Is Nottingham going to be the new option school in Arlington or its still being decided?

[Anonymous]

Actually, the point is to take option schools up to those high numbers bc it’s a choice!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually, the point is to take option schools up to those high numbers bc it’s a choice!!!

Okay then those parents/families that "choose" to go to the option school will have to accept their kids will be eating "lunch" starting at 10am, have them on a bus at 7:15am, be in a school with highly stretched resources, which will inadvertently affect their kids, etc etc..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually, the point is to take option schools up to those high numbers bc it’s a choice!!!

But they won't, the basically conceded that when they removed the growth criteria from the second round. It's one thing for a school to become uncomfortably overcrowded due to growth that APS can't control, but they're never going to make the choice to do it to an option school where it's squarely on them that kids are eating brunch at 10:15 or the toilets overflow from overuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.


Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.


Let's not exaggerate. Jamestown and Taylor aren't going to absorb 300 students from Discovery.


300...that is the exaggeration. Because the actual number is 134. McK could get a few PUs below 66 and Jamestown/Taylor could get some from Discovery. Nottingham's capacity is 513-379=134. Where did you get 300 from?

Tuckahoe would make a good option school because Nottingham can expand as new housing goes up.

None of Nottingham, Tuckahoe and McKinley should be option sites because those are the schools that can take trailers to manage NW overcrowding in the future. Jamestown can take trailers but logistically they can't get neighborhood students there to fill them so it's effectively on the list with Discovery and Reed as unable to take trailers.

So some basic math shows that Discovery, Nottingham and Tuckahoe will be under-enrolled by 125+ students each. I hate to tell you that is not going to happen. Tell us what PUs will Disc/Nottingham/Tuckahoe pickup? Either Tuckahoe, Nottingham or Jamestown has to become an option school or those schools will be just as empty as Jamestown and we are running out of Montessori/VPI preschool classes to bus up there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.

Which brings us full circle back to the reason why the NW quadrant is being eyed for an option elementary school.

Wait, so why did we need Reed then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.

Which brings us full circle back to the reason why the NW quadrant is being eyed for an option elementary school.

Wait, so why did we need Reed then?

Because APS needs seats and has limited physical sites to build new schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.

Which brings us full circle back to the reason why the NW quadrant is being eyed for an option elementary school.

Wait, so why did we need Reed then?

Because APS needs seats and has limited physical sites to build new schools.

Yes but why not just do additions to other schools? Since the seat deficit won't be where reed is located, it seems logical to make that the option school. And I live in the ne so I really don't have much of a dog in the fight. do immersion to Ats, Ats to reed.

[Anonymous]

Oh and also do a superficial upgrade to reed when moving Ats into it, just enough to make it appropriate for elementary school kids instead of the preschool classes. What is the capacity of that building?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so torn about this whole process.

In hindsight, it became clear that the decision to build Discovery was the wrong one. The resulting boundaries were a mess, caused great inequities in school size and placed 3 neighborhood schools really close to each other. APS should have built at Reed where they plan to now (instead of on the hill) and the schools would have been spread out enough that the boundaries wouldn't have been so weird (I mean, look at McKinley through Tara-Leeway/HP-OK).

But, they didn't do that.

Now, they need more seats and, instead of just staying with the status quo, they decided to take a look at the whole system. Where would they put neighborhood seats if none were already classified? Key/ASFS kicked this off, but it had been a long time coming.......basically since the Discovery ribbon cutting and the McK/Tuck/Nott boundary debacle. If someone came in and looked at the map with fresh eyes, where would they put an option school? I think that's what they are trying to do.

You could not be more wrong about Discovery. Tuckahoe and Nottingham were so over capacity at the time that the excess capacity from those schools alone could fill nearly 70% of Discovery. We needed another school up there and have had no trouble filling them since because the student population up there just keeps growing. The three schools collectively are over capacity now, because while Tuckahoe and Discovery are both under capacity by 4 and 5 students respectively, Nottingham is over capacity by more than that. And if you look at the current boundary around the three schools together, it is very compact, so no Ashlawn/McKinley-style boundaries were needed to fill them.

We can talk about whether Reed was a mistake, but Discovery was very much needed.

They are only over capacity because Tuckahoe PUs go all the way to Westover. If Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery only pulled students from above Lee Highway and EFC you would understand how much capacity is up there.

If we didn't have Discovery and Nottingham and Tuckahoe only drew from north of Lee Highway, those two schools would be McKinley-style overcapacity, if not worse. If that's okay with you, I guess you're saying that the current McKinley situation is acceptable?

But we do have Discovery - so deal with it. And we will have Reed sooner or later.

I don't understand your point, I'm the person saying Discovery was needed, and haven't argued that we don't need Reed (I just said we could talk about it if people felt there were truly too many schools going into NW).

