APS - questions about Key / ASFS building swap

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I may be wrong- but I actually don't think ASFS and Key will swap- although I think it is being actively considered. I really think they will both become neighborhood schools. That quadrant is where seats are needed the most. There is no land in that quadrant. The only way they are going to get seats there is by either 1)drawing funny neighborhood boundaries or 2)moving Key.

I don't think they will just swap b/c ultimately it will not help the seat problem.

This. the fundamental problem is more students then seats after the lottery change at key. Right now in bounds make up about half the population, but will likely drop to 1/12 all things being equal. That’s about 300 more kids in the shared zone to seat.

It needs to move where there are seats, leave both schools as neighborhoods schools.

Where's that? Mars? Nobody has 700 extra seats, not in any quadrant. I think they are definitely talking about a simple swap because they cannot undertake a multi-school shuffle. In terms of community, swapping these two schools makes sense because they are geographically close together and, because of their history of a shared boundary, there's overlap on sports teams and clubs/activities that are linked to school boundary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As far as walking to asfs, there are a lot of concerns with crossing kirkwood to widen its walk zone. Currently only a handful of kids walk to school, mostly from the Clarendon area. Those parents who walk regularly have expressed deep concerns about people regularly crossing kirkwood— it’s objectuvely not a safe road to cross and little can be done short of adding a traffic light. The county has to do a traffic study before doing something like that, so any traffic mitigation’s would be a few years off. There’s a bunch of extra concerns like the back stairs would need to be widened and a handicap ramp added, which is difficult since the county does not own the land directly next to the stairs (it’s someone’s house on either side). They likely will expand the walk zone to include part of Lyon village, but I really hope it doesn’t result in someone being hit by a car.

I agree Kirkwood is a tough street to cross. However, a crossing guard at the crosswalk at the bottom of the stairs would adequately deal with this problem. I don't see any reason why the stairs would have to be widened. I can't see any practical way to add a handicap ramp to get up that hill. Even if you did, it would be so steep as to be essentially unusable. If that is a requirement, then the project wouldn't work. I don't think that the ADA or common decency would require a ramp there. In any event, there is already a sidewalk which runs up 14th St. which could be used if necessary.

The side walk on 14th street doesn’t go all the way to kirkwood. It ends about half a block before. There isn’t a crosswalk at 13th, which has a contiguous sidewalk. So unless you widen the stairs and add a ramp, no way you can force people to cross kirkwood to widen the walk zone.

One side of that block on 14th doesn’t have a sidewalk but the other side does and I cross Kirkwood twice a day at that location no problem. Why does a ramp need to be added to the back entrance of ASFS as long as the front entrance is accessible? Does the law require it? I also don’t understand why you think the stairs need to be widened. I’ve walked up and down them more times than I can count and see no reason why they can’t handle an increase is use. In fact, when my kids were at ASFS those stairs were used by the 4th and fifth graders as a way to exit the property for fire drills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I may be wrong- but I actually don't think ASFS and Key will swap- although I think it is being actively considered. I really think they will both become neighborhood schools. That quadrant is where seats are needed the most. There is no land in that quadrant. The only way they are going to get seats there is by either 1)drawing funny neighborhood boundaries or 2)moving Key.

I don't think they will just swap b/c ultimately it will not help the seat problem.

This. the fundamental problem is more students then seats after the lottery change at key. Right now in bounds make up about half the population, but will likely drop to 1/12 all things being equal. That’s about 300 more kids in the shared zone to seat.

It needs to move where there are seats, leave both schools as neighborhoods schools.

Where's that? Mars? Nobody has 700 extra seats, not in any quadrant. I think they are definitely talking about a simple swap because they cannot undertake a multi-school shuffle. In terms of community, swapping these two schools makes sense because they are geographically close together and, because of their history of a shared boundary, there's overlap on sports teams and clubs/activities that are linked to school boundary.

Haha...we need neighborhood schools there so the most logical thing to do is right size immersion and to the Key->ATS->Tuckahoe/Nottingham shuffle.

