APS Closing Nottingham

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CCPTA does not represent the collective views of Arlington PTAs. And if this leadership is all N Arlington then shame on them. It was an embarrassing statement about how we need to keep the poor southies close to all the services they need. Like domestic violence counselors and immigration lawyers. Ick.

+1 Agreed. The argument that we need to keep "our most disadvantaged communities" close to social services they need is grossly offensive. It seems to be suggesting that parents in certain communities could not possibly figure out the logistics involved in a student riding a bus for 20 minutes to school.

+1. Look how many families in "our most disadvantaged communities" figure out how to get their kids to ATS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These PTA groups do not speak for people. It's so annoying to me. It's half a dozen self-interested types who then make it seem as if they represent a collective view. It's BS. I've been at two N Arl elementary schools and it's the same thing.

PTAs should stick to what they are for...supporting teachers and finding ways to do more for our kids. Stay out of advocacy and lobbying the school board. We are all perfectly capable of speaking up for ourselves individually and it also annoys me that the School Board and APS actually treat these PTAs with outsized importance. Why do they get a bigger seat at the table than any of the rest of us?

You know your school’s PTA membership elects the PTA board right?

You have to show up to the meeting where they elect them. How many people bother to do that? Not many. That's at least how it worked at both the schools I've been at. I have never once voted for a member of a PTA board and I'm going on my 8th school of having kids in an elementary school. I am grateful for what they do for the school but think they should stay in their lane and not represent their views as the whole community's views.

If you don't engage and others don't engage, they don't have a choice. You would prefer they don't provide any input to CCPTA and therefore leave your school with absolutely no voice on the countywide policies? Because CCPTA is going to engage - that's part of their mission! If you don't like that, take it up with the National PTA that governs PTAs.

I don't agree with your interpretation of the PTA national mission.

PTA's mission is to make every child’s potential a reality by engaging and empowering families and communities to advocate for all children. From their website.

I would prefer they encourage parents to advocate for themselves and give them the tools and resources and knowledge on how to do it. As the mission states, empower families to engage with APS. I would prefer they acknowledge people in their community will have different needs and points of view. I've been through this stuff with the PTA people. They represent one point of view. The one they hold.

And no I sure as hell don't think some mega PTA should try to say they represent the entire Arlington parent community's point of view with some asinine statement. No thanks.

OK, but advocacy is still part of the PTA's mission. And not every parent has the time to do advocacy. PTA's should facilitate that by engaging parents at the school level. But do you seriously expect all parents to advocate at the district level??!! Let alone State or Federal? Of course not everyone has the same view on everything. Do you take issue with our "representative" government as well? Only a small fraction of our citizens who are eligible to vote exercise their right to do so. And then there are the millions of people who are not eligible to vote.

There is no requirement for PTAs to place a yes or no vote in these local issues. They have no official role. That’s the School Boards job to vote and represent us. The PTAs act as lobbyists and I don’t think it’s appropriate. I do not think the PTAs should go forward and portray that they represent everyone’s point of view and I especially don’t think what they say on these local issues should be given higher regard than individual parents who speak up. I don’t think that’s terribly controversial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These PTA groups do not speak for people. It's so annoying to me. It's half a dozen self-interested types who then make it seem as if they represent a collective view. It's BS. I've been at two N Arl elementary schools and it's the same thing.

PTAs should stick to what they are for...supporting teachers and finding ways to do more for our kids. Stay out of advocacy and lobbying the school board. We are all perfectly capable of speaking up for ourselves individually and it also annoys me that the School Board and APS actually treat these PTAs with outsized importance. Why do they get a bigger seat at the table than any of the rest of us?

You know your school’s PTA membership elects the PTA board right?

You know that the more engaged communities and more representative PTAs are from wealthier schools, right?
You know what a struggle it is to get anyone to a PTA meeting, let alone volunteer to be an officer is, especially at our Title 1 schools, right?
So then, you know that any PTA board at schools with a bare-bones, low membership PTA is representing the entire school based on the voices of a handful of people, right?

Even the wealthier schools, the PTA leadership is representing a small slice and not everyone in their community feels one way.

Then they should go to the pta meetings and speak up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These PTA groups do not speak for people. It's so annoying to me. It's half a dozen self-interested types who then make it seem as if they represent a collective view. It's BS. I've been at two N Arl elementary schools and it's the same thing.

PTAs should stick to what they are for...supporting teachers and finding ways to do more for our kids. Stay out of advocacy and lobbying the school board. We are all perfectly capable of speaking up for ourselves individually and it also annoys me that the School Board and APS actually treat these PTAs with outsized importance. Why do they get a bigger seat at the table than any of the rest of us?

