Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just saw the September 2018 enrollment data is up. Interesting that Key and ASFS enrollment is down slightly from last Sept. The most striking thing to me is that Key has 23 fewer kindergarteners this year. That's an entire class! I know this was the last year the old policy was in place--I wonder if the uncertainty over the future location of the program affected people's decisions or if APS deliberately admitted fewer kids to the program? Or just a fluke?

Data here: https://www.apsva.us/statistics/monthly-enrollment/

Interesting. Maybe then we don’t need the swap.

Of course we don't NEED the swap. Emperor Murphy WANTS the swap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i don’t think anyone is “whining” about the lab. I think there’s just a general outrage at the private wealth on display in one public school within a district where there are some pretty big pockets of poverty. And to see comments about how any school could get a corporate sponsor to fund a $200,000 project if only they would put in the effort shows an amazing lack of awareness of the economic realities in other communities, especially when seeing that many of the donations at ASFS came from parents. Now that the lab has become somewhat of a lightning rod within the larger conversation about the swap, it’s fair to start asking whether the magnitude of that privately funded improvement project was improper. This is a public school system. If you want your child to have the best that money can buy, private schools offer just that. Public schools, however, are constrained when it comes to accepting private funding that is being dedicated to only one school rather than the school system at large. There are laws and stuff.

This exactly. It seems like most of the arguments here about the swap are people saying that there shouldn’t be aps money spent on maintaining and moving a large private investment in the school. I think everyone agrees with this, especially since the schools pta had a $43k surplus last year

Well, I hope they spend that 43K quick - PTAs are non-profit organizations and they are not to show excessive balances, aka "profit." There's a grant program through CCPTA that I'm sure could use those funds.

Not ASFS or prospective ASFS, but you're off the mark here. Yes, they shouldn't carry excessive balances, but PTAs are can and should carry balances sufficient to manage fluctuations in cash flow, such as when they have to pay for beginning-of-year expenses and programming before they've started meaningful fundraising. As long as the balance stays relatively consistent and doesn't keep growing significantly year over year, its fine because all it means is the PTA is using the funds it raises each year and just keeps a cushion in case it's needed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i don’t think anyone is “whining” about the lab. I think there’s just a general outrage at the private wealth on display in one public school within a district where there are some pretty big pockets of poverty. And to see comments about how any school could get a corporate sponsor to fund a $200,000 project if only they would put in the effort shows an amazing lack of awareness of the economic realities in other communities, especially when seeing that many of the donations at ASFS came from parents. Now that the lab has become somewhat of a lightning rod within the larger conversation about the swap, it’s fair to start asking whether the magnitude of that privately funded improvement project was improper. This is a public school system. If you want your child to have the best that money can buy, private schools offer just that. Public schools, however, are constrained when it comes to accepting private funding that is being dedicated to only one school rather than the school system at large. There are laws and stuff.

This exactly. It seems like most of the arguments here about the swap are people saying that there shouldn’t be aps money spent on maintaining and moving a large private investment in the school. I think everyone agrees with this, especially since the schools pta had a $43k surplus last year

Well, I hope they spend that 43K quick - PTAs are non-profit organizations and they are not to show excessive balances, aka "profit." There's a grant program through CCPTA that I'm sure could use those funds.

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t Key have an irreplaceable tile mural that was built by their community?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i don’t think anyone is “whining” about the lab. I think there’s just a general outrage at the private wealth on display in one public school within a district where there are some pretty big pockets of poverty. And to see comments about how any school could get a corporate sponsor to fund a $200,000 project if only they would put in the effort shows an amazing lack of awareness of the economic realities in other communities, especially when seeing that many of the donations at ASFS came from parents. Now that the lab has become somewhat of a lightning rod within the larger conversation about the swap, it’s fair to start asking whether the magnitude of that privately funded improvement project was improper. This is a public school system. If you want your child to have the best that money can buy, private schools offer just that. Public schools, however, are constrained when it comes to accepting private funding that is being dedicated to only one school rather than the school system at large. There are laws and stuff.

This exactly. It seems like most of the arguments here about the swap are people saying that there shouldn’t be aps money spent on maintaining and moving a large private investment in the school. I think everyone agrees with this, especially since the schools pta had a $43k surplus last year

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just saw the September 2018 enrollment data is up. Interesting that Key and ASFS enrollment is down slightly from last Sept. The most striking thing to me is that Key has 23 fewer kindergarteners this year. That's an entire class! I know this was the last year the old policy was in place--I wonder if the uncertainty over the future location of the program affected people's decisions or if APS deliberately admitted fewer kids to the program? Or just a fluke?

Data here: https://www.apsva.us/statistics/monthly-enrollment/

Interesting. Maybe then we don’t need the swap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i don’t think anyone is “whining” about the lab. I think there’s just a general outrage at the private wealth on display in one public school within a district where there are some pretty big pockets of poverty. And to see comments about how any school could get a corporate sponsor to fund a $200,000 project if only they would put in the effort shows an amazing lack of awareness of the economic realities in other communities, especially when seeing that many of the donations at ASFS came from parents. Now that the lab has become somewhat of a lightning rod within the larger conversation about the swap, it’s fair to start asking whether the magnitude of that privately funded improvement project was improper. This is a public school system. If you want your child to have the best that money can buy, private schools offer just that. Public schools, however, are constrained when it comes to accepting private funding that is being dedicated to only one school rather than the school system at large. There are laws and stuff.

You don’t need $200k to create a rich learning environment. Find a sponsor (seriously, they are out there) and focus on the important stuff (AKA, not the $$$ hanging solar system).

For $20k, you can get 80% of the function.

If everyone wants STEM, ASFS should build curriculum blocks to share with other schools.

Instead of squashing a good thing (thoughtful learning environments, community donations investing in our schools), let’s leverage it and make it more equitable.

[/quite

Unfortunately, it is not always legal to dump lots of private funds into one school in a public school system, even if it results in nice facilities and other schools could arguably fundraise to implement something less fancy on a tighter budget. This may be frustrating to parents who want to underwrite improvements at their kids’ school, but a long history of inequities in the American public school system has resulted in certain limits being placed on this type of private subsidization of public education. I would be interested to know who cleared the project and whether similar concerns were run by any county or school board attorneys.

Down with ASFS, the Taj Mahal of Arlington elementary public schools - tear it down and redistribute its wealth and PTA reserves to everyone!