[Anonymous]

If Key is left immersion what happens to the eastern end of the boundary? There won’t be enough room at ASFS with the surrounding walk zone drawn in, so where do those units end up? I would be ok with Long Branch if there was space (2 miles west on 50 during rush hour for aftercare pickup) but Taylor is just too far (3.5 miles through Rosslyn, onto GW Parkway and Spout run and then up during rush hour). There really isn’t a “do nothing” option for the board to fall back on for this one. That’s why they opened up the possibility of moving a program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There is a sidewalk up 14th St. all the way to Kirkwood; its on the south side of 14th St.

I’ll double check when I walk to school tomorrow but I’m pretty sure you are wrong. 14th streets side walk on the south is cracked and has tree roots pulling up on one side, and then has half a block where it doesn’t exist. On the side closer to the school, it doesn’t go all the way to kirkwood. That and that hill is is really steep. There needs to be a ramp added to the stairs for handicapped parents and parents with small children/strollers, or you can’t expand the walk zone past kirkwood. Either that or set up a crosswalk with a light at 13th street.
It’s a safety issue— you might be ok crossing it but think about literally hundreds of kids doing it on a daily basis. Someone is going to get hurt. And then people will point to this and say that aps put us in this position by saying if you inflate your walker numbers you will get to keep your school.

Honestly, pp, I think you are just literally trying to come up with roadblocks here. Kids and parents can cross Kirkwood with a crossing guard, kids and parents can walk up and down those stairs as they are currently designed, kids and parents can walk up and down 14th on the one side that has a sidewalk even if, gasp, it is a steep hill, and the school has existed for how many years already without a ramp at the back entrance so I don’t see how that would all of a sudden be required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There is a sidewalk up 14th St. all the way to Kirkwood; its on the south side of 14th St.

I’ll double check when I walk to school tomorrow but I’m pretty sure you are wrong. 14th streets side walk on the south is cracked and has tree roots pulling up on one side, and then has half a block where it doesn’t exist. On the side closer to the school, it doesn’t go all the way to kirkwood. That and that hill is is really steep. There needs to be a ramp added to the stairs for handicapped parents and parents with small children/strollers, or you can’t expand the walk zone past kirkwood. Either that or set up a crosswalk with a light at 13th street.
It’s a safety issue— you might be ok crossing it but think about literally hundreds of kids doing it on a daily basis. Someone is going to get hurt. And then people will point to this and say that aps put us in this position by saying if you inflate your walker numbers you will get to keep your school.

Honestly, pp, I think you are just literally trying to come up with roadblocks here. Kids and parents can cross Kirkwood with a crossing guard, kids and parents can walk up and down those stairs as they are currently designed, kids and parents can walk up and down 14th on the one side that has a sidewalk even if, gasp, it is a steep hill, and the school has existed for how many years already without a ramp at the back entrance so I don’t see how that would all of a sudden be required.

+100. There may be reasons to make Key a neighborhood school, but the inability of people to walk to ASFS from Lyon Village doesn't appear to be one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I may be wrong- but I actually don't think ASFS and Key will swap- although I think it is being actively considered. I really think they will both become neighborhood schools. That quadrant is where seats are needed the most. There is no land in that quadrant. The only way they are going to get seats there is by either 1)drawing funny neighborhood boundaries or 2)moving Key.

I don't think they will just swap b/c ultimately it will not help the seat problem.

This. the fundamental problem is more students then seats after the lottery change at key. Right now in bounds make up about half the population, but will likely drop to 1/12 all things being equal. That’s about 300 more kids in the shared zone to seat.

It needs to move where there are seats, leave both schools as neighborhoods schools.

Where's that? Mars? Nobody has 700 extra seats, not in any quadrant. I think they are definitely talking about a simple swap because they cannot undertake a multi-school shuffle. In terms of community, swapping these two schools makes sense because they are geographically close together and, because of their history of a shared boundary, there's overlap on sports teams and clubs/activities that are linked to school boundary.

Haha...we need neighborhood schools there so the most logical thing to do is right size immersion and to the Key->ATS->Tuckahoe/Nottingham shuffle.

That may help your neck of the woods but it does nothing to solve the growing Ballston area. They want ATS as a neighborhood school to deal with that. Not to house immersion. Sorry, try again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I may be wrong- but I actually don't think ASFS and Key will swap- although I think it is being actively considered. I really think they will both become neighborhood schools. That quadrant is where seats are needed the most. There is no land in that quadrant. The only way they are going to get seats there is by either 1)drawing funny neighborhood boundaries or 2)moving Key.