You know your school’s PTA membership elects the PTA board right?

You know that the more engaged communities and more representative PTAs are from wealthier schools, right?
You know what a struggle it is to get anyone to a PTA meeting, let alone volunteer to be an officer is, especially at our Title 1 schools, right?
So then, you know that any PTA board at schools with a bare-bones, low membership PTA is representing the entire school based on the voices of a handful of people, right?

Even the wealthier schools, the PTA leadership is representing a small slice and not everyone in their community feels one way.

Then they should go to the pta meetings and speak up.

Sometimes people do and it doesn’t matter. I was at McKinley during their whole battle to keep their school. It is not a comfortable environment to sit in a room with a small group of the most A+++ type obnoxious personalities (many who you will see tomorrow in the hallway) and disagree with their point of view and oh by the way even if you do speak up they move forward with their position anyway.

Waste of time. People are better off speaking to School Board members directly and engaging directly with APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These PTA groups do not speak for people. It's so annoying to me. It's half a dozen self-interested types who then make it seem as if they represent a collective view. It's BS. I've been at two N Arl elementary schools and it's the same thing.

PTAs should stick to what they are for...supporting teachers and finding ways to do more for our kids. Stay out of advocacy and lobbying the school board. We are all perfectly capable of speaking up for ourselves individually and it also annoys me that the School Board and APS actually treat these PTAs with outsized importance. Why do they get a bigger seat at the table than any of the rest of us?

You know your school’s PTA membership elects the PTA board right?

You know that the more engaged communities and more representative PTAs are from wealthier schools, right?
You know what a struggle it is to get anyone to a PTA meeting, let alone volunteer to be an officer is, especially at our Title 1 schools, right?
So then, you know that any PTA board at schools with a bare-bones, low membership PTA is representing the entire school based on the voices of a handful of people, right?

Even the wealthier schools, the PTA leadership is representing a small slice and not everyone in their community feels one way.

Then they should go to the pta meetings and speak up.

Sometimes people do and it doesn’t matter. I was at McKinley during their whole battle to keep their school. It is not a comfortable environment to sit in a room with a small group of the most A+++ type obnoxious personalities (many who you will see tomorrow in the hallway) and disagree with their point of view and oh by the way even if you do speak up they move forward with their position anyway.

Waste of time. People are better off speaking to School Board members directly and engaging directly with APS.

Feedback at school board meetings, working sessions, and on APS' engagement platform has been overwhelmingly in opposition to this plan.

[Anonymous]

Overwhelming opposition BY WHOM? Just NOttingham or others?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Overwhelming opposition BY WHOM? Just NOttingham or others?

I believe several South Arlington PTA presidents and parents have spoken out in opposition to the plan at board meetings.

To my knowledge, there hasn't been a single person that has spoken in favor at any board meeting since the proposal was released.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Overwhelming opposition BY WHOM? Just NOttingham or others?

Does it matter? The SB likes to pretend there is a whole segment of the population out there that supports their plan but just doesn’t want to speak up. For all we know, there are an equal or greater number of people on the opposite end- don’t support but don’t feel like sticking their necks out, either.

For all practical purposes, if those people aren’t coming out, that means they don’t care enough to make their opinion count. You have to deal with the people that are engaging with you, and you don’t do that by making broad, unfounded assumptions about the opinions of the people who aren’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CCPTA does not represent the collective views of Arlington PTAs. And if this leadership is all N Arlington then shame on them. It was an embarrassing statement about how we need to keep the poor southies close to all the services they need. Like domestic violence counselors and immigration lawyers. Ick.

+1 Agreed. The argument that we need to keep "our most disadvantaged communities" close to social services they need is grossly offensive. It seems to be suggesting that parents in certain communities could not possibly figure out the logistics involved in a student riding a bus for 20 minutes to school.

+1. Look how many families in "our most disadvantaged communities" figure out how to get their kids to ATS.

Are you seriously citing the example of the extremely self-motivated families as the norm? You may have missed the news, but we have a severe attendance problem in Virginia. Duran has been going on about it. Forcing kids on a bus to travel 40 minutes or more (reality for a cross county school bus at rush hour) is not going to help that problem. Any little obstacle you throw in the way of someone who is strapped already becomes just another reason to keep the kid home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overwhelming opposition BY WHOM? Just NOttingham or others?

