APS Closing Nottingham

[Anonymous]

APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

Great idea in theory, but we all know that it will take 10+ years with a dragged out redistricting process and $50m+ in needed renovations before Nottingham will be a neighborhood elementary again. This district can’t do anything cheap or fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

Great idea in theory, but we all know that it will take 10+ years with a dragged out redistricting process and $50m+ in needed renovations before Nottingham will be a neighborhood elementary again. This district can’t do anything cheap or fast.

That is why I’m baffled that parents think we should explore building an entire temporary school of trailers. People have officially lost their minds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

Great idea in theory, but we all know that it will take 10+ years with a dragged out redistricting process and $50m+ in needed renovations before Nottingham will be a neighborhood elementary again. This district can’t do anything cheap or fast.

That is why I’m baffled that parents think we should explore building an entire temporary school of trailers. People have officially lost their minds.

I'm a Nottingham parent and I don't think a trailer village is the answer. I think a community center is the best solution.

They should keep Nottingham open and redo the boundaries and program locations for the ENTIRE system to rebalance enrollment to relieve the schools that are over. Just doesn't make sense to me to close one school when there is overcrowding in another part of the county.

Time to rip off the band aid and redo boundaries. Folks won't like it. Too bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

Great idea in theory, but we all know that it will take 10+ years with a dragged out redistricting process and $50m+ in needed renovations before Nottingham will be a neighborhood elementary again. This district can’t do anything cheap or fast.

That is why I’m baffled that parents think we should explore building an entire temporary school of trailers. People have officially lost their minds.

I think we should take over Fairlington CC, repurpose it for temporary elementary use, and then convert it to a full state of the art ES to serve the south Arlington community when we’re done renovating whatever is so urgent that it requires Nottingham to shut down to accommodate it.

I recognize that it won’t have all the gold plated amenities of a purpose built school, but I think the kids can manage without a bike shower or a full library on site for a year. Give the locals a discount voucher to Long Bridge.

If we launch a concerted effort at the county board, we can wrap this up within a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:all the discussion about whether or not Nottingham is appropriate for swing space is really missing the point of why APS is proposing closing it. APS is proposing closing Nottingham b/c it is underenrolled- as are the surrounding schools. The last month APS published enrollment statistics was February. Nottingham had 382 students with a capacity of 513. Tuckahoe had 429 students with a capacity of 545. (I'm intentionally leaving preschool out of this conversation). Discovery 493 students with a capacity of 630. Cardinal 701 with a capacity of 732. Close Nottingham and 281 of those students are easily absorbed. Going slightly futher- Jamestown had 437 with a capacity of 597. Shift the discovery boundary to move units back to Jamestown- and the rest of Nottingham goes to discovery.
The swing space is to say that APS is going to continue to own it rather than sell or give it to the county to use as parkland/ a community center etc.
Closing one of those schools is good fiscal management- operating buildings and schools way under capacity is not prudent. Honestly, you can make the case for closing Tuckahoe too- (not closing both Nottingham and Tuckahoe- but one of them).

Question: what is the predicted growth in elementary school aged children in Arlington? What is that based on? I am not asking the question of where that growth will occur—just if and by how much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

Great idea in theory, but we all know that it will take 10+ years with a dragged out redistricting process and $50m+ in needed renovations before Nottingham will be a neighborhood elementary again. This district can’t do anything cheap or fast.

That is why I’m baffled that parents think we should explore building an entire temporary school of trailers. People have officially lost their minds.

I think we should take over Fairlington CC, repurpose it for temporary elementary use, and then convert it to a full state of the art ES to serve the south Arlington community when we’re done renovating whatever is so urgent that it requires Nottingham to shut down to accommodate it.

I recognize that it won’t have all the gold plated amenities of a purpose built school, but I think the kids can manage without a bike shower or a full library on site for a year. Give the locals a discount voucher to Long Bridge.

If we launch a concerted effort at the county board, we can wrap this up within a year.

I think it was a school back in the day.

[Anonymous]

Do they really need elementary capacity in the South? It doesn't make sense to me to redo boundaries if basically everyone is fine except there's a bunch of extra capacity centered around 22207. If that's the case then just do this swing space proposal APS wants and then go from there. No need to redo everything just so Nottingham and surrounding underenrollment can be spread out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

Great idea in theory, but we all know that it will take 10+ years with a dragged out redistricting process and $50m+ in needed renovations before Nottingham will be a neighborhood elementary again. This district can’t do anything cheap or fast.

That is why I’m baffled that parents think we should explore building an entire temporary school of trailers. People have officially lost their minds.

I'm a Nottingham parent and I don't think a trailer village is the answer. I think a community center is the best solution.

They should keep Nottingham open and redo the boundaries and program locations for the ENTIRE system to rebalance enrollment to relieve the schools that are over. Just doesn't make sense to me to close one school when there is overcrowding in another part of the county.

Time to rip off the band aid and redo boundaries. Folks won't like it. Too bad.

+1. And we're a Nottingham family who would probably get moved to a nearby school due to said boundary changes.

[Anonymous]

According to one of the site administrator’s daily summaries, this thread was only slightly less active then the SCOTUS decision thread started on the same day.

Buckle up, APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

+1

Better than losing more school buildings to community centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to one of the site administrator’s daily summaries, this thread was only slightly less active then the SCOTUS decision thread started on the same day.

Buckle up, APS.

Should we expect McCrazy 2.0?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to one of the site administrator’s daily summaries, this thread was only slightly less active then the SCOTUS decision thread started on the same day.

Buckle up, APS.

Should we expect McCrazy 2.0?

Definitely. I would laugh but it’s kinda sad since these are our kids’ schools we are talking about. I guess we are the craziest people on DCUM this week.

[Anonymous]

Looking at the stats, all schools are significantly under their capacity when trailers are added in. Some schools (like Key) are over their permanent capacity but under their "with trailers" capacity. And you can't really redistribute that problem at an option school like Key anyway. A few southern schools are over permanent capacity but nothing like the 100 kids overage that Key currently has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS is smart use this period of lower elementary enrollment to get some swing space and renovate schools badly in need of it. Then they can reopen as a neighborhood elementary when enrollment requires it! Smart not to give up the building.

Great idea in theory, but we all know that it will take 10+ years with a dragged out redistricting process and $50m+ in needed renovations before Nottingham will be a neighborhood elementary again. This district can’t do anything cheap or fast.

That is why I’m baffled that parents think we should explore building an entire temporary school of trailers. People have officially lost their minds.

I think we should take over Fairlington CC, repurpose it for temporary elementary use, and then convert it to a full state of the art ES to serve the south Arlington community when we’re done renovating whatever is so urgent that it requires Nottingham to shut down to accommodate it.

I recognize that it won’t have all the gold plated amenities of a purpose built school, but I think the kids can manage without a bike shower or a full library on site for a year. Give the locals a discount voucher to Long Bridge.

If we launch a concerted effort at the county board, we can wrap this up within a year.

!!??
Kids near fairlington don’t need a library. All so Nottingham kids don’t have to walk to Discovery and Tuckahoe?? Both lovely schools with great amenities?? You Nottingham people never disappoint.