Please explain how Henry parent position on CC makes sense

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the board, nothing has been decided yet, so we can’t say anything about the site is “clear”. But it also doesn’t seem likely that they’ll make them choice seats at this point. None of the CIP planning scenarios involved adding choice seats to the CC; they all relied on making it neighborhood.

I’m just not sure that choice seats are the answer, regardless where you put them. What happens if they can’t fill them? Or if enrollment growth doesn’t flatten out just outside the ten year window? Then we’d be back where we are right now, needing to build another comprehensive high school but with $100 million less to work with.

I don’t care where the high school goes, personally. But not building a comprehensive one now seems like it would be more expensive in the long run.

The problem is they don't have the money or land to really make this a comprehensive HS. They have incorrectly assumed that the neighborhood would be fine with any neighborhood school, which is not at all what they have been advocating for. They don't want a half-assed leftover parts neighborhood HS. If they can't make it a real HS, then they can't draw a neighborhood boundary and they need to make them option seats. The end.

The site could work if they were willing to put the money into it. It is really a question of priorities. I can think of another site that has more than enough land, and might even be cheaper to build out because it wouldn’t need underground parking or the demolition of an existing elementary school, (coughKenmorecough).

I agree with you though: no half-a-high-schools.

Well, when it means every other school level goes without capacity being addressed and putting off any maintenance for four years (sorry kids, heat is not working so get out your coats), I don't think they can prioritize the HS seats. If there were more money from the County, or even cooperation on land, they might be able to do it. But it seems like they are completely unwilling to work with the SB to address capacity, even as they approve more residential developments that we know are generating as many, if not more, students than SFHs (CAFs). And they won't even ask the developers to contribute towards schools, because they don't want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the board, nothing has been decided yet, so we can’t say anything about the site is “clear”. But it also doesn’t seem likely that they’ll make them choice seats at this point. None of the CIP planning scenarios involved adding choice seats to the CC; they all relied on making it neighborhood.

I’m just not sure that choice seats are the answer, regardless where you put them. What happens if they can’t fill them? Or if enrollment growth doesn’t flatten out just outside the ten year window? Then we’d be back where we are right now, needing to build another comprehensive high school but with $100 million less to work with.

I don’t care where the high school goes, personally. But not building a comprehensive one now seems like it would be more expensive in the long run.

And does everyone actually understand WHY all the scenarios have those seats as neighborhood? Because the Arlington Heights and Penrose advocates have been insisting on a neighborhood school from the beginning!!!!! Well, they're likely to get their frickin' neighborhood school; but this demonstrates exactly why you need to be careful what you ask for, to advocate strategically, and to let the process (the working group) do its work. Then, if you don't like it, object. Despite their good intentions, these people have put the rest of us on the path to being screwed right along with them.

Yes!!!!!! This!!!! I am going to be so furious if we wind up zoned to this bulls*** school.

[Anonymous]

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the board, nothing has been decided yet, so we can’t say anything about the site is “clear”. But it also doesn’t seem likely that they’ll make them choice seats at this point. None of the CIP planning scenarios involved adding choice seats to the CC; they all relied on making it neighborhood.

I’m just not sure that choice seats are the answer, regardless where you put them. What happens if they can’t fill them? Or if enrollment growth doesn’t flatten out just outside the ten year window? Then we’d be back where we are right now, needing to build another comprehensive high school but with $100 million less to work with.

I don’t care where the high school goes, personally. But not building a comprehensive one now seems like it would be more expensive in the long run.

And does everyone actually understand WHY all the scenarios have those seats as neighborhood? Because the Arlington Heights and Penrose advocates have been insisting on a neighborhood school from the beginning!!!!! Well, they're likely to get their frickin' neighborhood school; but this demonstrates exactly why you need to be careful what you ask for, to advocate strategically, and to let the process (the working group) do its work. Then, if you don't like it, object. Despite their good intentions, these people have put the rest of us on the path to being screwed right along with them.

I don’t think you can blame the neighborhoods for this. The first proposal was for 1300 seats at one of the three sites. No way that was going to be a choice program. Then when the SB went with the hybrid option the SB deliberately left the type of seats ambiguous. Arlington Heights said at the beginning that they would support a neighborhood high school at the site if it could be done with facilities comparable to the other high schools. At no point did any of these neighborhoods “push” to get a neighborhood school divorced from the discussion about facilities. They were always linked.

The only reason the neighborhoods felt the need to speak out in the first place was because the SB refused to provide any clarity about what type of seats they would be. Why would they do that? Well, choice seats obviously wouldn’t provoke much neighborhood opposition, considering what was already there. So the only reason someone wouldn’t provide clarity is that they wanted to keep the option of neighborhood seats open. So why wouldn’t a neighborhood want to say something BEFORE design choices got made that would determine the type of seats? Waiting until the process played itself out would just give the county the ability to say “sorry folks, too late, it’s a done deal.”

