Transfers in Arl. at elementary level

[Anonymous]

Unless your kid is zoned for Oakridge, stop complaining. Our numbers (overall and K) blow everyone else out of the water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Arguing and complaining about this NOW is retarded! It's a done deal. Move on! I heard MS and HS is the in topic now.

You've got to be kidding me with this. I have a hard time believing that you are an Arlington parent.

[Anonymous]

The solution to a lot of this is to turn Reed in Westover back into an ES, which it was to begin with... There are too many kids in the Overlee/Madison Manor/Westover/Dominion Hills/Bluemont pocket of Arlington (22205)-- and more families moving in every year. It is the one place in N. Arl where homes are still (somewhat) affordable, at least compared to 22207. Too late now, but frustrating that it was never seriously looked at five years ago when they knew this problem was coming. More frustrating for the McKinley families is the fact that the transfer decisions were made after the school plans were finished, even though everyone originally thought that the expansion would get rid of the trailers. If you've ever driven by McKinley (or looked on GoogleEarth), there is very little green space to begin with and now even less with trailers that are apparently going to be a permanent part of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The solution to a lot of this is to turn Reed in Westover back into an ES, which it was to begin with... There are too many kids in the Overlee/Madison Manor/Westover/Dominion Hills/Bluemont pocket of Arlington (22205)-- and more families moving in every year. It is the one place in N. Arl where homes are still (somewhat) affordable, at least compared to 22207. Too late now, but frustrating that it was never seriously looked at five years ago when they knew this problem was coming. More frustrating for the McKinley families is the fact that the transfer decisions were made after the school plans were finished, even though everyone originally thought that the expansion would get rid of the trailers. If you've ever driven by McKinley (or looked on GoogleEarth), there is very little green space to begin with and now even less with trailers that are apparently going to be a permanent part of the school.

Where would you move the programs currently operating in Reed?

As for trailers, that's true for all of the elementary schools. No one's proposing to expand Nottingham or Tuckahoe to get rid of them, so why should McKinley be the exception?

[Anonymous]

To be fair, Reed isn't that much closer to many 22205 homes than Tuckahoe or McKinley or Glebe are. And can you imagine what late afternoons would look like if the Westover plaza had to accommodate the after school egress of both Swanson AND a full size elementary school, even with different release times?

As a 22205 parent, I remember being asked by someone (school board? county board? civic association?) about five years ago about an interest in redeveloping Reed as an elementary and the majority response was no. Maybe this disinterest was short sighted on all of our parts as parents, and if so some of this was our own fault and not the school board's.

[Anonymous]

But Reed was built/refurbished with an eye to being able to convert it easily to an ES. I don't know where the current programs would go, but is it inconceivable that there might be an appropriate place, somewhere?

If it were a true neighborhood school, the kids could walk. And they'd be getting out more than an hour after Swanson release.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution to a lot of this is to turn Reed in Westover back into an ES, which it was to begin with... There are too many kids in the Overlee/Madison Manor/Westover/Dominion Hills/Bluemont pocket of Arlington (22205)-- and more families moving in every year. It is the one place in N. Arl where homes are still (somewhat) affordable, at least compared to 22207. Too late now, but frustrating that it was never seriously looked at five years ago when they knew this problem was coming. More frustrating for the McKinley families is the fact that the transfer decisions were made after the school plans were finished, even though everyone originally thought that the expansion would get rid of the trailers. If you've ever driven by McKinley (or looked on GoogleEarth), there is very little green space to begin with and now even less with trailers that are apparently going to be a permanent part of the school.

Where would you move the programs currently operating in Reed?

As for trailers, that's true for all of the elementary schools. No one's proposing to expand Nottingham or Tuckahoe to get rid of them, so why should McKinley be the exception?

