote learning in a specific model, but I don't think that is what anyone is suggesting here.

Look at the girls in science program in DC and try and tell me it is not beneficial to offer this type of learning at a young age.

Ok, English minor. When referring to a PERSON, you use the pronoun WHO, not THAT. Also, any good English student knows not to leave a dangling "this," particularly in written form. Better stick to science.

Do people really take time to compose these posts? I write on my iPhone in free flow text format. It seems like most posters do the same thing. I don't think it has anything to do with their intellect. You know a poster has gotten to somebody when they pull the grammar schtick out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if Taylor were the LV default for parents who don't want immersion? Would that make people happy?

Taylor's operating at around 120% capacity already. there's no room. they need a neighborhood school for the LV/southeastern portion of the taylor boundary.

A lot of the current Taylor kids used to go to Woodmont. I was at Taylor in the 80s when the schools merged and Woodmont was closed because both were so small. Hard to imagine, isn't it?

[Anonymous]

How busy is Woodmont these days? People say Madison Center can't be turned into a school (or torn down and a new school built on the site) because it's used for other things now, but when I have been there to take my kids to camp, the vast majority of the rooms have been empty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How busy is Woodmont these days? People say Madison Center can't be turned into a school (or torn down and a new school built on the site) because it's used for other things now, but when I have been there to take my kids to camp, the vast majority of the rooms have been empty.

At one MSMS meetings, the speaker mentioned that Madison isn't fit for elementary (no explanation given), but it could be a space for a middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How busy is Woodmont these days? People say Madison Center can't be turned into a school (or torn down and a new school built on the site) because it's used for other things now, but when I have been there to take my kids to camp, the vast majority of the rooms have been empty.

At one MSMS meetings, the speaker mentioned that Madison isn't fit for elementary (no explanation given), but it could be a space for a middle school.

Some Taylor parents want Stratford back as a middle school, because it's within walking distance to the surrounding neighborhoods which are all bused to two different middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How busy is Woodmont these days? People say Madison Center can't be turned into a school (or torn down and a new school built on the site) because it's used for other things now, but when I have been there to take my kids to camp, the vast majority of the rooms have been empty.

I heard that they might shut down Madison so those services will be displaced anyway. It's a cute little building; maybe it's just not up to current elementary school standards? asbestos or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if Taylor were the LV default for parents who don't want immersion? Would that make people happy?

Taylor's operating at around 120% capacity already. there's no room. they need a neighborhood school for the LV/southeastern portion of the taylor boundary.

A lot of the current Taylor kids used to go to Woodmont. I was at Taylor in the 80s when the schools merged and Woodmont was closed because both were so small. Hard to imagine, isn't it?

According to this year's numbers, Taylor is at 110.6% while Nottingham is at 126.3%, Tuckahoe is at 122% and McKinley is at 125.3%. Taylor isn't the center of attention for good reason.

[Anonymous]

A bunch of Taylor kids will be moved to jamestown:

http://www.arlnow.com/2013/02/26/boundary-change-options-down-to-final-two/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
ATS is slated to get those seats b/c they can fill them without the cascading boundary changes a new neighborhood school would cause. With waitlists of 100 per grade those seats will fill immediately and draw more kids out of the already over-crowded schools with no muss, no fuss. Makes perfect sense.

Anonymous wrote:
Not accurate. It draws some from overcrowded schools and more from schools at or below capacity (unless the lottery is rigged in favor of N. Arlington). Only 10 schools are currently above capacity. Assuming a fair lottery and sufficient demand from all parts of the county (which is a safe bet) 1/2 of the seats in the new addition would be filled by schools currently undercapacity. So in effect, the ATS addition only accomplished the goal of reducing overcrowding by half. Whereas a Glebe addition, would be right in the midst of 8 overcrowded schools and be far more beneficial to reducing overcrowding where it exists (in N. Arlington).

Where are you getting your information? It's well out of date and riddled with assumptions and conjecture. There are 12 schools over capacity now. ATS is one, at 107%. That's more over-crowded than Jamestown, ASFS and Key and only 1% less than Glebe. The ATS lottery is held in public and isn't rigged. (If it were, surely Arne Duncan's kids would be there.) You can go watch if you want. They pull more kids from the North because they get MANY more applicants from the North. If you look you can find the numbers, it's pretty significant how many kids ATS has kept out of the really over-crowded schools.

I got my capacity information from the MSMS website-- there is a spreadsheet with current enrollment/capacity and projections out a number of years. Please note I was referring only to neighborhood schools as far as capacity. Only 1 (neighborhood) school in S. Arlington is overcapacity. If choice schools are over capacity, that can be changed quite easily by limiting the number of kids they allow to lottery in. So even if 75% are coming from N. Arlington, that's still 25% of the capacity expansion that's wasted, sloughing off kids from at or slightly below capacity schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How busy is Woodmont these days? People say Madison Center can't be turned into a school (or torn down and a new school built on the site) because it's used for other things now, but when I have been there to take my kids to camp, the vast majority of the rooms have been empty.

At one MSMS meetings, the speaker mentioned that Madison isn't fit for elementary (no explanation given), but it could be a space for a middle school.

At another MSMS meeting, they were talking about archaelogical concerns on the site making it unlikely...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A bunch of Taylor kids will be moved to jamestown:

http://www.arlnow.com/2013/02/26/boundary-change-options-down-to-final-two/

They have to move. A bunch of Jamestown kids will move into the new school. They can't leave Jamestown half full.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if Taylor were the LV default for parents who don't want immersion? Would that make people happy?

Taylor's operating at around 120% capacity already. there's no room. they need a neighborhood school for the LV/southeastern portion of the taylor boundary.

A lot of the current Taylor kids used to go to Woodmont. I was at Taylor in the 80s when the schools merged and Woodmont was closed because both were so small. Hard to imagine, isn't it?

I have friends that went to Cherrydale and Page Elementary schools in the early 70s. In addition to Woodmont, all those schools were merged into Taylor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if Taylor were the LV default for parents who don't want immersion? Would that make people happy?

Taylor's operating at around 120% capacity already. there's no room. they need a neighborhood school for the LV/southeastern portion of the taylor boundary.

A lot of the current Taylor kids used to go to Woodmont. I was at Taylor in the 80s when the schools merged and Woodmont was closed because both were so small. Hard to imagine, isn't it?

According to this year's numbers, Taylor is at 110.6% while Nottingham is at 126.3%, Tuckahoe is at 122% and McKinley is at 125.3%. Taylor isn't the center of attention for good reason.

Based on APS's projections for 2015-2016, assuming NO boundary changes, Taylor would be at 122.3% capacity and McKinley at 102.4% (with Glebe at 122.7, Tuckahoe at 132.1, and Nottingham at 141.7). All of these schools should be and are the center of attention at the moment.