Anonymous wrote:I’d make Claremont a neighborhood school and move immersion to Drew. Immersion is a draw for many Fairlington/Shirlington families.

Making Drew an option school isn’t politically viable right now. It was mostly option Montessori until a few years ago and there was a big push to make it a neighborhood school to right the wrong done generations ago via bussing. Making it option again would be insensitive/racist/inequitable/etc and would be a whole cluster.

Anonymous wrote:I’d make Claremont a neighborhood school and move immersion to Drew. Immersion is a draw for many Fairlington/Shirlington families.

You clearly have zero background in all of this. That neighborhood fought for years to have a true neighborhood school. Huge outcry among minority parents if they tried to turn it back into a lottery school.

I’d make Claremont a neighborhood school and move immersion to Drew. Immersion is a draw for many Fairlington/Shirlington families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was very foolish to let Amazon in without forcing them to pat for a new school.

^ pay

It's worse than that - Amazon DID pay $340MM to Arlington, just for affordable housing and not schools. Which just goes to show how much more powerful the affordable housing/developer lobby is with the county board while they ignore parents and APS. We'll never improve with this lack of collaboration between the county and APS.

This, and also how much the County Board believes it has absolutely no responsibility for schools. They generously "give" APS a little less than half its revenue and the rest is APS' problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was very foolish to let Amazon in without forcing them to pat for a new school.

^ pay

It's worse than that - Amazon DID pay $340MM to Arlington, just for affordable housing and not schools. Which just goes to show how much more powerful the affordable housing/developer lobby is with the county board while they ignore parents and APS. We'll never improve with this lack of collaboration between the county and APS.

I think the problem
Is they don’t have an incentive to collaborate. Is there someone higher up
The food chain who does? That is the person or office to contact.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was very foolish to let Amazon in without forcing them to pat for a new school.

^ pay

It's worse than that - Amazon DID pay $340MM to Arlington, just for affordable housing and not schools. Which just goes to show how much more powerful the affordable housing/developer lobby is with the county board while they ignore parents and APS. We'll never improve with this lack of collaboration between the county and APS.

There isn’t as much money to be made in building schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was very foolish to let Amazon in without forcing them to pat for a new school.

^ pay

It's worse than that - Amazon DID pay $340MM to Arlington, just for affordable housing and not schools. Which just goes to show how much more powerful the affordable housing/developer lobby is with the county board while they ignore parents and APS. We'll never improve with this lack of collaboration between the county and APS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the sites in your memo have been developed. They need to start looking for more sites for schools

I think they should take back fairlington community center and put pre-K and/or K there to ease overcrowding at Abingdon. Probably an easier sell than moving s. Fairlington to Drew.

That's all well and good for Abingdon. But for APS, it is rather inefficient to leave nearby schools (Drew) undercapacity and take on the responsibility of yet another building.

Anonymous wrote:It was very foolish to let Amazon in without forcing them to pat for a new school.

^ pay

It was very foolish to let Amazon in without forcing them to pat for a new school.

Anonymous wrote:That’s also presuming they have the money. APS already has a budget shortfall (thank you $100M H-B). Murphy and Chadwick were negligent in spending school system money.

The latest capital planning report states that APS anticipates a challenging budget environment for the next few years. And it takes a minimum of 5 years to bring a new school online even if they can come up with the money. They are hoping that if they continue to offer virtual learning, enough students will choose it to relieve some of the capacity issues. Anyone who thinks Arlington can handle increased density in the near-term future by simply building more schools isn’t paying attention to the data and reports coming straight out of APS. The County Board might be hiding the ball, but APS isn’t.

Anonymous wrote:That’s also presuming they have the money. APS already has a budget shortfall (thank you $100M H-B). Murphy and Chadwick were negligent in spending school system money.

Yeah. And if you look at the latest APS capital planning report, they seem to think they will be in a constrained budget environment for at least the next few years. They are trying to see if enough kids will continue to choose virtual learning to relieve some of the capacity issues. It also takes a minimum of 5 years to bring a new school online. APS can’t handle a rapid influx of students. It’s just a fact.

That’s also presuming they have the money. APS already has a budget shortfall (thank you $100M H-B). Murphy and Chadwick were negligent in spending school system money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the sites in your memo have been developed. They need to start looking for more sites for schools

Here are the latest contenders: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/files/BJGHHK489469/$file/F-3%20FY21-30%20CIP%20Direction.pdf


There’s also a list with county owned properties for longer range planning, but I can’t find it. It was a memo from the county to APS I think.

Ah here it is. Note that these are mostly parks and community centers that would require a long process and a lot of fighting with the old people and other entrenched interests (tree people, historic preservation people, sports people, etc.) of Arlington County to turn into school sites.

https://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/12/County_Manager_APS_Letter_2019-11-18.pdf

Wow. I never saw this. I really wonder why aps hasn’t taken the county up on developing some of these sites. The Arlington arts center should become an elementary school again, and there was that idea of a sixth grade academy (or maybe they could make some sort of an option school program) at Dawson’s terrace or one of the south Arlington sites.

Read the letter. The places not under current study (Quincy/Buck, VHC on Carlin Springs, and Aurora Hills) are only offered as potential long term solutions in the 10+ year time frame - and even then only after a lengthy community engagement process. They aren’t currently on offer, the county is just saying they are sites that theoretically could work if you jump through all the hoops.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the sites in your memo have been developed. They need to start looking for more sites for schools

Here are the latest contenders: https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/arlington/Board.nsf/files/BJGHHK489469/$file/F-3%20FY21-30%20CIP%20Direction.pdf


There’s also a list with county owned properties for longer range planning, but I can’t find it. It was a memo from the county to APS I think.

Ah here it is. Note that these are mostly parks and community centers that would require a long process and a lot of fighting with the old people and other entrenched interests (tree people, historic preservation people, sports people, etc.) of Arlington County to turn into school sites.

https://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2019/12/County_Manager_APS_Letter_2019-11-18.pdf

Wow. I never saw this. I really wonder why aps hasn’t taken the county up on developing some of these sites. The Arlington arts center should become an elementary school again, and there was that idea of a sixth grade academy (or maybe they could make some sort of an option school program) at Dawson’s terrace or one of the south Arlington sites.