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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Re Kadera and the Reed site- so we're directly affected by the new boundary for Reed and followed it all closely.  I understand why Kadera made the arguments she did against the school moves, and I understand the issues McK has had with APS- the overcrowding, the long renovation, etc.  I didn't love the manner in which she, on behalf of the McK PTA, suggested that specific other schools be made into option sites, but I understand why it was done.

But so I looked at her website/blog thing and read this:

"3. Busing to the new school at the Reed site: APS is asking for $390,000 to hire more bus drivers and attendants when a new elementary school opens at the Reed site next fall. This is a real head-scratcher: last year during the school moves process, APS argued that McKinley's student population should move to Reed because it was "so walkable" and that making this move would actually reduce transportation costs. So what happened?"

So as I understood it, McKinley specifically argued for sending as many of their students to Reed as possible, to the exclusion of walkable kids from other schools.  The boundary map proposed by the McK PTA suggested that even those kids who live in houses like 20 yards from the school door not attend (though APS rejected that in the end).  I don't know, my understanding was that APS viewed Reed as a walkable school based on the # of kids who COULD walk there.  But APS acceded to McK's demands, and now will continue to bus kids who could walk to Reed to Tuckahoe, and bus kids who used to walk to McK from Madison Manor to Reed.  Isn't that why the busing costs are higher then anticipated?

I don't know, this is probably super nitpicky and set me straight if I'm not understanding what happened.  But it just seemed very disingenuous coming from someone who was so involved in this process.[/quote]

I don’t think this is nitpicky at all. I haven’t verified every detail of this personally, but if this is how it all went down, I think this is pretty dishonest of her.  [/quote]

At least some of what you say above doesn't make sense.  The Madison Manor kids who weren't going to be able to walk to McKinley anymore once that building was made into a choice school were always going to have to be bussed [i]somewhere[/i] because by and large they weren't going to be going to be able to walk to the old McKinley building for school anymore.  And they sure weren't going to walk to Ashlawn or WHEREVER else APS decided to assign them -- too far whether Reed or some other school.

Whatever old mckinley footprint kadera asked to preserve, it sure wasn't $400K worth of buses of a footprint, so I assume Kadera's point is that, hey, the reason you guys chose McKinley as a school to convert to a choice school in the first place is because the Westover bucket of walkable kids is larger than the Madison Manor bucket of walkable kids.  But if were really true, why is it costing $400K more than it used to at McKinley to get buses to load up Reed?  I see the point about Tuckahoe, but again that's not $400K worth of buses so what happened?[/quote]

To give some perspective on it, $400k is roughly the equivalent of four buses.

That aside, I think you’re misinterpreting pp’s post.  The issue, as I understand it, is that Kadera argued on behalf of the McKinley community to send more of the McKinley community (such as the Madison Manor pocket you mentioned) to Reed, even though they would need to be bused to Reed and it would mean zoning away planning units that could walk to Reed (but would have to be bused elsewhere) to accommodate them.  It would be pretty disingenuous to argue for a boundary that you know will increase busing needs and then criticize APS for budgeting for more transportations funds to accommodate the solution you asked for.[/quote]

Thanks, I'm the initial poster.  That is what I meant.

What I read implied that APS had misrepresented or miscalculated Reed's walkability because they are now spending $$$ to bus kids there.  My immediate thought was, well of course the estimated transportation costs went up after they finalized the boundaries, because they probably assumed that all the kids who could walk to Reed would go there.  And that someone intimately involved in the process would know that.

I believe you that it's not a $400k difference, but if the point she was trying to make was that the only issue is that it should be $100k-$200k (1-2 buses) vs. $400k, that was not clear to me.[/quote]

I think Kadera might still be making a point that you guys aren't getting.  I acknowledge that there's a small grey area where the costs are a little higher because maybe some of walkable Tuckahoe didn't move to Reed (is that right?), but that still doesn't really defeat the point, which is:

When picking a school to change to a choice school, McKinley was told that it was a good target to move to Reed because McKinley used a lot of buses, and fewer net buses would be needed for a neighborhood program at Reed because so many more kids at Westover would be walkable at Reed than were walkable at McKinley.

This didn't seem to be true, in the end.  Those Tuckahoe kids don't make up $400K worth of buses.  If the net cost of transporting the Madison Manor kids (who were walkable to McKinley!) is more than the net cost of busing the Westover kids to McKinley had been, then wasn't McKinley actually more "walkable" in the end than Reed was?  Why would buses cost that much more than they had cost to McKinley if Reed was actually more walkable?[/quote]

I think one point you’re missing is that no matter where the located ATS, there was likely to be increased busing needs because they are now servicing an additional school that necessarily will have some kids bused there.  If the frictional cost of that was going to be, say, at least two routes no matter what, and then accommodating McKinleys demand to move more of its community to Reed necessitated two more buses, there’s four additional buses.[/quote]

Talking about ATS, as a countywide option school, they're going to be bussing people from Crystal City to Westover. If we're talking about transportation costs, they just went sky high because ATS isn't in a central location anymore. It should have never been moved, IMO. (And since there is an ATS parent commenting here, I need to say I'm not that ATS parent.)
[/quote]
It’s not like those kids from Crystal City were walking to ATS before, so I doubt there will be a significant increase in the number of buses needed at ATS after the move.  What do you think would have been a better solution to the Key neighborhood situation?[/quote]

Well, they're going to need a whole lot more buses (and fuel) to go to what was McKinley. I personally think it was a short sighted approach to shuffle schools. I live near Nottingham, and every house or teardown that goes on sale gets sold to a family with 3+ kids. Our schools probably just needed a few years (and no pandemic) to reach 100%+ capacity. And now another school here will likely become an option school here and squeeze us even further. Like the rest of Arlington. I blame the SB for this dilemma.[/quote]

I live in your neighborhood.  Why do you think we are entitled to sit comfortably at capacity when ASFS is at 129% capacity?  Why do we deserve to be less squeezed than other neighborhoods?[/quote]

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