APS Elementary Planning Mtg at Swanson - Option 1 in, Option 2 out, McKinley Moms out of contro

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Staff can't win here. If they produce a well thought out plan and defend it, they are accused of not listening to community feedback and having a predetermined outcome.
If they put out their initial thoughts as plans they are accused of coming up with half baked plans without doing the work to back it up.
Here- they clearly spent the summer working on the best plans they could get to. They are 'showing their work' in that in the engagement sessions they are showing some other plans they thought about and why they discarded them.

But here's the problem -- they're not "showing their work". They're saying, we see the work and you need to trust us that it'll all work out -- and McK got burned the last time they did this. I think "showing their work" would alleviate a lot of the concerns many parents have. Clearly they know which planning units they're planning to send to each school: they couldn't have formulated this plan without it. But they're NOT showing.

Huh? That data has been available for a while on the engage website. It’s there if you want it.

It does not show which planning unit is moving where.

Because that's not going to be decided until the boundary process. Do you think it's constructive today to have planning unit 22062 fighting about whether it should stay at Jamestown or move to Discovery in 2021? If so, please explain, because I don't see the value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Staff can't win here. If they produce a well thought out plan and defend it, they are accused of not listening to community feedback and having a predetermined outcome.
If they put out their initial thoughts as plans they are accused of coming up with half baked plans without doing the work to back it up.
Here- they clearly spent the summer working on the best plans they could get to. They are 'showing their work' in that in the engagement sessions they are showing some other plans they thought about and why they discarded them.

But here's the problem -- they're not "showing their work". They're saying, we see the work and you need to trust us that it'll all work out -- and McK got burned the last time they did this. I think "showing their work" would alleviate a lot of the concerns many parents have. Clearly they know which planning units they're planning to send to each school: they couldn't have formulated this plan without it. But they're NOT showing.

Huh? That data has been available for a while on the engage website. It’s there if you want it.

It does not show which planning unit is moving where.

It does show which planning units are moving. Someone FOIAed the data so they had to put it out there. They likely need to make some tweaks to balance capacity, but its going to be tweaks only. I've actually been wondering why more people aren't freaking out because something like 100 planning units are likely to be moving in Proposal 1, including two walkable Glebe PUs that are now slated to bus to Jamestown in the spreadsheet-- which created a huge backlash when APS tried to move Glebe PUs to Williamsburg in the MS process. Most parents are too lazy to go through an actual Excel spreadsheet though and won't react until APS puts out the map. But the spreadsheet that will be used to generate the Proposal 1 map is on the Engage website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Staff can't win here. If they produce a well thought out plan and defend it, they are accused of not listening to community feedback and having a predetermined outcome.
If they put out their initial thoughts as plans they are accused of coming up with half baked plans without doing the work to back it up.
Here- they clearly spent the summer working on the best plans they could get to. They are 'showing their work' in that in the engagement sessions they are showing some other plans they thought about and why they discarded them.

But here's the problem -- they're not "showing their work". They're saying, we see the work and you need to trust us that it'll all work out -- and McK got burned the last time they did this. I think "showing their work" would alleviate a lot of the concerns many parents have. Clearly they know which planning units they're planning to send to each school: they couldn't have formulated this plan without it. But they're NOT showing.

If they issued a full boundary map, people would start fighting micro battles about their individual planning unit. Look at how many people saw the representative boundary map and wanted to know which streets the lines were on so they could decide whether or not they cared. I think it's pretty clear from the maps and information presented that more people will be better off with program moves than without. Not EVERYONE will be better off but more people than if they left all buildings in place. Haven't people been asking them to stop making piecemeal decisions and to think strategically? That's what is finally happening. We can have the boundary thunderdome later.

+100 It's bad enough they have to deal with the freaking out of the McKinley/Key communities. Put the whole boundary change out there and then you are dealing with the entire district of complaining micromanagers. One thing at a time. I wouldn't blame them if they just make a boundary decision and don't even put it up for community comment, other than the couple weeks before presenting to the board and the board approval vote. The community has shown that they are incapable of being good-faith contributors to the process.

