MPSA - new school or move to north Arlington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McK had 800 kids before ATS moved in. ATS has only 650 kids. Why not add it to that campus? How big is MPSA...If it's too big ATS could go back to 3 classes per grade and then MPSA could have 3 classes per grade so 6 classes per grade like old Mck. It'll work.

IMO, if there aren't enough in the program to fill its own school, maybe we should reconsider continuing the program.
Scatter them all back to their neighborhood middle schools.

PP here - sorry, I was focused on the middle school program. Nevertheless, Montessori has an incompatible bell schedule with regular elementary schools. They should not be in the same building at the same time. Just pick the most under-enrolled school in NA, stick MPSA there, and redraw boundaries. Don't invite input, don't coddle concerns of disruption and irreparable harm to kids being torn away from each other, don't cater to parental outcries. Just do it.

or get rid of it! It's bs. Maria M. made the program to each people with severe learning disabilities to get jobs in the real word. Not teach neurotypical kids. lemmings.

Not just the spelling of the word world is wrong with this statement. It is just completely incorrect

It’s only incorrect if you have not studied the history of psychology. Lemming.

[Anonymous]

Omg. Just end Montessori. Do 3-5 year olds and cancel the elementary program. It’s a scam that’s been bootstrapped by Monique o Grady and the Montessori lobby in Arlington. It’s not a high performing program and it doesn’t enroll the kids it professes to exist for after kindergarten. Cancel it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McK had 800 kids before ATS moved in. ATS has only 650 kids. Why not add it to that campus? How big is MPSA...If it's too big ATS could go back to 3 classes per grade and then MPSA could have 3 classes per grade so 6 classes per grade like old Mck. It'll work.

IMO, if there aren't enough in the program to fill its own school, maybe we should reconsider continuing the program.
Scatter them all back to their neighborhood middle schools.

PP here - sorry, I was focused on the middle school program. Nevertheless, Montessori has an incompatible bell schedule with regular elementary schools. They should not be in the same building at the same time. Just pick the most under-enrolled school in NA, stick MPSA there, and redraw boundaries. Don't invite input, don't coddle concerns of disruption and irreparable harm to kids being torn away from each other, don't cater to parental outcries. Just do it.

or get rid of it! It's bs. Maria M. made the program to each people with severe learning disabilities to get jobs in the real word. Not teach neurotypical kids. lemmings.

I'm perfectly fine with that! (as evident in my suggestion to eliminate the middle school program) But it isn't going to happen; so just responding to previous comments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McK had 800 kids before ATS moved in. ATS has only 650 kids. Why not add it to that campus? How big is MPSA...If it's too big ATS could go back to 3 classes per grade and then MPSA could have 3 classes per grade so 6 classes per grade like old Mck. It'll work.

IMO, if there aren't enough in the program to fill its own school, maybe we should reconsider continuing the program.
Scatter them all back to their neighborhood middle schools.

PP here - sorry, I was focused on the middle school program. Nevertheless, Montessori has an incompatible bell schedule with regular elementary schools. They should not be in the same building at the same time. Just pick the most under-enrolled school in NA, stick MPSA there, and redraw boundaries. Don't invite input, don't coddle concerns of disruption and irreparable harm to kids being torn away from each other, don't cater to parental outcries. Just do it.

or get rid of it! It's bs. Maria M. made the program to each people with severe learning disabilities to get jobs in the real word. Not teach neurotypical kids. lemmings.

Not just the spelling of the word world is wrong with this statement. It is just completely incorrect

No, she created it to serve underprivileged kids. But the bottom line sentiment is correct. It isn't really fulfilling her vision, the affluent parents use the fact that there are underprivileged kids in the program to justify its continuance, and we could just get rid of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The existing CC building has to be renovated after the new HS is built. That will cost tens of millions of dollars. $40? $50? APS is not talking about that yet.

MPSA is going to be torn down. You could leave it on the site during construction, then renno, then move it to the old building. But that takes at least 5 years, and it also means the construction for the new building will be much harder and stupider, because they will spend $1 million building MPSA a new play area they plan to destroy, and they will build a half field instead of a full field, and the bus loop won't be optimized, etc.

