APS: New High School forum tonight 7-9 pm at Yorktown
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Anonymous
That's easy enough to file a FOIA for |
Anonymous
They released some of it already. Check the website - I don't have links handy. |
Anonymous
The two school board members who were there last night weren't even pro-Kenmore last night. We're you listening to them? When asked to commit to the Kenmore option, Reid said go talk to your neighbors in the south to understand how they feel, and he's not exactly wrong. |
Anonymous
BK was saying to someone before the meeting that the comments submitted in before the town hall included assertions that we know Kenmore is a done deal and that the Ed Center is a done deal. I'm guessing the comment(s) about Kenmore were from disgruntled Carlin Springs residents and the Ed Center comments were from all over. |
Anonymous
I am really confused what the issue is with kenmore? It's a great site for a high school, a huge plot of land 32 acres. Pretty far from other high schools. Are they worried about traffic? How bad can it be? Arlington is a tiny county -- so they're commute is ten minutes longer if they have to leave 15 minutes early to miss a bus rush? They are making I-66 HOT lane which will likely dump a LOT MORE traffic than a single high school on North arlington roads -- we all suffer things for the greater good. And living in an congested urban environment, this is part and parcel. Again, PP said don't let high school students drive, and that will cut down a lot of traffic. My university didn't let students own cars on campus, so seems reasonable for a high school. What is the root issue with the opposition to kenmore -- I really don't understand? All the sites Have busy and crowded roads, what is special about kenmore? |
Anonymous
| I'm confused. How is the Kenmore location bad for south Arlington? |
Anonymous
Fine, then let them continue to complain that Wakefield gets all the lower SES students and that all the middle and class families in South Arlington send their kids to private or choice schools bc in my mind, having an eventual high school at Kenmore is one solid way to redraw boundaries and diversify more of the high schools. |
Anonymous
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Nobody in North Arlington seems to know why people in South Arlington hate the Kenmore idea. I'm sorry, but North Arlington people on my team, doesn't that give you pause a bit?
Did you hear Lois at the meeting last night saying a 4th Comprehensive probably wouldn't get a full football field or a pool? If we were putting a school like that in North Arlington, you think parents would sit for that? The School Board came up with these 3 options of Kenmore, the Ed Center, and Arlington Tech space, but apparently there had been two others that were nixed because a high school would have been located too close to an elementary school. But that's essentially what Kenmore will be left with EVEN IF the middle school is eventually moved out of that space, which there is no immediate plan to do, meaning that there will be 3 schools basically on top of one another. Don't we care about that issue just as much if it's in the south? It's all good and well of you to say to take the parking spaces out so high schoolers won't drive, but I don't see you rushing to take them out of W-L or Yorktown. So there is more inequity. Is it true that there are no/few bike racks at Kenmore because traffic is so nuts that they don't want to encourage bike riding since it will result in accidents? It is rich for people in the North to keep talking about "the greater good" when they are not being asked to sacrifice their parks and their amenities. I am one of those people in the North who is pro-Kenmore as a fourth site! But we can't keep dismissing the actual concerns of the people who live in the affected area! Did any of us go to the Glen Carlyn meeting to hear what those concerns were? No! WTF is wrong with us? |
Anonymous
This is a big reason WHY I support Kenmore as a 4th comprehensive, to redraw boundaries more equitably, but there still won't be equity if the 4th school doesn't have the same amenities and set-up as the other 3, and signs from Lois (and maybe the school board) are, it wouldn't. |
Anonymous
| What do the parents from Glen Carlyn want? |
Anonymous
| And let's talk about redrawing high school boundaries a little more while we're at it. Do we really think the school board is going to divide Arlington into four essentially vertical strips and bus people from way north down to Kenmore and Wakefield, and people from way south up to Yorktown? Because even Pollyanna me doesn't really think that's going to happen. But how else do we achieve real equity? |
Anonymous
| A new Kenmore school would only greatly reduce diversity in YT and WL, not increase it. It'd also affect HB if a choice program a la HB-South. |
Anonymous
So, I think it's problematic to have a zoned school that will be "less than," particularly because some of the students who would likely be zoned there are coming from the poorest planning unit in all of Arlington. Literally, there's a census tract that is defined as an "area of concentrated poverty" by HUD. That neighborhood is currently zoned W-L. It's not good policy to zone this area to a school that has fewer amenities. We did that once already, during Jim Crow. If it were a program/option school, that might be different. Generally, I think we all have to accept that we're out of great options. The land we have is what we have. That's it. We're not going to have a centrally located large parcel that is far from other schools and neighbors. And we have to make the best use of the land we have. I really wish we could wait a year or so to make this decision. JFAC should be the group determining what the best and highest use is. Also, I wish we'd stop with these drawn out public processes when we know the decision has been made. It's maddening. |
Anonymous
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Please make sure you listen closely to what these board members have said and are saying. Politicians are good at leading you down a path you want o go. I remember talking to Kannanhan about an issue and she tried to make me feel good and believe she felt similarly. I pressed her several times, and only then was obvious she and I were on opposite sides.
Did any of them commit or seem to lean towards Kenmore site? |
Anonymous
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With regard to stadiums and pools generally, both Barbara and Reid acknowledged that longer term we would need to think about things differently. Any comprehensive HS would need practice fields, but perhaps as a county the larger resources like pools or stadiums are shared resources among the school. That being said, the Kenmore site is big enough for all of those things.
The Glen Carlyn resident there last night was very loud and vocal about how against Kenmore they are. How it would have over 3,000 kids grades K-12 on the same campus, traffic is bad, etc. Reid did point out that any decision anywhere wasn't just a one-and-done thing. It would absolutely also require roadwork, changing the ES start time to stagger the three schools, and a host of other things. Some parents last night also still were concerned about the likelihood of making Key only a choice school and what would happen to ASFS absorbing all those kids. It seemed to surprise some people that it would involve redistricting among ASFS, Taylor, and probably Jamestown and Discovery in 2019 to re-balance. At the HS level, there aren't any great options because we're out of land. To me it seems like a waste to build 1,300 seats at the Ed Center when they already are pretty certain that by 2025 they'll need another 2,200 seats on top of that. Go with Kenmore now, put your resources in the place where you can grow otherwise you'll still be playing catchup in 2025. |