The alternative strategy for the neighborhood would have been to go full NIMBY, like Glen Carlyn. But the neighborhood (apparently wrongly) thought that the SB wouldn’t use the slightest hint of cooperation as a chance to just screw the neighborhood in order to solve their problems elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the board, nothing has been decided yet, so we can’t say anything about the site is “clear”. But it also doesn’t seem likely that they’ll make them choice seats at this point. None of the CIP planning scenarios involved adding choice seats to the CC; they all relied on making it neighborhood.

I’m just not sure that choice seats are the answer, regardless where you put them. What happens if they can’t fill them? Or if enrollment growth doesn’t flatten out just outside the ten year window? Then we’d be back where we are right now, needing to build another comprehensive high school but with $100 million less to work with.

I don’t care where the high school goes, personally. But not building a comprehensive one now seems like it would be more expensive in the long run.

The problem is they don't have the money or land to really make this a comprehensive HS. They have incorrectly assumed that the neighborhood would be fine with any neighborhood school, which is not at all what they have been advocating for. They don't want a half-assed leftover parts neighborhood HS. If they can't make it a real HS, then they can't draw a neighborhood boundary and they need to make them option seats. The end.

The site could work if they were willing to put the money into it. It is really a question of priorities. I can think of another site that has more than enough land, and might even be cheaper to build out because it wouldn’t need underground parking or the demolition of an existing elementary school, (coughKenmorecough).

I agree with you though: no half-a-high-schools.

Well, when it means every other school level goes without capacity being addressed and putting off any maintenance for four years (sorry kids, heat is not working so get out your coats), I don't think they can prioritize the HS seats. If there were more money from the County, or even cooperation on land, they might be able to do it. But it seems like they are completely unwilling to work with the SB to address capacity, even as they approve more residential developments that we know are generating as many, if not more, students than SFHs (CAFs). And they won't even ask the developers to contribute towards schools, because they don't want to.

PP here. Yeah I’m not saying it ought to be a choice between middle and elementary seats and the CC. The board pretty clearly set that option up that way to pit parents against each other just like this thread is becoming. I’d never want my kids education to come at the expense of anyone else’s, and I think that’s true of most people. You’re right that the real “enemy” is the county board. And when I talk about priorities I mean between building good schools or spending $60 million on a stupid lazy river natatorium or whatever they’re calling it these days.

[Anonymous]

As a future Yorktown family, I would take on our fair share of the burden (including, yes, trailers on the tennis court or shift schedules) at Yorktown before I would force other families to send their kids to a second-class school so that my kids' experience can be even better.

[Anonymous]

As a future Yorktown family, there's no way I would support shift scheduling for anyone - Yorktown or otherwise. It's just stupid. I support the building of a 4th comprehensive HS with all amenities, including the pool built there instead of at Longbridge.

I do think the Kenmore site would probably be the best site due to acreage alone, if they could get some good engineers working on the traffic issues. I think part of the opposition to a HS at Kenmore is due to the neighborhood parents who would prefer for their kids to go to W-L vs. the Kenmore site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the board, nothing has been decided yet, so we can’t say anything about the site is “clear”. But it also doesn’t seem likely that they’ll make them choice seats at this point. None of the CIP planning scenarios involved adding choice seats to the CC; they all relied on making it neighborhood.

I’m just not sure that choice seats are the answer, regardless where you put them. What happens if they can’t fill them? Or if enrollment growth doesn’t flatten out just outside the ten year window? Then we’d be back where we are right now, needing to build another comprehensive high school but with $100 million less to work with.

I don’t care where the high school goes, personally. But not building a comprehensive one now seems like it would be more expensive in the long run.

The problem is they don't have the money or land to really make this a comprehensive HS. They have incorrectly assumed that the neighborhood would be fine with any neighborhood school, which is not at all what they have been advocating for. They don't want a half-assed leftover parts neighborhood HS. If they can't make it a real HS, then they can't draw a neighborhood boundary and they need to make them option seats. The end.

The site could work if they were willing to put the money into it. It is really a question of priorities. I can think of another site that has more than enough land, and might even be cheaper to build out because it wouldn’t need underground parking or the demolition of an existing elementary school, (coughKenmorecough).

I agree with you though: no half-a-high-schools.

Well, when it means every other school level goes without capacity being addressed and putting off any maintenance for four years (sorry kids, heat is not working so get out your coats), I don't think they can prioritize the HS seats. If there were more money from the County, or even cooperation on land, they might be able to do it. But it seems like they are completely unwilling to work with the SB to address capacity, even as they approve more residential developments that we know are generating as many, if not more, students than SFHs (CAFs). And they won't even ask the developers to contribute towards schools, because they don't want to.