They absolutely should move MPSA north now. It doesn't matter where, we have the seats, use them. Make the construction make more sense now.

Then in 5 years when you are renovating the old building, we will know what we need it for. It may be another neighborhood school in S Arlington, where they are building new multi-story family buildings at a crazy pace. Or if north Arlington has some magical growth they could move MPSA back at that point.

That's what makes the most sense.

I don't know what MPSA actually wants.

APS had proposals that said the expansion of the Career Center would be around $170-200 million for what they want.

This has all been very hard to follow. But APS is spending $170-200 million on a brand new building. The existing building will be left on the site, and needs to be renovated for some other purpose when CC moves out. That cost is probably $40-60 million IN ADDITION TO the $170-200 million for the new building. Plus whatever it costs to tear down MPSA, which won't be much.

But again, if we are tearing MPSA down anyhow, and we have 500 empty ES seats now (which we do) we should just move MPSA now and figure out later on what to do with the old CC space. I don't think MPSA has to go there, and by that time, we may need a new ES in SA.

Nope. We don’t need to spend any more $$ right now. They can sit tight in the building we just spent a couple million on for another 5 years or so. It’s not like they’re tearing it down now. It’s years away. Also, this is in the same walk zone as Fleet so this isn’t where we might need a new ES in South Arlington.

Why would it cost money to move them? We just need to do boundary adjustments, and then we basically have an empty ES in North Arlington, right? If we keep them onsite during construction, we dump another million into that site to move the MPSA playground which we now know is going to get torn down in a few years. Plus, keeping them means we build the bus lane and small field now, and then later on we tear that all up and do it again with the full site. So much wasted $.

And yes, it's close to Fleet, but have you seen the housing plans on Columbia Pike? There are 4-5 new multi-story buildings being built within blocks of there.

this is delusional - that's only true if you treat "N Arlington" as one blob, and not realize that there are multiple ES there. the "empty seats" are scattered, so you'd have to really distort boundaries to make it work, and you'd end up with overcrowding somewhere anyway just due to geography.

Distort boundaries? There is no difference between north Arlington elementary schools and those schools are all about a mile apart. Really. No one cares about the tiny differences among these schools or their boundaries except for a small group of parents for a few years while their kids are there. Move the boundaries and in two years no one will care.

DP. Okay, so you haven’t actually looked at NA schools, boundaries, walk zones, etc., and aren’t actually debating in good faith on this , if you did, you would know that moving an option school to NW Arlington would require pushing kids currently in the walk zones for the schools that would remain out of those schools, creating hundreds of kids that would need to be bused and increasing the number of buses we would need to accomplish that. Transportation costs would skyrocket.

DP - no matter where you put MPSA or any option school, it eliminates a walkable neighborhood school for somebody and incurs transportation costs. Fleet is still "walkable" - but not as walkable as it was for as many as it was in its Henry location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McK had 800 kids before ATS moved in. ATS has only 650 kids. Why not add it to that campus? How big is MPSA...If it's too big ATS could go back to 3 classes per grade and then MPSA could have 3 classes per grade so 6 classes per grade like old Mck. It'll work.

IMO, if there aren't enough in the program to fill its own school, maybe we should reconsider continuing the program.
Scatter them all back to their neighborhood middle schools.

PP here - sorry, I was focused on the middle school program. Nevertheless, Montessori has an incompatible bell schedule with regular elementary schools. They should not be in the same building at the same time. Just pick the most under-enrolled school in NA, stick MPSA there, and redraw boundaries. Don't invite input, don't coddle concerns of disruption and irreparable harm to kids being torn away from each other, don't cater to parental outcries. Just do it.

or get rid of it! It's bs. Maria M. made the program to each people with severe learning disabilities to get jobs in the real word. Not teach neurotypical kids. lemmings.

Not just the spelling of the word world is wrong with this statement. It is just completely incorrect

It’s only incorrect if you have not studied the history of psychology. Lemming.

