What do you expect from APS staff (option/neighborhood) on 4/30?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So no swap for Key-ASFS. Interesting.

And looking more and more like the ASFS surrounding neighborhood may actually get a walk-able school, and changing the boundary (not walk zone) to overlap parts of Cherrydale and Lyon Village will make for short bus trips. Makes sense to move the two immersion schools where there are high concentrations of native speakers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, the whole thing is such a farce and isn't really about the data they're analyzing. If you look at NW and were to recreate the table they used last time, it suggests a very different result. For those who haven't read it, they've dropped the "Growth" consideration and have added in things like proportion of economically disadvantaged students, transfer rates, accessibility via mass transit, but for more of them they don't really draw any conclusions and just say they need to look at them further. The only criteria for which they include hard analysis and recommendations of sites that are relevant to the NW schools are Walkers, Buses and Geography. It's worth noting that they have once again baked in the Geography exception for Nottingham under Walkers that they previously acknowledged was an error and pulled out. Whether this is because they were sloppy or because they were disingenuous when they pulled it out before is anyone's guess. For Buses, they made the list of schools that made the cut much shorter, so the school that actually made the cut got a check in my table. However, there was a clear break between schools needing 4 or fewer buses and schools needing 7 or more buses, so those that need 7 or more but didn't make the top three in the county were given a half check in my table. Here's the result:

Ashlawn gets a check for Geography, half a check for Buses, nothing for Walkers = 2.5
Barrett gets a check for Geography, nothing else = 1
Discovery gets half a check for Buses, nothing else = .5
Jamestown gets checks for Walkers and Buses, not for Geography = 2
McKinley gets a half check for Buses, nothing else = .5
Nottingham was given a check by the staff under Walkers again, but if they were to correct it the same way as last time would have zero checks: 1*
Tuckahoe was given no checks = 0

So even if you accept their Walker exception for Nottingham, that's only a 1-check school, while Ashlawn is a 2.5 and Jamestown is a 2. McKinley is really interesting, because even though it missed all of the check marks (save the .5 I gave them for buses), it falls just outside the top candidates in all three criteria. If you were to rank the schools in each criteria (1 being most favorable for neighborhood and 7 being most favorable for option) and then add up the scores across all three categories, here's where you end up, in ranked order by final score:

Ashlawn = 16
Jamestown = 15
McKinley = 15
Discovery = 11
Barrett = 9
Tuckahoe = 7
Nottingham = 6

So if you actually look at their data and criteria, the staff has pulled Nottingham out as a top candidate despite it actually being a really crappy candidate. Meanwhile, they've ignored Ashlawn, Jamestown and McKinley, all of which are are potentially strong candidates.

So yep, ATS to Nottingham.

Whoever you are, you are singing my song!

Did anyone else download and save the original excel file before staff realized they'd uploaded a bit too much information that shouldn't be public? If you go through the different sheets of that file, it becomes blatantly obvious that facts have no role here.

Darn, I must not have gotten to it fast enough. What did it say?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, the whole thing is such a farce and isn't really about the data they're analyzing. If you look at NW and were to recreate the table they used last time, it suggests a very different result. For those who haven't read it, they've dropped the "Growth" consideration and have added in things like proportion of economically disadvantaged students, transfer rates, accessibility via mass transit, but for more of them they don't really draw any conclusions and just say they need to look at them further. The only criteria for which they include hard analysis and recommendations of sites that are relevant to the NW schools are Walkers, Buses and Geography. It's worth noting that they have once again baked in the Geography exception for Nottingham under Walkers that they previously acknowledged was an error and pulled out. Whether this is because they were sloppy or because they were disingenuous when they pulled it out before is anyone's guess. For Buses, they made the list of schools that made the cut much shorter, so the school that actually made the cut got a check in my table. However, there was a clear break between schools needing 4 or fewer buses and schools needing 7 or more buses, so those that need 7 or more but didn't make the top three in the county were given a half check in my table. Here's the result:

Ashlawn gets a check for Geography, half a check for Buses, nothing for Walkers = 2.5
Barrett gets a check for Geography, nothing else = 1
Discovery gets half a check for Buses, nothing else = .5
Jamestown gets checks for Walkers and Buses, not for Geography = 2
McKinley gets a half check for Buses, nothing else = .5
Nottingham was given a check by the staff under Walkers again, but if they were to correct it the same way as last time would have zero checks: 1*
Tuckahoe was given no checks = 0

So even if you accept their Walker exception for Nottingham, that's only a 1-check school, while Ashlawn is a 2.5 and Jamestown is a 2. McKinley is really interesting, because even though it missed all of the check marks (save the .5 I gave them for buses), it falls just outside the top candidates in all three criteria. If you were to rank the schools in each criteria (1 being most favorable for neighborhood and 7 being most favorable for option) and then add up the scores across all three categories, here's where you end up, in ranked order by final score:

Ashlawn = 16
Jamestown = 15
McKinley = 15
Discovery = 11
Barrett = 9
Tuckahoe = 7
Nottingham = 6

So if you actually look at their data and criteria, the staff has pulled Nottingham out as a top candidate despite it actually being a really crappy candidate. Meanwhile, they've ignored Ashlawn, Jamestown and McKinley, all of which are are potentially strong candidates.

