The demise of McKinley ES (APS)
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Anonymous
Yes. We t was part of The Natrass Plan. Yes, Nottingham found out and flipped out. APS tabled all of it, re-evaluated and came back with these 2 options. |
Anonymous
Most likely a permitting issue with the county. APS and the county having sharing agreements for all of the field space at the schools, and the county is entitled to a certain portion of non-school hour access to the fields, which they then rent to sports leagues andnother groups to raise revenue. If APS puts trailers there, the county won’t have access to the space. Therefore, the county won’t grant them a permit that would allow them to put trailers there. |
Anonymous
It was actually a relatively small portion of the walkers that could have walked to Tuckahoe or Discovery. Even if they took away the overlapping walk zones, Nottingham was still one of the most walkable schools in the county, which was one of the many flaws with APS’s analysis at the time. |
Anonymous
I don’t really object to this part of the plan. I don’t like option 2. The need for neighborhood seats in the SW part of the county isn’t going to be addressed by moving a neighborhood school into a smaller school that will have to have a smaller boundary, and pushing off at least some of those students to adjacent schools that also don’t have permanent space. The time for this conversation is when they have the money to build a new school or build additions, and not before then. Why move neighborhood kids into trailers right now when they don’t have to? |
Anonymous
Fair point. However, McK was supposed to have more land, more play space and real ball courts not the .5 or 2/3 or whatever they are now. And they are all dangerously close to each other. McK was also supposed to get two outdoor classrooms...didn't happen. |
Anonymous
This makes the most sense. Option expands, deflates the glebe/mck/ashlawn balloons and provides more opportunities to the of families on the wait list. |
Anonymous
Not happening. This worsens the overcrowding problem at the 3 listed sites and the SB isn't giving a new school to an option program again. Besides, most of McK is in favor of plan 1. Don't let a small group trick you. |
Anonymous
APS has already explained why they chose MCK over Reed. If they want to add more families off the waitlist, the MCK trailers also provide that option. It costs more annually for the busing to MCK vs. Reed b/c the majority of students live above 66 and the accessibility is much better at MCK. A portion of MCK around the school is up in arms, but there really isn't a lot of pushback. APS isn't going to change direction for a small group of protesters. Even the principal of MCK doesn't stand behind that group. It's sad for a few families, but their kids will be in a better school with less crowding when the dust settles. They need to stop pulling a chicken little. |
Anonymous
| But Reed can't have trailers so the only way to fill it to 100%, aka fully utilize every inch of a new building, is make it an option school which APS controls enrollment numbers. |
Anonymous
With the new design, Reed can accommodate trailers if needed. Give it up, Dominion Hills. |
Anonymous
| McK used to have preschool classes, they moved them over to Reed when they ran out of space and then the preschool was moved elsewhere. Reed is being built with preschool classes, as well. The same thing can happen. |
Anonymous
| I have a question about the zone map. APS is saying they are doing this change because "Zone 1" will have +133 extra seats in 2023, and "Zone 2" will be -399 seats. So they are taking away 684 seats in Zone 1 (McKinley) and giving 683 seats (Key) to Zone 2. Doesn't that just leave Zone 1 551 seats short in 2023, while creating a surplus of 284 seats in Zone 2? I get that APS is expecting longer-term growth in Zones 2-4 in the 5-10 year horizon, but it also looks like the CIP deck proposes building additions or a new elementary school in those zones. How are they going to go back and address the shortage of seats in Zone 1, without eventually undoing the decision to make McKinley and option school five years from now? This seems like just moving deck chairs around on a sinking ship, and probably spending a lot of taxpayer money to move schools in the process. I won't have an ES kid by then, so am not personally impacted here, but it seems like all of this just takes time and money away from figuring out what to do about the looming high school seat shortage which is something that impacts everyone-- and the one place where the School Board and APS really haven't come up with any viable solution. Even cramming 800 more kids into the Career Center site still leaves APS short on high school seats. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
It helps not to be too rigid in thinking about the zones because planning units can move between zones. For instance, Ashlawn is in zone 2, but is closer to zone 1 schools than to most of the other zone 2 schools. Rezone the Ashlawn tail to schools in the east, and that will both use up a lot of the excess capacity in the east under these plans and will free up seats to take more students from the west. |
Anonymous
Why didn't you speak up and correct other posts that say Reed can't have trailers? -- Not Dominion Hill |