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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I posted earlier in this thread and wanted to echo the person who encouraged people to get involved in their neighborhood associations. I'm in my early 40s with kids in elementary school and became more active on the neighborhood board in recent years.  Yes, I would probably enjoy PTA more.  But I could see that our association was being dominated by the 50/60 something empty nesters when I attended a neighborhood meeting once to complain about speeding on a street heavily used by kids going back and forth to a playground. I was told that there was nothing to be done because it wasn't in the Neighborhood Conservation Plan that they had voted for almost 10 years ago!  It had already been decided (back then) that our "conservation points" were going to be allocated to new street lights. They would not raise my issue to the county because they were still trying to get their street lights updated per the "plan" and didn't want to detract attention from the "real" issue. Over the past four years we've gotten more involvement in our neighborhood board from the Gen-Xers and new millenials moving in and the tone has changed, but I imagine this is not the case in other Arlington neighborhoods.  I agree there is a north/south divide, but also a generational divide within neighborhoods. Talk to anyone in your neighborhood over the age of 50 about the iPad for every second grader initiative and their blood just boils- paper and pencil worked for them and for their kids- why do we need to spend money to give every kid a fancy electronic device.  It makes for colorful conversations.[/quote]

YES.  I am that person.  This is a great example.  Old neighborhood conservation plans will be the death of us all.

But seriously if you're concerned about school facilities, getting involved with the neighborhood associations is worthwhile.  We're running out of places to put schools, and most, if not all possible sites are already spoken for as community centers or whatever else.  Some of these are even located in old schools that were decommissioned.  At least in my neighborhood, such sites became community centers after protracted discussions with the neighborhood association and residents.  These things were made part of NCPs and other official positions set forth by the associations.  So of course there are a lot of people clamoring for more school seats, but the official position of many neighborhood associations remains, no building on XXX community facility in our neighborhood.

Bottom line- the school board can only work with the resources made available to it by the county board, both money and land.  And a lot of decisions about how the county uses its resources are made in conjunction with the neighborhood associations, from neighborhood conservation projects like drainage ditches, to big construction projects like libraries.  I love many of my older neighbors, but get involved- don't let people with little to no interest in our schools shape the conversation.[/quote]

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