Does it matter? The SB likes to pretend there is a whole segment of the population out there that supports their plan but just doesn’t want to speak up. For all we know, there are an equal or greater number of people on the opposite end- don’t support but don’t feel like sticking their necks out, either.

For all practical purposes, if those people aren’t coming out, that means they don’t care enough to make their opinion count. You have to deal with the people that are engaging with you, and you don’t do that by making broad, unfounded assumptions about the opinions of the people who aren’t.

This. And they can't make a show of having a bunch of engagement opportunities and platforms intended to reach diverse audiences (SB meetings, smaller forums, 1:1s, community events, roundtables, Engage email, Thought Exchange, etc. etc.) and then pretend that there is some unspoken bloc of support when it's not being expressed in ANY of those venues.

[Anonymous]

True. But you also can’t deluge every forum with self interested Notties and call that “overwhelming opposition.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overwhelming opposition BY WHOM? Just NOttingham or others?

Does it matter? The SB likes to pretend there is a whole segment of the population out there that supports their plan but just doesn’t want to speak up. For all we know, there are an equal or greater number of people on the opposite end- don’t support but don’t feel like sticking their necks out, either.

For all practical purposes, if those people aren’t coming out, that means they don’t care enough to make their opinion count. You have to deal with the people that are engaging with you, and you don’t do that by making broad, unfounded assumptions about the opinions of the people who aren’t.

I think this is true. The people who are personally adversely impacted are always going to speak out the loudest. On any issue. Self-interest is a strong motivator and why wouldn't it be. The vast majority of people are not going to care at the level of these people. If you asked 100 people what they thought, would the overwhelming majority of people object to the plan? Probably not.

Also, the people who are intensely passionate on these topics are sometimes completely nuts. Plain and simple. And we live among them. The reality of it is many of us just don't want to get in their line of fire. I have personally interacted with a bunch of them on various issues over the years. They are typically large personalities who are busy bodies and have their finger in everything (not always in a good way) and normal people just want to avoid them and stay off their radar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:True. But you also can’t deluge every forum with self interested Notties and call that “overwhelming opposition.”

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. There certainly hasn't been overwhelming support. Or much of anyone speaking out in favor. What are you going to do? Print out a thread from DCUM, submit it to the board and say, "See! People don't like Nottingham! Close their school! Ignore the facts they are throwing out at you!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overwhelming opposition BY WHOM? Just NOttingham or others?

Does it matter? The SB likes to pretend there is a whole segment of the population out there that supports their plan but just doesn’t want to speak up. For all we know, there are an equal or greater number of people on the opposite end- don’t support but don’t feel like sticking their necks out, either.

For all practical purposes, if those people aren’t coming out, that means they don’t care enough to make their opinion count. You have to deal with the people that are engaging with you, and you don’t do that by making broad, unfounded assumptions about the opinions of the people who aren’t.

This. And they can't make a show of having a bunch of engagement opportunities and platforms intended to reach diverse audiences (SB meetings, smaller forums, 1:1s, community events, roundtables, Engage email, Thought Exchange, etc. etc.) and then pretend that there is some unspoken bloc of support when it's not being expressed in ANY of those venues.

They should stop having all these engagement opportunities which are completely hijacked by a certain portion of the community every single damn time. I am genuinely in favor of hiring a superintendent who is capable of making good decisions and letting the School Board hold him/her accountable and stop with giving all these parents outlets to keen and wail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Overwhelming opposition BY WHOM? Just NOttingham or others?

Does it matter? The SB likes to pretend there is a whole segment of the population out there that supports their plan but just doesn’t want to speak up. For all we know, there are an equal or greater number of people on the opposite end- don’t support but don’t feel like sticking their necks out, either.

For all practical purposes, if those people aren’t coming out, that means they don’t care enough to make their opinion count. You have to deal with the people that are engaging with you, and you don’t do that by making broad, unfounded assumptions about the opinions of the people who aren’t.

This. And they can't make a show of having a bunch of engagement opportunities and platforms intended to reach diverse audiences (SB meetings, smaller forums, 1:1s, community events, roundtables, Engage email, Thought Exchange, etc. etc.) and then pretend that there is some unspoken bloc of support when it's not being expressed in ANY of those venues.

They should stop having all these engagement opportunities which are completely hijacked by a certain portion of the community every single damn time. I am genuinely in favor of hiring a superintendent who is capable of making good decisions and letting the School Board hold him/her accountable and stop with giving all these parents outlets to keen and wail.

Yes, what a great idea! Let's have the school board and superintendent make even more of their decisions in a black box without any input from the community whatsoever! What could possibly go wrong! Let's not hold our leaders accountable at all!