Reply to What do you expect from APS staff (option/neighborhood) on 4/30?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=anonymous]

This fall (which probably means mid to late September at the earlier), the staff will issue its draft recommendation with proposed boundaries; this will be the first time they see boundaries. The board is scheduled to vote on the options at its early-November board meeting, and there is zero room to push that back again because the decision needs to be made before the option process starts in January. What that means is that from the time the staff issues its recommendations to when the school board votes, there will be maybe six weeks to make adjustments to the recommendation. That is enough time to tweak some proposed boundaries to see if they can improve either option, but it is not enough time to revisit were they propose siting the schools. Unless the staff expands the community engagement again, which is unlikely since we're headed into summer, we most likely will not see any further analysis from the staff until they release their final siting determination in September. [/quote]

This is an important point. They are going to be releasing recommendations on school changes and boundaries at the same time, with only a few weeks to hammer out details. I think we're in for a big mess this fall if they don't release anything until then. [/quote]

That is what they are counting on, that by the time people start paying attention, it will be too late to change it. Those of us at option of neighborhood schools that may move are easy to dismiss as purely self-interested and not concerned with the needs of the community as a whole. If the other schools don't start speaking up and demanding more transparency in this process, they're going to keep going on this path.[/quote]

If you want schools to speak up, people need to stop bashing them when they do.  All of the schools that have spoken up have been vilified.  And as far as I know, none of the people posting here were actually in on the conversations these schools had with staff.  Yet, everyone talks like they know what was said and it was the worst one could imagine.

Sure, Nottingham was tone-deaf to petition its Congressman.  And the use by Tuckahoe of "moral cohesion" was ill-advised.  And Key is just trying to preserve its community by wanting things to be the same.  But, at least they have been out there trying to hammer information out of APS and get their parents involved.  [/quote]

Unfortunately I suspect the schools speaking up are being bashed by people at schools that aren't. After all, Key has no reason to attack Nottingham for speaking up, because keeping Nottingham as a neighborhood school is a step toward staying with the status quo. And Nottingham has no reason to bash Key, because the less movement of option schools, the less of a chance Nottingham becomes an option school. Maybe Tuckahoe is bashing Nottingham, but that would seem counterproductive because Nottingham becoming an option school means further breaking up the Tuckahoe community to accommodate a lot of displaced Nottingham students. Nottingham families may have gotten in on the moral cohesion ribbing at the time (which really just proves my point, since Nottingham didn't know they were a target back then), but now it would make no sense for Nottingham to continue to target Tuckahoe because if Tuckahoe became an option school, it means displacing a huge chunk of the current Nottingham community to make room.[/quote]

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