Just a side note. I’m pretty sure state law requires school districts to give notice and opportunity to comment if a boundary change will impact a certain percentage of residents. So no, even if they wanted to just push it through, they’re probably required to suffer through a lot of public bickering. I honestly don’t remember the particulars of the law - I’m sure someone out there can pull the citation. I wonder if the broken record comment from staff about the location decision not constituting a boundary decision somehow ties into what is and is not required under that law.

I'm sure they do have to put it out for community comment but they can keep it to the minimum required by law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Staff can't win here. If they produce a well thought out plan and defend it, they are accused of not listening to community feedback and having a predetermined outcome.
If they put out their initial thoughts as plans they are accused of coming up with half baked plans without doing the work to back it up.
Here- they clearly spent the summer working on the best plans they could get to. They are 'showing their work' in that in the engagement sessions they are showing some other plans they thought about and why they discarded them.

But here's the problem -- they're not "showing their work". They're saying, we see the work and you need to trust us that it'll all work out -- and McK got burned the last time they did this. I think "showing their work" would alleviate a lot of the concerns many parents have. Clearly they know which planning units they're planning to send to each school: they couldn't have formulated this plan without it. But they're NOT showing.

Huh? That data has been available for a while on the engage website. It’s there if you want it.

It does not show which planning unit is moving where.

It does show which planning units are moving. Someone FOIAed the data so they had to put it out there. They likely need to make some tweaks to balance capacity, but its going to be tweaks only. I've actually been wondering why more people aren't freaking out because something like 100 planning units are likely to be moving in Proposal 1, including two walkable Glebe PUs that are now slated to bus to Jamestown in the spreadsheet-- which created a huge backlash when APS tried to move Glebe PUs to Williamsburg in the MS process. Most parents are too lazy to go through an actual Excel spreadsheet though and won't react until APS puts out the map. But the spreadsheet that will be used to generate the Proposal 1 map is on the Engage website.

DP, but cool. I figured we'd be slated to to move under at least some of the scenarios, but that spreadsheet shows us staying at our neighborhood school no matter what. Now I'm really unconcerned with what APS does here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Staff can't win here. If they produce a well thought out plan and defend it, they are accused of not listening to community feedback and having a predetermined outcome.
If they put out their initial thoughts as plans they are accused of coming up with half baked plans without doing the work to back it up.
Here- they clearly spent the summer working on the best plans they could get to. They are 'showing their work' in that in the engagement sessions they are showing some other plans they thought about and why they discarded them.

But here's the problem -- they're not "showing their work". They're saying, we see the work and you need to trust us that it'll all work out -- and McK got burned the last time they did this. I think "showing their work" would alleviate a lot of the concerns many parents have. Clearly they know which planning units they're planning to send to each school: they couldn't have formulated this plan without it. But they're NOT showing.

Huh? That data has been available for a while on the engage website. It’s there if you want it.

It does not show which planning unit is moving where.

It does show which planning units are moving. Someone FOIAed the data so they had to put it out there. They likely need to make some tweaks to balance capacity, but its going to be tweaks only. I've actually been wondering why more people aren't freaking out because something like 100 planning units are likely to be moving in Proposal 1, including two walkable Glebe PUs that are now slated to bus to Jamestown in the spreadsheet-- which created a huge backlash when APS tried to move Glebe PUs to Williamsburg in the MS process. Most parents are too lazy to go through an actual Excel spreadsheet though and won't react until APS puts out the map. But the spreadsheet that will be used to generate the Proposal 1 map is on the Engage website.

I'd be shocked if the McKinley folks haven't turned it into a map to try to show how crazy proposals 1 and 2 are. That they haven't released said map suggests to me that boundaries look reasonable.

