Reply to APS: Think the "no move" campaign is going to work?

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Reply to "APS: Think the "no move" campaign is going to work?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Did the McKinley PTA actually submit its December 19 boundaries-only proposal to APS? I don’t see it posted on the APS website, so it’s not clear whether staff will be in a position to answer questions about it—like how many students would be reassigned, how many walkers would be converted to bus riders, which schools would be or would soon be over capacity, where pre-K would be located, and whether demographic disparities would be worsened.[/quote]

My understanding is that they did.  I think it might not hVe been posted because this phase is only about the locations of schools, not boundaries.  Unlike their Nottingham and Tuckahoe as option site proposals, their boundary-only scenario isn’t really about locations, it’s about boundaries, and that’s not what this phase is about.[/quote]

That makes sense, but I think it’d be a big missed opportunity if staff didn’t directly and specifically address the McKinley PTA’s boundary-only proposal. It was offered to support the argument that any capacity issues can be solved only with boundary changes. APS staff has its own boundary-only scenario that serves as a benchmark against which the moves proposal is measured. Ostensibly the staff’s own maps for that scenario minimize the number of reassigned kids and account for other factors (like preK and demographics) better than any community-created map, and even the staff’s scenario had over 4,000 students switching schools. If staff is trying to make the point that, no, we can’t solve the capacity problems just by changing boundaries, what better way to do that than to take the lead opponents’ own map and make clear to everyone else the staggering number of kids across the county that would have to move or become bus riders?

A deep dive into the McKinley PTA map, or even the staff’s own boundaries-only map, could illustrate the futility of no-moves scenarios more persuasively than just high-level summary figures while sapping alternative proposals of any credibility. It might help get neutral or apprehensive parents off the sidelines if they realized that keeping Key, ATS, and McKinley where they are would require far more reassignments than if they moved, and that the opponents of the moves are more than willing to let thousands of other kids get reassigned as long as theirs get to stay put.[/quote]

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