There is an open school board working session on Feb 8 on capacity issues and there will be a community update on Feb 15th. See www.apsva.Us/capacity

I think the concerns about staying "in the neighborhood" are kind of silly. The boundaries have to be drawn somewhere. We live on the very edge of the Glebe district--a mile from the school. Literally: the kids across the street go to Taylor. My son has lots of Glebe friends who live quite a distance away. He also has friends across the street who go to Taylor. Thems the breaks.

If the boundaries were redrawn, it's quite likely we could find ourselves in the Taylor district, or our neighbors could find themselves zoned for Glebe. Or maybe we would luck out and find ourselves smack in the middle of a school district so that every kid in any direction goes to the same school with my kid. Regardless, we will take much (if not all) of our immediate neighborhood with us. Likewise, if Nottingham's boundaries were redrawn, you AND many (even all) of your near neighbors are going with you. We aren't talking about a random lottery that sprinkles kids about the county.

We have no guarantee where our kids go to school, only that they have a school. The overcrowding (in North Arlington anyway) appears to have reached the point where we not only need to redraw boundaries, we likely need another elementary school or two. Even with a new school or two, boundaries will have to redrawn. Some people will have to go to different schools. It's really not that big of a deal.

The only other way is to use trailers, and even that's not the answer when the crowds get too big. There is a tipping point at which the school can no longer handle the extra kids in its cafeteria, library, gym, playground, no matter how many extra classrooms are created in the parking lot.

Hope is not a plan.

i'm talking about ONE kid - surely among 130 or so registered students there's ONE family who wouldn't mind voluntarily going to a different school, no? you won't know for sure until you try/ask.

So kids wouldn't get to be with their siblings if a class was overcrowded? And how would you work transportation for this?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why anyone would be up in arms about their child going to Glebe. As far as we are concerned it is a hidden gem and has typically smaller classes 18 last year in k and 20 this year in First. Teachers are great and energetic and the building is brand new. It got the 2011 board of education excellence award. So what if all the kids are not white.

call me jealous but i'm so annoyed some schools are 'typically smaller' while others are typically maxed out at 23. like i posted in another thread i don't know if/how this can be done but it's time to stop this 'one over max # then you need a new class' nonsense! worst way to flush tax dollars down the toilet for ONE kid. i say no new school should be built until every classroom is filled.

So what should the limit be? Don't add another class until there are 30 kids in a class? 35?

And have you looked at the charts on the ACPS website? The classrooms are filled at the NArl schools. Beyond filled. Besides, I don't think people are talking about building new schools as much as they are about repurposing existing space, which in the case of Reed was designed to be switched and in the case of Madison used to be school space.

don't change the limit, 23 is fine, but move that one kid to another school that has space.

no those NArl schools classrooms are NOT beyond filled. many have classes less than 23 kids, including Glebe which is a N Arl school.

This would be really uncool in my overcrowded NArl school (Nottingham). Not just because I don't want my son going to a school that somebody may consider "substandard" (whether I do or not is irrelevant to this discussion) but because I want my son's school friends to also be his neighborhood friends. There's a reason we didn't try for ATS and it's because we felt strongly that we wanted our kids to make school friends who would also be bike riding on the weekend or go over and play after school friends. We don't want to put him in a different community.

And so while I see why some might think moving just a few kids from the crowded schools to the less crowded would save money - it's not fair to the people who want their kids to go to the local school. (And that's not even talking about the argument that many of us picked specific neighborhoods because of something at the specific school - maybe we wanted Science Focus for the science curriculum, or whatever. Another reason we love our school is because it has one of the best SpEd teachers in the county - and we need her help. Plus how could anyone fairly decide which kids go or not?)

Anyway, I came in here because I was really interested to read about the overcrowding issue - I don't understand how this turned into a discussion about the merits of Gleber - which I'm sure is a fine school (and we have friends whose kids go there and the parents love it, so I'm not just saying that). Can we get back to talking specifics about the overcrowding meeting and not bash schools or parents anywhere in Arlington?

Yep that would work. I am sure the parents at the "better" schools would love to send their kid to a "substandard" Glebe. God forbid there be mixed diversity. Let us keep our smaller classes at our "substandard" school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why anyone would be up in arms about their child going to Glebe. As far as we are concerned it is a hidden gem and has typically smaller classes 18 last year in k and 20 this year in First. Teachers are great and energetic and the building is brand new. It got the 2011 board of education excellence award. So what if all the kids are not white.

call me jealous but i'm so annoyed some schools are 'typically smaller' while others are typically maxed out at 23. like i posted in another thread i don't know if/how this can be done but it's time to stop this 'one over max # then you need a new class' nonsense! worst way to flush tax dollars down the toilet for ONE kid. i say no new school should be built until every classroom is filled.

