Just make Jamestown an Option School Already

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's almost no walk zone overlap with Reed or McKinley and Tucakhoe. Plenty with Nottingham. Nottingham also overlaps with Discovery. I think it has one planning unit that is exclusively walkable to Nottingham. But the debate has not been framed to point that out. Tuckahoe is also situated near areas for future development. No one is building multistory buildings near Discovery, Nottingham or Jamestown. Ever.

Nottingham has one walkable planning unit that cannot be walkable to any other school. That planning unit has over 80 kids in it, more than the number of exclusively walkable kids at Tuckahoe. Nottingham has five other planning units that are not currently considered walkable to other schools, but might be walkable with infrastructure improvements and/or additional crossing guards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's almost no walk zone overlap with Reed or McKinley and Tucakhoe. Plenty with Nottingham. Nottingham also overlaps with Discovery. I think it has one planning unit that is exclusively walkable to Nottingham. But the debate has not been framed to point that out. Tuckahoe is also situated near areas for future development. No one is building multistory buildings near Discovery, Nottingham or Jamestown. Ever.

Nottingham has one walkable planning unit that cannot be walkable to any other school. That planning unit has over 80 kids in it, more than the number of exclusively walkable kids at Tuckahoe. Nottingham has five other planning units that are not currently considered walkable to other schools, but might be walkable with infrastructure improvements and/or additional crossing guards.

If the Sycamore crossing guard for Tuckahoe moves up Sycamore by the CVS wouldn't that make sense? That would allow more walkers to Nottingham.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's almost no walk zone overlap with Reed or McKinley and Tucakhoe. Plenty with Nottingham. Nottingham also overlaps with Discovery. I think it has one planning unit that is exclusively walkable to Nottingham. But the debate has not been framed to point that out. Tuckahoe is also situated near areas for future development. No one is building multistory buildings near Discovery, Nottingham or Jamestown. Ever.

Nottingham has one walkable planning unit that cannot be walkable to any other school. That planning unit has over 80 kids in it, more than the number of exclusively walkable kids at Tuckahoe. Nottingham has five other planning units that are not currently considered walkable to other schools, but might be walkable with infrastructure improvements and/or additional crossing guards.

If the Sycamore crossing guard for Tuckahoe moves up Sycamore by the CVS wouldn't that make sense? That would allow more walkers to Nottingham.

Walkers to Nottingham span that entire stretch of Sycamore, you'd either need to add a second crossing guard or make everyone east of Sycamore walk down to the existing cross guard to cross. But there are also more heavily traveled neighborhood roads within some of those planning units they'd have to cross to get there that don't currently have crosswalks or other traffic control mechanisms to make it safe for walkers to head south.

[Anonymous]

Confused. I thought Nottingham was at capacity with its art carts etc. How can it take all the Tuckahoe-Nottingham zone walkers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Confused. I thought Nottingham was at capacity with its art carts etc. How can it take all the Tuckahoe-Nottingham zone walkers?

A big chunk of the Nottingham population would have to move into Discovery, and then Discovery pushes a bunch of its kids into Jamestown. Realistically, the options are keep them all as neighborhood schools and have them significantly under capacity when the rest of the system is still a over capacity (albeit by significantly less than it is now), or put a choice program there and make them all a bit over capacity again. As a Nottingham parent, obviously my ideal would be not moving and having an under capacity school, but I can't in good conscience ask for that when other APS schools would be that much more over capacity as a result.

[Anonymous]

Or Nottingham could be choice, since it doesn't have capacity to absorb shared walkers with any school. Thanks to Reed, Tuckahoe will have the capacity to absorb shared walkers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or Nottingham could be choice, since it doesn't have capacity to absorb shared walkers with any school. Thanks to Reed, Tuckahoe will have the capacity to absorb shared walkers.

You'd still have to push a whole lot of kids to Discovery and Jamestown because Tuckahoe won't have the capacity to take them all and it doesn't make sense to bus kids who could walk to Discovery over to Tuckahoe. The only difference in this respect between making Tuckahoe a choice school and making Nottingham a choice school is which direction the kids in the units along Sycamore go.

[Anonymous]

For the Tuckahoe families, what would be truly so devastating about Tuckahoe becoming a choice school as opposed to one of the other schools? I believe I've posted this before in one of the discussions, but as a Nottingham parent, the idea of Nottingham becoming a choice school doesn't really bother me. So my kid goes to Discovery with a whole bunch of their classmates for a couple of years and then sees everyone again in middle school, so what? There's no big tragedy there. I'm not actually opposed to Nottingham becoming a choice school, but it has to be the best decision for the system as a whole, not just for a particular school. How is Tuckahoe differently situated from Nottingham that Tuckahoe families can't take the same position?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Confused. I thought Nottingham was at capacity with its art carts etc. How can it take all the Tuckahoe-Nottingham zone walkers?

