APS: Elementary Walk Zone surveys out

[Anonymous]

They stated the first meetings last night and surveys appear to be opening in waves. The maps are really helpful. Comments due March 12.

https://www.apsva.us/elementary-school-boundary-change/walk-zone-resources/

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting! There is a lot of good info there.

[Anonymous]

Why aren't there surveys for every school? PP said something about waves--why wouldn't they solicit info for every school at the same time? Do we know that every school will get a survey?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why aren't there surveys for every school? PP said something about waves--why wouldn't they solicit info for every school at the same time? Do we know that every school will get a survey?

Yes. Please take the time to read the Engage page. The staff physically can't have meetings with 19 or whatever elementary schools in one night. Over the next 2 weeks they will be meeting with representatives from 4-5 schools and their surrounding neighborhoods at a time doing the same thing they did last night. They will also be doing walk throughs of the neighborhoods around every school.

This is in some part a learning experience from the MS process this past fall when they made assumptions about some planning units that weren't accurate in terms of what really was walkable, what were natural barriers, and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why aren't there surveys for every school? PP said something about waves--why wouldn't they solicit info for every school at the same time? Do we know that every school will get a survey?

Yes. Please take the time to read the Engage page. The staff physically can't have meetings with 19 or whatever elementary schools in one night. Over the next 2 weeks they will be meeting with representatives from 4-5 schools and their surrounding neighborhoods at a time doing the same thing they did last night. They will also be doing walk throughs of the neighborhoods around every school.

This is in some part a learning experience from the MS process this past fall when they made assumptions about some planning units that weren't accurate in terms of what really was walkable, what were natural barriers, and so on.

Thanks. I have read through the Engage page. It's organized horribly, requiring me to click on every single highlighted word to try to find what I'm looking for.

I still don't know why they wouldn't just put up all the survey links at the same time, rather than make people keep checking, regardless of which order they'll be looking at schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why aren't there surveys for every school? PP said something about waves--why wouldn't they solicit info for every school at the same time? Do we know that every school will get a survey?

Yes. Please take the time to read the Engage page. The staff physically can't have meetings with 19 or whatever elementary schools in one night. Over the next 2 weeks they will be meeting with representatives from 4-5 schools and their surrounding neighborhoods at a time doing the same thing they did last night. They will also be doing walk throughs of the neighborhoods around every school.

This is in some part a learning experience from the MS process this past fall when they made assumptions about some planning units that weren't accurate in terms of what really was walkable, what were natural barriers, and so on.

Thanks. I have read through the Engage page. It's organized horribly, requiring me to click on every single highlighted word to try to find what I'm looking for.

I still don't know why they wouldn't just put up all the survey links at the same time, rather than make people keep checking, regardless of which order they'll be looking at schools.

Probably so that they can provide the guidance to each neighborhood. Our representatives came back from last night with greater explanations, proposed language for explaining this to neighbors and that kind of thing.

[Anonymous]

Why isn't there one for Reed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why isn't there one for Reed?

Because each survey is only supposed to be filled out for families currently at that school. Reed doesn't have a school community yet, so the APS communications stated that the BLPC (I think) would do the work for Reed. It's the honor system, since they can't stop you from doing the survey for more than one school, but the goal is that only families at a school shoudl fill out that survey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why isn't there one for Reed?

Because each survey is only supposed to be filled out for families currently at that school. Reed doesn't have a school community yet, so the APS communications stated that the BLPC (I think) would do the work for Reed. It's the honor system, since they can't stop you from doing the survey for more than one school, but the goal is that only families at a school shoudl fill out that survey.

I was at the meeting last night, and this is actually not true. APS is encouraging families to comment on all the school maps where you might be walkable-- not just to your current school. There are many places in the county that are walkable to more than one school building and they want to collect that information. They are trying to collect as much information as possible about where different planning units could walk to safely, as well as where different planning units could walk to with additional traffic calming measures (crossing guards, signals, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why isn't there one for Reed?

Because each survey is only supposed to be filled out for families currently at that school. Reed doesn't have a school community yet, so the APS communications stated that the BLPC (I think) would do the work for Reed. It's the honor system, since they can't stop you from doing the survey for more than one school, but the goal is that only families at a school shoudl fill out that survey.

I was at the meeting last night, and this is actually not true. APS is encouraging families to comment on all the school maps where you might be walkable-- not just to your current school. There are many places in the county that are walkable to more than one school building and they want to collect that information. They are trying to collect as much information as possible about where different planning units could walk to safely, as well as where different planning units could walk to with additional traffic calming measures (crossing guards, signals, etc.).

PP here. Thank you for clarifying. I couldn't attend and had been led to understand that they wanted feedback only from the school community.

[Anonymous]

What about those of us who have preschoolers and aren't in APS yet but will be directly impacted by this? How do we participate other than checking the website every day for links to pop up for the schools near us?

I had no idea meetings had even started.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why isn't there one for Reed?

Because each survey is only supposed to be filled out for families currently at that school. Reed doesn't have a school community yet, so the APS communications stated that the BLPC (I think) would do the work for Reed. It's the honor system, since they can't stop you from doing the survey for more than one school, but the goal is that only families at a school shoudl fill out that survey.

I was at the meeting last night, and this is actually not true. APS is encouraging families to comment on all the school maps where you might be walkable-- not just to your current school. There are many places in the county that are walkable to more than one school building and they want to collect that information. They are trying to collect as much information as possible about where different planning units could walk to safely, as well as where different planning units could walk to with additional traffic calming measures (crossing guards, signals, etc.).

PP here. Thank you for clarifying. I couldn't attend and had been led to understand that they wanted feedback only from the school community.

No- they are leveraging the PTAs and the CAs to get the word out but they want feedback from everyone about every school building that you might consider walkable from your planning unit. For example, some planning units are currently taking a school bus to a school building further away because certain streets are designated as "uncrossable" due to volume. They want to hear feedback like: "Our planning unit would be willing to walk to X building instead of taking a school bus to Y building if you put a crossing guard at [Z] location." They are trying to identify the largest potential walk zone around each individual school building in order to decide what buildings make the most sense to be used as option schools, where they need to bus kids anyway. Lisa Stengle said last night that bus drivers are the single hardest employee for APS to recruit and there are concerns that we cannot financially afford to continue adding new buses to the APS fleet to support the projected number of kids that will be added to APS between now and 2030. They need to maximize walkers wherever possible for financial reasons. APS is not expecting to see much of a budget increase from ArlCo, even though they are being expected to serve many, many more kids as they open new school programs at all three levels (ES, MS, HS). Lisa said that more funding is needed to support instruction (hire teachers and principals) which has to come from somewhere... People need to continue pushing this point with the County Board-- the School Board and APS can only operate with the funding that the County Board allocates to them. When Katie Cristol talks about "tough choices" at the County Board level, it includes the allocation that APS gets from the County's overall revenue pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about those of us who have preschoolers and aren't in APS yet but will be directly impacted by this? How do we participate other than checking the website every day for links to pop up for the schools near us?

I had no idea meetings had even started.

Contact your civic association. Every PTA got two reps to the committee, and every civic association got two reps to the committee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about those of us who have preschoolers and aren't in APS yet but will be directly impacted by this? How do we participate other than checking the website every day for links to pop up for the schools near us?

I had no idea meetings had even started.

Contact your civic association. Every PTA got two reps to the committee, and every civic association got two reps to the committee.

I'm in one of the few planning units that does not have a civic association (yes, it's true, and I've even asked the county about this, and they weren't able to explain it or offer a solution).

[Anonymous]

You could start a civic association.