DP - maybe you should look up the history of Montessori. It was not designed as a learning disabled special program. Its main intent was to serve underprivileged children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg. Just end Montessori. Do 3-5 year olds and cancel the elementary program. It’s a scam that’s been bootstrapped by Monique o Grady and the Montessori lobby in Arlington. It’s not a high performing program and it doesn’t enroll the kids it professes to exist for after kindergarten. Cancel it!

Yes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The existing CC building has to be renovated after the new HS is built. That will cost tens of millions of dollars. $40? $50? APS is not talking about that yet.

MPSA is going to be torn down. You could leave it on the site during construction, then renno, then move it to the old building. But that takes at least 5 years, and it also means the construction for the new building will be much harder and stupider, because they will spend $1 million building MPSA a new play area they plan to destroy, and they will build a half field instead of a full field, and the bus loop won't be optimized, etc.

They absolutely should move MPSA north now. It doesn't matter where, we have the seats, use them. Make the construction make more sense now.

Then in 5 years when you are renovating the old building, we will know what we need it for. It may be another neighborhood school in S Arlington, where they are building new multi-story family buildings at a crazy pace. Or if north Arlington has some magical growth they could move MPSA back at that point.

That's what makes the most sense.

I don't know what MPSA actually wants.

APS had proposals that said the expansion of the Career Center would be around $170-200 million for what they want.

This has all been very hard to follow. But APS is spending $170-200 million on a brand new building. The existing building will be left on the site, and needs to be renovated for some other purpose when CC moves out. That cost is probably $40-60 million IN ADDITION TO the $170-200 million for the new building. Plus whatever it costs to tear down MPSA, which won't be much.

But again, if we are tearing MPSA down anyhow, and we have 500 empty ES seats now (which we do) we should just move MPSA now and figure out later on what to do with the old CC space. I don't think MPSA has to go there, and by that time, we may need a new ES in SA.

Nope. We don’t need to spend any more $$ right now. They can sit tight in the building we just spent a couple million on for another 5 years or so. It’s not like they’re tearing it down now. It’s years away. Also, this is in the same walk zone as Fleet so this isn’t where we might need a new ES in South Arlington.

Why would it cost money to move them? We just need to do boundary adjustments, and then we basically have an empty ES in North Arlington, right? If we keep them onsite during construction, we dump another million into that site to move the MPSA playground which we now know is going to get torn down in a few years. Plus, keeping them means we build the bus lane and small field now, and then later on we tear that all up and do it again with the full site. So much wasted $.

And yes, it's close to Fleet, but have you seen the housing plans on Columbia Pike? There are 4-5 new multi-story buildings being built within blocks of there.

I guess you didn’t follow the last school limbed. It costs money to pack up entire schools, change all the signage, etc. In the millions. It’s stupid and wasteful. The CC site doesn’t have to be devoted to just HS. It’s not a neighborhood school and won’t have all the amenities of a neighborhood school. That’s been debated up and down and is DEAD, okay? And the housing plans for this area of CP do not include AH, so all those market rate condos and one bedroom apartments aren’t going to result in a ton of kids. We don’t need another neighborhood school here and won’t for decades, and APS isn’t going to make crazy neighborhood boundaries again, increasing bus routes and lengths, when they just unwound that. I am not saying I agree with all their decisions but this is all crazy talk because it’s all already been decided and was set in motion ages ago when they moved Montessori out of Drew. You’re late to the party.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The existing CC building has to be renovated after the new HS is built. That will cost tens of millions of dollars. $40? $50? APS is not talking about that yet.

MPSA is going to be torn down. You could leave it on the site during construction, then renno, then move it to the old building. But that takes at least 5 years, and it also means the construction for the new building will be much harder and stupider, because they will spend $1 million building MPSA a new play area they plan to destroy, and they will build a half field instead of a full field, and the bus loop won't be optimized, etc.

They absolutely should move MPSA north now. It doesn't matter where, we have the seats, use them. Make the construction make more sense now.

Then in 5 years when you are renovating the old building, we will know what we need it for. It may be another neighborhood school in S Arlington, where they are building new multi-story family buildings at a crazy pace. Or if north Arlington has some magical growth they could move MPSA back at that point.