DP, but I'll argue with you on this one. McKinley's addition is expanding it, with Ashlawn, into one of the two biggest elementaries in Arlington. I think it's a much bigger deal for a school with 700 kids to be overcapacity than one with 500. Elementary schools are supposed to be warm, comforting, friendly places for small kids, not giant, impersonal spaces like the buildings high schoolers are expected to deal with. If you're going to build an elementary school out to 700, it shouldn't have to deal with trailers, too. Nobody really WANTS their kid to go to a 700 kid elementary school (right? I mean, if any of us had to choose, wouldn't we pick the smaller school for our kids?), so at least let them use their small remaining green space for fields and playgrounds instead of trailers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arguing and complaining about this NOW is retarded! It's a done deal. Move on! I heard MS and HS is the in topic now.

You've got to be kidding me with this. I have a hard time believing that you are an Arlington parent.

Screw PC. The word perfectly sums up the discussion of this topic right now. That ship has sailed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution to a lot of this is to turn Reed in Westover back into an ES, which it was to begin with... There are too many kids in the Overlee/Madison Manor/Westover/Dominion Hills/Bluemont pocket of Arlington (22205)-- and more families moving in every year. It is the one place in N. Arl where homes are still (somewhat) affordable, at least compared to 22207. Too late now, but frustrating that it was never seriously looked at five years ago when they knew this problem was coming. More frustrating for the McKinley families is the fact that the transfer decisions were made after the school plans were finished, even though everyone originally thought that the expansion would get rid of the trailers. If you've ever driven by McKinley (or looked on GoogleEarth), there is very little green space to begin with and now even less with trailers that are apparently going to be a permanent part of the school.

Where would you move the programs currently operating in Reed?

As for trailers, that's true for all of the elementary schools. No one's proposing to expand Nottingham or Tuckahoe to get rid of them, so why should McKinley be the exception?

DP, but I'll argue with you on this one. McKinley's addition is expanding it, with Ashlawn, into one of the two biggest elementaries in Arlington. I think it's a much bigger deal for a school with 700 kids to be overcapacity than one with 500. Elementary schools are supposed to be warm, comforting, friendly places for small kids, not giant, impersonal spaces like the buildings high schoolers are expected to deal with. If you're going to build an elementary school out to 700, it shouldn't have to deal with trailers, too. Nobody really WANTS their kid to go to a 700 kid elementary school (right? I mean, if any of us had to choose, wouldn't we pick the smaller school for our kids?), so at least let them use their small remaining green space for fields and playgrounds instead of trailers.

Bravo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution to a lot of this is to turn Reed in Westover back into an ES, which it was to begin with... There are too many kids in the Overlee/Madison Manor/Westover/Dominion Hills/Bluemont pocket of Arlington (22205)-- and more families moving in every year. It is the one place in N. Arl where homes are still (somewhat) affordable, at least compared to 22207. Too late now, but frustrating that it was never seriously looked at five years ago when they knew this problem was coming. More frustrating for the McKinley families is the fact that the transfer decisions were made after the school plans were finished, even though everyone originally thought that the expansion would get rid of the trailers. If you've ever driven by McKinley (or looked on GoogleEarth), there is very little green space to begin with and now even less with trailers that are apparently going to be a permanent part of the school.

Where would you move the programs currently operating in Reed?

As for trailers, that's true for all of the elementary schools. No one's proposing to expand Nottingham or Tuckahoe to get rid of them, so why should McKinley be the exception?

DP, but I'll argue with you on this one. McKinley's addition is expanding it, with Ashlawn, into one of the two biggest elementaries in Arlington. I think it's a much bigger deal for a school with 700 kids to be overcapacity than one with 500. Elementary schools are supposed to be warm, comforting, friendly places for small kids, not giant, impersonal spaces like the buildings high schoolers are expected to deal with. If you're going to build an elementary school out to 700, it shouldn't have to deal with trailers, too. Nobody really WANTS their kid to go to a 700 kid elementary school (right? I mean, if any of us had to choose, wouldn't we pick the smaller school for our kids?), so at least let them use their small remaining green space for fields and playgrounds instead of trailers.