If we need all these schools to be neighborhood schools in NW put on your big girl pants and show us a map of what the boundaries would look like. Take away the PUs from Tuckahoe and Nottingham for Reed and McK. Fill up Tuckahoe, Nottingham and Discovery. By the end of this exercise you are going to be looking for kids in McLean and Falls Church because there will be so many empty classrooms in Tuckahoe/Nottingham/Discovery.

To be fully transparent about my interests here, we are a currently Nottingham family that, based on the new walk zone maps, will probably move to Tuckahoe even if Nottingham stays a neighborhood school, so my interests do not totally square with those of the families who live right around Nottingham. I actually do think we should have an option program in NW based on the population and seat distributions, I just think Nottingham is the wrong choice. I think it's the wrong choice because even if you take out the overlapping walk zones, it's still more walkable than half the schools in NW, which means increased busing needs and slashing funding elsewhere to pay for it. It's also the site able to take the most trailers in NW, which means it's a critical part of managing future student population growth and overcapacity in NW (no matter which school you take, NW will be over capacity from day one afterward). It is almost as removed as you can get from South Arlington, which means the program you move there will become significantly less accessible to low-income families, so the net effect of moving an option program to Nottingham would be to worsen the overall diversity balance rather than improve it. The only thing the staff can point to is "boundaries will be hard," but that's not the only place boundaries in NW will be hard, so they're just prioritizing one "hard" over a different "hard" with no apparent benefit to choosing this one. There is no school in NW that is a slam dunk, all of the relevant considerations point to some schools and cut against others, but pretty much all of them cut against Nottingham as a good option site.

Let's look at some numbers. Tuckahoe and Nottingham will lose 274-379 students once Reed opens. Where are we going to find these students?


Should be Reed/McK

16061 66
16060 41
16050 42
16130 41
16070 84
____ 274

Could be Reed/McK

16140 14
16110 54
16040 37
____105

Discovery can't really expand East/South. So NW Arlington isn't looking good unless Jamestown becomes the Montessori.

Wow 274-379 open seats between Tuck/Not/Disc. If Jamestown and Taylor get a few planning units from Discovery with the Key/ASFS changes we could have an empty school in NW.

Which brings us full circle back to the reason why the NW quadrant is being eyed for an option elementary school.

Wait, so why did we need Reed then?

I understand why Westover / neighboring communities want Reed. BUT Reed should not have been planned without informing the entire Arlington community that it would cost us a neighborhood school. The SB pulled the wool over our eyes without disclosing this information. If everyone knew back then, that we would lose a neighborhood school, it should have been discussed in planning Reed.

[Anonymous]

They are making additions to other schools too. Still needed seats.

[Anonymous]

Someone is giving you bad data. The NW seats aren’t just about those three schools. Glebe and McKinley need relief, too. If any projections show the population going down, be skeptical. They are wrong everytime. APS is trying to spread out neighborhood seats and that is why they are looking at closely clustered schools. I don’t think they considered removing anything after Reed was built until they started this process. There was no conspiracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh and also do a superficial upgrade to reed when moving Ats into it, just enough to make it appropriate for elementary school kids instead of the preschool classes. What is the capacity of that building?

LOL, it’s current capacity is around 100 kids. But sure, let’s do a superficial upgrade and then it’ll be perfect for 550 kids. They can sit on top of each other, totem-style.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and also do a superficial upgrade to reed when moving Ats into it, just enough to make it appropriate for elementary school kids instead of the preschool classes. What is the capacity of that building?

LOL, it’s current capacity is around 100 kids. But sure, let’s do a superficial upgrade and then it’ll be perfect for 550 kids. They can sit on top of each other, totem-style.[/quote

it closer to 200 preschoolers- but still there is no cafeteria, a preschool sized gym, etc. It is not feasible to do a superficial upgrade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and also do a superficial upgrade to reed when moving Ats into it, just enough to make it appropriate for elementary school kids instead of the preschool classes. What is the capacity of that building?

LOL, it’s current capacity is around 100 kids. But sure, let’s do a superficial upgrade and then it’ll be perfect for 550 kids. They can sit on top of each other, totem-style.[/quote

it closer to 200 preschoolers- but still there is no cafeteria, a preschool sized gym, etc. It is not feasible to do a superficial upgrade.

I like the idea of turning Reed into a "ttrailer town" let's just park 30 trailers in Westover and the kids can eat lunch at their desks.

[Anonymous]

I hope Arlington County is paying close attention to this. If Jamestown/Nottingham/Tuckahoe become a choice school, neighborhood house values will go down. On the plus side, the insane real estate taxes should also be reflective of the reduced home values.

No way will I continue to pay the r/e taxes I'm currently paying if 22 buses are coming up and down our streets everyday. This decision will be very costly to the County.