The demise of McKinley ES (APS)

[Anonymous]

Good luck with that. They are not going to agree to put all that in play at once. Board doesn’t want every school community in Arlington at office hours at once.

[Anonymous]

It's not like the staff putting together these proposals doesn't have any experience with boundary drawing. They probably even have rough sketches of potential boundaries for each scenario to check for unexpected consequences. But I think they would be crazy to share all of that with the public, because the Arlington public is way too batshit for that and nothing would be accomplished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good luck with that. They are not going to agree to put all that in play at once. Board doesn’t want every school community in Arlington at office hours at once.

With the location moves, they know they have unified voices of opposition to deal with. Once they move on to adjusting boundaries, individual planning units can’t organize as well or be as vocal as an entire school community. On the one hand it makes things easier for them to deal with the issues separately, on the other hand we get locked into moving entire schools before we can see whether that’s really a good idea. I get that it’s a hard process, but they should keep all possibilities on the table until they’re actually presenting the proposed new boundaries. Just build in a couple of extra possible scenarios for the community to look at. Other than finding it difficult to deal with parents at office hours, why do school moves need to be decided in advance if they wouldn’t happen until the new boundaries are implemented?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spineless if they don’t move Key!

https://www.insidenova.com/news/education/is-aps-re-thinking-its-proposal-for-elementary-boundary-adjustments/article_21f40c42-024e-11ea-9110-274169badd23.html

+1. Just move it already. I'm tired of hearing from Key parents. I bet they're wishing they had agreed to move to Science Focus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the hell? It's a first step in the boundary process. Are you supposed to set the boundaries and then move the schools?

Do it all at once, duh. They obviously must have an idea of the boundaries to have assessed how many kids will move. Publish the boundaries along with the option school changes.

They don’t want to do boundaries this early because they will likely need to move some planning units around again once they have final projections. Doing the moves first eliminated some uncertainty.

+1. I can only assume that the people suggesting they draw boundaries now weren’t here/paying attention during the Discovery debacle.

+1

It has to be a 2 step process. I mean, can you imagine the *&%# show we would have if you tried to move options and draw boundaries at the same time. There would be 1000 different proposals.

I disagree. They could still just put out two proposals. Why would they need more? If they already have the data to know where to put the option schools based on “sensible” boundaries that maximize efficiency and walkability, let’s see them.

APS has failed to articulate why the option moves need to be set in stone before adjusting boundaries. What I foresee is the school board agreeing to move the option schools, and when it comes time to draw the boundaries and the resulting school populations exacerbate the already shameful demographic disparity between schools, they’ll say their hands are tied and there’s nothing they can do about it because they’re locked into the decision to move McKinley or Key or Campbell. They’re just setting up their excuse for lousy boundaries and making it seem like they lack the flexibility to do better.

APS school does not care about demographic disparity one lick. Too many other competing priorities. There is no solution we can afford, so move on.

[Anonymous]

They are not going to budge. They’ve sunk a lot of time and money into these proposals. They made a video! They planned this all summer. We might get a SB surprise. They love to do that. But staff won’t change course. That’s my prediction. And not sure they should. These are some pretty well thought plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are not going to budge. They’ve sunk a lot of time and money into these proposals. They made a video! They planned this all summer. We might get a SB surprise. They love to do that. But staff won’t change course. That’s my prediction. And not sure they should. These are some pretty well thought plans.

The first plan is well thought out. The second one is not. It’s just too many moves and more than they really need to do to get reasonable boundaries around Reed. It also boxes them in for planning additions/new schools in the SW quadrant in the next CIP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the hell? It's a first step in the boundary process. Are you supposed to set the boundaries and then move the schools?

Do it all at once, duh. They obviously must have an idea of the boundaries to have assessed how many kids will move. Publish the boundaries along with the option school changes.

They don’t want to do boundaries this early because they will likely need to move some planning units around again once they have final projections. Doing the moves first eliminated some uncertainty.

+1. I can only assume that the people suggesting they draw boundaries now weren’t here/paying attention during the Discovery debacle.

+1

It has to be a 2 step process. I mean, can you imagine the *&%# show we would have if you tried to move options and draw boundaries at the same time. There would be 1000 different proposals.

I disagree. They could still just put out two proposals. Why would they need more? If they already have the data to know where to put the option schools based on “sensible” boundaries that maximize efficiency and walkability, let’s see them.

APS has failed to articulate why the option moves need to be set in stone before adjusting boundaries. What I foresee is the school board agreeing to move the option schools, and when it comes time to draw the boundaries and the resulting school populations exacerbate the already shameful demographic disparity between schools, they’ll say their hands are tied and there’s nothing they can do about it because they’re locked into the decision to move McKinley or Key or Campbell. They’re just setting up their excuse for lousy boundaries and making it seem like they lack the flexibility to do better.

APS school does not care about demographic disparity one lick. Too many other competing priorities. There is no solution we can afford, so move on.

No other competing priorities - they just don't care about demographics period.

[Anonymous]

While I realize that we are all lucky to have good schools in Arlington (to various degrees), can I just say how annoying it is to hear McKinley parents complain about property values if they are rezoned to Tuckahoe?? Especially when some of us from other schools are facing the possibility of being rezoned to much worse schools than our current assignments??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are not going to budge. They’ve sunk a lot of time and money into these proposals. They made a video! They planned this all summer. We might get a SB surprise. They love to do that. But staff won’t change course. That’s my prediction. And not sure they should. These are some pretty well thought plans.

The first plan is well thought out. The second one is not. It’s just too many moves and more than they really need to do to get reasonable boundaries around Reed. It also boxes them in for planning additions/new schools in the SW quadrant in the next CIP.

I disagree. The second plan was more thoughtful and nuanced - that's why more schools are involved!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I realize that we are all lucky to have good schools in Arlington (to various degrees), can I just say how annoying it is to hear McKinley parents complain about property values if they are rezoned to Tuckahoe?? Especially when some of us from other schools are facing the possibility of being rezoned to much worse schools than our current assignments??

Perhaps, then, you should stfu with the “much worse schools” bs, because you are no less annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I realize that we are all lucky to have good schools in Arlington (to various degrees), can I just say how annoying it is to hear McKinley parents complain about property values if they are rezoned to Tuckahoe?? Especially when some of us from other schools are facing the possibility of being rezoned to much worse schools than our current assignments??

Perhaps, then, you should stfu with the “much worse schools” bs, because you are no less annoying.

Complaining about property values is very different than complaining about the quality of the education for your children.

[Anonymous]

Are they really complaining about PROPERTY values from being rezoned to Tuckahoe? Where is this happening?! I must read!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are they really complaining about PROPERTY values from being rezoned to Tuckahoe? Where is this happening?! I must read!

Verbally doing it and some have done it on the Save McKinley Facebook page ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I realize that we are all lucky to have good schools in Arlington (to various degrees), can I just say how annoying it is to hear McKinley parents complain about property values if they are rezoned to Tuckahoe?? Especially when some of us from other schools are facing the possibility of being rezoned to much worse schools than our current assignments??

Perhaps, then, you should stfu with the “much worse schools” bs, because you are no less annoying.

Complaining about property values is very different than complaining about the quality of the education for your children.

“We are all lucky to have good schools in Arlington....some of us from other schools are facing the possibility of being reasoned to much worse schools.”

Which is it?