Nottingham is also going to lose Planning Unit 16070 to Reed- that's the one south of Lee Highway that is in the Reed walk zone. That's a pretty densely populated planning unit-- the APS heat map colors it in the 71-93 student category.

[Anonymous]

why on earth make the school with the most walkers a choice school and bus kids from all over the County?? This makes zero sense. A ton of kids live literally .25 mile from the school. Now they would need to take a bus to Tuckahoe or Discovery? I must be missing something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Confused. I thought Nottingham was at capacity with its art carts etc. How can it take all the Tuckahoe-Nottingham zone walkers?

Nottingham is also going to lose Planning Unit 16070 to Reed- that's the one south of Lee Highway that is in the Reed walk zone. That's a pretty densely populated planning unit-- the APS heat map colors it in the 71-93 student category.

Nottingham only has 2 small buses. There is no way 71-93 kids are picked up in 16070.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Confused. I thought Nottingham was at capacity with its art carts etc. How can it take all the Tuckahoe-Nottingham zone walkers?

Nottingham is also going to lose Planning Unit 16070 to Reed- that's the one south of Lee Highway that is in the Reed walk zone. That's a pretty densely populated planning unit-- the APS heat map colors it in the 71-93 student category.

Nottingham only has 2 small buses. There is no way 71-93 kids are picked up in 16070.

Nottingham has two full-size buses, the capacity of which I believe is around 78 for elementary school students. When you factor in the number of kids who end up driving to/from school because they go to extended day or because their parents opt for the shorter car ride rather than the longer bus ride and see the number of kids lined up to get on it in the afternoons, it doesn't seem at all unrealistic to me that the 16070 has 71-93 students.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to see Jamestown become a choice school to increase diversity, both socioeconomic and racial/ethnic. But I agree, it'll be a hike for many APS families. With the principal retiring at the end of this year, it'll be a different school anyway.

[Anonymous]

I think the key in thinking which school they recommend, if they do, cause right who knows what APS will do, is thinking about future capacity for the school switching. The APS CIP plan is saying all choice to go above 700 in less than 4 years so it must be a place with that capacity or it doesn't make sense. Also remember parents APS' proposal may very well be for a double swap - schools not school to be moved language is used both in regards to the choice programs and neighborhood schools. And something else I know my school missed at first is this switch could happen fall of 2021 or 2020 so any k-2 in any of the 20 neighborhood schools mentioned could be impacted.

Here is the updated facilities optimization report: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apsva.us%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F11%2FFacilities-Optimization-Study.pdf&h=ATN0MaUHE5huQ3mMHn8ADvzU9Muv4V2z9neHasDJl7FELTbXkNfUFuVapETp8-UqZZnj5WVw5yTdDc1BFp84IFDqUIhClkVKg7CgWBMXxjjXDt0

They have to match also with the county's CIP choice enrollment wishes. I would say the ship has sailed on keeping ATS small, the board made that overwhelmingly clear at the last meeting. Further you can now look at the responses for the Choice consideration survey when trying to determine where these swaps should take place.

Choice Consideration Responses: chrome-extension://bpmcpldpdmajfigpchkicefoigmkfalc/views/app.html?uuid=10c4d566-57a5-47be-d388-c00b902526f1

The APS staff will release it's list of criteria they will use to make the April 12 recommendation next week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the Tuckahoe families, what would be truly so devastating about Tuckahoe becoming a choice school as opposed to one of the other schools? I believe I've posted this before in one of the discussions, but as a Nottingham parent, the idea of Nottingham becoming a choice school doesn't really bother me. So my kid goes to Discovery with a whole bunch of their classmates for a couple of years and then sees everyone again in middle school, so what? There's no big tragedy there. I'm not actually opposed to Nottingham becoming a choice school, but it has to be the best decision for the system as a whole, not just for a particular school. How is Tuckahoe differently situated from Nottingham that Tuckahoe families can't take the same position?

So you say your kid would go to Discovery with a whole bunch of their classmates. Good point. But if Tuckahoe becomes an option school in 2021, probably around 70 of my kid's classmates will go to Reed. The other 30 would be split between three schools. So they wouldn't go with a whole bunch of kids, but very few.

And if it doesn't bother you, write the School Board and tell them that.

And for the East Falls Church community, Tuckahoe is a very important part of its cohesiveness. If Nottingham doesn't serve the same purpose in your community, it is a better choice for an option school.

i don't think APS should be doing anything. Keep ATS where it is. If they have to grow, they can't do it at Nottingham or Tuckahoe. So that exchange wouldn't make any sense. And it would just overcrowd all of the schools under discussion. We should come together as part of Arlington and argue for that common cause.