Another choice school in N Arlington?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:And $3M allocated to finding land for new parks, but $0 allocated to finding new land for schools. Even though a bunch of our old school buildings have already been turned into parks (Madison, Lubber Run). Please write to the School Board and the County Board people!!!

why not build a school/community center combo at Lubber Run like Boston-Hoffman/Carver or TJMS/TJCC?

Lubber Run was on the table as a potential site a couple of years ago when they ultimately decided to open Stratford and move HB to Wilson. The surrounding neighborhoods opposed it because of traffic and loss of green space and it was removed from consideration. In the current context perhaps it's time to revisit.

I live in Arlington Forest. The community opposed it because the proposal was to completely wipe out the community center and park/playground and put a middle school in the spot INSTEAD (not in addition to). I think a combo use of the lot would have probably succeeded, but I can't say for sure -- there's a huge contingent of low-income folks from right across the way who use the community center and playground a lot, and who are mostly spanish-speaking and didn't seem to be present at meetings. Then there's a huge majority of people who are older and pushed for green space and parks. All the meetings were held on weeknights at like 7pm, so I, with my baby, could not attend and represent myself -- I'm guessing other parents of young kids also couldn't!

The old-fashioned method of having community meetings in person really screws over the parents of young kids and skews the representation at meetings to the retired set or parents of older kids/empty nesters. It's not a friendly approach if bedtime is 7:30pm and hey -- you also need to pay a sitter $15/hr to go to a meeting where you MIGHT MAYBE have a chance to say something and listen to APS/ACB song-and-dance.

Mother of two here. Unless you are a single parent or are nursing a baby, it seems like you could go to a meeting? When else do you think these meetings should be held?

[Anonymous]

I was at the School Board meeting last night and I can kind of understand why they might not want too much participation. The public comment portion was basically an hour of people taking them to task for doing their jobs wrong, me included. I was impressed that I didn't catch any of them checking their email or surfing on their phones. That's gotta get old.

[Anonymous]

I would have loved to speak out at the school boards total fiscal failure and favoritism. But I work full time and am a single mom. I don't want to spent $15 an hour to attend. I plan to file my own comments.

[Anonymous]

The 12$million for the new Henry parking structure is a must. The SB made sure that the new elementary school would be at TJ, so now there is no where for anyone to park at the schools. No choice because it is such a small piece of land.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would have loved to speak out at the school boards total fiscal failure and favoritism. But I work full time and am a single mom. I don't want to spent $15 an hour to attend. I plan to file my own comments.

That's fine-- letters are okay too! Just please make your voice heard, even if it is only a 5 sentence email. It needs to go to the School Board and the County Board.

[Anonymous]

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Mother of two here. Unless you are a single parent or are nursing a baby, it seems like you could go to a meeting? When else do you think these meetings should be held?

DH travels for work a lot, and for some reason, these meetings seem to fall on the nights he's gone. A would get a sitter, but after working all day, I don't want to foist my kid off on a sitter and disrupt his routine.

However, I wish there was a way to participate. Maybe some others could offer sitting at the meeting for the rest of us? Just a thought.

[Anonymous]

I wrote a letter asking for the creation of a new high school and sent it to the school board and the county board. But I don't feel like my dumb letter is going to make a lick of difference.