Anonymous wrote:17:15 - Maybe it's different because your kids are at Nottingham, so we have different perspectives. I have a hard time with the argument that APS should just move forward with something that doesn't make sense right now so they can focus on something else. The numbers don't support a boundary shift in 2016, so just delay it. You mentioned your kid was negatively affected by overcrowding. I'm sorry that happened. You understand the impact and, as a parent, it would make sense that you would rather have balanced enrollement everywhere and not the inequity that will be seen in N. Arl over the next 2 years.

Are you OP?

17:15 - Maybe it's different because your kids are at Nottingham, so we have different perspectives. I have a hard time with the argument that APS should just move forward with something that doesn't make sense right now so they can focus on something else. The numbers don't support a boundary shift in 2016, so just delay it. You mentioned your kid was negatively affected by overcrowding. I'm sorry that happened. You understand the impact and, as a parent, it would make sense that you would rather have balanced enrollement everywhere and not the inequity that will be seen in N. Arl over the next 2 years.

Anonymous wrote:NP here - I agree that rebalancing every year isn't possible. What I don't agree with is making changes now for benefit in the future if it is causing more problems in the short-term. If long-term was what mattered, they would be moving those units to McKinley in a few years, when their existing population decreases.

I would be shocked if construction finishes on time. It would be the first project that hasn't gone over in years.

Common sense would allow for grandfathering at both Glebe and Tuckahoe for older students, like APS did with Discovery. Is that on the table?

But every year that the school board lets this process drag on, it's another year of massive distraction with people petitioning for the board to reconsider the issue. If the public were willing to accept that the units were moving at a point in the future, perhaps that's something the board would consider. But the board knows that whoever doesn't like the decision (and there will always be someone, no matter how fair the decision) will fight it tooth and nail until it's done, and then they have to keep wasting their time on it. I'd rather than that focus on the middle schools and high schools, even though we still have nearly a dozen years left before all of ours are out of elementary, because for all those kids (including my own, I had one who spent most of his elementary years in a wildly overcrowded Nottingham) who had their elementary years negatively affected by overcrowding, I'd like them to get a break in middle and high school because the school board has finished with it by then.

NP here. Please let us what you (an adult) think a young kid will feel.

I'll bite. For starters, both of my elementary school kids like running around in fields. They prefer outdoor recess to indoor recess. So, and I know this is CRAZY since I'm just an adult and not a 9 year old, but I'm going to guess that the average kid would prefer to be at a school that actually had a field to run around in over one that had its fields covered with trailers, all else being equal.

NP here - I agree that rebalancing every year isn't possible. What I don't agree with is making changes now for benefit in the future if it is causing more problems in the short-term. If long-term was what mattered, they would be moving those units to McKinley in a few years, when their existing population decreases.

I would be shocked if construction finishes on time. It would be the first project that hasn't gone over in years.

Common sense would allow for grandfathering at both Glebe and Tuckahoe for older students, like APS did with Discovery. Is that on the table?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You don't need to be over capacity to need trailers. Once you hit 95% capacity, and potentially even lower, you end up needing trailers. To ensure that McKinley wouldn't need trailers for the reasonably foreseeable future despite population growth (and building in a buffer for changes in residence patterns), and to avoid the need to reshuffle students between schools every year to accomplish that, the county would need to take capacity of McKinley down to probably around 80%. Where are you going to put those 150+ students, especially without creating an even greater need for trailers elsewhere?

Excuse me, this sounds very much like you are making things up. I think you are saying that a school basically must either put an entire grade level outside in trailers or none at all and nothing else will do, and I have learned that there are many other options to make more classrooms within a school. For example, a school can have roving specials classes, where for example the Spanish or Art teacher comes to the kids instead of the kids coming to them. The 80% capacity is your made up number, not reality, and NOBODY is asking for your strawman 80% capacity.

I think you're missing my point. If we assume that population is going to grow over time (which is why we're in this fix to begin with, so I don't think we can take it out of the picture), and we want a solution that doesn't just get rid of trailers for McKinley for a year or two and doesn't involve rebalancing schools every year, we need to give enough of a buffer *today* to allow McKinley to grow down the road. Yes, 80% isn't a figure based on any specific study, but I certainly hope you at least recognize that we can't put McKinley at 95% capacity today, and expect that this would even eliminate trailers today, let alone in five years.

