The demise of McKinley ES (APS)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also a McK parent and I support the school going to Reed --it seems to make a lot of sense. But since we've been burned by the school board before (hello, 800 students at McK) we just want to see some data showing how they came to these conclusions and who will go where. We don't want Reed to be over capacity in two years because they miscalculated...and we also don't want it to turn out that they really plan to send a bunch of walkable Reed planning units elsewhere to fill capacity at Discovery, Nottingham and Tuckahoe.
The biggest problem with the way they're doing this is the lack of transparency: they primed everyone for what was going to happen with all the previous studies and now they're saying oh, we're going to do the opposite! Just show us what you've got, and then I at least will be on board.

What do you think they primed you for and now are changing course on? They’ve been clear for months that Key is moving but not to ASFS, so it has to go somewhere but they didn’t propose a site until now.

I'm not the PP, but I think what she means is that APS did a study of a bunch of school locations in 2018 and concluded at that time that McKinley was a poor location for an option school site. You can find that study on Engage. I think its under the Key-ASFS swap initiative. Based on those metrics, APS concluded Nottingham was the best location for an option school. (At the time, it seemed that Nattress was looking at leaving ATS where it is, but opening a new IB school at Nottingham.) That one Nottingham mom organized a petition and got someone in Don Beyer's office involved. Then APS just pulled everything off the table and said they would revisit. So what changed? That's what people are asking. They want to make sure that this isn't behind the scenes politics. I agree with PP that if APS would explain what changed between 2018 and now, most people in Westover would be fine with the plan (all but a few neighbors immediately around McKinley anyway). But nobody wants Reed to open over-capacity. Starting at 725 student school at 702 kids doesn't seem like a great plan when they are still building new multi-family housing in Westover-- and that's not hypothetical, they are building it right now.

You mean the review they called off in part because they realized their process was fundamentally flawed? You want them to go back to what they came to realize were faulty assumptions and rely on old data rather than current projections, because you think that will give the best result? That sounds like brilliant idea.

[Anonymous]

As a McK parent, I want to make it perfectly clear that there are plenty of us who are in favor of the move from McK to Reed and that the #saveFerris holds aren't representative of the majority of the school. In fact, they've been less than clear on their objective anyway. I agree 100% that opening the school at 702 is a poor plan b/c they ALWAYS underestimate the growth in this area. I'd like to see actual boundaries established closer to the 2021 opening date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also a McK parent and I support the school going to Reed --it seems to make a lot of sense. But since we've been burned by the school board before (hello, 800 students at McK) we just want to see some data showing how they came to these conclusions and who will go where. We don't want Reed to be over capacity in two years because they miscalculated...and we also don't want it to turn out that they really plan to send a bunch of walkable Reed planning units elsewhere to fill capacity at Discovery, Nottingham and Tuckahoe.
The biggest problem with the way they're doing this is the lack of transparency: they primed everyone for what was going to happen with all the previous studies and now they're saying oh, we're going to do the opposite! Just show us what you've got, and then I at least will be on board.

What do you think they primed you for and now are changing course on? They’ve been clear for months that Key is moving but not to ASFS, so it has to go somewhere but they didn’t propose a site until now.

I'm not the PP, but I think what she means is that APS did a study of a bunch of school locations in 2018 and concluded at that time that McKinley was a poor location for an option school site. You can find that study on Engage. I think its under the Key-ASFS swap initiative. Based on those metrics, APS concluded Nottingham was the best location for an option school. (At the time, it seemed that Nattress was looking at leaving ATS where it is, but opening a new IB school at Nottingham.) That one Nottingham mom organized a petition and got someone in Don Beyer's office involved. Then APS just pulled everything off the table and said they would revisit. So what changed? That's what people are asking. They want to make sure that this isn't behind the scenes politics. I agree with PP that if APS would explain what changed between 2018 and now, most people in Westover would be fine with the plan (all but a few neighbors immediately around McKinley anyway). But nobody wants Reed to open over-capacity. Starting at 725 student school at 702 kids doesn't seem like a great plan when they are still building new multi-family housing in Westover-- and that's not hypothetical, they are building it right now.

Wow. You’re not even pretending you’re not trying to throw another school under the bus. Didn’t your PTA president tell you that was a bad idea?

[Anonymous]

If you want to avoid Reed being overcrowded, putting ATS at Nottingham would be a really stupid idea. I can't even take you people seriously anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a McK parent, I want to make it perfectly clear that there are plenty of us who are in favor of the move from McK to Reed and that the #saveFerris holds aren't representative of the majority of the school. In fact, they've been less than clear on their objective anyway. I agree 100% that opening the school at 702 is a poor plan b/c they ALWAYS underestimate the growth in this area. I'd like to see actual boundaries established closer to the 2021 opening date.

I seem to recall a certain school population shrieking when Discovery opened under capacity.

[Anonymous]

This is the NW hoarding seats. You don’t want to open Reed at 702?! Why? We need all the seats right now. Schools outside of the NW are exploding. You don’t get to keep seats because you might be overcrowded again in the future. All the elementaries are going to be overcrowded again in the near future. We need 3 new elementaries. We cannot allow Westover to reserve some seats for the future. You all have lost your minds with your privilege and your selfishness. Wow.