So yep, ATS to Nottingham.

Whoever you are, you are singing my song!

Did anyone else download and save the original excel file before staff realized they'd uploaded a bit too much information that shouldn't be public? If you go through the different sheets of that file, it becomes blatantly obvious that facts have no role here.

Does it have a different file name? I wonder if it's still on the server and accessible even if it's not linked to the page anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Towards the end of the document they talk about "other considerations based on school board discussion," and that list includes transit score. (Each school's transit score is provided by www.walkscore.com) Maybe I'm stupid, but how are they using the transit score- how does a high or low score translate into a school being a better or worse candidate for one kind of program vs another?

Transit score is based on how accessible the school is by walking and public transportation (higher score = more accessible). They haven't factored that into the analysis yet or said how they might use it, but the only thing that makes sense to me is that the more accessible a school is, the better a candidate it is for an option program. But Nottingham scores a 31 on that whereas Ashlawn is a 42, Barrett is a 58, McKinley is a 55 and Tuckahoe is a 61, so we're just ignoring it.

[Anonymous]

It looks like they want to move both immersion programs and are considering putting 4 of the 5 options programs in South Arlington. How does this make the option programs accessible to families throughout the county?

Are they trying to reduce the number of North Arlington families accessing these programs by moving them all to the South?

"If North Arlington families continue to access option programs, then it may stress capacity in South Arlington schools. "

What is the 'if" all about? Why wouldn't they assume that North Arlington families will still use these school if moved south.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So no swap for Key-ASFS. Interesting.

And looking more and more like the ASFS surrounding neighborhood may actually get a walk-able school, and changing the boundary (not walk zone) to overlap parts of Cherrydale and Lyon Village will make for short bus trips. Makes sense to move the two immersion schools where there are high concentrations of native speakers.

But ugh, it's showing a potential of 12 relocatable classrooms, only 6 now. ASFS may be getting turf, but losing its basketball area - unless the additional 6 classrooms are placed in the teacher parking lot - not a great option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It looks like they want to move both immersion programs and are considering putting 4 of the 5 options programs in South Arlington. How does this make the option programs accessible to families throughout the county?

Are they trying to reduce the number of North Arlington families accessing these programs by moving them all to the South?

"If North Arlington families continue to access option programs, then it may stress capacity in South Arlington schools. "

What is the 'if" all about? Why wouldn't they assume that North Arlington families will still use these school if moved south.

This is what they're going to use to instead move an immersion program to ATS and move ATS to Nottingham. That they can't put four option programs in South Arlington because it will tax the neighborhood schools too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It looks like they want to move both immersion programs and are considering putting 4 of the 5 options programs in South Arlington. How does this make the option programs accessible to families throughout the county?

Are they trying to reduce the number of North Arlington families accessing these programs by moving them all to the South?

"If North Arlington families continue to access option programs, then it may stress capacity in South Arlington schools. "

What is the 'if" all about? Why wouldn't they assume that North Arlington families will still use these school if moved south.

This is what they're going to use to instead move an immersion program to ATS and move ATS to Nottingham. That they can't put four option programs in South Arlington because it will tax the neighborhood schools too much.

Hit send too soon. As to the "if," that's to give them cover if they decide to go ahead with immersion to Barcroft, in which case they don't want to have definitively said North Arlington families will continue to go to the option programs in South Arlington (which they will, those sites are just across 50), crowding South Arlington students out and creating a capacity problem in South Arlington. The staff commits to nothing.

[Anonymous]

Uh . . . how would you feel if they moved 3 option schools to the NW. Might that tax your neighborhood schools? Please have some perspective beyond your little bubble. And I live in the same area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh . . . how would you feel if they moved 3 option schools to the NW. Might that tax your neighborhood schools? Please have some perspective beyond your little bubble. And I live in the same area.

This is the option school problem. Which do you prioritize - the ability of families to access option schools or easy access to a neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh . . . how would you feel if they moved 3 option schools to the NW. Might that tax your neighborhood schools? Please have some perspective beyond your little bubble. And I live in the same area.