I also think you're very dismissive of the limiting impact roving classes has on the ability of specials teachers to teach effectively.

But you are missing MY point. I said it's worse for a bigger school to have trailers than a smaller school so we should try to reduce the bigger school's numbers, and you responded that wasn't feasible because we'd need to find a home for 150 kids! So in effect we don't need to reduce McKinley's overcapacity because of your made up 80% figure, since there will be trailers anyway. But that need not be true. And throwing your hands up in the air and saying the problem is too hard doesn't fix the injustice of an already huge school being overcapacity with no green space.

Re my dismissiveness, I've seen a roving Spanish class and it seemed great to me. They spent less time being ferried to and from their specials class and the teacher did a great job with it. I think you're very dismissive of what having a 750 kid overcapacity elementary school with no field space might feel like to a young kid.

No, that's not what I said. I realize it's hard to put all of the strands together because we're all posting as Anonymous, but what I've said through this thread is that I think the boundaries should stay as they are, because even though I agree that McKinley will be overcrowded next year and that sucks, if you look just a couple of years after that, the numbers are expected to go down for McKinley while going up for every other school it's been suggested they could go to instead, so you're not really fixing the problem. You're just saying you want it to suck for someone other than you. Of course no one wants to be the person it sucks for, but you really haven't offered a compelling argument for why it should be a different school. Yes, I know McKinley's capacity will be greater, but do you really think that they rebalance it so that McKinley has no trailers in it's green space, but a school with smaller capacity is now at 140% capacity again (which Nottingham and Tuckahoe were at times before the rebalancing), they get more trailers and have no green space, that somehow that will be just fine because the absolute numbers would be less? I'm sure you're not that disingenuous.

Since rebalancing every year isn't a plausible solution, I think the best approach is to look at the longer-term projections of student population, and choosing the boundaries that best balance the current number with what they're expected to be in five and ten years. Hopefully in ten years the board will be largely done with this round of expanding at the middle and high school levels, will come back around to the elementary schools, develop another expansion strategy if needed, and then once again try to balance the student populations both in the immediate term and the longer term.

Now I understand why Arlington doesn't have AAP. If they had that on top of their ongoing boundary and North/South squabbles, the whole county would implode.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You don't need to be over capacity to need trailers. Once you hit 95% capacity, and potentially even lower, you end up needing trailers. To ensure that McKinley wouldn't need trailers for the reasonably foreseeable future despite population growth (and building in a buffer for changes in residence patterns), and to avoid the need to reshuffle students between schools every year to accomplish that, the county would need to take capacity of McKinley down to probably around 80%. Where are you going to put those 150+ students, especially without creating an even greater need for trailers elsewhere?

Excuse me, this sounds very much like you are making things up. I think you are saying that a school basically must either put an entire grade level outside in trailers or none at all and nothing else will do, and I have learned that there are many other options to make more classrooms within a school. For example, a school can have roving specials classes, where for example the Spanish or Art teacher comes to the kids instead of the kids coming to them. The 80% capacity is your made up number, not reality, and NOBODY is asking for your strawman 80% capacity.

I think you're missing my point. If we assume that population is going to grow over time (which is why we're in this fix to begin with, so I don't think we can take it out of the picture), and we want a solution that doesn't just get rid of trailers for McKinley for a year or two and doesn't involve rebalancing schools every year, we need to give enough of a buffer *today* to allow McKinley to grow down the road. Yes, 80% isn't a figure based on any specific study, but I certainly hope you at least recognize that we can't put McKinley at 95% capacity today, and expect that this would even eliminate trailers today, let alone in five years.

I also think you're very dismissive of the limiting impact roving classes has on the ability of specials teachers to teach effectively.

But you are missing MY point. I said it's worse for a bigger school to have trailers than a smaller school so we should try to reduce the bigger school's numbers, and you responded that wasn't feasible because we'd need to find a home for 150 kids! So in effect we don't need to reduce McKinley's overcapacity because of your made up 80% figure, since there will be trailers anyway. But that need not be true. And throwing your hands up in the air and saying the problem is too hard doesn't fix the injustice of an already huge school being overcapacity with no green space.

