Just Make Reed an Option School Already

[Anonymous]

If we make Reed an option school, where do we move kids from McKinley? Can we really push all of the excess at Glebe east?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we make Reed an option school, where do we move kids from McKinley? Can we really push all of the excess at Glebe east?

Rezone Tuckahoe, Nottingham, Discovery & Jamestown. They can each take some and then they send some to the Reed Option. Done...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No more choice schools anywhere

At least no more Arlington Traditional School. There is nothing unique about it except that it is comprised entirely of students whose parents are involved and motivated enough to enter the lottery. It should have been turned neighborhood school like ASFS rightly was.

And where do you come by this expertise on ATS? Do your kids go there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we make Reed an option school, where do we move kids from McKinley? Can we really push all of the excess at Glebe east?

Rezone Tuckahoe, Nottingham, Discovery & Jamestown. They can each take some and then they send some to the Reed Option. Done...

Reed becomes a neighborhood school, it makes the most sense. Why bus kids to Reed when hundreds of kids can walk??

ATS stays where it is.

Key & ASFS switch.

No changes to other schools - but any school that ends up under capacity will accept transfers. This makes the most sense and is the least disruptive solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not a Tuckahoe parent, I am actually south arlington parent who believes our school system has a fiscal shortfall and is not spending its money wisely.

Does the Reed school solve McKinley's need? If so, then why does Reed create too many seats?

APS is not in a fiscal shortfall as it is very well financed. You are very right that the money is not being spent wisely and the entire "choice" option is bullshit. We all know it. If only less than 10% of applicants can go to a particular school then there is no choice. It's a luck school.

Think about the cost savings if we abolished the Luck School system.

Reed pisses me off. A perfectly great 9 yr old building, 22million, re-done because of incompetence. And because this SB has way too much money to control and no sense to do it with.

[Anonymous]

We moved from Arlington a few years ago but my ASD dc had a wonderful experience at Reed. Did they really tear down that beautiful new building?

[Anonymous]

APS should not have built Discovery. They should have built Reed where the BLPC is telling them to build it now, not on the hill like they proposed at the time. But, that didn’t happen. APS should have chosen a better design when they built Reed years ago. The rooms are small, the hallways are too tight and they cut corners making the 2nd floor add on more expensive that tearing it down. It it not a good building, but that’s also done. When APS made the last boundary changes, they should have opened all units in all schools and they could have actually balanced enrollment and fixed old, weird boundaries that don’t make sense, but they didn’t.

What APS is doig now is trying to fix all these past mistakes. Instead of putting another school on the edge of the county, they are putting where the students live. They are finally looking at boundaries as a whole and not just one or two at a time. And, they are rebuilding a school that was a mistake instead of just acting like we can’t fix past mistakes. The Reed neighborhood school and the boundary review is finally a step in the right direction.

[Anonymous]

Calling bull on 20:56. You don’t know why Tuckahoe parents are upset? Please. APS put out a purposely misleading walk zone expansion map that leaves out more than half of actual walkers. Lisa Stengel can’t stop talking about “too many schools in the NW quadrant.” Every other parent on here thinks wrongly that Tuckahoe has 78 walkers as a result. We’re not stupid. You think we’re up in arms now? Just wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Calling bull on 20:56. You don’t know why Tuckahoe parents are upset? Please. APS put out a purposely misleading walk zone expansion map that leaves out more than half of actual walkers. Lisa Stengel can’t stop talking about “too many schools in the NW quadrant.” Every other parent on here thinks wrongly that Tuckahoe has 78 walkers as a result. We’re not stupid. You think we’re up in arms now? Just wait.

I think you are spending too much time on DCUM. This isn't the real world. However, if Tuckahoe is afraid of being changed into an option school b/c of what anonymous posters here said, I'd pick a better target than Reed. According to DCUM, McKinley doesn't fight back. Or, there is Jamestown which isn't very walkable, either. If you are going after a school with the most number of walkers, it's not a smart move. Also, your walk zone overlaps with Nottingham. Make a case that those units are yours and you then look less attractive than they do.

