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

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

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[quote=Anonymous]I think the best arguments always credit the concerns of the other person- and don't just dismiss them.  
I'm not at all anti-Nottingham.  I am somewhat anti everyone who relies on matching t'shirts, change.org petitions, and pushy parents to get there way.  
I really think the only school being considered for a move to Nottingham is ATS- so I am going to talk specifically about moving ATS.
i also think the only reason the Staff is 'targeting' Nottingham is b/c they think they need to make either Tuckahoe, Nottingham, or Discovery an option school- so to some extent I am considering the argument as between those three schools.
Diversity:
I think this is an argument that has surface appeal, but is not really true.  Right now ATS has 142 FARMS students.  https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/FREE-REDUCED-OCTOBER-31-2017.pdf
ATS has 34 VPI students.  https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Mar-31-Membership-2017-18.pdf
I'm guessing that a large number of the students (if not all) who are FARMS and are not currently in VPI, started as VPI students, and have now moved up grades- the math works out that way, especially when you account for the fact that ATS added a 2nd VPI class a few years ago.  Getting into the VPI class at ATS is competitive- I know multiple people who scored high on the VPI admittance criteria and ranked ATS as their first choice, who did not get into VPI.
So, will moving ATS from its current location to Nottingham reduce the people applying to VPI?   Maybe- but probably not drastically.  They are less than 3 miles apart.  Would moving to to Tuckahoe or Discovery?  Well both of those are slightly further than Nottingham, but not by much- so I don't think it makes much difference which of those schools are picked.

Access to Public Transit:
As outlined in another post above, I actually think this is another argument that has surface appeal but is not really true.  The APS Go surveys showed nearly no students using public transit to get to school.  That being said- Nottingham and Tuckahoe have a similar profile for access to public transit.  They are both a few blocks off Lee Highway- which has a ton of buses.  Tuckahoe has the benefit of being walkable to EFC metro.  Discovery probably has the worst transit of the three.  So if you credit this factor, maybe Tuckahoe looks a little better as an option- but I basically think this is not a relevant factor.

Traffic:
I think that any area of the county can legitimately argue it can't handle the traffic increase.  Traffic is a huge issue everywhere.  I think what we are really talking here is more buses- not more car riders.  Would the additional buses be worse at Nottingham than at Tuckahoe or Discovery?  I don't really have an opinion on that one.  I think all three schools are on minor roads, but just off larger roads.  [/quote]

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