I actually don't think they should move all of them to South Arlington, I think they should move one to NW to balance capacity better. But I also think Nottingham is the wrong site to look at for such a program. Not just because it fails by every measure of the staff's analysis, but because it pushes a program needlessly far north, which will discourage families from South Arlington from applying in the same numbers they might to a site closer to 50. And because it would take away the most flexible site in that part of NW for dealing with unexpected neighborhood overcrowding.

Basically, I think there's some good stuff in the underlying analysis, and I think it's garbage that the staff has chosen to disregard a lot of it to get a result they're set on even though it's not a smart result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So no swap for Key-ASFS. Interesting.

And looking more and more like the ASFS surrounding neighborhood may actually get a walk-able school, and changing the boundary (not walk zone) to overlap parts of Cherrydale and Lyon Village will make for short bus trips. Makes sense to move the two immersion schools where there are high concentrations of native speakers.

But ugh, it's showing a potential of 12 relocatable classrooms, only 6 now. ASFS may be getting turf, but losing its basketball area - unless the additional 6 classrooms are placed in the teacher parking lot - not a great option.

6 additional trailers is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So no swap for Key-ASFS. Interesting.

And looking more and more like the ASFS surrounding neighborhood may actually get a walk-able school, and changing the boundary (not walk zone) to overlap parts of Cherrydale and Lyon Village will make for short bus trips. Makes sense to move the two immersion schools where there are high concentrations of native speakers.

But ugh, it's showing a potential of 12 relocatable classrooms, only 6 now. ASFS may be getting turf, but losing its basketball area - unless the additional 6 classrooms are placed in the teacher parking lot - not a great option.

6 additional trailers is ridiculous.

Most of the elementary schools have maximum trailer numbers that would be absurd if put into practice, that's not unique to ASFS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The staff continues to gun for Nottingham. ATS better get ready to move!

Because that was the staff plan at the outset of this process.

What did Nottingham do to P!SS off the staff so much?

You must not know any Nottingham parents. Once you meet them you would understand. Insufferable is how most would describe them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, the whole thing is such a farce and isn't really about the data they're analyzing. If you look at NW and were to recreate the table they used last time, it suggests a very different result. For those who haven't read it, they've dropped the "Growth" consideration and have added in things like proportion of economically disadvantaged students, transfer rates, accessibility via mass transit, but for more of them they don't really draw any conclusions and just say they need to look at them further. The only criteria for which they include hard analysis and recommendations of sites that are relevant to the NW schools are Walkers, Buses and Geography. It's worth noting that they have once again baked in the Geography exception for Nottingham under Walkers that they previously acknowledged was an error and pulled out. Whether this is because they were sloppy or because they were disingenuous when they pulled it out before is anyone's guess. For Buses, they made the list of schools that made the cut much shorter, so the school that actually made the cut got a check in my table. However, there was a clear break between schools needing 4 or fewer buses and schools needing 7 or more buses, so those that need 7 or more but didn't make the top three in the county were given a half check in my table. Here's the result:

Ashlawn gets a check for Geography, half a check for Buses, nothing for Walkers = 2.5
Barrett gets a check for Geography, nothing else = 1
Discovery gets half a check for Buses, nothing else = .5
Jamestown gets checks for Walkers and Buses, not for Geography = 2
McKinley gets a half check for Buses, nothing else = .5
Nottingham was given a check by the staff under Walkers again, but if they were to correct it the same way as last time would have zero checks: 1*
Tuckahoe was given no checks = 0

So even if you accept their Walker exception for Nottingham, that's only a 1-check school, while Ashlawn is a 2.5 and Jamestown is a 2. McKinley is really interesting, because even though it missed all of the check marks (save the .5 I gave them for buses), it falls just outside the top candidates in all three criteria. If you were to rank the schools in each criteria (1 being most favorable for neighborhood and 7 being most favorable for option) and then add up the scores across all three categories, here's where you end up, in ranked order by final score:

Ashlawn = 16
Jamestown = 15
McKinley = 15
Discovery = 11
Barrett = 9
Tuckahoe = 7
Nottingham = 6

So if you actually look at their data and criteria, the staff has pulled Nottingham out as a top candidate despite it actually being a really crappy candidate. Meanwhile, they've ignored Ashlawn, Jamestown and McKinley, all of which are are potentially strong candidates.

So yep, ATS to Nottingham.

Whoever you are, you are singing my song!

Did anyone else download and save the original excel file before staff realized they'd uploaded a bit too much information that shouldn't be public? If you go through the different sheets of that file, it becomes blatantly obvious that facts have no role here.

Does it have a different file name? I wonder if it's still on the server and accessible even if it's not linked to the page anymore.

Same name. Get ride of the -1 at the end before the extension.