APS Elementary Location Working Group 4/12

[Anonymous]

I think they learned from HB, adn they are trying not to repeat that mistake.

[Anonymous]

I see the link to the board docs...but where is all the info you're citing? I just see the agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see the link to the board docs...but where is all the info you're citing? I just see the agenda.

https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/files/AXRUM47CA5E4/$file/Elementary%20Planning%20Power%20point%20041218.pdf

[Anonymous]

The county does care if kids are being driven---they don't want more cars and congestion on the road. Also, evne when there is not neighborhood preference, people who live close to the school are more likely to apply. Even if not everyone is guaranteed admission---plenty of students will live locally. Choice is one of the main mechanisms by which we can encourage integration--which Arlington desperately needs. I don't think choice schools should be based in N. Arlington, but based on capacity, more may need to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Campbell would lose 60 percent of its student or more if moved that far north. No longer title I. No nature center curriculum. It would be a total waste of a school. I have a kid there and without the wetland and nature center the curriculum would be trashed. Aps might as well eliminate the program if they move it. I would pull my kid because it would have no value as an option school. I know others would too, and not just the majority of low income families. The wealthier families chose the school for a reason.

What about moving it to Carlin Springs? Serious question. Isn't that still a 'walking' field trip to Long Branch nature center?

Other problem that no one seems to be addressing is that the Campbell building is tiny! To reach a capacity similar to what Carlin Springs has you would have to cover the field space with trailers!!

Given that this would largely be moving the Carlin Springs neighborhood to Campbell- Carlin Springs currently has a population of about 600. Campbell's 'optimization' suggests it can go to 628.

Incidentally- given the lack of space to expand is what is sinking Campbell is an option site. The Staff thinks option sites need to be able to go to 750.

This. Campbell can go to 628 students per APS and Carlin Springs to 928 - per APS!!

If you watch the meeting you will hear them say that they have no intention of going above 750 for option programs--those are just max numbers for the site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The county does care if kids are being driven---they don't want more cars and congestion on the road. Also, evne when there is not neighborhood preference, people who live close to the school are more likely to apply. Even if not everyone is guaranteed admission---plenty of students will live locally. Choice is one of the main mechanisms by which we can encourage integration--which Arlington desperately needs. I don't think choice schools should be based in N. Arlington, but based on capacity, more may need to be.

Right now cutting buses is a top priority. Reed isn’t going to be choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county does care if kids are being driven---they don't want more cars and congestion on the road. Also, evne when there is not neighborhood preference, people who live close to the school are more likely to apply. Even if not everyone is guaranteed admission---plenty of students will live locally. Choice is one of the main mechanisms by which we can encourage integration--which Arlington desperately needs. I don't think choice schools should be based in N. Arlington, but based on capacity, more may need to be.

Right now cutting buses is a top priority. Reed isn’t going to be choice.

Cutting buses is the staff’s priority. I heard SB members say they want to see option programs on main roads like, maybe, Washington Blvd!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the thing about Campbell and ATS- a lot of there 'hidden' appeal is that they are small. A lot of other words are used to describe this-- warm, nurturing, principal knows everyone, every class does a play that everyone watches, individualized instruction- etc. But what it boils down to is a small school allows for things like this. But in both cases that is not their spoken focus. The spoken focus of Campbell is 'expeditionary.' The spoken focus of ATS is 'traditional.' I think the mood of the staff right now, and to a lesser extent the SB- is that its not fair to have a tiny program that very few can get into. We need to make these programs available to meet demand. So, if they have an appeal beyond their size, lets grow them. If the appeal is that they are protected from overcrowding, etc- that's not fair.

I think this is true for any ES. Let’s not build 750-seat mega elementary schools. That’s not good for any student.

Unfortunately Arlington’s population outstrips available APS land for more schools. The schools have to be big at this point.

But Campbell (the physical building) can't get bigger, whether it's neighborhood or option. It can grow with trailers, but not an addition. So do you make it option or neighborhood? I think option makes more sense. Because that would be more flexible, and allow for more kids who want the program to attend without eating up permanent neighborhood seats, that may go unfilled. You have a large demand one year? Take an extra K and add a trailer. You have decreased demand in subsequent years, take the trailers away. But if it's a neighborhood school, with consistent numbers of kids coming in, they will always have to be in trailers to get to that preferred size.

If the appeal of these programs were simply about size, parents would be requesting transfers to Randolph. That doesn't happen, and never will. If this is how Staff hopes to force UMC families back into their neighborhood schools, they're not very in tune with reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Campbell would lose 60 percent of its student or more if moved that far north. No longer title I. No nature center curriculum. It would be a total waste of a school. I have a kid there and without the wetland and nature center the curriculum would be trashed. Aps might as well eliminate the program if they move it. I would pull my kid because it would have no value as an option school. I know others would too, and not just the majority of low income families. The wealthier families chose the school for a reason.

Isn’t Campbell Title I because of the large number of VPI students that are guaranteed to continue?