That's what makes the most sense.

I don't know what MPSA actually wants.

APS had proposals that said the expansion of the Career Center would be around $170-200 million for what they want.

This has all been very hard to follow. But APS is spending $170-200 million on a brand new building. The existing building will be left on the site, and needs to be renovated for some other purpose when CC moves out. That cost is probably $40-60 million IN ADDITION TO the $170-200 million for the new building. Plus whatever it costs to tear down MPSA, which won't be much.

But again, if we are tearing MPSA down anyhow, and we have 500 empty ES seats now (which we do) we should just move MPSA now and figure out later on what to do with the old CC space. I don't think MPSA has to go there, and by that time, we may need a new ES in SA.

Nope. We don’t need to spend any more $$ right now. They can sit tight in the building we just spent a couple million on for another 5 years or so. It’s not like they’re tearing it down now. It’s years away. Also, this is in the same walk zone as Fleet so this isn’t where we might need a new ES in South Arlington.

Why would it cost money to move them? We just need to do boundary adjustments, and then we basically have an empty ES in North Arlington, right? If we keep them onsite during construction, we dump another million into that site to move the MPSA playground which we now know is going to get torn down in a few years. Plus, keeping them means we build the bus lane and small field now, and then later on we tear that all up and do it again with the full site. So much wasted $.

And yes, it's close to Fleet, but have you seen the housing plans on Columbia Pike? There are 4-5 new multi-story buildings being built within blocks of there.

this is delusional - that's only true if you treat "N Arlington" as one blob, and not realize that there are multiple ES there. the "empty seats" are scattered, so you'd have to really distort boundaries to make it work, and you'd end up with overcrowding somewhere anyway just due to geography.

Distort boundaries? There is no difference between north Arlington elementary schools and those schools are all about a mile apart. Really. No one cares about the tiny differences among these schools or their boundaries except for a small group of parents for a few years while their kids are there. Move the boundaries and in two years no one will care.

DP. Okay, so you haven’t actually looked at NA schools, boundaries, walk zones, etc., and aren’t actually debating in good faith on this , if you did, you would know that moving an option school to NW Arlington would require pushing kids currently in the walk zones for the schools that would remain out of those schools, creating hundreds of kids that would need to be bused and increasing the number of buses we would need to accomplish that. Transportation costs would skyrocket.

DP - no matter where you put MPSA or any option school, it eliminates a walkable neighborhood school for somebody and incurs transportation costs. Fleet is still "walkable" - but not as walkable as it was for as many as it was in its Henry location.

Okay? No one is denying that, but pp’s comment that it would easy to draw boundaries for those schools because they’re all a mile apart is demonstrably false. As between Nottingham, Discovery and Tuckhoe, there is no combination of two schools that could absorb the students from a third. It would require a refining of nearly every NA elementary, with lots of current walkers turned into bus riders. Yes, APS can do that if they’re willing to cut funding elsewhere and completely redo the bell review process they just completed, but let’s not lie and say it would be costless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The existing CC building has to be renovated after the new HS is built. That will cost tens of millions of dollars. $40? $50? APS is not talking about that yet.

MPSA is going to be torn down. You could leave it on the site during construction, then renno, then move it to the old building. But that takes at least 5 years, and it also means the construction for the new building will be much harder and stupider, because they will spend $1 million building MPSA a new play area they plan to destroy, and they will build a half field instead of a full field, and the bus loop won't be optimized, etc.

They absolutely should move MPSA north now. It doesn't matter where, we have the seats, use them. Make the construction make more sense now.

Then in 5 years when you are renovating the old building, we will know what we need it for. It may be another neighborhood school in S Arlington, where they are building new multi-story family buildings at a crazy pace. Or if north Arlington has some magical growth they could move MPSA back at that point.

That's what makes the most sense.

I don't know what MPSA actually wants.

APS had proposals that said the expansion of the Career Center would be around $170-200 million for what they want.