[Anonymous]

I now have sympathy for McKinley families who oppose the move (or the existing options). I'd be equally pissed if the staff screwed up data again. Did the PTA do its diligence this time to ensure the data won't be proved wrong again? Or was it 'too soft' as being accused for whatever reason to challenge the staff? Highly unlikely but still curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Staff can't win here. If they produce a well thought out plan and defend it, they are accused of not listening to community feedback and having a predetermined outcome.
If they put out their initial thoughts as plans they are accused of coming up with half baked plans without doing the work to back it up.
Here- they clearly spent the summer working on the best plans they could get to. They are 'showing their work' in that in the engagement sessions they are showing some other plans they thought about and why they discarded them.

But here's the problem -- they're not "showing their work". They're saying, we see the work and you need to trust us that it'll all work out -- and McK got burned the last time they did this. I think "showing their work" would alleviate a lot of the concerns many parents have. Clearly they know which planning units they're planning to send to each school: they couldn't have formulated this plan without it. But they're NOT showing.

Huh? That data has been available for a while on the engage website. It’s there if you want it.

It does not show which planning unit is moving where.

It does show which planning units are moving. Someone FOIAed the data so they had to put it out there. They likely need to make some tweaks to balance capacity, but its going to be tweaks only. I've actually been wondering why more people aren't freaking out because something like 100 planning units are likely to be moving in Proposal 1, including two walkable Glebe PUs that are now slated to bus to Jamestown in the spreadsheet-- which created a huge backlash when APS tried to move Glebe PUs to Williamsburg in the MS process. Most parents are too lazy to go through an actual Excel spreadsheet though and won't react until APS puts out the map. But the spreadsheet that will be used to generate the Proposal 1 map is on the Engage website.

I'd be shocked if the McKinley folks haven't turned it into a map to try to show how crazy proposals 1 and 2 are. That they haven't released said map suggests to me that boundaries look reasonable.

Heck of a lot better than if they don’t move option schools around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If what the PP said is true, Save McKinley needs to distance itself from the McKrazies who obviously only care about themselves and are willing to make sure everyone else suffers because of their own entitlement. However, the queen of screamers was wearing a SaveMcK shirt on tv, so.........

The #SaveMcKinley crew is a self-created group of parents who got pissed at the McKinley PTA for not being aggressive enough to advocate for their family's interests. Emilie Heller-- aka McKrazy-- has yelled at our PTA leadership the same way she has yelled at APS staff. She yelled at our PTA president for being "too nice" during two of the recent PTA meetings. (And yes, I mean yelled.) Note, our PTA president is a 5th grade parent who got stuck in this role for a 2nd year in a row because no other parents volunteered to take over for her last year. Emilie should be thanking her, but instead she just throws insults. Most of the more vocal #SaveMcKinley crew are parents who never show up for PTA meetings and never volunteer. I don't think closing McKinley is the right decision because we can't open Reed with 830 students (see Proposal #1) but I am so horrified at the way some of these parents are acting.

Where is this 830 number coming from? From what I can see, proposal #1 puts an estimated 702 at Reed (and that's without boundary refinements).

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Analsysis-of-Students-Moving-rev_2019_Nov_16.pdf

That's the old version. APS updated it after some errors were pointed out in the Nov. 16 analysis. You need to download the "Analysis of Walkers and Bus Eligible Students by Proposal" spreadsheet that was released on November 27. You can find that spreadsheet here. https://www.apsva.us/engage/planning-for-2020-elementary-school-boundary-process/

I am not making up the 830 number for Reed. Its on the spreadsheet-- Tab 2, Cell X32.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Staff can't win here. If they produce a well thought out plan and defend it, they are accused of not listening to community feedback and having a predetermined outcome.
If they put out their initial thoughts as plans they are accused of coming up with half baked plans without doing the work to back it up.
Here- they clearly spent the summer working on the best plans they could get to. They are 'showing their work' in that in the engagement sessions they are showing some other plans they thought about and why they discarded them.

But here's the problem -- they're not "showing their work". They're saying, we see the work and you need to trust us that it'll all work out -- and McK got burned the last time they did this. I think "showing their work" would alleviate a lot of the concerns many parents have. Clearly they know which planning units they're planning to send to each school: they couldn't have formulated this plan without it. But they're NOT showing.

