South Arlington elementary school boundary adjustments 2019

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Neither barcroft nor Randolph have the space to take in the population from the other. They cannot be made option schools.

Also Randolph has nearly 100% walkers. Very poor choice for an option school site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we're going to dissolve a school, why not dissolve ATS? If it's not really anything unique. Why dissolve any neighborhood school that has a ready community of walkers, particularly one in an area of growth in the county?

Because it makes no sense whatsoever to dissolve ATS, a highly successful school that is, in fact, unique, and sits in a location that will have more than enough seats - neighborhood seats are not needed in that location. Neighborhood seats are needed at Oakridge!!!! And if I see how the school board is thinking there may be too many seats around Reed with the opening of it, I truly have to wonder, why they did not slate a new elementary School for the Pentagon City area first. It was one of the recommendations of the working group... the only one they did not follow...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we're going to dissolve a school, why not dissolve ATS? If it's not really anything unique. Why dissolve any neighborhood school that has a ready community of walkers, particularly one in an area of growth in the county?

Because it makes no sense whatsoever to dissolve ATS, a highly successful school that is, in fact, unique, and sits in a location that will have more than enough seats - neighborhood seats are not needed in that location. Neighborhood seats are needed at Oakridge!!!! And if I see how the school board is thinking there may be too many seats around Reed with the opening of it, I truly have to wonder, why they did not slate a new elementary School for the Pentagon City area first. It was one of the recommendations of the working group... the only one they did not follow...

How is ATS unique other than having a population that is entirely there by choice and no dead weight? What is actually different about the curriculum and teaching methods?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Neither barcroft nor Randolph have the space to take in the population from the other. They cannot be made option schools.

Also Randolph has nearly 100% walkers. Very poor choice for an option school site.

It’s the same group of kids.
Talking about neighborhood preference.
Splitting the groups up. There aren’t enough umc kids between those two schools.

Or keep having two underperforming schools, as they have been for decades. Whatever.

[Anonymous]

About Oakridge, if I recall the SB's words at the time and slide decks, they said that north arlington gets a new es before south arlington gets a second es. Period. North arlington's turn. That is why there is no school at Pentagon. And, the SB plans to relieve some of the overcrowding at Oakridge with Drew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we're going to dissolve a school, why not dissolve ATS? If it's not really anything unique. Why dissolve any neighborhood school that has a ready community of walkers, particularly one in an area of growth in the county?

Because it makes no sense whatsoever to dissolve ATS, a highly successful school that is, in fact, unique, and sits in a location that will have more than enough seats - neighborhood seats are not needed in that location. Neighborhood seats are needed at Oakridge!!!! And if I see how the school board is thinking there may be too many seats around Reed with the opening of it, I truly have to wonder, why they did not slate a new elementary School for the Pentagon City area first. It was one of the recommendations of the working group... the only one they did not follow...

EXACTLY! And now the worst thing is that the Westover people are now demanding that half of the existing building be torn down to protect their sledding hill. Seriously! There is an alternative proposal that for practically the same money could keep those preschool seats in the current building and get a new 750 seat elementary school behind the current building. This would allow APS to offer preschool to more kids. Maybe with the surplus of seats in NW Arlington, kids could go to preschool and then opt to stay at the new school? That would help with diversity.

But, no. Sledding hills come before kids and common sense.

[Anonymous]

You realize that when the library/school was designed in the 2000s local residents suggested that the building be designed to allow adding additional floors if it were to be converted to an elementary school. Surprisingly, the School Board did not listen.

[Anonymous]

At this point, now that we know there will be a surplus of seats in NW, I would vote to use the $50M for a school in Pentagon or Crystal City. This isn’t about “turns”. It is about where seats are needed. Then, Westover can keep their precious sledding hill, along with their crazy boundaries and bus rides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At this point, now that we know there will be a surplus of seats in NW, I would vote to use the $50M for a school in Pentagon or Crystal City. This isn’t about “turns”. It is about where seats are needed. Then, Westover can keep their precious sledding hill, along with their crazy boundaries and bus rides.

