Is APS really looking to close a N. Arlington elem school again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Empty Nottingham, then temporary move all of Taylor and raze that building and put up classrooms with walls etc. but they just built new playground so that seems unlikely. Probably a SA school?

It'll be where they put Montessori, because the old Career Center building is needed for TJ middle school swing space while they renovate there.

That makes sense. TJ can go to the old Career Center building. And Taylor could go to the old Nottingham while Taylor is rebuilt. And Montessori can remain in the old Patrick Henry building for a few more years, with necessary repairs to keep the building healthy/usable. The Career Center surface parking lot and construction staging area there can be converted to temporary field space. And APS can lease the adjacent garage.

So many problems with this “plan.” The career center cannot just be a middle school swing space without a substantial renovation. And then you’re delaying that whole site’s completion. You’re also delaying TJ. The costs start adding up. And what will you do with a renovated career center after TJ is done?

The Ed Center renovation was designed so that it could become a future elementary or middle school, or other program, if the population of W-L shrinks substantially in the future. That was the requirement the school board placed on the superintendent's plan to renovate the Ed Center for W-L. The same flexibility could easily be incorporated in a Career Center renovation. But it takes a school board who thinks outside the box. And it takes guts to make those tough decisions.

Covid prolonged the W-L Ed Center conversion, as I think it was only supposed to take a year.

How does Ed center become another school without field space or a playground for elem? That seems like a polite fiction.

If you were at those school board meetings, the plan would be to share the W-L field space. The W-L Annex has an auxilliary PE/Gym space in the basement which would meet ed specs for an elementary, middle school, or a future tbd option program. But that’s all way out in the future, if ever. The W-L Annex is a beautiful, state-of-the-art, new space for W-L and it’s worked out well for the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Oh Christ, not again. I’m sure the Montessori people would love to put it to use for their strange little program, although Nottingham is not really equipped to handle 700 kids worth of busses from SA. Have we even considered maybe taking a holistic look at ALL the boundaries to free up some space where it’s needed and not put kids on a 30 minute cross county bus ride? I know some kids might have to hop on a bus to cross 50 but that seems a lot more preferable than (1) winning an option lottery to (2) bus to a school 10 miles away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Empty Nottingham, then temporary move all of Taylor and raze that building and put up classrooms with walls etc. but they just built new playground so that seems unlikely. Probably a SA school?

There is no money to rebuild Taylor. APS has maxxed out its bond capacity. They need to look at the facilities and then close the worst one. It might be Taylor. Are there other elementary buildings in worse shape?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Empty Nottingham, then temporary move all of Taylor and raze that building and put up classrooms with walls etc. but they just built new playground so that seems unlikely. Probably a SA school?

There is no money to rebuild Taylor. APS has maxxed out its bond capacity. They need to look at the facilities and then close the worst one. It might be Taylor. Are there other elementary buildings in worse shape?

I think Randolph, Barrett, and TJ are highest up on the list of facilities that are in need of significant remodeling or replacement. All higher than Taylor. Barrett has the historic main building, so that would likely be a renovation and not a replacement. Swanson's theater needs immediate attention also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Oh Christ, not again. I’m sure the Montessori people would love to put it to use for their strange little program, although Nottingham is not really equipped to handle 700 kids worth of busses from SA. Have we even considered maybe taking a holistic look at ALL the boundaries to free up some space where it’s needed and not put kids on a 30 minute cross county bus ride? I know some kids might have to hop on a bus to cross 50 but that seems a lot more preferable than (1) winning an option lottery to (2) bus to a school 10 miles away.

Here come the “north north” parents using the same bussing argument their parents used during desegregation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Oh Christ, not again. I’m sure the Montessori people would love to put it to use for their strange little program, although Nottingham is not really equipped to handle 700 kids worth of busses from SA. Have we even considered maybe taking a holistic look at ALL the boundaries to free up some space where it’s needed and not put kids on a 30 minute cross county bus ride? I know some kids might have to hop on a bus to cross 50 but that seems a lot more preferable than (1) winning an option lottery to (2) bus to a school 10 miles away.

I don’t think you could find 2 schools in Arlington more than 8 miles apart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Empty Nottingham, then temporary move all of Taylor and raze that building and put up classrooms with walls etc. but they just built new playground so that seems unlikely. Probably a SA school?

There is no money to rebuild Taylor. APS has maxxed out its bond capacity. They need to look at the facilities and then close the worst one. It might be Taylor. Are there other elementary buildings in worse shape?

They haven't maxed out their bond capacity. Did you look at the close-out document? They're way under their 10% debt capacity. The CIP direction is also posted. Looks like they're wasting a lot of money just to save the idea of building more seats on the ACC campus. More seats are, what, 100 seats (capacity of renovated ACC minus capacity of knocked down MPSA)? That's pennies compared to the dollars they're wasting with all the extra studying they're asking staff to do in this CIP direction. They're clearly delaying moving MPSA into the ACC even though it was already approved and bonded for $45M. And instead, they're going to study Nottingham and then the costs will go up because of the delay and the Nottingham community is going to put up roadblocks when the ACC neighborhood had already accepted the school on the site. This is a mess. They should have just stuck with the plan. People who want Taylor renovated, follow the mistakes being made now and that's why your school won't be in this CIP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Empty Nottingham, then temporary move all of Taylor and raze that building and put up classrooms with walls etc. but they just built new playground so that seems unlikely. Probably a SA school?

There is no money to rebuild Taylor. APS has maxxed out its bond capacity. They need to look at the facilities and then close the worst one. It might be Taylor. Are there other elementary buildings in worse shape?