I don't think they will just swap b/c ultimately it will not help the seat problem.

This. the fundamental problem is more students then seats after the lottery change at key. Right now in bounds make up about half the population, but will likely drop to 1/12 all things being equal. That’s about 300 more kids in the shared zone to seat.

It needs to move where there are seats, leave both schools as neighborhoods schools.

Where's that? Mars? Nobody has 700 extra seats, not in any quadrant. I think they are definitely talking about a simple swap because they cannot undertake a multi-school shuffle. In terms of community, swapping these two schools makes sense because they are geographically close together and, because of their history of a shared boundary, there's overlap on sports teams and clubs/activities that are linked to school boundary.

Haha...we need neighborhood schools there so the most logical thing to do is right size immersion and to the Key->ATS->Tuckahoe/Nottingham shuffle.

That may help your neck of the woods but it does nothing to solve the growing Ballston area. They want ATS as a neighborhood school to deal with that. Not to house immersion. Sorry, try again.

Couldn’t some of Ballston/VA square be pulled into a neighborhood ASFS boundary? The county really needs to stop approving fill in developments without addressing the school capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I may be wrong- but I actually don't think ASFS and Key will swap- although I think it is being actively considered. I really think they will both become neighborhood schools. That quadrant is where seats are needed the most. There is no land in that quadrant. The only way they are going to get seats there is by either 1)drawing funny neighborhood boundaries or 2)moving Key.

I don't think they will just swap b/c ultimately it will not help the seat problem.

This. the fundamental problem is more students then seats after the lottery change at key. Right now in bounds make up about half the population, but will likely drop to 1/12 all things being equal. That’s about 300 more kids in the shared zone to seat.

It needs to move where there are seats, leave both schools as neighborhoods schools.

Where's that? Mars? Nobody has 700 extra seats, not in any quadrant. I think they are definitely talking about a simple swap because they cannot undertake a multi-school shuffle. In terms of community, swapping these two schools makes sense because they are geographically close together and, because of their history of a shared boundary, there's overlap on sports teams and clubs/activities that are linked to school boundary.

Haha...we need neighborhood schools there so the most logical thing to do is right size immersion and to the Key->ATS->Tuckahoe/Nottingham shuffle.

That may help your neck of the woods but it does nothing to solve the growing Ballston area. They want ATS as a neighborhood school to deal with that. Not to house immersion. Sorry, try again.

Couldn’t some of Ballston/VA square be pulled into a neighborhood ASFS boundary? The county really needs to stop approving fill in developments without addressing the school capacity.

With alot of the Barrett kids doing immersion at ATS that will open up additional seats for Ballston.

[Anonymous]

And you forget that McKinley could loose over 400 kids to Reed, that's a lot of space and not that far from either Ballston or ATS. I think creative boundary drawing is must. We need very thoughtful dive into better data in the fall. If APS projections are correct in 2021 when Fleet and Reed are open and Drew is neighborhood we will have an excess capacity. Well if that's correct this should be able to be worked out. A few of our Board members have alluded to some crazy boundary maps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I may be wrong- but I actually don't think ASFS and Key will swap- although I think it is being actively considered. I really think they will both become neighborhood schools. That quadrant is where seats are needed the most. There is no land in that quadrant. The only way they are going to get seats there is by either 1)drawing funny neighborhood boundaries or 2)moving Key.

I don't think they will just swap b/c ultimately it will not help the seat problem.

This. the fundamental problem is more students then seats after the lottery change at key. Right now in bounds make up about half the population, but will likely drop to 1/12 all things being equal. That’s about 300 more kids in the shared zone to seat.

It needs to move where there are seats, leave both schools as neighborhoods schools.

Where's that? Mars? Nobody has 700 extra seats, not in any quadrant. I think they are definitely talking about a simple swap because they cannot undertake a multi-school shuffle. In terms of community, swapping these two schools makes sense because they are geographically close together and, because of their history of a shared boundary, there's overlap on sports teams and clubs/activities that are linked to school boundary.

Haha...we need neighborhood schools there so the most logical thing to do is right size immersion and to the Key->ATS->Tuckahoe/Nottingham shuffle.