This is just bizarre. They're building in a place where they don't need seats it seems, if they're going to wind up with one school that's nearly completely empty. Could they adjust boundaries and fill all the current schools to max capacity? And not build at Westover yet? I'm not saying never build there, but maybe put a hold on construction until it's really necessary, five years and wait and see? Why are we building an extra school there? Transportation costs to bus the Westover kids to the existing four nearby schools are surely lower than building a brand new school. Maybe it's not ideal, but neither is spending upwards of $50 million to build a school where we don't need one. I get that they should've built a school there, based on where kids live. But they didn't, and now they don't yet need to. I think if they really feel like this is the right course of action, then they need to get buy-in from the Tuckahoe community and then they need to establish a NEW option program that the Tuckahoe community is on board with, that way the Tuckahoe kids don't all have to get on a bus either.

Also, Oakridge is going to get relief with the Drew boundary. That's what they've said ever since the SAWG. Obviously this makes Oakridge parents nervous and they'd prefer a new school in Pentagon City so that they aren't rezoned to Drew. But there are still not enough kids in Pentagon and Crystal City to justify a 700 seat ES there right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point, now that we know there will be a surplus of seats in NW, I would vote to use the $50M for a school in Pentagon or Crystal City. This isn’t about “turns”. It is about where seats are needed. Then, Westover can keep their precious sledding hill, along with their crazy boundaries and bus rides.

This is just bizarre. They're building in a place where they don't need seats it seems, if they're going to wind up with one school that's nearly completely empty. Could they adjust boundaries and fill all the current schools to max capacity? And not build at Westover yet? I'm not saying never build there, but maybe put a hold on construction until it's really necessary, five years and wait and see? Why are we building an extra school there? Transportation costs to bus the Westover kids to the existing four nearby schools are surely lower than building a brand new school. Maybe it's not ideal, but neither is spending upwards of $50 million to build a school where we don't need one. I get that they should've built a school there, based on where kids live. But they didn't, and now they don't yet need to. I think if they really feel like this is the right course of action, then they need to get buy-in from the Tuckahoe community and then they need to establish a NEW option program that the Tuckahoe community is on board with, that way the Tuckahoe kids don't all have to get on a bus either.

Also, Oakridge is going to get relief with the Drew boundary. That's what they've said ever since the SAWG. Obviously this makes Oakridge parents nervous and they'd prefer a new school in Pentagon City so that they aren't rezoned to Drew. But there are still not enough kids in Pentagon and Crystal City to justify a 700 seat ES there right now.

My hunch is that a small portion of Oakridge goes to Drew, but another chunk near pentagon City's goes to Hoffman. There would be room if the triangle of Douglas Park currently zoned for Hoffman is rezoned to Randolph, which is both walkable from there, and not currently at 100% capacity. Just conjecture.

[Anonymous]

That part of Douglas Park would really benefit Randolph ‘s demographics. It’s entirely sfh’s and upscale condos. I hope that happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That part of Douglas Park would really benefit Randolph ‘s demographics. It’s entirely sfh’s and upscale condos. I hope that happens.

Yep. Might account for why Hoffman has "improved" in recent years, though again, just my conjecture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That part of Douglas Park would really benefit Randolph ‘s demographics. It’s entirely sfh’s and upscale condos. I hope that happens.

Yep. Might account for why Hoffman has "improved" in recent years, though again, just my conjecture.

I believe its been some time since boundaries were redrawn in south Arlington. The last time they were looked at, that corner of Douglas Park had 100’s of low income market rate apts.
it was renovated to become high end condos. I would be interested to know how many school aged kids live there.
I seems that corner is also being eyed by Nauck families. I’m sure they’d welcome that area into Drew.
Randolph should fight for it.

[Anonymous]

If we are going to have a surplus of seats in NW then WHY ARE WE OPENING REED?? Why don't we revisit that instead of rearranging the entire county?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we are going to have a surplus of seats in NW then WHY ARE WE OPENING REED?? Why don't we revisit that instead of rearranging the entire county?

South Arlington is going to be rearranged because we have a new school.