This has all been very hard to follow. But APS is spending $170-200 million on a brand new building. The existing building will be left on the site, and needs to be renovated for some other purpose when CC moves out. That cost is probably $40-60 million IN ADDITION TO the $170-200 million for the new building. Plus whatever it costs to tear down MPSA, which won't be much.

But again, if we are tearing MPSA down anyhow, and we have 500 empty ES seats now (which we do) we should just move MPSA now and figure out later on what to do with the old CC space. I don't think MPSA has to go there, and by that time, we may need a new ES in SA.

Nope. We don’t need to spend any more $$ right now. They can sit tight in the building we just spent a couple million on for another 5 years or so. It’s not like they’re tearing it down now. It’s years away. Also, this is in the same walk zone as Fleet so this isn’t where we might need a new ES in South Arlington.

Why would it cost money to move them? We just need to do boundary adjustments, and then we basically have an empty ES in North Arlington, right? If we keep them onsite during construction, we dump another million into that site to move the MPSA playground which we now know is going to get torn down in a few years. Plus, keeping them means we build the bus lane and small field now, and then later on we tear that all up and do it again with the full site. So much wasted $.

And yes, it's close to Fleet, but have you seen the housing plans on Columbia Pike? There are 4-5 new multi-story buildings being built within blocks of there.

I guess you didn’t follow the last school limbed. It costs money to pack up entire schools, change all the signage, etc. In the millions. It’s stupid and wasteful. The CC site doesn’t have to be devoted to just HS. It’s not a neighborhood school and won’t have all the amenities of a neighborhood school. That’s been debated up and down and is DEAD, okay? And the housing plans for this area of CP do not include AH, so all those market rate condos and one bedroom apartments aren’t going to result in a ton of kids. We don’t need another neighborhood school here and won’t for decades, and APS isn’t going to make crazy neighborhood boundaries again, increasing bus routes and lengths, when they just unwound that. I am not saying I agree with all their decisions but this is all crazy talk because it’s all already been decided and was set in motion ages ago when they moved Montessori out of Drew. You’re late to the party.

Let's just agree that either option is going to cost millions. They are going to build MPSA a new playground if they keep it during the construction, they will change the field and bus loop after they knock it down (plus destroy that new playground), and construction is just plain easier if that building is not on the site. So, there is lots of money saved if you move it now, plus it gives the flexibility at the end to figure out the best use of the old building -- whether at that point we needs HS, MS, or ES seats, no one knows.

But I see what you are saying. It costs some money to move the school now. It also costs money to keep it once we know they are going to knock it down eventually anyhow.

[Anonymous]

NP and MPSA parent here: the proposal to move MPSA to NW is not from the Montessori community. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to stay at CC. There are a few neighborhood activists who want to move MPSA off site – see last school board meeting where one of them proposed moving to the NW.
Montessori haters just gonna hate, but one quick thing that may help others new to the issue: there are roughly 700 APS Montessori students now prek-8 across a half-dozen buildings. There were literally hundreds more applicants this year than open slots – go watch lottery videos for yourself. MPSA and Gunston program will grow more, as they have for years. Whoever said the demand stops after prek is wackadoo. As for shutting down options, that made me laugh. You want 1ks of kids suddenly flooding back into neighbor schools?

[Anonymous]

A lot of the pre-K interest is driven by it being a full-day program, which many parents are seeking, that is open to more people than who qualify for VPI. Many of those pre-K students do not apply K-5. Pre-k slots are also all over the county, typically where APS has empty seats, vs one central building.

Isn't the MS program 30 students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP and MPSA parent here: the proposal to move MPSA to NW is not from the Montessori community. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to stay at CC. There are a few neighborhood activists who want to move MPSA off site – see last school board meeting where one of them proposed moving to the NW.
Montessori haters just gonna hate, but one quick thing that may help others new to the issue: there are roughly 700 APS Montessori students now prek-8 across a half-dozen buildings. There were literally hundreds more applicants this year than open slots – go watch lottery videos for yourself. MPSA and Gunston program will grow more, as they have for years. Whoever said the demand stops after prek is wackadoo. As for shutting down options, that made me laugh. You want 1ks of kids suddenly flooding back into neighbor schools?