Huh? That data has been available for a while on the engage website. It’s there if you want it.

It does not show which planning unit is moving where.

That hasn't been definitively decided yet. The boundary process will shake out those details.

But they did share their assumptions on PUs for the proposals on one of the spreadsheets. The walker analysis has all PUs for the proposals.

Some guy put it on a map too if you want to see it.
https://www.arlington-analytics.com/modelBuildBoundary.php

Haven't you been paying attention?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If what the PP said is true, Save McKinley needs to distance itself from the McKrazies who obviously only care about themselves and are willing to make sure everyone else suffers because of their own entitlement. However, the queen of screamers was wearing a SaveMcK shirt on tv, so.........

The #SaveMcKinley crew is a self-created group of parents who got pissed at the McKinley PTA for not being aggressive enough to advocate for their family's interests. Emilie Heller-- aka McKrazy-- has yelled at our PTA leadership the same way she has yelled at APS staff. She yelled at our PTA president for being "too nice" during two of the recent PTA meetings. (And yes, I mean yelled.) Note, our PTA president is a 5th grade parent who got stuck in this role for a 2nd year in a row because no other parents volunteered to take over for her last year. Emilie should be thanking her, but instead she just throws insults. Most of the more vocal #SaveMcKinley crew are parents who never show up for PTA meetings and never volunteer. I don't think closing McKinley is the right decision because we can't open Reed with 830 students (see Proposal #1) but I am so horrified at the way some of these parents are acting.

Where is this 830 number coming from? From what I can see, proposal #1 puts an estimated 702 at Reed (and that's without boundary refinements).

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Analsysis-of-Students-Moving-rev_2019_Nov_16.pdf

Reed opening with 830 students is just #SaveMcKinley Fake News. Only 57 days until the Feb 6th SB vote...not enough time for the APS Staff to play another round of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" Ashlawn is really a nice school...they should be happy so many are staying together and going there.

[Anonymous]

I wonder what the #SaveMcKinleys think about the no-moves option. The McK they "bought" into won't be the same school, not at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I now have sympathy for McKinley families who oppose the move (or the existing options). I'd be equally pissed if the staff screwed up data again. Did the PTA do its diligence this time to ensure the data won't be proved wrong again? Or was it 'too soft' as being accused for whatever reason to challenge the staff? Highly unlikely but still curious.

The PTA president urged all of us to slow down and take the time to digest the information. She said (and repeated in her letter to APS) that McKinley wanted first and foremost to be making decisions based on good data, even if in the end that data means that McKinley is the best location for ATS. (And the PTA is finding problems in the data that have already resulted in corrections posted from APS staff.) The #SaveMcKinley crowd got angry that was taking too long and accused the PTA president of being too nice, so they started their own movement. Emilie, in particular, yelled at the PTA meeting that McKinley always gets screwed because the PTA doesn't scream as loudly as Nottingham and other schools. She really does see herself as some sort of Rosa Parks, as she said herself on AEM. Her most recent trashing of Ashlawn is especially bizarre, given that she lives in Dominion Hills, where half the neighborhood already goes to Ashlawn. I'm sure everyone east of Lebanon Street is going to love running into her at the DH summer picnic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what the #SaveMcKinleys think about the no-moves option. The McK they "bought" into won't be the same school, not at all.

Anyone idea of what the boundaries would look like if McK, Reed and Ashlawn are all neighborhood schools? That is a lot of seats to fill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what the #SaveMcKinleys think about the no-moves option. The McK they "bought" into won't be the same school, not at all.

It would depend on whether they get to stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what the #SaveMcKinleys think about the no-moves option. The McK they "bought" into won't be the same school, not at all.

Anyone idea of what the boundaries would look like if McK, Reed and Ashlawn are all neighborhood schools? That is a lot of seats to fill.

In the no-moves map, McK kept the immediate neighborhood and then went way down into S. Arlington.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Representative-Boundary-Scenario.png

Let McKrazy have that, then we will talk about her house value.