APS: Jamestown, Discovery, Nottingham& McKinley

[Anonymous]

Most schools in Arlington have kids of different nationalities. Some, not just ATS, have many different nationalities represented. If grandma was from Italy, or your kid likes Germany, he can “represent” that country at IN. If that aspect is important to you dig for more meaningful stats than IN presentations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - Ignore the Nottingham troll. It’s a tired, old shtick and people don’t fall for it anymore. Expect to see the troll anytime crowding at McKinley is mentioned.

Will do! But I'm confused over the background story/history.

A short version is that when APS was doing some last minute boundary refinements and had the option to move some planning units out of Nottingham and to other schools, including McKinley, the Nottingham community rallied hard and successfully pushed all the units away. The McKinley community tried to point out to APS that the forecasting numbers they were using were wrong and they were going to drastically overcrowd McK, but APS listened to the louder voices and used their own forecasting numbers. Fast-forward two years, APS admits they made a mistake and their math was wrong. One of the Nottingham parents who was most vocal has privately apologized to some McKinley parents, and McKinley is drastically overcrowded while there is space at both Nottingham and Discovery.

The good news for OP's family with young kids is that in 2021 when her little one is in school the opening of Reed will hopefully provide relief to all the schools in the area, including McKinley, so this will be ancient history.

Why would she apologize for winning ?

Because the parent realized it's about 800+ real, live kids who lost and are crammed into a school more than 100 kids over capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - Ignore the Nottingham troll. It’s a tired, old shtick and people don’t fall for it anymore. Expect to see the troll anytime crowding at McKinley is mentioned.

Will do! But I'm confused over the background story/history.

A short version is that when APS was doing some last minute boundary refinements and had the option to move some planning units out of Nottingham and to other schools, including McKinley, the Nottingham community rallied hard and successfully pushed all the units away. The McKinley community tried to point out to APS that the forecasting numbers they were using were wrong and they were going to drastically overcrowd McK, but APS listened to the louder voices and used their own forecasting numbers. Fast-forward two years, APS admits they made a mistake and their math was wrong. One of the Nottingham parents who was most vocal has privately apologized to some McKinley parents, and McKinley is drastically overcrowded while there is space at both Nottingham and Discovery.

The good news for OP's family with young kids is that in 2021 when her little one is in school the opening of Reed will hopefully provide relief to all the schools in the area, including McKinley, so this will be ancient history.

OP again. Thanks for the history! Looks like Reed willresolve the McKinley overcrowding issue. I feel lucky being surrounded by so many great schools

OP, I think this exactly the attitude to keep on this issue. No matter where you end up, your child will go to an excellent school with wonderful opportunities. That doesn't mean there aren't some real issues within APS that need to addressed, just that perspective is important. I know several McKinley families, and while they all hate the overcrowding, they all still love their school and aren't looking to go elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - Ignore the Nottingham troll. It’s a tired, old shtick and people don’t fall for it anymore. Expect to see the troll anytime crowding at McKinley is mentioned.

Will do! But I'm confused over the background story/history.

A short version is that when APS was doing some last minute boundary refinements and had the option to move some planning units out of Nottingham and to other schools, including McKinley, the Nottingham community rallied hard and successfully pushed all the units away. The McKinley community tried to point out to APS that the forecasting numbers they were using were wrong and they were going to drastically overcrowd McK, but APS listened to the louder voices and used their own forecasting numbers. Fast-forward two years, APS admits they made a mistake and their math was wrong. One of the Nottingham parents who was most vocal has privately apologized to some McKinley parents, and McKinley is drastically overcrowded while there is space at both Nottingham and Discovery.

The good news for OP's family with young kids is that in 2021 when her little one is in school the opening of Reed will hopefully provide relief to all the schools in the area, including McKinley, so this will be ancient history.

