Is Nottingham going to be the new option school in Arlington or its still being decided?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

[Anonymous]

It won't happen - the Nottingham community is up in arms over this, rightfully so. They are putting up a pretty good, legitimate argument against the option possibility. Like it or not, Nottingham has a community of well-educated, intelligent people. They are presenting facts and data in challenging APS. This is not a community of "entitled" people as DCUM has labeled. It's a tight knit group of bright folks who are ready to put up a fight.

I think the SB needs the boot!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Making Barcroft an immersion school has its own set of issues. Despite proximity to Barrett and Randolph, Barcroft is not "walkable" to these schools. Randolph is across George Mason and the Pike, neither of which can be crossed by young children per APS (esp the Pike). So, low income kids on the south part of the neighborhood who now walk would be bused. Some of those kids currently go to Claremont but APS is wrong if they think all of a sudden all the Spanish speaking kids in that area will suddenly clamor for immersion.

Kids on the north side of the neighborhood would go to Barrett, not Ashlawn, and they would have to take the bus across 50.

In the end, a very walkable school would become very bus-dependent - an those buses would be going through very quiet neighborhood streets.

Barrett has similar demographics to Barcroft and they would not improve with this move because to accommodate Barcroft kids, UMC families from Barrett would be moved to Ashlawn. Randolph's FR/L% would get even worse and UMC families in Barcroft will avoid that school just like Douglas Park parents do. The UMC transfers out of Barcroft as a neighborhood school would not change with this move.

If immersion was the neighborhood school why don't you think the Spanish speaking kids in that area would want to attend? Immersion is great for spanish speaking kids and their families. The kids currently zoned for Barcroft have been for the last several years effectively cut off from immersion b/c they were zoned to Claremont and were not one of the priority neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

[Anonymous]

If Reed gets delayed, I think the rightful thing to do would be to stop this madness and just swap key and asfs. Draw the south elementary boundaries, and then revisit this again when reed actually does come online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Reed gets delayed, I think the rightful thing to do would be to stop this madness and just swap key and asfs. Draw the south elementary boundaries, and then revisit this again when reed actually does come online.

They can't stop there. They will have to redraw boundaries because the Spanish immersion program, whether at Key or at ASFS, will be 100% lottery. They will have to redraw boundaries in NE Arlington at a bare minimum if one of those two buildings is an option program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You missed the memo, we’re not allowed to talk about our dead friend here. It makes other people uncomfortable because it means either having to acknowledge that there are very real safety concerns around Nottingam that the county steadfastly refuses to address, or having to say “who cares about your dead friend, she’s fungible.” But that’s okay, ATS kids are fungible too, right? If one of them dies in front of the school when a truck (or school bus, there will be 13 coming through twice a day to get their shot also) clips their minivan, that’s just good fortune for the next family on the waiting list.

Sorry, I know how uncomfortable it makes you all that I miss my friend and that I wouldn’t have to miss her if the county didn’t insist on maintaining such a dangerous stretch of road there.

I am sorry that you miss your friend and appalled that Arlington didn't do something about that road. That is unacceptable.
The ATS bus loop is off a main road and huge. While I want it to be a neighborhood school of proximity to my house, I can see that it would work for option. That said, I really don't think it's south enough and so I super extra don't think Nottingham is right...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

[Anonymous]

What's the option?

Privelege?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You missed the memo, we’re not allowed to talk about our dead friend here. It makes other people uncomfortable because it means either having to acknowledge that there are very real safety concerns around Nottingam that the county steadfastly refuses to address, or having to say “who cares about your dead friend, she’s fungible.” But that’s okay, ATS kids are fungible too, right? If one of them dies in front of the school when a truck (or school bus, there will be 13 coming through twice a day to get their shot also) clips their minivan, that’s just good fortune for the next family on the waiting list.

Sorry, I know how uncomfortable it makes you all that I miss my friend and that I wouldn’t have to miss her if the county didn’t insist on maintaining such a dangerous stretch of road there.

I am sorry that you miss your friend and appalled that Arlington didn't do something about that road. That is unacceptable.
The ATS bus loop is off a main road and huge. While I want it to be a neighborhood school of proximity to my house, I can see that it would work for option. That said, I really don't think it's south enough and so I super extra don't think Nottingham is right...

Thank you, I really appreciate that. A lot of us really are worried about the safety there, not just for ourselves but for anyone who goes to school there. We don't want what happened to Jenn to happen to anyone else, and it feels like such a slap for the county to tell us over and over again that no additional safety measures will be approved, not matter how badly they are needed. That stretch of Little Falls between Williamsburg and Kensington is so dangerous, people speed through there like crazy during morning arrival (and the rest of the day), they don't stop at crosswalks, I can't even count the number of times I've seen crossing guards almost hit over the years by cars that just don't stop (it just happened again yesterday at John Marshall/Little Falls). If we're walking through there when the crossing guards aren't out, we take a more circuitous route to Nottingham via safer crossings because some of the most direct crossings are just too dangerous, despite the crosswalks and signs.

The county actually did a traffic study of that part of Little Falls a few years back at the neighborhood's request. The answer we got was that based on traffic patterns during morning arrival at Nottingham, we more than qualified for traffic calming based on traffic volume, speeding, failure to stop at crosswalks and other moving violations, etc., but that they weren't going to do anything because we didn't also meet the threshold throughout enough of the rest of the day as well. The county openly admitted that morning arrival at Nottingham is too dangerous but that they wouldn't do anything to fix it. And now if you put an extra 20 buses (the buses needed to take kids to an option program at Nottingham and take current Nottingham-zone walkers elsewhere) and 100+ cars through there are the same time, it's going to be even worse. We are worried someone else will die, and it is troubling that APS doesn't appear to be concerned about that.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand. If it is dangerous for walkers and 82% of Nottingham is walkers, doesn’t it then make a ton of sense to have kids on buses instead. Aren’t they safer? Wouldn’t that be the best and safest choice for that site?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.