Re my dismissiveness, I've seen a roving Spanish class and it seemed great to me. They spent less time being ferried to and from their specials class and the teacher did a great job with it. I think you're very dismissive of what having a 750 kid overcapacity elementary school with no field space might feel like to a young kid.

NP here. Please let us what you (an adult) think a young kid will feel.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You don't need to be over capacity to need trailers. Once you hit 95% capacity, and potentially even lower, you end up needing trailers. To ensure that McKinley wouldn't need trailers for the reasonably foreseeable future despite population growth (and building in a buffer for changes in residence patterns), and to avoid the need to reshuffle students between schools every year to accomplish that, the county would need to take capacity of McKinley down to probably around 80%. Where are you going to put those 150+ students, especially without creating an even greater need for trailers elsewhere?

Excuse me, this sounds very much like you are making things up. I think you are saying that a school basically must either put an entire grade level outside in trailers or none at all and nothing else will do, and I have learned that there are many other options to make more classrooms within a school. For example, a school can have roving specials classes, where for example the Spanish or Art teacher comes to the kids instead of the kids coming to them. The 80% capacity is your made up number, not reality, and NOBODY is asking for your strawman 80% capacity.

I think you're missing my point. If we assume that population is going to grow over time (which is why we're in this fix to begin with, so I don't think we can take it out of the picture), and we want a solution that doesn't just get rid of trailers for McKinley for a year or two and doesn't involve rebalancing schools every year, we need to give enough of a buffer *today* to allow McKinley to grow down the road. Yes, 80% isn't a figure based on any specific study, but I certainly hope you at least recognize that we can't put McKinley at 95% capacity today, and expect that this would even eliminate trailers today, let alone in five years.

I also think you're very dismissive of the limiting impact roving classes has on the ability of specials teachers to teach effectively.

But you are missing MY point. I said it's worse for a bigger school to have trailers than a smaller school so we should try to reduce the bigger school's numbers, and you responded that wasn't feasible because we'd need to find a home for 150 kids! So in effect we don't need to reduce McKinley's overcapacity because of your made up 80% figure, since there will be trailers anyway. But that need not be true. And throwing your hands up in the air and saying the problem is too hard doesn't fix the injustice of an already huge school being overcapacity with no green space.

Re my dismissiveness, I've seen a roving Spanish class and it seemed great to me. They spent less time being ferried to and from their specials class and the teacher did a great job with it. I think you're very dismissive of what having a 750 kid overcapacity elementary school with no field space might feel like to a young kid.

That is b/c the dismissive poster knows it won't affect his/her kid(s).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You don't need to be over capacity to need trailers. Once you hit 95% capacity, and potentially even lower, you end up needing trailers. To ensure that McKinley wouldn't need trailers for the reasonably foreseeable future despite population growth (and building in a buffer for changes in residence patterns), and to avoid the need to reshuffle students between schools every year to accomplish that, the county would need to take capacity of McKinley down to probably around 80%. Where are you going to put those 150+ students, especially without creating an even greater need for trailers elsewhere?

Excuse me, this sounds very much like you are making things up. I think you are saying that a school basically must either put an entire grade level outside in trailers or none at all and nothing else will do, and I have learned that there are many other options to make more classrooms within a school. For example, a school can have roving specials classes, where for example the Spanish or Art teacher comes to the kids instead of the kids coming to them. The 80% capacity is your made up number, not reality, and NOBODY is asking for your strawman 80% capacity.

I think you're missing my point. If we assume that population is going to grow over time (which is why we're in this fix to begin with, so I don't think we can take it out of the picture), and we want a solution that doesn't just get rid of trailers for McKinley for a year or two and doesn't involve rebalancing schools every year, we need to give enough of a buffer *today* to allow McKinley to grow down the road. Yes, 80% isn't a figure based on any specific study, but I certainly hope you at least recognize that we can't put McKinley at 95% capacity today, and expect that this would even eliminate trailers today, let alone in five years.

I also think you're very dismissive of the limiting impact roving classes has on the ability of specials teachers to teach effectively.