OP again. Thanks for the history! Looks like Reed willresolve the McKinley overcrowding issue. I feel lucky being surrounded by so many great schools

OP, I think this exactly the attitude to keep on this issue. No matter where you end up, your child will go to an excellent school with wonderful opportunities. That doesn't mean there aren't some real issues within APS that need to addressed, just that perspective is important. I know several McKinley families, and while they all hate the overcrowding, they all still love their school and aren't looking to go elsewhere.

There’s no way Discovery could handle full capacity being such a new school. Nottingham is fine as is, but also would have broken from an influx of new kids. McKinley functions well for most kids, and could absorb an extra 120-150 for the good of North Arlington as a whole.

They’ll get their boutique-sized school when Reed opens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - Ignore the Nottingham troll. It’s a tired, old shtick and people don’t fall for it anymore. Expect to see the troll anytime crowding at McKinley is mentioned.

Will do! But I'm confused over the background story/history.

A short version is that when APS was doing some last minute boundary refinements and had the option to move some planning units out of Nottingham and to other schools, including McKinley, the Nottingham community rallied hard and successfully pushed all the units away. The McKinley community tried to point out to APS that the forecasting numbers they were using were wrong and they were going to drastically overcrowd McK, but APS listened to the louder voices and used their own forecasting numbers. Fast-forward two years, APS admits they made a mistake and their math was wrong. One of the Nottingham parents who was most vocal has privately apologized to some McKinley parents, and McKinley is drastically overcrowded while there is space at both Nottingham and Discovery.

The good news for OP's family with young kids is that in 2021 when her little one is in school the opening of Reed will hopefully provide relief to all the schools in the area, including McKinley, so this will be ancient history.

OP again. Thanks for the history! Looks like Reed willresolve the McKinley overcrowding issue. I feel lucky being surrounded by so many great schools

OP, I think this exactly the attitude to keep on this issue. No matter where you end up, your child will go to an excellent school with wonderful opportunities. That doesn't mean there aren't some real issues within APS that need to addressed, just that perspective is important. I know several McKinley families, and while they all hate the overcrowding, they all still love their school and aren't looking to go elsewhere.

There’s no way Discovery could handle full capacity being such a new school. Nottingham is fine as is, but also would have broken from an influx of new kids. McKinley functions well for most kids, and could absorb an extra 120-150 for the good of North Arlington as a whole.

They’ll get their boutique-sized school when Reed opens.

What?!? What do you mean Discovery can't handle full capacity because it's a new school? That's utterly absurd. And Nottingham can't handle an influx? Really? That is so ludicrous. Actually, it's the Nottingham parents who can't handle sharing their little paradise with anyone else. The kids and the school would be just fine. But since McKinley does "well" for "most" kids, it's ok for it to take on 150 extra students? So, what's your assessment of the frailty of Jamestown's staff? I guess Oakridge and Henry must have the top administrators and teachers in the entire district because they are clearly doing "well" for "most" of their students, even with a few hundred or so extra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There’s no way Discovery could handle full capacity being such a new school. Nottingham is fine as is, but also would have broken from an influx of new kids. McKinley functions well for most kids, and could absorb an extra 120-150 for the good of North Arlington as a whole.

They’ll get their boutique-sized school when Reed opens.

It is true that Discovery had some growing pains and some families successfully transferred back to their old schools. McKinley has a strong, flexible team and makes it work, but it still showed incompetence to move so many kids into a school when a simple review of numbers showed they made a mistake. Reed will not be a boutique. It's going to be 725 seats, the largest in the North.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most schools in Arlington have kids of different nationalities. Some, not just ATS, have many different nationalities represented. If grandma was from Italy, or your kid likes Germany, he can “represent” that country at IN. If that aspect is important to you dig for more meaningful stats than IN presentations.

I’m sorry, WTF is IN and how is it relevant to this discussion?

[Anonymous]

International Night

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:re: Diversity: no, the schools OP mentioned aren't diverse, because that part of the county is pretty wealthy and pretty white. See the other (29-page) discussions on this board for more talk about that particular subject. Diversity was one of the reasons we chose ATS over Nottingham - I did think there was some value in my daughter going to a school where the kids were not all white (or Asian or mixed Asian/White) and rich. I love that our school's international night has up to 40 different tables representing the different nationalities of our kids.

