Anonymous wrote:the career center ongoing debacle has been in the works for years. I well remember back in 2016 attending all these community engagement meetings about where to site a 4th highschool. Initially APS was looking at 2 sites- the Kenmore site and the ed center next door to W&L. With kenmore there was the though of getting the vhc property across the street for the middle school. With W&L there was the thought of getting access to the county property across Quincy.
Then community engagement. The well organized neighbors around Kenmore pitched a fit about traffic, Carlin Springs RD, lack of direct egress to 50, etc.
The ASFS parents (who could see the loss of their school site coming) somehow thought they were going to get the property across from W&L to expand ASFS? build a second ASFS? never totally clear- but organized in opposition, along with a whole bunch of W&L parents who were concerned that building there would just make W&L a massive school with no real separation (Which incidentally has in fact come to pass).
Then the career center neighbors came forward and ASKED for the 4th high school to be sited at the career center. Apparently they thought that they could get a small sized neighborhood high school sited at the career center, but with all the community ammenities that come with a full sized high school- namely a swimming pool and a track.
At various times APS has attempted to draw such a building- but it never has all the ammenities the neighbors want, and it is always massively too expensive (b/c of the need to build huge underground parking, and the difficulty of fitting all the desired stuff on such a small footprint.)
BUT APS has never quite been willing to just say, screw it, we do community 'engagement' too often and mistake a handful of well organized voices for the will of the community- if we need a new HS it needs to be at Kenmore. So instead we are left with the career center mess.

Anonymous wrote:the career center ongoing debacle has been in the works for years. I well remember back in 2016 attending all these community engagement meetings about where to site a 4th highschool. Initially APS was looking at 2 sites- the Kenmore site and the ed center next door to W&L. With kenmore there was the though of getting the vhc property across the street for the middle school. With W&L there was the thought of getting access to the county property across Quincy.
Then community engagement. The well organized neighbors around Kenmore pitched a fit about traffic, Carlin Springs RD, lack of direct egress to 50, etc.
The ASFS parents (who could see the loss of their school site coming) somehow thought they were going to get the property across from W&L to expand ASFS? build a second ASFS? never totally clear- but organized in opposition, along with a whole bunch of W&L parents who were concerned that building there would just make W&L a massive school with no real separation (Which incidentally has in fact come to pass).
Then the career center neighbors came forward and ASKED for the 4th high school to be sited at the career center. Apparently they thought that they could get a small sized neighborhood high school sited at the career center, but with all the community ammenities that come with a full sized high school- namely a swimming pool and a track.
At various times APS has attempted to draw such a building- but it never has all the ammenities the neighbors want, and it is always massively too expensive (b/c of the need to build huge underground parking, and the difficulty of fitting all the desired stuff on such a small footprint.)
BUT APS has never quite been willing to just say, screw it, we do community 'engagement' too often and mistake a handful of well organized voices for the will of the community- if we need a new HS it needs to be at Kenmore. So instead we are left with the career center mess.

Anonymous wrote:This all sounds very typical for APS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like it's done. As I understand the neighborhood concerns (and it's not one person, it's all the surrounding neighborhoods plus JFAC and many others), it's that they spent all this money and time and years of planning talking about one thing with a set of fixed assumptions that could not be changed, and then threw all that out the window and now said they are willing to basically tear down everything else on the site, but have never explained or budgeted how it will all work.

By abandoning the existing building, they have to spend money on a second project down the road. I saw on AEM that's apparently going to be for Montessori now? So it ends up being a lot of APS' overall budget being spent one that one parcel of land.

But like I said, it seems like it's done, and too bad for any other project.

So that plan came in even higher and they had to scrap it. Remember that? They can’t work around the old CC building and make a really usable HS for as many students as they envision serving within the budget. Montessori is smaller, and I guess they think it will cost less to renovate the CC to become a Pre-K-5 or 8th grade building. Montessori is going to push for a fancy upgrade, but I don’t think they’re going to get it. They need to be happy with whatever they get out of that building.

Anonymous wrote:It seems like it's done. As I understand the neighborhood concerns (and it's not one person, it's all the surrounding neighborhoods plus JFAC and many others), it's that they spent all this money and time and years of planning talking about one thing with a set of fixed assumptions that could not be changed, and then threw all that out the window and now said they are willing to basically tear down everything else on the site, but have never explained or budgeted how it will all work.

By abandoning the existing building, they have to spend money on a second project down the road. I saw on AEM that's apparently going to be for Montessori now? So it ends up being a lot of APS' overall budget being spent one that one parcel of land.

But like I said, it seems like it's done, and too bad for any other project.

Anonymous wrote:It seems like it's done. As I understand the neighborhood concerns (and it's not one person, it's all the surrounding neighborhoods plus JFAC and many others), it's that they spent all this money and time and years of planning talking about one thing with a set of fixed assumptions that could not be changed, and then threw all that out the window and now said they are willing to basically tear down everything else on the site, but have never explained or budgeted how it will all work.

By abandoning the existing building, they have to spend money on a second project down the road. I saw on AEM that's apparently going to be for Montessori now? So it ends up being a lot of APS' overall budget being spent one that one parcel of land.

But like I said, it seems like it's done, and too bad for any other project.

Anonymous wrote:I think that's unfair to the neighborhood poster. No one is talking 4th HS anymore b/c enrollment is so far down, plus that site was never good for a neighborhood HS for all the reasons that were pointed out 2-3 years ago.

I actually think the potential funding shortfall identified in the JFAC letter is just that: potential. Maybe this will restrict ability to do future projects, maybe not. However, from a transparency and fiscal responsibility standpoint, it is a HUGE problem.