The demise of McKinley ES (APS)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a "Save McKinley" proponent but why can't ATS stay right where it is? It's not in the IPP so why are we trying to move it to a bigger building, and why is it a "pro" under both proposals that 100 more kids could go there? I'm a South Arlington resident and I think ATS is bad for South Arlington.

And, ATS is a not a walkable school so keep it as an option but without moving Immersion or Campbell there. What's wrong with Immersion to Carlin Springs, full stop? Yes, there will be a somewhat wide swath of West Pike with no neighborhood school, but Campbell is functionally a neighborhood school for Glencarlyn anyway. Split up the non-Glencarlyn PUs between Abingdon and Ashlawn and do tons of outreach to that community to get them to apply to CS as Immersion. McK, Reed, and ASFS can take Ashlawn's long boundary and some of Glebe.

That part of South Arlington is already facing a seating shortage, and you want to take away hundreds more seats while NW elementary schools sit with empty classrooms because they're so under capacity? We're Discovery so that would be great for us, but even I can't pretend this isn't a terrible idea.

Plenty of room at Drew and Fleet. Move SF to Drew and some of CS's boundary to Ashlawn and see what happens.

In any event, neither proposal 1 or 2 address the seat shortage in that area anyway. The first doesn't affect it at all, and the second makes an option school into a neighborhood school in order to take on the population of a school with a substantially bigger enrollment (in a smaller, older, crappier building).

So we're abandoning any pretense of sensible boundaries?

SF to Drew, a Staff proposal that was previously made, is not sensible? Or is it Ashlawn's boundary moving 2 miles south instead of almost 2.5 miles east that is not sensible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are some PUs moving schools 3 times during elementary school years? How can they go from Nottingham->McK->Reed within 6 years? Will the SB let that happen?

No one moved from Nottingham to McKinley.

Yes they did. One planning unit south of Lee Highway.

Which unit south of Lee Highway attended Nottingham and then McKinley? I'm pretty sure that before Discovery opened, there were no units south of Lee Highway that attended Nottingham.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are some PUs moving schools 3 times during elementary school years? How can they go from Nottingham->McK->Reed within 6 years? Will the SB let that happen?

The last of the elementary moves from when Discovery opened happened in fall 2015. No one who was in elementary school then will still be in elementary school when the new boundaries go into effect in fall 2021. No students are moving twice due to boundary changes.

Yes, some of the posters here are families who will be moved twice. Sorry, but that’s not a big deal, so what if you had to get used to a new school and don’t want to do it again.
Seriously grandfathering would make a lot of people happy I’m this case. Just grandfather 3rd grade and up, and siblings. There would be a whole lot less push back.
For the McKinley folks, if they grandfathered third grade and up (so current first graders and up) to reed, would you be happy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are some PUs moving schools 3 times during elementary school years? How can they go from Nottingham->McK->Reed within 6 years? Will the SB let that happen?

The last of the elementary moves from when Discovery opened happened in fall 2015. No one who was in elementary school then will still be in elementary school when the new boundaries go into effect in fall 2021. No students are moving twice due to boundary changes.

Yes, some of the posters here are families who will be moved twice. Sorry, but that’s not a big deal, so what if you had to get used to a new school and don’t want to do it again.
Seriously grandfathering would make a lot of people happy I’m this case. Just grandfather 3rd grade and up, and siblings. There would be a whole lot less push back.
For the McKinley folks, if they grandfathered third grade and up (so current first graders and up) to reed, would you be happy?

Grandfathering, especially for that many years, would defeat the purpose of this exercise because school enrollment would be all over the place and out of APS's control.

Some families have 4 kids are in the elementary schools for over 15 years. Should their planning units be exempt from moving more than once in the span of 15 years so that family doesn't have to experience two moves?

[Anonymous]

Clearly, tuckahoe as the options hool would be the better choice since the far N schools is where we have the extra capacity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a "Save McKinley" proponent but why can't ATS stay right where it is? It's not in the IPP so why are we trying to move it to a bigger building, and why is it a "pro" under both proposals that 100 more kids could go there? I'm a South Arlington resident and I think ATS is bad for South Arlington.

And, ATS is a not a walkable school so keep it as an option but without moving Immersion or Campbell there. What's wrong with Immersion to Carlin Springs, full stop? Yes, there will be a somewhat wide swath of West Pike with no neighborhood school, but Campbell is functionally a neighborhood school for Glencarlyn anyway. Split up the non-Glencarlyn PUs between Abingdon and Ashlawn and do tons of outreach to that community to get them to apply to CS as Immersion. McK, Reed, and ASFS can take Ashlawn's long boundary and some of Glebe.