PP here. Yeah I’m not saying it ought to be a choice between middle and elementary seats and the CC. The board pretty clearly set that option up that way to pit parents against each other just like this thread is becoming. I’d never want my kids education to come at the expense of anyone else’s, and I think that’s true of most people. You’re right that the real “enemy” is the county board. And when I talk about priorities I mean between building good schools or spending $60 million on a stupid lazy river natatorium or whatever they’re calling it these days.

But we're operating in the real world, not some fantasyland where there isn't a budget or debt ceiling and we can just spend more overall. To give more money to one thing, they would have to take it from some other thing. This goes for the county, too. They would have to give less money to other things rather than schools. Personally, I think they should, given the unprecedented enrollment, but many others disagree, and the CB seems to be listening to those voices. Personally, I think it is reckless to keep approving and funding new CAFs until they can offer sites for additional schools and until they give APS a bigger slice of the pie to cope with educating the students who live in that housing.

And that stupid pool irks me to no end, but they've gone too far with it already and it seems there is no turning back from this terrible, horrible, no good idea. The CB is living in a fantasy land, too, and they show no signs of acknowledging reality any time soon. So here we are. How do we make the best of the situation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the board, nothing has been decided yet, so we can’t say anything about the site is “clear”. But it also doesn’t seem likely that they’ll make them choice seats at this point. None of the CIP planning scenarios involved adding choice seats to the CC; they all relied on making it neighborhood.

I’m just not sure that choice seats are the answer, regardless where you put them. What happens if they can’t fill them? Or if enrollment growth doesn’t flatten out just outside the ten year window? Then we’d be back where we are right now, needing to build another comprehensive high school but with $100 million less to work with.

I don’t care where the high school goes, personally. But not building a comprehensive one now seems like it would be more expensive in the long run.

The problem is they don't have the money or land to really make this a comprehensive HS. They have incorrectly assumed that the neighborhood would be fine with any neighborhood school, which is not at all what they have been advocating for. They don't want a half-assed leftover parts neighborhood HS. If they can't make it a real HS, then they can't draw a neighborhood boundary and they need to make them option seats. The end.

The site could work if they were willing to put the money into it. It is really a question of priorities. I can think of another site that has more than enough land, and might even be cheaper to build out because it wouldn’t need underground parking or the demolition of an existing elementary school, (coughKenmorecough).

I agree with you though: no half-a-high-schools.

Well, when it means every other school level goes without capacity being addressed and putting off any maintenance for four years (sorry kids, heat is not working so get out your coats), I don't think they can prioritize the HS seats. If there were more money from the County, or even cooperation on land, they might be able to do it. But it seems like they are completely unwilling to work with the SB to address capacity, even as they approve more residential developments that we know are generating as many, if not more, students than SFHs (CAFs). And they won't even ask the developers to contribute towards schools, because they don't want to.

PP here. Yeah I’m not saying it ought to be a choice between middle and elementary seats and the CC. The board pretty clearly set that option up that way to pit parents against each other just like this thread is becoming. I’d never want my kids education to come at the expense of anyone else’s, and I think that’s true of most people. You’re right that the real “enemy” is the county board. And when I talk about priorities I mean between building good schools or spending $60 million on a stupid lazy river natatorium or whatever they’re calling it these days.

But we're operating in the real world, not some fantasyland where there isn't a budget or debt ceiling and we can just spend more overall. To give more money to one thing, they would have to take it from some other thing. This goes for the county, too. They would have to give less money to other things rather than schools. Personally, I think they should, given the unprecedented enrollment, but many others disagree, and the CB seems to be listening to those voices. Personally, I think it is reckless to keep approving and funding new CAFs until they can offer sites for additional schools and until they give APS a bigger slice of the pie to cope with educating the students who live in that housing.

And that stupid pool irks me to no end, but they've gone too far with it already and it seems there is no turning back from this terrible, horrible, no good idea. The CB is living in a fantasy land, too, and they show no signs of acknowledging reality any time soon. So here we are. How do we make the best of the situation?

For a start, you could maybe refrain from telling people who agree with you that they live in "fantasyland."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a future Yorktown family, there's no way I would support shift scheduling for anyone - Yorktown or otherwise. It's just stupid. I support the building of a 4th comprehensive HS with all amenities, including the pool built there instead of at Longbridge.

I do think the Kenmore site would probably be the best site due to acreage alone, if they could get some good engineers working on the traffic issues. I think part of the opposition to a HS at Kenmore is due to the neighborhood parents who would prefer for their kids to go to W-L vs. the Kenmore site.

I'm the Yorktown parent that posted above you, I absolutely support a fourth high school with full amenities before I support overcrowding other schools or creating shift schedules, but the option of no shift scheduling and some kids go to a school with virtually no amenities ranks a very distant third behind shift scheduling.