But you are missing MY point. I said it's worse for a bigger school to have trailers than a smaller school so we should try to reduce the bigger school's numbers, and you responded that wasn't feasible because we'd need to find a home for 150 kids! So in effect we don't need to reduce McKinley's overcapacity because of your made up 80% figure, since there will be trailers anyway. But that need not be true. And throwing your hands up in the air and saying the problem is too hard doesn't fix the injustice of an already huge school being overcapacity with no green space.

Re my dismissiveness, I've seen a roving Spanish class and it seemed great to me. They spent less time being ferried to and from their specials class and the teacher did a great job with it. I think you're very dismissive of what having a 750 kid overcapacity elementary school with no field space might feel like to a young kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's the one point you respond to?

Answer my question, please. Why did you want to burden McKinley with 2 planning units of 150, putting the whole school above capacity, just so your kids could have ~20 neighborhood friends in each grade instead of ~10? But suddenly NOW McKinley's being over capacity is the line over which you will not cross?

SMH at your selfishness.

I would still like to hear a response to this from OP.

The first post indicates OP doesn't want to move to McKinley. Why do you assume they ever wanted to move there in the first place? Glebe is also moving to McKinley next year and had nothing to do with the 150.

OP most likely has a kingergartner or pre-k kid, and wasn't paying attention before this year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's the one point you respond to?

Answer my question, please. Why did you want to burden McKinley with 2 planning units of 150, putting the whole school above capacity, just so your kids could have ~20 neighborhood friends in each grade instead of ~10? But suddenly NOW McKinley's being over capacity is the line over which you will not cross?

SMH at your selfishness.

I would still like to hear a response to this from OP.

The first post indicates OP doesn't want to move to McKinley. Why do you assume they ever wanted to move there in the first place? Glebe is also moving to McKinley next year and had nothing to do with the 150.

Anonymous wrote:

You don't need to be over capacity to need trailers. Once you hit 95% capacity, and potentially even lower, you end up needing trailers. To ensure that McKinley wouldn't need trailers for the reasonably foreseeable future despite population growth (and building in a buffer for changes in residence patterns), and to avoid the need to reshuffle students between schools every year to accomplish that, the county would need to take capacity of McKinley down to probably around 80%. Where are you going to put those 150+ students, especially without creating an even greater need for trailers elsewhere?

Excuse me, this sounds very much like you are making things up. I think you are saying that a school basically must either put an entire grade level outside in trailers or none at all and nothing else will do, and I have learned that there are many other options to make more classrooms within a school. For example, a school can have roving specials classes, where for example the Spanish or Art teacher comes to the kids instead of the kids coming to them. The 80% capacity is your made up number, not reality, and NOBODY is asking for your strawman 80% capacity.

I think you're missing my point. If we assume that population is going to grow over time (which is why we're in this fix to begin with, so I don't think we can take it out of the picture), and we want a solution that doesn't just get rid of trailers for McKinley for a year or two and doesn't involve rebalancing schools every year, we need to give enough of a buffer *today* to allow McKinley to grow down the road. Yes, 80% isn't a figure based on any specific study, but I certainly hope you at least recognize that we can't put McKinley at 95% capacity today, and expect that this would even eliminate trailers today, let alone in five years.

I also think you're very dismissive of the limiting impact roving classes has on the ability of specials teachers to teach effectively.

Anonymous wrote:That's the one point you respond to?

Answer my question, please. Why did you want to burden McKinley with 2 planning units of 150, putting the whole school above capacity, just so your kids could have ~20 neighborhood friends in each grade instead of ~10? But suddenly NOW McKinley's being over capacity is the line over which you will not cross?

SMH at your selfishness.

I would still like to hear a response to this from OP.

Anonymous wrote:Just a note: Most of the space at Reed is The Children's School. That is a county program. APS does not need to find space them.

The Children's School isn't a county program, it's a non-profit organization established by APS employees to provide them with childcare, and it leases that space from APS. If APS boots them out, there's no guarantee at all that the county will lease them alternative space, and if we lose the program, we lose a big recruiting tool for teachers. Not to mention screwing our current teachers on childcare.