[Anonymous]

There was no planned growth in the Discovery or Nottingham area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the NW hoarding seats. You don’t want to open Reed at 702?! Why? We need all the seats right now. Schools outside of the NW are exploding. You don’t get to keep seats because you might be overcrowded again in the future. All the elementaries are going to be overcrowded again in the near future. We need 3 new elementaries. We cannot allow Westover to reserve some seats for the future. You all have lost your minds with your privilege and your selfishness. Wow.

Hey there, genius. It's not about reed at 702. It's Reed at 702 while the adjacent schools are under 90% capacity. It's about balance so they all can absorb more students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the NW hoarding seats. You don’t want to open Reed at 702?! Why? We need all the seats right now. Schools outside of the NW are exploding. You don’t get to keep seats because you might be overcrowded again in the future. All the elementaries are going to be overcrowded again in the near future. We need 3 new elementaries. We cannot allow Westover to reserve some seats for the future. You all have lost your minds with your privilege and your selfishness. Wow.

The hoarding is at Jamestown, Nottingham, Discovery and Tuckahoe. Look at the charts.

[Anonymous]

Nottingham parents on here keep saying the 2018 facility study was faulty, but APS has never retracted it. And whatever faults were found have never been made public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the NW hoarding seats. You don’t want to open Reed at 702?! Why? We need all the seats right now. Schools outside of the NW are exploding. You don’t get to keep seats because you might be overcrowded again in the future. All the elementaries are going to be overcrowded again in the near future. We need 3 new elementaries. We cannot allow Westover to reserve some seats for the future. You all have lost your minds with your privilege and your selfishness. Wow.

As a north-of-Lee-Highway person, I have zero issue with Reed opening at 702. I actually question whether it should open even that full, because it's really pushing effective capacity (as opposed to technical capacity). But the notion that an area that's about 170 students over capacity right now without pre-k and about 210 with pre-k (I'm including Ashlawn with McKinley and Glebe to be generous) won't have an excess number of seats in a couple of years when they get 725 more is absolutely ridiculous. Right now, the schools north of Lee Highway have 185 extra seats without pre-k, about 65 with, and those schools are projected to pick up more students over the next five years.

So you tell me, which area is likely to have more excess seats in five years, the one that's currently 170-210 over capacity but is going to get 725 new seats, or the one that's 65-185 under capacity but is getting no new seats? You can really look at those numbers and say north of Lee Highway is the area that obviously should get an option school, giving it potentially a 400-500 seat deficit at that point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nottingham parents on here keep saying the 2018 facility study was faulty, but APS has never retracted it. And whatever faults were found have never been made public.

The faults absolutely were made public. That you weren’t paying attention doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

[Anonymous]

APS has absolutely explained what has changed between the 2018 location review, and now. The criteria have changed. SOme of the criteria are the same- e.g. walking- but the rest are basically different.
These are the current criteria-
Q: How did staff create these proposals?

A: After sharing the challenges facing the 2020 Boundary Change Process with instructional leaders and central office departments, staff created proposals that focused on:

Keeping as many students together in each school community as possible
Walking to neighborhood schools as much as possible
Addressing the need for neighborhood seats in Rosslyn-Ballston corridor
Using schools to maximum capacity and find efficiencies and keep resources in the classroom
Increasing access to options by utilizing a larger building or moving to a more central site
https://www.apsva.us/engage/planning-for-2020-elementary-school-boundary-process/faqs-elementary-school-planning-for-2021-boundary/



the first one- keeping students together- appears to me to be the reason why staff moved from optioning Nottingham to optioning McKinley.

i took this from the FAQ's- but it has basically been in every single lead off to every presentation about this topic so its not like its been buried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the NW hoarding seats. You don’t want to open Reed at 702?! Why? We need all the seats right now. Schools outside of the NW are exploding. You don’t get to keep seats because you might be overcrowded again in the future. All the elementaries are going to be overcrowded again in the near future. We need 3 new elementaries. We cannot allow Westover to reserve some seats for the future. You all have lost your minds with your privilege and your selfishness. Wow.

As a north-of-Lee-Highway person, I have zero issue with Reed opening at 702. I actually question whether it should open even that full, because it's really pushing effective capacity (as opposed to technical capacity). But the notion that an area that's about 170 students over capacity right now without pre-k and about 210 with pre-k (I'm including Ashlawn with McKinley and Glebe to be generous) won't have an excess number of seats in a couple of years when they get 725 more is absolutely ridiculous. Right now, the schools north of Lee Highway have 185 extra seats without pre-k, about 65 with, and those schools are projected to pick up more students over the next five years.

So you tell me, which area is likely to have more excess seats in five years, the one that's currently 170-210 over capacity but is going to get 725 new seats, or the one that's 65-185 under capacity but is getting no new seats? You can really look at those numbers and say north of Lee Highway is the area that obviously should get an option school, giving it potentially a 400-500 seat deficit at that point?

Below Lee is getting 725, but losing 683. That means they will still be over capacity. That’s why more PUs need to move to Tuckahoe and Nottingham.

[Anonymous]

Happening to have excess seats in your neighborhood a la Jamestown or Discovery is not hoarding. No one in those neighborhoods or Tuckahoe is saying they shouldn’t fill to capacity. Arguing against using empty seats (saying that you shouldn’t fill Reed) because you might need them later is hoarding. And that’s on Westover or whoever is pushing that argument from McKinley. Fill. All. The. Seats. Including Drew and Jamestown and everywhere in between.