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain how shift scheduling would work?
Also can we look at maybe doing something strange with the calendar to try to accommodate more students? Or if amazon or apple doesn't work out redoing an office building?

[Anonymous]

The county isn’t going to help out, if you act like a loser who simply doesn’t deserve a 4th school.
South Arlington continually gets the shaft because it’s ecpected from people who live there. Grow a pair.
People living near Yorktown would fight for a bigger slice of the pie.
There is money for this.
The county wants to spend it elsewhere. Fight for what your children are worth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how shift scheduling would work?
Also can we look at maybe doing something strange with the calendar to try to accommodate more students? Or if amazon or apple doesn't work out redoing an office building?

Oh sure.
We could move kids around to off times of the year- just as long as it doesn’t interfere with AP or IB
Also football and every other sport
And district auditions for music...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the board, nothing has been decided yet, so we can’t say anything about the site is “clear”. But it also doesn’t seem likely that they’ll make them choice seats at this point. None of the CIP planning scenarios involved adding choice seats to the CC; they all relied on making it neighborhood.

I’m just not sure that choice seats are the answer, regardless where you put them. What happens if they can’t fill them? Or if enrollment growth doesn’t flatten out just outside the ten year window? Then we’d be back where we are right now, needing to build another comprehensive high school but with $100 million less to work with.

I don’t care where the high school goes, personally. But not building a comprehensive one now seems like it would be more expensive in the long run.

The problem is they don't have the money or land to really make this a comprehensive HS. They have incorrectly assumed that the neighborhood would be fine with any neighborhood school, which is not at all what they have been advocating for. They don't want a half-assed leftover parts neighborhood HS. If they can't make it a real HS, then they can't draw a neighborhood boundary and they need to make them option seats. The end.

The site could work if they were willing to put the money into it. It is really a question of priorities. I can think of another site that has more than enough land, and might even be cheaper to build out because it wouldn’t need underground parking or the demolition of an existing elementary school, (coughKenmorecough).

I agree with you though: no half-a-high-schools.

Well, when it means every other school level goes without capacity being addressed and putting off any maintenance for four years (sorry kids, heat is not working so get out your coats), I don't think they can prioritize the HS seats. If there were more money from the County, or even cooperation on land, they might be able to do it. But it seems like they are completely unwilling to work with the SB to address capacity, even as they approve more residential developments that we know are generating as many, if not more, students than SFHs (CAFs). And they won't even ask the developers to contribute towards schools, because they don't want to.

PP here. Yeah I’m not saying it ought to be a choice between middle and elementary seats and the CC. The board pretty clearly set that option up that way to pit parents against each other just like this thread is becoming. I’d never want my kids education to come at the expense of anyone else’s, and I think that’s true of most people. You’re right that the real “enemy” is the county board. And when I talk about priorities I mean between building good schools or spending $60 million on a stupid lazy river natatorium or whatever they’re calling it these days.

But we're operating in the real world, not some fantasyland where there isn't a budget or debt ceiling and we can just spend more overall. To give more money to one thing, they would have to take it from some other thing. This goes for the county, too. They would have to give less money to other things rather than schools. Personally, I think they should, given the unprecedented enrollment, but many others disagree, and the CB seems to be listening to those voices. Personally, I think it is reckless to keep approving and funding new CAFs until they can offer sites for additional schools and until they give APS a bigger slice of the pie to cope with educating the students who live in that housing.

And that stupid pool irks me to no end, but they've gone too far with it already and it seems there is no turning back from this terrible, horrible, no good idea. The CB is living in a fantasy land, too, and they show no signs of acknowledging reality any time soon. So here we are. How do we make the best of the situation?

For a start, you could maybe refrain from telling people who agree with you that they live in "fantasyland."

Okay, sorry if that was unnecessarily rude, but I am feeling very frustrated. I haven't seen a realistic proposal put forward that would allow this HS to be adequately funded without some very large and painful cuts from other needs. Do you think there is a realistic proposal that staff is intentionally withholding? Do you think we have a fair chance of convincing the CB to give us more land and/or money? I hope so, but I am not encouraged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how shift scheduling would work?
Also can we look at maybe doing something strange with the calendar to try to accommodate more students? Or if amazon or apple doesn't work out redoing an office building?

It could work a whole lot of ways depending on how they want to do it. For instance, you could break up the student body into two shifts, one running from 6 am-12:30 pm (if you also add in block scheduling to reduce transition time, you can get the school day down to 6.5 hours) and another running from 1:30 pm-8 pm. Extracurriculars would run at different times of the day and kids could apply for a lottery for the different schedules based on their extracurricular or other scheduling considerations. Another way is to extend the school day to nine hours, 8 am-5 pm, and then break the kids into four groups that rotate through three weeks at school and then one week off, so that only 75% of the student body is going to school any given week.