I have no particular views in shutting down MPSA, but your numbers don’t make sense. If there are roughly 700 students total in MPSA, how does shutting it down result in thousands of kids returning to neighborhood schools.

Also, over 100 of those students are pre-k who don’t need to be accommodated anywhere if there isn’t space to expand VPI. So really, we’re talking about a little less than 400 elementary students returning to neighborhood schools, and maybe 30 middle school students who aren’t zoned for Gunston to start with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP and MPSA parent here: the proposal to move MPSA to NW is not from the Montessori community. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to stay at CC. There are a few neighborhood activists who want to move MPSA off site – see last school board meeting where one of them proposed moving to the NW.
Montessori haters just gonna hate, but one quick thing that may help others new to the issue: there are roughly 700 APS Montessori students now prek-8 across a half-dozen buildings. There were literally hundreds more applicants this year than open slots – go watch lottery videos for yourself. MPSA and Gunston program will grow more, as they have for years. Whoever said the demand stops after prek is wackadoo. As for shutting down options, that made me laugh. You want 1ks of kids suddenly flooding back into neighbor schools?

Well, the neighborhood schools aren't so overcrowded now, so why not? And it's not thousands, or even one thousand - whatever you meant by "1ks."

Montessori always presents stats to distort people's initial reactions to their favor. The increase in applicants is pre-K. There is high demand for preschool in general. You don't have hundreds more clamoring for middle school. Montessori likes to believe there's huge demand through high school. There isn't. So, tell us the % of preK kids who apply to continue? And tell us the % of 5th graders who continue into middle school. How many people are applying somewhere in the middle?

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/U-MEM_281-Membership-Summary-All.pdf

"..700 APS Montessori students now prek-8 across a half-dozen buildings." Let's remind everyone that about 90(?) of those are the total # of middle schoolers and they are all in ONE building.

Total preK = 230. 103 are at the MPSA building at the CC site. K-5 enrollment at the MPSA building is 390. Look at that: 103 in one grade level (preK) and 390 across 6 grade levels (K-5).
PreK NOT at the MPSA site (230-103) = 127. That's 127 students in 6 different buildings.
70 of those are at Discovery (30) and Jamestown (40).
Smallest prek is 8 - EIGHT - at Carlin Springs.

So, it's 127 students across 6 buildings; 493 at one building; and about 90 (? enrollment not broken out by program on this document) at another building.
Compare Montessori's 230 preschoolers to 474 VPI preschoolers across 16 schools, more evenly distributed with the outlier of Hoffman Boston with 58. Montessori's supposed to serve under-privileged kids. What % of the 230 Montessori preschoolers are underprivileged - and not Arlington Montessori's definition of low-income.... eligible for FRL low-income?

I don't see MPSA and Gunston program enrollment having significantly grown over the years. Grew some this year to 493 at MPSA. Last year 455. Year before that 456. Don't know what it was when combined with Drew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP and MPSA parent here: the proposal to move MPSA to NW is not from the Montessori community. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to stay at CC. There are a few neighborhood activists who want to move MPSA off site – see last school board meeting where one of them proposed moving to the NW.
Montessori haters just gonna hate, but one quick thing that may help others new to the issue: there are roughly 700 APS Montessori students now prek-8 across a half-dozen buildings. There were literally hundreds more applicants this year than open slots – go watch lottery videos for yourself. MPSA and Gunston program will grow more, as they have for years. Whoever said the demand stops after prek is wackadoo. As for shutting down options, that made me laugh. You want 1ks of kids suddenly flooding back into neighbor schools?

I have no particular views in shutting down MPSA, but your numbers don’t make sense. If there are roughly 700 students total in MPSA, how does shutting it down result in thousands of kids returning to neighborhood schools.

Also, over 100 of those students are pre-k who don’t need to be accommodated anywhere if there isn’t space to expand VPI. So really, we’re talking about a little less than 400 elementary students returning to neighborhood schools, and maybe 30 middle school students who aren’t zoned for Gunston to start with.

Montessori parents are not known for being particularly saavy with numbers.