APS Engage Update Pre-CIP Report

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Build new facilities in South Arlington, where the county needs them, already!

Stop messing around with boundaries and whatnot to try to alleviate crowding in the south by moving kids north. Please.

And I live in North Arlington.

So the County should spend tens of millions of dollars to build new elementary schools and leave some half empty. Um, no.

It’s not great, but when all the population growth is in South Arlington but the underenrolled schools are in North Arlington, the County is going to have to redistribute the kids every few years over and over to keep moving kids north if they don’t build more facilities in the south, where the kids are!

You're acting like children from N Arlington and S Arlington can't go to school together and it's some mountainous border. As a taxpayer it's ludicrous to leave empty capacity and build more so kids don't have to cross Rt 50. This County is physically very small. Nothing is very far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Build new facilities in South Arlington, where the county needs them, already!

Stop messing around with boundaries and whatnot to try to alleviate crowding in the south by moving kids north. Please.

And I live in North Arlington.

So the County should spend tens of millions of dollars to build new elementary schools and leave some half empty. Um, no.

It’s not great, but when all the population growth is in South Arlington but the underenrolled schools are in North Arlington, the County is going to have to redistribute the kids every few years over and over to keep moving kids north if they don’t build more facilities in the south, where the kids are!

You're acting like children from N Arlington and S Arlington can't go to school together and it's some mountainous border. As a taxpayer it's ludicrous to leave empty capacity and build more so kids don't have to cross Rt 50. This County is physically very small. Nothing is very far.

No, I’m acting like people in South Arlington want good neighborhood, walkable schools too. Not to be bussed north, unless they have closed that as an option school.

[Anonymous]

*chosen that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine they are actually going to close Nottingham. Once the wealthy Nottingham parents start fussing about it (and they already are), the school board will back down for sure. You don’t mess with the rich, white elementary schools in Arlington, do you?

I guess you missed when they closed McKinley.

True, but they moved all of McKinley together to a brand new building at Cardinal. That’s different from what they are proposing here.

Except for the neighborhoods that were rezoned to Ashlawn.

Those zones could have stayed at Cardinal, except APS was trying to empty Notting and put those kids at Cardinal. Those families were sent to Ashlawn because of APS's plan to close Nottingham, not because of the school move.

What? No Nottingham kids were impacted with Cardinal coming on line. Nottingham was not touched during that boundary adjustment. Tuckahoe kids were moved.

What happened is too many Nottingham families went private during covid and didn't come back and now Nottingham has the least robust enrollment.

The Nottingham neighborhood has a lot of demographic turnover in the last few years. People are moving here specifically for the school. APS’s data and projections don’t seem to be accounting for that, and they are going to find themselves flat footed at the first economic downturn when people can’t swing $50k/year tuitions anymore. They were off by 20 kids at Nottingham for 2023 alone. Multiplied over the NW schools you go from underenrolled to over capacity just like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are proposing to shut down an elementary school. Will be very interested to see the justification for that one.

They would not be "shutting down" an elementary school. They would still be putting students in it.

[Anonymous]

I have never understood the obsession with walkable schools. My kids have gone to both walkable and non-walkable. Particularly in elementary school, getting bused is awesome. Great community at the bus stop. I built more neighborhood community doing that than being a walker. Very convenient in the mornings in particular if you work. My kids loved the bus. Walkable schools when they're young and need to be accompanied on the walk and you're on the outer part of the walkable area is a pain in the ass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You will like Williamsburg though. Great school.

I've heard nothing good about it. No thanks.

I haven’t heard anything good about Swanson lately though.

I'm pp and we're zoned for Hamm

I saw that. It was disappointing how many kids right by Taylor/hamm will now be moved to Williamsburg.

And it was the Taylor families who fought so hard to reopen Stratford as the new middle school, now Dorothy Hamm. Only a very small section of Taylor families along Langston Blvd will remain at Dorothy Hamm.

Also with the draft boundaries, the middle schools will become even more segregated with Williamsburg becoming more wealthy and white. Lower income students will be further concentrated in all the other middle schools. I realize demographics will not factor into any of these boundary changes, but the proposed boundaries run counter to the diversity the Arlington community claims to value.

Every boundary process during the 18 years I've been an APS parent has "run counter to the diversity the Arlington community claims to value." Where have you been?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Build new facilities in South Arlington, where the county needs them, already!

Stop messing around with boundaries and whatnot to try to alleviate crowding in the south by moving kids north. Please.

And I live in North Arlington.

So the County should spend tens of millions of dollars to build new elementary schools and leave some half empty. Um, no.

It’s not great, but when all the population growth is in South Arlington but the underenrolled schools are in North Arlington, the County is going to have to redistribute the kids every few years over and over to keep moving kids north if they don’t build more facilities in the south, where the kids are!

You're acting like children from N Arlington and S Arlington can't go to school together and it's some mountainous border. As a taxpayer it's ludicrous to leave empty capacity and build more so kids don't have to cross Rt 50. This County is physically very small. Nothing is very far.

No, I’m acting like people in South Arlington want good neighborhood, walkable schools too. Not to be bussed north, unless they have closed that as an option school.

Okay, well that's not worth the County spending 55million+ to build a new school when there are schools with a lot of capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the Hamm people complaining, what is your proposal to fill Williamsburg then? Who should get bused over there? Not your children. We’ve got that.

Question: why is APS so bad at calculating seats/future needs? Are less families moving to WMS/DHMS? Is this driven in part by the exodus of North Arlington families to private school? Does APS track or publish that information?

Just my observations watching this over many years.