So here's part of the issue with moving any option school that far north: what VPI-eligible families live anywhere near there? Option schools are all supposed to have VPI classrooms, so where are they going to find VPI kids near Nottingham?

Good point. Any option school they move to Nottingham would become much paler and more affluent, which isn’t a good look. The only thing that makes Nottingham at all compelling as an option site is the difficult of filling all of the seats at Tuckahoe after Reed opens. But for that, Nottingham would be effectively off the table.

And if they make Nottingham option, they are going to have to fill McKinley with kids North of Lee Highway. So those kids will bus past Reed.

It is infuriating with the criteria staff presented that Reed isn’t being considered as an option site.

You can’t ask a community to give a year of their lives to planning a school under the promise that it will be their neighborhood school and then go back on your word. It would destroy community trust in the school board and people would be rightfully outraged at having been taken advantage of like that.

You are hilarious! What about the years and years the Nottingham community has spent planning things for its school. And hasn’t it had a promise of a neighborhood school for much longer? Reed’s promise was recently. But that doesn’t mean other schools didn’t have that same promise. The promise should be irrelevant and it should be looked at just like everyone else.

Simmer, you're talking to another Nottingham parent here. Yes, lots of us have given many hours and resources to Nottingham over the years, but we did/do those things because our children, as students there, benefit from our efforts immediately. If Nottingham becomes an option school, I'll take my volunteering to our new school and my kids won't miss out on the benefits of my effort. Westover, on the other hand, was asked by the School Board to volunteer time and create committees for the specific purpose of planning a school to fit that community where the benefit wasn't going to be seen by anyone from years. Pulling that out from under them only after they've done their part but before they've received any of the promised benefit would be truly bad faith.

Further, no one promised us anything about Nottingham staying a neighborhood school. You may argue that the promise was implied by the fact that it's historically been a neighborhood school, but that same argument applies to every single neighborhood school in APS. Clearly that's going to change for someone, and Nottingham has no special claim of promise or of neighborhood status beyond any other neighborhood schools. Westover, on the other hand, has had an explicit promise from the SB that after the community's work is done, Reed would become a neighborhood school for them.

Look, I'd just as soon see Nottingham stay a neighborhood school because I know the change would be disruptive and who wants disruption? But if I take a step back and try to look at it all objectively, thinking about what's best for APS as a whole without bias toward any particular school, I can see the arguments for Nottingham becoming an option school very clearly. There are arguments against it as well and people should feel free to make them, but I'm not going to make any argument that basically amounts to, "Screw the rest of you, I only care about me and mine." Let's be better than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the thing about Campbell and ATS- a lot of there 'hidden' appeal is that they are small. A lot of other words are used to describe this-- warm, nurturing, principal knows everyone, every class does a play that everyone watches, individualized instruction- etc. But what it boils down to is a small school allows for things like this. But in both cases that is not their spoken focus. The spoken focus of Campbell is 'expeditionary.' The spoken focus of ATS is 'traditional.' I think the mood of the staff right now, and to a lesser extent the SB- is that its not fair to have a tiny program that very few can get into. We need to make these programs available to meet demand. So, if they have an appeal beyond their size, lets grow them. If the appeal is that they are protected from overcrowding, etc- that's not fair.

I think this is true for any ES. Let’s not build 750-seat mega elementary schools. That’s not good for any student.

Unfortunately Arlington’s population outstrips available APS land for more schools. The schools have to be big at this point.

Not if we take back the old schools - community centers. We have options, even if we don't choose to use them.

[Anonymous]

600 kids are not walking to Reed. Fake News. Look at report. 310 kids are walking to Reed. 415 are riding a bus. That's 7 buses. Not that walkable friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:600 kids are not walking to Reed. Fake News. Look at report. 310 kids are walking to Reed. 415 are riding a bus. That's 7 buses. Not that walkable friends.

Can you share where you see that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county does care if kids are being driven---they don't want more cars and congestion on the road. Also, evne when there is not neighborhood preference, people who live close to the school are more likely to apply. Even if not everyone is guaranteed admission---plenty of students will live locally. Choice is one of the main mechanisms by which we can encourage integration--which Arlington desperately needs. I don't think choice schools should be based in N. Arlington, but based on capacity, more may need to be.

Right now cutting buses is a top priority. Reed isn’t going to be choice.

Cutting buses is the staff’s priority. I heard SB members say they want to see option programs on main roads like, maybe, Washington Blvd!

The SB may want that in an ideal world, but when faced with making the budget numbers work, they're going to deal with reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:600 kids are not walking to Reed. Fake News. Look at report. 310 kids are walking to Reed. 415 are riding a bus. That's 7 buses. Not that walkable friends.

Can you share where you see that?

Look at the walkability map. Almost all of the proposed enrollment zone is within 1/2 mile. And aren’t buses only for past .75 mile? Zero chance there are 7 buses.

[Anonymous]

Elementary Location Data Table