Is Nottingham going to be the new option school in Arlington or its still being decided?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand. If it is dangerous for walkers and 82% of Nottingham is walkers, doesn’t it then make a ton of sense to have kids on buses instead. Aren’t they safer? Wouldn’t that be the best and safest choice for that site?

Not if you're someone who gets driven to school needs to cross a street after parking. Not if you're the kids who would have to cross 26th and/or Ohio to get to Tuckahoe while bus and car traffic is funneling through there from Sycamore. Not if you're going to be a Discovery walker who has to get across Little Falls and then through the Harrison/Williamsburg intersection when increased bus/car traffic is coming down Williamsburg.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Thank you, I really appreciate that. A lot of us really are worried about the safety there, not just for ourselves but for anyone who goes to school there. We don't want what happened to Jenn to happen to anyone else, and it feels like such a slap for the county to tell us over and over again that no additional safety measures will be approved, not matter how badly they are needed. That stretch of Little Falls between Williamsburg and Kensington is so dangerous, people speed through there like crazy during morning arrival (and the rest of the day), they don't stop at crosswalks, I can't even count the number of times I've seen crossing guards almost hit over the years by cars that just don't stop (it just happened again yesterday at John Marshall/Little Falls). If we're walking through there when the crossing guards aren't out, we take a more circuitous route to Nottingham via safer crossings because some of the most direct crossings are just too dangerous, despite the crosswalks and signs.

The county actually did a traffic study of that part of Little Falls a few years back at the neighborhood's request. The answer we got was that based on traffic patterns during morning arrival at Nottingham, we more than qualified for traffic calming based on traffic volume, speeding, failure to stop at crosswalks and other moving violations, etc., but that they weren't going to do anything because we didn't also meet the threshold throughout enough of the rest of the day as well. The county openly admitted that morning arrival at Nottingham is too dangerous but that they wouldn't do anything to fix it. And now if you put an extra 20 buses (the buses needed to take kids to an option program at Nottingham and take current Nottingham-zone walkers elsewhere) and 100+ cars through there are the same time, it's going to be even worse. We are worried someone else will die, and it is troubling that APS doesn't appear to be concerned about that.

Likely doesn't make you feel any better, but this is the county's answer all over the place. I live near two schools and we have significant problems with speeding, parents making u-turns after doing drop-off, and general obnoxious behavior, and yet the volume isn't enough over the course of the day to get traffic calming measures. We've tried for years, and just a few weeks ago had a neighbor struck in an intersection. Luckily it was at a low rate of speed so she lived unlike Jennifer, but still has significant injuries and hasn't returned home yet. I say this only to point out that unfortunately it isn't unique to Nottingham. What's even more shameful is that most of those dangerous drivers near the schools are themselves parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

[Anonymous]

What happened to Jennifer L was awful & tragic. But Nottingham is not more inherently dangerous than other schools. Kids cross 26th and Sycamore everyday. I see them on my commute. Kids cross Carlin Springs. And Glebe. So argue for more safety precautions. But don’t exploit a tragedy in the interest of your convenience. That’s not ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happened to Jennifer L was awful & tragic. But Nottingham is not more inherently dangerous than other schools. Kids cross 26th and Sycamore everyday. I see them on my commute. Kids cross Carlin Springs. And Glebe. So argue for more safety precautions. But don’t exploit a tragedy in the interest of your convenience. That’s not ok.

Bingo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happened to Jennifer L was awful & tragic. But Nottingham is not more inherently dangerous than other schools. Kids cross 26th and Sycamore everyday. I see them on my commute. Kids cross Carlin Springs. And Glebe. So argue for more safety precautions. But don’t exploit a tragedy in the interest of your convenience. That’s not ok.

Bingo.

News Flash - she wasn't crossing the street and it wasn't at the start or end of the school day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happened to Jennifer L was awful & tragic. But Nottingham is not more inherently dangerous than other schools. Kids cross 26th and Sycamore everyday. I see them on my commute. Kids cross Carlin Springs. And Glebe. So argue for more safety precautions. But don’t exploit a tragedy in the interest of your convenience. That’s not ok.

26th and Sycamore has a traffic light. That makes a big difference in managing traffic because at any given time, two directions of traffic must stop. That's not the case when you have stop signs, once people stop there they will sometimes proceed through if they feel it is clear enough despite the crossing guard holding traffic.

Even still, I recognize this issue is not limited to Nottingham. But that means all of us should be asking the school board to give due consideration to traffic safety issues around the various sites, to make sure they are finding sites that are on the safer side. None of us want to see deaths at any of the APS schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happened to Jennifer L was awful & tragic. But Nottingham is not more inherently dangerous than other schools. Kids cross 26th and Sycamore everyday. I see them on my commute. Kids cross Carlin Springs. And Glebe. So argue for more safety precautions. But don’t exploit a tragedy in the interest of your convenience. That’s not ok.

Bingo.

News Flash - she wasn't crossing the street and it wasn't at the start or end of the school day.

Thank you for pointing this out. The particular problem there is the bizarre narrowing of Little Falls in the block just in front of Nottingham, which means you have cars parking right against travel lanes that are too narrow to accommodate things like trucks and buses with risking hitting people trying to get in and out of their vehicles, all while bike traffic is merging into vehicle traffic for just that block and people are trying to cross a mid-block crosswalk that drivers sometimes observe and sometimes don't, making traffic flow inconsistent and increasing distractions of people who are paying attention to it. The speed at which people fly through there and the lack of any stop signs along the way to slow down traffic just compounds the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happened to Jennifer L was awful & tragic. But Nottingham is not more inherently dangerous than other schools. Kids cross 26th and Sycamore everyday. I see them on my commute. Kids cross Carlin Springs. And Glebe. So argue for more safety precautions. But don’t exploit a tragedy in the interest of your convenience. That’s not ok.

Your dismissive attitude toward a tragedy in the interest of your convenience is gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.

Let's not exaggerate. Jamestown and Taylor aren't going to absorb 300 students from Discovery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.

Let's not exaggerate. Jamestown and Taylor aren't going to absorb 300 students from Discovery.

300...that is the exaggeration. Because the actual number is 134. McK could get a few PUs below 66 and Jamestown/Taylor could get some from Discovery. Nottingham's capacity is 513-379=134. Where did you get 300 from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happened to Jennifer L was awful & tragic. But Nottingham is not more inherently dangerous than other schools. Kids cross 26th and Sycamore everyday. I see them on my commute. Kids cross Carlin Springs. And Glebe. So argue for more safety precautions. But don’t exploit a tragedy in the interest of your convenience. That’s not ok.

Bingo.

News Flash - she wasn't crossing the street and it wasn't at the start or end of the school day.

I find this entire thread sad and disturbing at this point. Please don’t exploit someone’s death to make an argument one way or the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.

Which brings us full circle back to the reason why the NW quadrant is being eyed for an option elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What happened to Jennifer L was awful & tragic. But Nottingham is not more inherently dangerous than other schools. Kids cross 26th and Sycamore everyday. I see them on my commute. Kids cross Carlin Springs. And Glebe. So argue for more safety precautions. But don’t exploit a tragedy in the interest of your convenience. That’s not ok.

Bingo.

News Flash - she wasn't crossing the street and it wasn't at the start or end of the school day.

I find this entire thread sad and disturbing at this point. Please don’t exploit someone’s death to make an argument one way or the other.

I’m with you. It’s disgusting.