That may help your neck of the woods but it does nothing to solve the growing Ballston area. They want ATS as a neighborhood school to deal with that. Not to house immersion. Sorry, try again.

Couldn’t some of Ballston/VA square be pulled into a neighborhood ASFS boundary? The county really needs to stop approving fill in developments without addressing the school capacity.

Yes. After all, ASFS is located in the VA Square neighborhood, not Lyon Village or Cherrydale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And you forget that McKinley could loose over 400 kids to Reed, that's a lot of space and not that far from either Ballston or ATS. I think creative boundary drawing is must. We need very thoughtful dive into better data in the fall. If APS projections are correct in 2021 when Fleet and Reed are open and Drew is neighborhood we will have an excess capacity. Well if that's correct this should be able to be worked out. A few of our Board members have alluded to some crazy boundary maps.

Yes. That’s right. If they keep schools as they are, there will be crazy boundary maps. And I’ve heard one say they are terrified of that possibility.

If the numbers are even close, that excess capacity will be gone in another couple of years.

I’m wondering if they are considering an ATS and McKinley swap. Give ATS room to grow and neighborhood seats closer to Ballston.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I may be wrong- but I actually don't think ASFS and Key will swap- although I think it is being actively considered. I really think they will both become neighborhood schools. That quadrant is where seats are needed the most. There is no land in that quadrant. The only way they are going to get seats there is by either 1)drawing funny neighborhood boundaries or 2)moving Key.

I don't think they will just swap b/c ultimately it will not help the seat problem.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As far as walking to asfs, there are a lot of concerns with crossing kirkwood to widen its walk zone. Currently only a handful of kids walk to school, mostly from the Clarendon area. Those parents who walk regularly have expressed deep concerns about people regularly crossing kirkwood— it’s objectuvely not a safe road to cross and little can be done short of adding a traffic light. The county has to do a traffic study before doing something like that, so any traffic mitigation’s would be a few years off. There’s a bunch of extra concerns like the back stairs would need to be widened and a handicap ramp added, which is difficult since the county does not own the land directly next to the stairs (it’s someone’s house on either side). They likely will expand the walk zone to include part of Lyon village, but I really hope it doesn’t result in someone being hit by a car.

I agree Kirkwood is a tough street to cross. However, a crossing guard at the crosswalk at the bottom of the stairs would adequately deal with this problem. I don't see any reason why the stairs would have to be widened. I can't see any practical way to add a handicap ramp to get up that hill. Even if you did, it would be so steep as to be essentially unusable. If that is a requirement, then the project wouldn't work. I don't think that the ADA or common decency would require a ramp there. In any event, there is already a sidewalk which runs up 14th St. which could be used if necessary.

Put in a funicular there

[Anonymous]

I think for me the real problem with a swap is that there isn't a good swap out there that won't immediately overcrowd two schools or three depending on which schools are involved. And let's be honest there will be unavoidable costs as well. I would rather see some crazy boundaries than eliminate neighborhood seats anywhere. APS is terrible at predicting enrollment. Maybe there isn't a good way for them to address this but it should at the very least give them pause that hey we aren't always able to predict where seats will be needed. A bad boundary change is a lot easier to address than correcting the mistake of just switching schools and it turning out that oops we did need those right where they were. And you know they would drag their feet and put their heads in the sand rather than correct. I mean I think if staff came back in the spring and said ok we are going to do our boundaries in the fall 2018 and see these two new schools come on line and then in 2021 let's see what needs drastic change.

Dr. Murphy made it crystal clear that a swap involving schools would only happen once the new school opened near by. So if its a NW school that switches with an option program it would be fall 2021 when Reed opens and if it is a swap around the Drew/Fleet/Henry issues it would be earlier so that is why I think fall 2021 makes sense. Who know maybe by then APS will actually be able to predict where it needs the room for the next 9 years (there magical 2030 estimate) rather than there usual 2-3 window of changes.

I also don't think they will be able to engage parents enough to think through all the unforseen consequences of a swap between two different parts of the county. Will parents from a choice school that starts at an earlier time be ok with one that might start nearly an hour later? Is it just as easy to bus kids at those times? If the recommendation comes mid April and the school board acts 2 months later how are they ensuring this has actually been really well thought through. Not every family that would be impacted by the proposed moves has the time to follow their every changing and quick process.