If you're looking for diversity, go toward the middle of the county - Barrett, Ashlawn, Long Branch, ATS all have more, in part because there's more multifamily residences and better public transportation. (I also know some parents of minority kids who very specifically opted out of schools that were 97% white because they didn't want their kids to be "the only" black/asian/hispanic kid in a classroom.) Two South Arlington schools - Oakridge and Henry - currently have a real mix of kids, but not sure what will happen in the rezoning.

re: gifted services at ATS - daughter was assessed in first grade (Reading/Math) and then reassessed in second (all 4 subjects). I can't really get a good handle on what the Gifted program does, exactly, and my daughter says she doesn't see the specialist much. She's been challenged, regardless, and the work has been differentiated in her classrooms. But if she were exceptionally gifted and I wanted her more challenged, we'd probably have to consider other schools outside of APS. Fairfax may do a better job, with the AAP centers.

Hmm... OP here. So ATS has students of different nationalities? I am foreign born. Got my citizenship two years ago. DH was born here but is bilingual and lived abroad for a bit. I didn’t realize that there were schools in Arlington with many kids of different nationalities. It makes me want to consider applying to ATS. The thing that I don’t like about it is the amount of homework. We want to teach DD our language and figured the best way to do so is to put her in an immersion aftercare program.

ATS attracts a lot of international families, part of the reason is probably what PP wrote above: you don’t want your kid to be the only kid that looks different.
But also because many international families are looking for a “demanding environment” of sorts? It’s more demanding for the parents I feel, the kids are having fun!
I would say ATS is perfectly racially diverse - not many schools in Arlington are... perhaps Henry, Oakridge, and Long Branch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:International Night

What does that have to do with anything?

[Anonymous]

I would bail on Arlington and move to Fairfax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:International Night

What does that have to do with anything?

Somebody mentioned a while back that their school had 40 or so countries represented at their international night. However, and I can remember this from my time in elementary school some 20+ years ago, basically anybody who has a relative or visited or just has a general affinity for any country can "represent" that country during IN. Basically, don't use a school's IN to believe that there are actually students who hail from those 40 some countries. That's not to say IN wasn't fun or beneficial, but it's not a yardstick for diversity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would bail on Arlington and move to Fairfax.

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

[Anonymous]

I'm a very happy Nottingham parent. About 90% of the students are walkers, which translates to several friends right around the corner (90% of families live within 1 mile of the school.) If your a social family and feel that the "community" of the school is important to you, Nottingham is a great choice. The pta and parents work very hard to enrich the experience for the kids.

Friends at Discovery seem happy, but as posters mentioned above, it's still new and figuring some things out. Also a great community feel though.

One friend that did the ATS route had wonderful things to say about the school. However, she said the biggest issue for her family is the lack of local families, barely anyone from their neighborhood to play with after school, etc. She just said her child is not having the social life after school she wished for.

I don't know enough about the others to comment.
HTH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a very happy Nottingham parent. About 90% of the students are walkers, which translates to several friends right around the corner (90% of families live within 1 mile of the school.) If your a social family and feel that the "community" of the school is important to you, Nottingham is a great choice. The pta and parents work very hard to enrich the experience for the kids.

Friends at Discovery seem happy, but as posters mentioned above, it's still new and figuring some things out. Also a great community feel though.

One friend that did the ATS route had wonderful things to say about the school. However, she said the biggest issue for her family is the lack of local families, barely anyone from their neighborhood to play with after school, etc. She just said her child is not having the social life after school she wished for.

I don't know enough about the others to comment.
HTH

Nottingham parent here as well - while 90% might be in the walk zone the cars line up to drop off kids in the morning it is hard to find parking in the afternoon. I bet only 30% - 40% actually walk.