Reply to APS elementary planning initiative called off

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Reply to "APS elementary planning initiative called off"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Always punting.  It's their MO.[/quote]

After they accidentally published a spreadsheet specifying staff preferences for option locations, identifying staff members by name, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that was a factor in pulling the plug. It really cast doubt as to whether the whole engagement process was authentic or just a dog and pony show. [/quote]

I would. They are staff. We pay them to make recommendations. We're not in charge of Staff. They are not our hired help. If we don't like their recommendations, we press the elected officials not to adopt their recommendations. If they are good and sound recommendations, hopefully the SB ignores self-interested parents and act for the greater good. I think they are going to be very busy collecting data to show that their recommendations do align with the new strategic plan, which is about to be adopted. I think that's what they decided to wait for, because the strategic plan calls for quite a bit of change.

The engagement processes are not meant to indicate that parents, and the loudest among them, make the final call. [/quote]

I think you are missing pp's point. Of course it is the staff's job to make recommendations, and they should do that based on what the data shows to be the best plan for APS rather than which parents shout the loudest. When you compare what that spreadsheet showed with the results of their first round of analysis and then again to their second, though, it gives the impression that the staff was being dishonest about both the process itself and about the bases for their eventual recommendation. The spreadsheet undermined the integrity of the staff and their work, and when asked about it directly in open office hours, the school board struggled to explain or defend it.

To the extent the spreadsheet is part of why they suspended the process, I think it's because [b]the school board is trying to make some really big course corrections in its planning on short notice (e.g., fourth high school at the Career Center; elementary seats to the Education Center; relocating elementary schools and changing boundaries accordingly),[/b] and they can only do that if the public trusts that they are making sound judgments based on a thorough analysis of the considerations and data. The spreadsheet destroyed their ability to make that claim on the elementary location review, and there was no way for them to continue with that process without it carrying the stain of dishonesty that would have tainted their other work going on at the same time. I'm sure they will come back to it in a year or two with the appearance of a complete restart in the hopes that the community forgets this round.[/quote]

But they aren't doing this. They are showing us what compromises we'd have to make [i]if [/i]we went down that road. And nobody likes the compromises. This is all illustrative. Are they really going to not repair hvac's and roofs for four years? And move HS students into an ES and ES onto a HS campus? No, they are not. They are showing us how this is not a real option.

And I do not believe Staff has some sort of hidden agenda. If anything, they took community feedback and that's how Nottingham wound up as the option  school (it has to be one of you, and you didn't show up to say "not it.") [/quote]

That's not how Nottingham ended up on the short list of potential option sites. It ended up there because the staff knew they should move a school to NW and [b]Nottingham was a prime choice to make their job of drawing boundaries easier.[/b] Once they came to that conclusion, they went back and tried to create the data to justify it. They have already basically acknowledged this in small-group meetings.[/quote]

That sounds reasonable to me, and like it's part of the data they were assessing and taking feedback on. Better boundaries mean increasing walkers to neighborhood schools, and shortening bus rides. That's efficiency and proximity. And if it's because they've overbuilt in one small area, then it's also a big plus for equity and making capacity more evenly spread out. [/quote]

On efficiency, Nottingham would have been a good choice if the data in fact showed it would result in fewer/shorter bus rides. But when you crunch the numbers, you actually end up needing more buses if you make Nottingham an option school.

I have no idea what argument you're trying to make on proximity and how it justifies making a school that's 82% walkers an option site and putting over 300 kids who could walk to school onto buses.[/quote]

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