That part of South Arlington is already facing a seating shortage, and you want to take away hundreds more seats while NW elementary schools sit with empty classrooms because they're so under capacity? We're Discovery so that would be great for us, but even I can't pretend this isn't a terrible idea.

Plenty of room at Drew and Fleet. Move SF to Drew and some of CS's boundary to Ashlawn and see what happens.

In any event, neither proposal 1 or 2 address the seat shortage in that area anyway. The first doesn't affect it at all, and the second makes an option school into a neighborhood school in order to take on the population of a school with a substantially bigger enrollment (in a smaller, older, crappier building).

So we're abandoning any pretense of sensible boundaries?

SF to Drew, a Staff proposal that was previously made, is not sensible? Or is it Ashlawn's boundary moving 2 miles south instead of almost 2.5 miles east that is not sensible?

How would that SF to Drew help with Carlin Springs area over crowding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a "Save McKinley" proponent but why can't ATS stay right where it is? It's not in the IPP so why are we trying to move it to a bigger building, and why is it a "pro" under both proposals that 100 more kids could go there? I'm a South Arlington resident and I think ATS is bad for South Arlington.

And, ATS is a not a walkable school so keep it as an option but without moving Immersion or Campbell there. What's wrong with Immersion to Carlin Springs, full stop? Yes, there will be a somewhat wide swath of West Pike with no neighborhood school, but Campbell is functionally a neighborhood school for Glencarlyn anyway. Split up the non-Glencarlyn PUs between Abingdon and Ashlawn and do tons of outreach to that community to get them to apply to CS as Immersion. McK, Reed, and ASFS can take Ashlawn's long boundary and some of Glebe.

That part of South Arlington is already facing a seating shortage, and you want to take away hundreds more seats while NW elementary schools sit with empty classrooms because they're so under capacity? We're Discovery so that would be great for us, but even I can't pretend this isn't a terrible idea.

Plenty of room at Drew and Fleet. Move SF to Drew and some of CS's boundary to Ashlawn and see what happens.

In any event, neither proposal 1 or 2 address the seat shortage in that area anyway. The first doesn't affect it at all, and the second makes an option school into a neighborhood school in order to take on the population of a school with a substantially bigger enrollment (in a smaller, older, crappier building).

So we're abandoning any pretense of sensible boundaries?

SF to Drew, a Staff proposal that was previously made, is not sensible? Or is it Ashlawn's boundary moving 2 miles south instead of almost 2.5 miles east that is not sensible?

How would that SF to Drew help with Carlin Springs area over crowding?

Because the latest numbers show that Abingdon is already just over full capacity. If you move SF to drew you get the school a bit of room to help absorb continued in full development to the west.

Yes, I know that no one in SF wants to go to drew, and that no one else at Abingdon want to see SF (which is 100 percent non-FRL) moved to make room for another 100 disadvantaged kids who don’t live in Arlington county yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a "Save McKinley" proponent but why can't ATS stay right where it is? It's not in the IPP so why are we trying to move it to a bigger building, and why is it a "pro" under both proposals that 100 more kids could go there? I'm a South Arlington resident and I think ATS is bad for South Arlington.

And, ATS is a not a walkable school so keep it as an option but without moving Immersion or Campbell there. What's wrong with Immersion to Carlin Springs, full stop? Yes, there will be a somewhat wide swath of West Pike with no neighborhood school, but Campbell is functionally a neighborhood school for Glencarlyn anyway. Split up the non-Glencarlyn PUs between Abingdon and Ashlawn and do tons of outreach to that community to get them to apply to CS as Immersion. McK, Reed, and ASFS can take Ashlawn's long boundary and some of Glebe.

That part of South Arlington is already facing a seating shortage, and you want to take away hundreds more seats while NW elementary schools sit with empty classrooms because they're so under capacity? We're Discovery so that would be great for us, but even I can't pretend this isn't a terrible idea.

Plenty of room at Drew and Fleet. Move SF to Drew and some of CS's boundary to Ashlawn and see what happens.

In any event, neither proposal 1 or 2 address the seat shortage in that area anyway. The first doesn't affect it at all, and the second makes an option school into a neighborhood school in order to take on the population of a school with a substantially bigger enrollment (in a smaller, older, crappier building).

So we're abandoning any pretense of sensible boundaries?

SF to Drew, a Staff proposal that was previously made, is not sensible? Or is it Ashlawn's boundary moving 2 miles south instead of almost 2.5 miles east that is not sensible?

How would that SF to Drew help with Carlin Springs area over crowding?

Because the latest numbers show that Abingdon is already just over full capacity. If you move SF to drew you get the school a bit of room to help absorb continued in full development to the west.

