Another choice school in N Arlington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm thrilled to be paying for the second renovation of reed in a dozen years.

Tell me about it. If they had just turned Reed back into a neighborhood elementary school in 2009 when they remodeled it, we would not have needed the McKinley and Ashlawn additions either. I adore the Westover Library and use it regularly, but what happens to it now if they turn Reed into a 725 student "choice" elementary school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live pretty close to the Madison Community Center. There is already a building there and everything. Even if you left its current footprint exactly as-is, you could create hundreds of seats. I do think it would need to be a choice school because I expect playing fields etc. would be more limited and you'd need parent buy-in to some of the limitations created by maintaining some of the historic designation etc. But to completely keep it off the list of sites available for a school just because it can't be built into a huge school seems like a self-inflicted injury on the part of Arlington. There are some old timers who live in the neighborhood who would probably fight tooth and nail to prevent any change. I suspect that is the true obstacle, and one to be taken seriously.

I think you're right. Several years ago I volunteered to be a representative in our neighborhood civic association, and found that the primary topic, and most fervently discussed at every meeting, was historic designation. There was a lot of research into potential properties to target, and someplace like the Madison center (although a different neighborhood) would have been a hill they all would have died on. I was the youngest in the room by a few decades fwiw.

[Anonymous]

A few things bother me about APS's "choice" system.
1. It's notmuch of a choice. Some of the school's mentioned up-thread cannot accommodate lottery so are not really choices. For the few who do lottery in, we spend huge amounts on transportation and that's illogical!

2. I get that a 2- rated school family might want to apply to choice. However, I don't get why someone from a high-test-scoring neighborhood school (like McK which is not statistically different from ATS in scores) would want ATS. To make the system fair, only ARL kids from low-preforming schools should be allowed in the lottery. over 400 kids lotteries for 30 spaces. Or make it all VPI.

Best yet, make it a neighborhood school and move ATS down south.

I think all the ATS spot takers from high-preforming schools should be ashamed of themselves. If you think you are a "libral" or a democrat, your

3. How much administrative work does it cost to run all these fake lotteries (I say fake b/c 30:400 is just stupid; I think the odds are lower for immersion. We wanted immersion but there was, I think 4 spots the year before and non our first year).

We spend 500mil on education for 26K kids. We should be able to get McKinley scores in all of our neighborhood schools and we are such a small county, our transportation costs should be tiny. And our admin costs which are outrageous. Stop the lottery system, save money, improve all schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm thrilled to be paying for the second renovation of reed in a dozen years.

Tell me about it. If they had just turned Reed back into a neighborhood elementary school in 2009 when they remodeled it, we would not have needed the McKinley and Ashlawn additions either. I adore the Westover Library and use it regularly, but what happens to it now if they turn Reed into a 725 student "choice" elementary school?

I'm new to this. What is the Reed building being used for right now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm thrilled to be paying for the second renovation of reed in a dozen years.

Tell me about it. If they had just turned Reed back into a neighborhood elementary school in 2009 when they remodeled it, we would not have needed the McKinley and Ashlawn additions either. I adore the Westover Library and use it regularly, but what happens to it now if they turn Reed into a 725 student "choice" elementary school?

Wasn't it 22million the first time? How much for the re-do. And honestly, the roads around Reed are so narrow that it should be a neighborhood school. There's no room for bussing!

Gads sometimes ARL makes no sense.

I too love Westover library and fully support that preschool for teacher's kids. It's impossible get preschool in ARL and teachers don't need that aggravation. (no, I'm not a teacher; I've hired two nannyies in my life though).

[Anonymous]

Half of Reed was transformed into a new Arlington County library branch. The other half is used as a preschool for the children of Arlington public school teachers. There are a few other smaller programs in the building for special needs kids as well. It isn't exactly centrally located-- maybe more accessible to S. Arlington than the Madison site, but it would still be a royal PITA to get to Reed during morning rush hour from S. Arlington. It doesn't make a lot of sense as a location for a "choice" school. You can put "Westover library" into googlemaps to see the location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm thrilled to be paying for the second renovation of reed in a dozen years.

Tell me about it. If they had just turned Reed back into a neighborhood elementary school in 2009 when they remodeled it, we would not have needed the McKinley and Ashlawn additions either. I adore the Westover Library and use it regularly, but what happens to it now if they turn Reed into a 725 student "choice" elementary school?

I'm new to this. What is the Reed building being used for right now?

It's used for a few things.
1. The Children's School - Daycare for county employees (big perk for teachers, but long wait list)
2. Integration Station - Highly specialized classrooms for special needs, pre-K
3. McKinley Montessori - The school is too crowded, so the Montessori was moved out.
4. Virtual APS - where students go to take online classes

The building is attached to the super popular Westover library. It has the 2nd largest circulation in Arlington and a really active kid's program.

[Anonymous]

Getting to Reed in the AM would be a nightmare. Washington Blvd is routinely backed up during the morning and evening rush hours. That's going to get a lot worse once the HOV restrictions are changed (thanks, Richmond). The street in front of the school is incredibly narrow and has a blind curve in it. As it is, parents routinely step out of their cars in front of traffic and school buses can't make the turn w/o crossing the line. There is a back entrance, but it's small.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm thrilled to be paying for the second renovation of reed in a dozen years.