You don't need to be over capacity to need trailers. Once you hit 95% capacity, and potentially even lower, you end up needing trailers. To ensure that McKinley wouldn't need trailers for the reasonably foreseeable future despite population growth (and building in a buffer for changes in residence patterns), and to avoid the need to reshuffle students between schools every year to accomplish that, the county would need to take capacity of McKinley down to probably around 80%. Where are you going to put those 150+ students, especially without creating an even greater need for trailers elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, Reed isn't that much closer to many 22205 homes than Tuckahoe or McKinley or Glebe are. And can you imagine what late afternoons would look like if the Westover plaza had to accommodate the after school egress of both Swanson AND a full size elementary school, even with different release times?

As a 22205 parent, I remember being asked by someone (school board? county board? civic association?) about five years ago about an interest in redeveloping Reed as an elementary and the majority response was no. Maybe this disinterest was short sighted on all of our parts as parents, and if so some of this was our own fault and not the school board's.

Another 22205 parent here: Reed is in the middle of 22205. It would pull from McKinley, Tuckahoe & Glebe. Glebe could then relieve Taylor, another school getting no relief here. It could likely be filled entirely with walkers if they put a crossing guard on Washington Blvd. It used to be an ES years ago. Being close to Swanson wouldn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The solution to a lot of this is to turn Reed in Westover back into an ES, which it was to begin with... There are too many kids in the Overlee/Madison Manor/Westover/Dominion Hills/Bluemont pocket of Arlington (22205)-- and more families moving in every year. It is the one place in N. Arl where homes are still (somewhat) affordable, at least compared to 22207. Too late now, but frustrating that it was never seriously looked at five years ago when they knew this problem was coming. More frustrating for the McKinley families is the fact that the transfer decisions were made after the school plans were finished, even though everyone originally thought that the expansion would get rid of the trailers. If you've ever driven by McKinley (or looked on GoogleEarth), there is very little green space to begin with and now even less with trailers that are apparently going to be a permanent part of the school.

Right. Why build a school to 684 and then fill it to 745 within 2 years? It does look like they've had to dig out a hill just to make room for the school. I guess that is a creative solution, but it highlights how small the site is compared to the number of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But Reed was built/refurbished with an eye to being able to convert it easily to an ES. I don't know where the current programs would go, but is it inconceivable that there might be an appropriate place, somewhere?

If it were a true neighborhood school, the kids could walk. And they'd be getting out more than an hour after Swanson release.

I'm not aware of any APS buildings with vacant space (at least not vacant space that isn't already earmarked for something else), but I could be wrong about that. So sure, we could turn Reed into an elementary school (and I agree that it will probably happen in the future), but if there isn't any available space for the existing Reed programs, we can't do that without building another new building. And if they're going to build a new building either way, why not save money and just go through one construction project instead of two?

[Anonymous]

Just a note: Most of the space at Reed is The Children's School. That is a county program. APS does not need to find space them.

[Anonymous]

You don't need to be over capacity to need trailers. Once you hit 95% capacity, and potentially even lower, you end up needing trailers. To ensure that McKinley wouldn't need trailers for the reasonably foreseeable future despite population growth (and building in a buffer for changes in residence patterns), and to avoid the need to reshuffle students between schools every year to accomplish that, the county would need to take capacity of McKinley down to probably around 80%. Where are you going to put those 150+ students, especially without creating an even greater need for trailers elsewhere?

Excuse me, this sounds very much like you are making things up. I think you are saying that a school basically must either put an entire grade level outside in trailers or none at all and nothing else will do, and I have learned that there are many other options to make more classrooms within a school. For example, a school can have roving specials classes, where for example the Spanish or Art teacher comes to the kids instead of the kids coming to them. The 80% capacity is your made up number, not reality, and NOBODY is asking for your strawman 80% capacity.