They haven't maxed out their bond capacity. Did you look at the close-out document? They're way under their 10% debt capacity. The CIP direction is also posted. Looks like they're wasting a lot of money just to save the idea of building more seats on the ACC campus. More seats are, what, 100 seats (capacity of renovated ACC minus capacity of knocked down MPSA)? That's pennies compared to the dollars they're wasting with all the extra studying they're asking staff to do in this CIP direction. They're clearly delaying moving MPSA into the ACC even though it was already approved and bonded for $45M. And instead, they're going to study Nottingham and then the costs will go up because of the delay and the Nottingham community is going to put up roadblocks when the ACC neighborhood had already accepted the school on the site. This is a mess. They should have just stuck with the plan. People who want Taylor renovated, follow the mistakes being made now and that's why your school won't be in this CIP.

My guess this CIP will definitely include a huge investment at TJ, and smaller necessary renovations at Swanson, Barrett, Taylor, etc.

[Anonymous]

Move Montessori back to Drew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Move Montessori back to Drew.

The Drew Model School never should have moved out of the Drew School, but it's too late to go back and recreate that. Montessori has been adrift ever since then, and they desperately want a permanent home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Empty Nottingham, then temporary move all of Taylor and raze that building and put up classrooms with walls etc. but they just built new playground so that seems unlikely. Probably a SA school?

There is no money to rebuild Taylor. APS has maxxed out its bond capacity. They need to look at the facilities and then close the worst one. It might be Taylor. Are there other elementary buildings in worse shape?

They haven't maxed out their bond capacity. Did you look at the close-out document? They're way under their 10% debt capacity. The CIP direction is also posted. Looks like they're wasting a lot of money just to save the idea of building more seats on the ACC campus. More seats are, what, 100 seats (capacity of renovated ACC minus capacity of knocked down MPSA)? That's pennies compared to the dollars they're wasting with all the extra studying they're asking staff to do in this CIP direction. They're clearly delaying moving MPSA into the ACC even though it was already approved and bonded for $45M. And instead, they're going to study Nottingham and then the costs will go up because of the delay and the Nottingham community is going to put up roadblocks when the ACC neighborhood had already accepted the school on the site. This is a mess. They should have just stuck with the plan. People who want Taylor renovated, follow the mistakes being made now and that's why your school won't be in this CIP.

My guess this CIP will definitely include a huge investment at TJ, and smaller necessary renovations at Swanson, Barrett, Taylor, etc.

It always feels like here that the moment some group doesn't like a change, even if it would be better for all, out come the T-shirts and signs and lawsuits. It's a wonder anything gets done. If everything is a special interest, nothing is special. It's always the loudest group wins. I almost feel bad for the APS staff. Almost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Move Montessori back to Drew.

The Drew Model School never should have moved out of the Drew School, but it's too late to go back and recreate that. Montessori has been adrift ever since then, and they desperately want a permanent home.

I'm old enough to remember when Montessori said they were ok moving into an old building and didn't need a fancy new space. Well, that didn't age well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey Nottingham, Mary K. is going to kill your school. Tune in to the board meeting Dec. 18. She’s already ruled out closing Taylor and while Mary’s proposal will mention a south ES, the huge lack of seats in the south means not even Drew will be converted to an option school. (Also, good luck taking that historic black community’s school from them and bussing their kids elsewhere, amirite?). This means only Nottingham is left and please remember Mary supported that school being swing space last year. Good luck.

Wow, grabbing the popcorn. She's using her last meeting to propose closing Nottingham AND a cascading boundary process that will impact Jamestown, Discovery, Tuckahoe, Taylor, Glebe and Cardinal? 340 students may not sound like much but they're not going to easily get rolled into the next school over. There aren't 170 seats available at Discovery and Tuckahoe. It's going to be a cascading boundary process to balance enrollments across all those schools. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do at your last meeting. Make your successors run a controversial school closing and boundary process while you get out of town. And what are they gonna do with a closed building anyway?

Empty Nottingham, then temporary move all of Taylor and raze that building and put up classrooms with walls etc. but they just built new playground so that seems unlikely. Probably a SA school?

There is no money to rebuild Taylor. APS has maxxed out its bond capacity. They need to look at the facilities and then close the worst one. It might be Taylor. Are there other elementary buildings in worse shape?

They haven't maxed out their bond capacity. Did you look at the close-out document? They're way under their 10% debt capacity. The CIP direction is also posted. Looks like they're wasting a lot of money just to save the idea of building more seats on the ACC campus. More seats are, what, 100 seats (capacity of renovated ACC minus capacity of knocked down MPSA)? That's pennies compared to the dollars they're wasting with all the extra studying they're asking staff to do in this CIP direction. They're clearly delaying moving MPSA into the ACC even though it was already approved and bonded for $45M. And instead, they're going to study Nottingham and then the costs will go up because of the delay and the Nottingham community is going to put up roadblocks when the ACC neighborhood had already accepted the school on the site. This is a mess. They should have just stuck with the plan. People who want Taylor renovated, follow the mistakes being made now and that's why your school won't be in this CIP.

What I meant was that the bond capacity was maxxed out with the existing plan for Montessori/AT/career center. I guess they could get some of that back if they change the plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Move Montessori back to Drew.

The Drew Model School never should have moved out of the Drew School, but it's too late to go back and recreate that. Montessori has been adrift ever since then, and they desperately want a permanent home.

why is it too late? Drew never filled up. They have space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Move Montessori back to Drew.

The Drew Model School never should have moved out of the Drew School, but it's too late to go back and recreate that. Montessori has been adrift ever since then, and they desperately want a permanent home.

I'm old enough to remember when Montessori said they were ok moving into an old building and didn't need a fancy new space. Well, that didn't age well.

That's because MPSA wanted to get away from Drew. Back then, Drew was being run like a prison camp while MPSA was its affluent school within a school.