So what should the limit be? Don't add another class until there are 30 kids in a class? 35?

And have you looked at the charts on the ACPS website? The classrooms are filled at the NArl schools. Beyond filled. Besides, I don't think people are talking about building new schools as much as they are about repurposing existing space, which in the case of Reed was designed to be switched and in the case of Madison used to be school space.

don't change the limit, 23 is fine, but move that one kid to another school that has space.

no those NArl schools classrooms are NOT beyond filled. many have classes less than 23 kids, including Glebe which is a N Arl school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why anyone would be up in arms about their child going to Glebe. As far as we are concerned it is a hidden gem and has typically smaller classes 18 last year in k and 20 this year in First. Teachers are great and energetic and the building is brand new. It got the 2011 board of education excellence award. So what if all the kids are not white.

call me jealous but i'm so annoyed some schools are 'typically smaller' while others are typically maxed out at 23. like i posted in another thread i don't know if/how this can be done but it's time to stop this 'one over max # then you need a new class' nonsense! worst way to flush tax dollars down the toilet for ONE kid. i say no new school should be built until every classroom is filled.

So what should the limit be? Don't add another class until there are 30 kids in a class? 35?

And have you looked at the charts on the ACPS website? The classrooms are filled at the NArl schools. Beyond filled. Besides, I don't think people are talking about building new schools as much as they are about repurposing existing space, which in the case of Reed was designed to be switched and in the case of Madison used to be school space.

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why anyone would be up in arms about their child going to Glebe. As far as we are concerned it is a hidden gem and has typically smaller classes 18 last year in k and 20 this year in First. Teachers are great and energetic and the building is brand new. It got the 2011 board of education excellence award. So what if all the kids are not white.

call me jealous but i'm so annoyed some schools are 'typically smaller' while others are typically maxed out at 23. like i posted in another thread i don't know if/how this can be done but it's time to stop this 'one over max # then you need a new class' nonsense! worst way to flush tax dollars down the toilet for ONE kid. i say no new school should be built until every classroom is filled.

We have a child at Glebe. We've been very pleased with both schools. Actually, when we bought our house 3 years ago, we deliberately chose to live in the W-L district because we seek a more diverse educational environment for our kids. I'll trade a few points on standardized tests if it means my kids get to learn with kids from different walks of life. YMMV.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please tell me how Glebe is "substandard" to Jamestown. What is exactly better?

Resources, student quality, and test scores. Full stop.

You are a bigoted idiot. Full stop.

You're going to have to explain that one, friend.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please tell me how Glebe is "substandard" to Jamestown. What is exactly better?

Resources, student quality, and test scores. Full stop.

You are a bigoted idiot. Full stop.

I am a Glebe parent. So far we have been very happy with the school - I have a 1st grader. Good teachers, very active PTA, lots of resources available. Not sure what the PP meant by "student quality", but I can only guess he/she meant "not white and wealthy". Yes, Glebe has more minority students than the 85%+ white schools like Nottingham and Jamestown. From what I know about Glebe, it did have some issues awhile back and test scores were not so good, but that has changed in the past few years. And IMO test scores are certainly not what make a school "the best". I do think somewhere along the way, Glebe got a "bad" reputation so that will take awhile to overcome. It always seems to come up in these conversations as one of the lesser schools in N. Arlington. But for us, it has been just fine. That said, I haven't been to Nottingham and Jamestown - maybe if I did go there, I would be just blown away by how superior they are. Somehow I doubt it though.

Glebe hit over 500 enrollment this year and thus get all the same full time resources that Jamestown and Nottingham get. Glebe gets Spanish Nottingham does not. Big plus for Glebe. As far as test scores those are now up there with the rest of them as the minority students are getting priced out of the neighborhood unfortunately. I am not sure how the student population is better. Last time I checked Jamestown was not a private school the accepted application so that you could judge all the students before accepting them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please tell me how Glebe is "substandard" to Jamestown. What is exactly better?

Resources, student quality, and test scores. Full stop.

You are a bigoted idiot. Full stop.