Reply to APS Superintendent High School Overcrowding Plan

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have been to a few of these meetings, and I do not understand the concept behind Arlington Tech. I asked point blank at a meeting whether it was Vo-Tech or STEM (like TJ in FC) and the lady presenting gave the flakiest answer. She seriously said, "Oh!! It can be anything we dream it to be!!!" and that was her entire answer (in a Mary Poppins voice). Anyway, it seems like you could attract at least an HB-size population to an Arlington STEM high school modeled after TJ. You could retrofit an office building in Crystal City and offer a wide range of robotics and science clubs to offset a smaller sports program.  There are enough defense contractors over there that you could probably also draw on the private sector to provide internships, etc.

My bigger issue though (as someone who has actually attended meetings) is that I can't tell how much difference parent opinions are really going to make. It seems like the County has its ideas and it will do whatever it wants. [b]Until people start leaving the County due to the school situation and it impacts tax revenue[/b], I just don't think they care that much what parents think.[/quote]

Um, schoolkids are a net drain on the county. Everyone would be THRILLED if some families moved out of the county, and it probably would not affect real estate values at all, and definitely would not affect tax revenue. Most tax revenue in Arlington is NOT from single family homes.

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That's kind of flippant.  It's not going to be the low-income families in South Arlington who bail, but instead some of the higher income families who aren't prepared to play chicken with APS and guess where or when their kids are attending middle or high school. [/quote]

I wasn't being flip. A million dollar house pays $10K a year in property taxes. Average cost per student is $19K. Even the north Arlington schools that have fewer resource teachers (ESOL HILT, special ed) are still about $12-13K per kid in the building. Only 25% of Arlington's tax base is from single family homes. People with kids are being massively subsidized by the commercial sector and by non-parent homeowners, and they wouldn't care if a thousand families moved out of the county next year. [/quote]

NP here. Sorry, but you're really being myopic. Good public schools are what attracts that 25% of buyers to the county, and if you remove them, you get a situation like Alexandria. Close-in, great location, arguably MUCH nicer town center. Prices are much lower than Arlington. Why? Schools.

You start fuckin' with schools, and you depress the value of real estate, and therefore the tax revenue, of the whole county. [/quote]

The schools are massively overcrowded! What the [b]85% of Arlingtonians who DONT have kids in the schools want is for them to stop growing[/b]. And, actually, to shrink--to get rid of the trailers, and go back to the 1990's enrollment levels. [b]Most people in Arlington would love it a thousand families left and took their kids with them--out of the schools, out of the pools, off the bike trails.[/b] It's families who tear down the ranches and build the damn McMansions up to the lot lines. Seriously. It's a totally idle threat.

Parents don't realize how little political power they have in Arlington, and why you have to play a very long game if you want to effectuate change. You can't start paying attention when your kid is in fifth grade, and then start stamping your feet. [/quote]

The 15% of us with children in the schools would like the schools to stop growing too.

And if you want the county to stop adding to people to the schools, pools and bike trails, tell the County Board to stop approving multi-family housing because yes, as the county gets increasingly urban, families live in apartments and condos and send their children to APS.  Growth for the past 5 years in APS has come increasingly from multi-family housing and is projected to continue to do so.  Tell the County Board to put its plans to turn Lee Highway into the next Columbia Pike on hold because none of the schools along Lee Highway have space for the kids who will live in all the new buildings.  The County Board is pushing density and urbanization and development which only adds people to schools, pools and bike trails, to name a few.[/quote]

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