Reply to APS Elementary Location Working Group 4/12

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The board expressed a lot of skepticism about the capacity criteria in their rubric (must be able to go up to 750 with at least 20% coming from relocatables. I think we’ll see some revision of that standard once they look at the application numbers for each option school. If a school gets 1000+ applications, yes, put it in a place that can flex up to 750 because that’s a great program to help manage capacity. But if a school gets only 650 applications, putting it at a school that can flex up to 750 is a waste of seats, and they’re better of putting it at a site with a lower maximum preferred capacity.[/quote]

Exactly. You should have explained it to the SB!

But couldn’t ATS fill 750 seats easily at Reed or McKinley?[/quote]

The ATS site already fits that criteria, it continues to be the perfect site for that program. Its maximum preferred capacity is 753.

More broadly, though, I got the sense the SB already has this on their radar, which is part of why they're concerned about this criteria. Another concern may be with the notion generally that we can effectively manage capacity with option programs. Sure, if everyone is over capacity, increasing the capacity of option programs comparably makes sense. But if one quadrant is way over capacity while another is under capacity, there's no guarantee that expanding an option school will draw from the over-capacity area rather than the under-capacity area, not unless they fundamentally change the lottery system for option programs and create an HB-style quota from each elementary zone that can be adjusted year-to-year based on school populations.[/quote].

Then where do you put Spanish immersion?  The Key neighborhood needs more neighborhood seats. [/quote]

It'll go to ASFS. Fleet will draw some students from Long Branch and then some students from the Key/ASFS zone can go there. Push some of Taylor into Jamestown and then more students can go there. Reed will take some current Glebe students and then some can go there. There's no where in the county that couldn't use the capacity that would be free up by moving an option school elsewhere or wouldn't feel cramped from losing 500+ seats to a relocated option program. On its own, it's just not all that compelling an argument.[/quote]

None of that solves staff’s fear (we don’t know yet if the SB shares that fear) of drawing long narrow boundaries east in the NW Quadrant. They mentioned it several times as a driver for  their recommendations.

But I think that swap is the simplest one to pull off. [/quote]

I get that's what the staff is concerned about at the moment, but if you make Nottingham or Discovery option, all that does is push a bunch of families west and Key/ASFS will still feel a crunch coming from a different direction. Some of those families will displace to the east, but you'll still have about 300 families pushing into Jamestown, Glebe and Taylor, creating westward pressure on those school populations. Either way you end up with messy boundaries and busing. They can do it, but it's kind of a six of one, half dozen of another kind of argument.[/quote]

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