APS: Think the "no move" campaign is going to work?
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Anonymous
Kids know what is going on and listen to adult conversations. You could also frame it as a valuable learning experience for speech writing, public speaking, advocating for your school. Not saying it's right for every kid, but that's a parental decision. |
Anonymous
says the candidate himself (yes we know it's you, talk about "secret") |
Anonymous
I can’t tell if this person is trying to scare us in thinking options may go, or actually supports that position? That said after all this drama, I’m ready to let options go. Though I appreciate ATS accommodating more than most. |
Anonymous
I’m not serious... yet. I might become serious if people continue to insist the special option school flowers can’t thrive anywhere but the buildings they are in right now. Sorry, no crying about your county provided bus ride if you’ve chosen to go the option school route. |
Anonymous
What a bad parent! The kid should be told that the move or no move will be OK. What is wrong with that mom? |
Anonymous
| It just takes three to keep key on key! |
Anonymous
Keep dreaming. |
Anonymous
and lack of understanding regarding boundaries and how to manage capacity and balance enrollment |
Anonymous
| No way they have 3 votes. |
Anonymous
I'm PP. I'm not fully against option schools but I think they cause most of the drama and logistical challenges in APS. |
Anonymous
This conversation has been going on for two years. Why? Because staff was trying to ADDRESS OVERCROWDING AND KNEW THERE AREN'T ENOUGH SEATS IN THE AREA. So, Staff wanted to move Key two years ago. NO! the people cried. Staff proposed to swap. NO! the people cried. There is not going to be another school built for several years and something has to be done to manage overcrowding in that area as well as unbalanced enrollments across the district. So, staff is back to moving Key. NO! the people cry. We're fine! Key cries. The crowding elsewhere can continue until you build a new school! Key's argument cries. OR! proclaim Key and McKinley, boundary changes alone can deal with overcrowding! Why, yes, they can, Key and McKinley! respond the masses that comprise the rest of Arlington County. HOWEVER, they plead, those boundaries are inconvenient and ridiculous for all of us and all our OUR children AND will need to be redrawn YET AGAIN in just another year or two instead of 5-10 when your new school is built! The intellectually superior triumvirate of Key, McKinley, and ATS have never once considered the impacts of their proposals and arguments beyond 2021-22. Even if their boundary scenarios were equally feasible to what will come out of proposal 1, the impacts of enrollment balancing are shorter-lived....with a lifespan of like 2 years max. But, it doesn't matter for Key because they no longer have neighborhood preference and the countywide lottery can cap their enrollment and therefore their level of crowdedness. Therefore, all is right with their plan and APS is racist and anti-immersion. |
Anonymous
Why should the families with logistical issues have to beg for carpooling assistance, when it isn't what they signed up for when they enrolled their kid in kindergarten? Extended day at 'neighborhood schools with transportation would be amazing, but we know that APS can't be counted on for any promises. Many extended day programs are over capacity and have waitlists. Many parents lobbying are saying this process has been rushed, and is not considering the ways in which two option schools being affected here serve minority students. Many parents are wrong. Planning every detail down to the letter at this stage before they even know whether or not the moves will happen is a waste of time and money. Should they have just gone with complete scenarios that include locations and boundaries? Yes. But staff did not feel that they could do that in this short of timeframe - THAT would have been rushing. They prioritized leaving enough time to PLAN and PREPARE. It's not like they have absolutely no clue how things generally look without moves v with moves. it just isn't laid out to every fine hair detail. They are fully aware of the logistical issues and concerns and will work with all communities to address them as best they can address them once the decision is made. |
Anonymous
No, it won’t. This is how I know you’re a NA parent. Do you even know how far S those boundaries would have to go to get any kids who aren’t UMC? Past Campbell ES, 8 city blocks S of Rt. 50. And, you’d have to bypass the entirety of PUs around Kenmore and N of Campbell, because there isn’t any income diversity there. If it were this simple, staff would’ve done it long ago (look at their representative map, is that a reasonable boundary?!?). Same problems exist as you move E along Rt. 50. The neighborhoods just south of Rt. 50 are some of the higher income PUs in SA. You can’t scoop them up and send them N without negatively affecting the income diversity for SA neighborhood schools. If anything, you’d need to send NA kids just N of 50 to SA in order to move towards more similar demographics, with the exception of the PUs in and around Buckingham. |
Anonymous
DP here - I share that sentiment. I'm also sick of how the children will be harmed for life if they don't continue in their parent-chosen option programs, which basically says all the rest of our kids are inferior and receiving inferior educations that don't serve them well. If your kid is so fragile they can't succeed in a neighborhood school with everyone else, then perhaps you should be sending them to ACTUAL private schools. |
Anonymous
Yep, this. People act like this process came out of nowhere and the staff just started from scratch this fall, but that’s a fiction. The staff has been analyzing this for two years, and has probably been working on this particular proposals at least since last spring. If nothing else, two years of analysis have told them that Key has to move, it’s just a matter of where. There may be a certain element of musical chairs here, that Proposal 1 is where they were when they ran out of time to keep going. I think McKinley has a credible basis to argue that it was blindsided here (although that’s not dispositive of anything for me), but Key definitely does not, and I don’t think ATS does either. Both of those schools could have accepted that APS was going to move them and chosen to work with APS on finding the best alternative site for their programs. Instead, they dug in their heels and implicitly decided to leave it up to APS as to where they would go. Their current unhappiness is the direct result of their own choices. |