Yes, I know that no one in SF wants to go to drew, and that no one else at Abingdon want to see SF (which is 100 percent non-FRL) moved to make room for another 100 disadvantaged kids who don’t live in Arlington county yet.

DP. That's just moving deck chairs on the Titantic. All of South Arlington is going to be over capacity, and you can't fix that by taking away South Arlington seats.

[Anonymous]

Well, the arbitrarily drawn zone with Carlin Springs in it is actually projected to be the least over capacity of the over capacity zones. So I'm not really sure what the hand-wringing is all about. Key should definitely move, and CS may well be a better option than ATS.

Campbell moving, OTOH, seems to have no redeeming qualities. It becomes neighborhood and at least as low-income as CS, in a smaller and older building, and the EL program withers on the vine at the ATS site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are some PUs moving schools 3 times during elementary school years? How can they go from Nottingham->McK->Reed within 6 years? Will the SB let that happen?

No one moved from Nottingham to McKinley.

Yes they did. One planning unit south of Lee Highway.

Which unit south of Lee Highway attended Nottingham and then McKinley? I'm pretty sure that before Discovery opened, there were no units south of Lee Highway that attended Nottingham.

No planning units moved from Nottingham to McKinley. The PP who claimed that they did was an imposter. Nice try though.

[Anonymous]

Two Tuckahoe units were slated to move too Nottingham. One got switched to McKinley after Nottingham created a petition to keep people out of their school. The families that came to McK never actually made in in the front doors at Nottingham.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a "Save McKinley" proponent but why can't ATS stay right where it is? It's not in the IPP so why are we trying to move it to a bigger building, and why is it a "pro" under both proposals that 100 more kids could go there? I'm a South Arlington resident and I think ATS is bad for South Arlington.

And, ATS is a not a walkable school so keep it as an option but without moving Immersion or Campbell there. What's wrong with Immersion to Carlin Springs, full stop? Yes, there will be a somewhat wide swath of West Pike with no neighborhood school, but Campbell is functionally a neighborhood school for Glencarlyn anyway. Split up the non-Glencarlyn PUs between Abingdon and Ashlawn and do tons of outreach to that community to get them to apply to CS as Immersion. McK, Reed, and ASFS can take Ashlawn's long boundary and some of Glebe.

That part of South Arlington is already facing a seating shortage, and you want to take away hundreds more seats while NW elementary schools sit with empty classrooms because they're so under capacity? We're Discovery so that would be great for us, but even I can't pretend this isn't a terrible idea.

Plenty of room at Drew and Fleet. Move SF to Drew and some of CS's boundary to Ashlawn and see what happens.

In any event, neither proposal 1 or 2 address the seat shortage in that area anyway. The first doesn't affect it at all, and the second makes an option school into a neighborhood school in order to take on the population of a school with a substantially bigger enrollment (in a smaller, older, crappier building).

So we're abandoning any pretense of sensible boundaries?

SF to Drew, a Staff proposal that was previously made, is not sensible? Or is it Ashlawn's boundary moving 2 miles south instead of almost 2.5 miles east that is not sensible?

Giving Ashlawn a new crazy boundary, that kicks out a ton of existing students and brings in new students to displace them, is not fair to Ashlawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Clearly, tuckahoe as the options hool would be the better choice since the far N schools is where we have the extra capacity

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two Tuckahoe units were slated to move too Nottingham. One got switched to McKinley after Nottingham created a petition to keep people out of their school. The families that came to McK never actually made in in the front doors at Nottingham.

Students were moved from Tuckahoe to McKinley, and also from Tuckahoe to Nottingham.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two Tuckahoe units were slated to move too Nottingham. One got switched to McKinley after Nottingham created a petition to keep people out of their school. The families that came to McK never actually made in in the front doors at Nottingham.

Nottingham did create a petition asking APS not to overcrowd it again right after moving 40% of its population to Discovery. Nottingham asked APS to balance enrollment and specifically pointed out how much capacity existed at Discovery and Jamestown. For some reason that I will never understand, APS would not send anyone to Discovery or Jamestown, and they made it a decision between sending kids to either Nottingham or McKinley. Unfortunately those were the only choices it would allow. Nottingham didn't have space and as it turned out - after an error was later discovered in APS's math - neither did McKinley. And that's how we are where we are today. Nottingham is at capacity again (but has multiple trailers), McKinley is over (but somehow only has one trailer?), and APS had to bring in preschool classes from all over the county to try to fill up Jamestown.

Some parents at McKinley are still bitter at Nottingham all these years later. Instead people really need to focus their effort on making sure staff does a much better job this time around and ACTUALLY BALANCES CAPACITY. But if you want to instead finger point at other schools and rehash something that happened 5 years ago, that's up to you.