1. Covid definitely impacted things.
2. In past boundary adjustments, the School Board responds to the people screaming in their faces right in the moment. This was the case with the boundary adjustments when Hamm was opened. Hamm never had enough kids and Swanson had too many. People screamed about not leaving Swanson. Same issue with Cardinal. The McKinley community screamed and yelled to stay together and give it a couple years that school will be overcrowded. The problem is this thread. What's going on right now. Listening to current families over what makes sense longer-term.

Right, I don’t disagree with you. But I still would be very curious about the covid impact. How big was it? Is it here to stay? What are the current numbers?

APS does not give two wits about the kids leaving for PS, I know, which is one of the reasons they are leaving. But it’s impacting neighborhoods/neighborhood schools in N Arlington communities in a way that is new and different. It would be useful to understand it. Especially when APS appears to be absolutely abysmal at forecasting seating/buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are proposing to shut down an elementary school. Will be very interested to see the justification for that one.

They would not be "shutting down" an elementary school. They would still be putting students in it.

Let’s call it what it is - they are shutting it down. Instead of X number of elementary schools, there will be X - 1. Reduced active elementary capacity across the system. And, instead of 90% walkers, there will be 100% drop offs.

They are turning Nottingham into a short-term rental.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How are they ever going to find all the buses for this? They've complained for years how they don't have space to store buses and how they can't find enough bus drivers. They will have to bus all of Donaldson Run to Williamsburg bc it's all outside the walk zone (while being all completely in the walk zone for Hamm). That's hundreds of kids.

They, and the County, need to ramp-up the process of getting middle and high schoolers on ART transit.
In the meantime, different boundaries elsewhere will enable other kids to walk. It isn't always just adding more buses, but shifting bus routes around. And boundary changes aren't the only factor in how many buses are needed: we are expecting more students. More students = more buses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are they ever going to find all the buses for this? They've complained for years how they don't have space to store buses and how they can't find enough bus drivers. They will have to bus all of Donaldson Run to Williamsburg bc it's all outside the walk zone (while being all completely in the walk zone for Hamm). That's hundreds of kids.

Let's bring back the Rosslyn island!

Sadly diversity is no longer part of the boundary process. The island was removed because contiguous boundaries looked cleaner on paper. There is probably no chance the Rosslyn island will go back to Williamsburg so that privileged Taylor families can walk to Dorothy Hamm.

I looked at the maps they've proposed. There are people who can literally see Hamm from their house (I even looked it up on street view to confirm) who will be bused to Williamsburg if this passes. I'd be pretty pissed if I were them.

Too bad. It isn't about "them." It's about running a 27,000 student school system in a 26 square mile County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You will like Williamsburg though. Great school.

I've heard nothing good about it. No thanks.

I haven’t heard anything good about Swanson lately though.

I'm pp and we're zoned for Hamm

I saw that. It was disappointing how many kids right by Taylor/hamm will now be moved to Williamsburg.

And it was the Taylor families who fought so hard to reopen Stratford as the new middle school, now Dorothy Hamm. Only a very small section of Taylor families along Langston Blvd will remain at Dorothy Hamm.

Also with the draft boundaries, the middle schools will become even more segregated with Williamsburg becoming more wealthy and white. Lower income students will be further concentrated in all the other middle schools. I realize demographics will not factor into any of these boundary changes, but the proposed boundaries run counter to the diversity the Arlington community claims to value.

Every boundary process during the 18 years I've been an APS parent has "run counter to the diversity the Arlington community claims to value." Where have you been?!

I can't with these arguments that people trot out when it's convenient for them. School segregation is due to housing and zoning policies. If you fought Missing Middle and many of you did, you are a hypocrite if now you're acting like you give a crap whether your school is wealthy and white. Busing kids to create the perfect diverse school and not having neighborhood schools doesn't work for a lot of reasons. It's not what anyone wants, including the communities you are "helping" if you bother to ask any people in these communities. Lots of research out there on this.

If you actually care about these things and not just when it's going to affect where you go to school as a talking point to scold other people, get involved in County zoning and housing issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Build new facilities in South Arlington, where the county needs them, already!

Stop messing around with boundaries and whatnot to try to alleviate crowding in the south by moving kids north. Please.

And I live in North Arlington.

So the County should spend tens of millions of dollars to build new elementary schools and leave some half empty. Um, no.

It’s not great, but when all the population growth is in South Arlington but the underenrolled schools are in North Arlington, the County is going to have to redistribute the kids every few years over and over to keep moving kids north if they don’t build more facilities in the south, where the kids are!

You're acting like children from N Arlington and S Arlington can't go to school together and it's some mountainous border. As a taxpayer it's ludicrous to leave empty capacity and build more so kids don't have to cross Rt 50. This County is physically very small. Nothing is very far.

No, I’m acting like people in South Arlington want good neighborhood, walkable schools too. Not to be bussed north, unless they have closed that as an option school.

Okay, well that's not worth the County spending 55million+ to build a new school when there are schools with a lot of capacity.

This. Also, they just have to move more kids into the buildings that have capacity, like Drew. They punted because of community uproar, but it’s irresponsible and wasteful to leave all those empty seats while also insisting a new school be built.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are they ever going to find all the buses for this? They've complained for years how they don't have space to store buses and how they can't find enough bus drivers. They will have to bus all of Donaldson Run to Williamsburg bc it's all outside the walk zone (while being all completely in the walk zone for Hamm). That's hundreds of kids.

They, and the County, need to ramp-up the process of getting middle and high schoolers on ART transit.
In the meantime, different boundaries elsewhere will enable other kids to walk. It isn't always just adding more buses, but shifting bus routes around. And boundary changes aren't the only factor in how many buses are needed: we are expecting more students. More students = more buses.

We are? I thought I saw somewhere where they expected to need 1,000 less ES school seats. Can you point me to where the influx info is? That was one of the reasons I asked about students not participating in APS and exiting for probates.