Tell me about it. If they had just turned Reed back into a neighborhood elementary school in 2009 when they remodeled it, we would not have needed the McKinley and Ashlawn additions either. I adore the Westover Library and use it regularly, but what happens to it now if they turn Reed into a 725 student "choice" elementary school?

Wasn't it 22million the first time? How much for the re-do. And honestly, the roads around Reed are so narrow that it should be a neighborhood school. There's no room for bussing!

Gads sometimes ARL makes no sense.

I too love Westover library and fully support that preschool for teacher's kids. It's impossible get preschool in ARL and teachers don't need that aggravation. (no, I'm not a teacher; I've hired two nannyies in my life though).

Yes- the roads in Westover will be a nightmare if they turn Reed into a 725 student choice elementary school. It is only 3/4 mile from McKinley, which will also be a 700+ student elementary school after the addition is built. Westover families who do not lottery into Reed would need to continue being driven/bused to McKinley, while at the same time there would be buses and cars traveling those same roads in the opposite direction to get to Reed. And the north/south streets are all residential. You can go west to east on Washington Blvd or Wilson, but the only way to come north to Westover from S. Arlington is to cut through the Madison Manor or Dominion Hills neighborhoods. The civic associations around Westover have been asking for Reed to be turned back into a neighborhood elementary school for years and have been told that it is not appropriate for that purpose. Now suddenly it is appropriate for a 725 student choice elementary school? What a bunch of BS from APS.

[Anonymous]

There are no good ways for buses to access the Reed site unless you pave driveways out to neighborhood streets (18th, Madison, or Lexington on the other side) and route them that way. Having buses come in and out on Washington Blvd does not seem workable, particularly as Wash Blvd picks up more traffic after the 66 tolls go in.

These kind of traffic issues plague sites throughout Arlington, but that seems like all the more reason to build in a way that maximizes the walking population at a given school. We're a dense, urban county, and it's only going to become more so over time. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to build without regard for the amount of buses we are putting on the road (and operating over the long haul).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few things bother me about APS's "choice" system.
1. It's notmuch of a choice. Some of the school's mentioned up-thread cannot accommodate lottery so are not really choices. For the few who do lottery in, we spend huge amounts on transportation and that's illogical!

2. I get that a 2- rated school family might want to apply to choice. However, I don't get why someone from a high-test-scoring neighborhood school (like McK which is not statistically different from ATS in scores) would want ATS. To make the system fair, only ARL kids from low-preforming schools should be allowed in the lottery. over 400 kids lotteries for 30 spaces. Or make it all VPI.

Best yet, make it a neighborhood school and move ATS down south.

I think all the ATS spot takers from high-preforming schools should be ashamed of themselves. If you think you are a "libral" or a democrat, your

3. How much administrative work does it cost to run all these fake lotteries (I say fake b/c 30:400 is just stupid; I think the odds are lower for immersion. We wanted immersion but there was, I think 4 spots the year before and non our first year).

We spend 500mil on education for 26K kids. We should be able to get McKinley scores in all of our neighborhood schools and we are such a small county, our transportation costs should be tiny. And our admin costs which are outrageous. Stop the lottery system, save money, improve all schools.

There will never be McKinley scores in all the schools because that takes involved, educated parents.

If you make a school like ATS all lower income kids you no longer have a high performing school. It's all those "ATS spot takers from high performing schools" that bring the scores up. Do you really think that by moving ATS south and making it a neighborhood school you would have anything different than the neighborhood schools that are already there?

[Anonymous]

13:05
Move ATS south and don't allow kids from high-preforming schools to apply is my proposal. I might not have been clear.

It's a logical solution. ATS will hate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are no good ways for buses to access the Reed site unless you pave driveways out to neighborhood streets (18th, Madison, or Lexington on the other side) and route them that way. Having buses come in and out on Washington Blvd does not seem workable, particularly as Wash Blvd picks up more traffic after the 66 tolls go in.

These kind of traffic issues plague sites throughout Arlington, but that seems like all the more reason to build in a way that maximizes the walking population at a given school. We're a dense, urban county, and it's only going to become more so over time. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to build without regard for the amount of buses we are putting on the road (and operating over the long haul).

This is logical. APS masters will hate it.

[Anonymous]

I still think the best solution is to relocate the ATS program to S. Arlington, where it would make so much more of an impact on the student population. (And I say that as a N. Arlington parent-- I agree with the PP above that our kids don't need the ATS program in N. Arlington.) Then turn the ATS building back into a neighborhood school to alleviate the remaining N. Arlington overcrowding and leave Reed alone so they don't need to renovate it again. How does ATS have so much power over APS and the School Board? ATS and HB were wonderful educational experiments in the 80s and 90s when APS had extra capacity to play with, but in today's crisis they just seem like vanity programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:13:05
Move ATS south and don't allow kids from high-preforming schools to apply is my proposal. I might not have been clear.

It's a logical solution. ATS will hate it.

YES!!! If the ATS program itself is so wondeful, then it will continue to perform well even without the N. Arlington families in it. If not, then just more proof that there is nothing special about the ATS program. The families in our neighborhood who applied into ATS did so just because they thought it would decrease the chances of their kids going to class in a trailer. I've never heard one of them articulate any educational reason for choosing ATS over our neighborhood school.