[Anonymous]

Too much time? Nope. New to this issue. And I don’t care about Reed. Only the APS misleading maps and targeting of Tuckahoe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we make Reed an option school, where do we move kids from McKinley? Can we really push all of the excess at Glebe east?

Rezone Tuckahoe, Nottingham, Discovery & Jamestown. They can each take some and then they send some to the Reed Option. Done...

Nottingham is over capacity. Tuckahoe has about 20 extra seats, Discovery 30 and Jamestown 40, but McKinkey and Glebe are each more than 100 students over capacity. All of those schools already send kids to choice schools, you can’t force over 100 additional kids from just those schools into a choice program to make the numbers work.

If we’re going to turn any of those schools into a choice school, it makes sense to make it one of the lower-capacity schools, because it will leave the neighborhood schools less over capacity and doesn’t raise concerns about whether they can fill all 725 seats at the choice school. The lowest capacity schools in that area are Glebe (510), Nottingham (513) and Tuckahoe (545). Those are the schools it makes sense to look at as potential option schools. Obviously some of these make more sense than others, but these are your remotely realistic options for a choice school up there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Calling bull on 20:56. You don’t know why Tuckahoe parents are upset? Please. APS put out a purposely misleading walk zone expansion map that leaves out more than half of actual walkers. Lisa Stengel can’t stop talking about “too many schools in the NW quadrant.” Every other parent on here thinks wrongly that Tuckahoe has 78 walkers as a result. We’re not stupid. You think we’re up in arms now? Just wait.

Can you please explain to the rest of us what the errors are? I’m a Nottingham parent so obviously I have a significant interest in what happens with this. I want to understand the problem so I can take it into consideration in my own advocacy, but I can’t do that if you don’t explain it to us non-Tuckahoe folks. If you don’t take the time to do it and the rest of us advocate for a problematic solution as a result because we are missing this information, you can’t point fingers later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calling bull on 20:56. You don’t know why Tuckahoe parents are upset? Please. APS put out a purposely misleading walk zone expansion map that leaves out more than half of actual walkers. Lisa Stengel can’t stop talking about “too many schools in the NW quadrant.” Every other parent on here thinks wrongly that Tuckahoe has 78 walkers as a result. We’re not stupid. You think we’re up in arms now? Just wait.

Can you please explain to the rest of us what the errors are? I’m a Nottingham parent so obviously I have a significant interest in what happens with this. I want to understand the problem so I can take it into consideration in my own advocacy, but I can’t do that if you don’t explain it to us non-Tuckahoe folks. If you don’t take the time to do it and the rest of us advocate for a problematic solution as a result because we are missing this information, you can’t point fingers later.

Make you sure claim those Nottingham/Tuckahoe overlap units for yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we make Reed an option school, where do we move kids from McKinley? Can we really push all of the excess at Glebe east?

Rezone Tuckahoe, Nottingham, Discovery & Jamestown. They can each take some and then they send some to the Reed Option. Done...

Nottingham is over capacity. Tuckahoe has about 20 extra seats, Discovery 30 and Jamestown 40, but McKinkey and Glebe are each more than 100 students over capacity. All of those schools already send kids to choice schools, you can’t force over 100 additional kids from just those schools into a choice program to make the numbers work.

If we’re going to turn any of those schools into a choice school, it makes sense to make it one of the lower-capacity schools, because it will leave the neighborhood schools less over capacity and doesn’t raise concerns about whether they can fill all 725 seats at the choice school. The lowest capacity schools in that area are Glebe (510), Nottingham (513) and Tuckahoe (545). Those are the schools it makes sense to look at as potential option schools. Obviously some of these make more sense than others, but these are your remotely realistic options for a choice school up there.

I agree.

[Anonymous]

It would surely be sweet, sweet justice if Nottingham were targeted to become a choice school due to its current enrollment numbers after achieving those low enrollment numbers on the backs of its neighbor schools.

A person can dream, right?