Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:NP and MPSA parent here: the proposal to move MPSA to NW is not from the Montessori community. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to stay at CC. There are a few neighborhood activists who want to move MPSA off site – see last school board meeting where one of them proposed moving to the NW.
Montessori haters just gonna hate, but one quick thing that may help others new to the issue: there are roughly 700 APS Montessori students now prek-8 across a half-dozen buildings. There were literally hundreds more applicants this year than open slots – go watch lottery videos for yourself. MPSA and Gunston program will grow more, as they have for years. Whoever said the demand stops after prek is wackadoo. As for shutting down options, that made me laugh. You want 1ks of kids suddenly flooding back into neighbor schools?
I have no particular views in shutting down MPSA, but your numbers don’t make sense. If there are roughly 700 students total in MPSA, how does shutting it down result in thousands of kids returning to neighborhood schools.
Also, over 100 of those students are pre-k who don’t need to be accommodated anywhere if there isn’t space to expand VPI. So really, we’re talking about a little less than 400 elementary students returning to neighborhood schools, and maybe 30 middle school students who aren’t zoned for Gunston to start with.
Anonymous wrote:NP and MPSA parent here: the proposal to move MPSA to NW is not from the Montessori community. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to stay at CC. There are a few neighborhood activists who want to move MPSA off site – see last school board meeting where one of them proposed moving to the NW.
Montessori haters just gonna hate, but one quick thing that may help others new to the issue: there are roughly 700 APS Montessori students now prek-8 across a half-dozen buildings. There were literally hundreds more applicants this year than open slots – go watch lottery videos for yourself. MPSA and Gunston program will grow more, as they have for years. Whoever said the demand stops after prek is wackadoo. As for shutting down options, that made me laugh. You want 1ks of kids suddenly flooding back into neighbor schools?
Anonymous wrote:NP and MPSA parent here: the proposal to move MPSA to NW is not from the Montessori community. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to stay at CC. There are a few neighborhood activists who want to move MPSA off site – see last school board meeting where one of them proposed moving to the NW.
Montessori haters just gonna hate, but one quick thing that may help others new to the issue: there are roughly 700 APS Montessori students now prek-8 across a half-dozen buildings. There were literally hundreds more applicants this year than open slots – go watch lottery videos for yourself. MPSA and Gunston program will grow more, as they have for years. Whoever said the demand stops after prek is wackadoo. As for shutting down options, that made me laugh. You want 1ks of kids suddenly flooding back into neighbor schools?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The existing CC building has to be renovated after the new HS is built. That will cost tens of millions of dollars. $40? $50? APS is not talking about that yet.
MPSA is going to be torn down. You could leave it on the site during construction, then renno, then move it to the old building. But that takes at least 5 years, and it also means the construction for the new building will be much harder and stupider, because they will spend $1 million building MPSA a new play area they plan to destroy, and they will build a half field instead of a full field, and the bus loop won't be optimized, etc.
They absolutely should move MPSA north now. It doesn't matter where, we have the seats, use them. Make the construction make more sense now.
Then in 5 years when you are renovating the old building, we will know what we need it for. It may be another neighborhood school in S Arlington, where they are building new multi-story family buildings at a crazy pace. Or if north Arlington has some magical growth they could move MPSA back at that point.
That's what makes the most sense.
I don't know what MPSA actually wants.
APS had proposals that said the expansion of the Career Center would be around $170-200 million for what they want.
This has all been very hard to follow. But APS is spending $170-200 million on a brand new building. The existing building will be left on the site, and needs to be renovated for some other purpose when CC moves out. That cost is probably $40-60 million IN ADDITION TO the $170-200 million for the new building. Plus whatever it costs to tear down MPSA, which won't be much.
But again, if we are tearing MPSA down anyhow, and we have 500 empty ES seats now (which we do) we should just move MPSA now and figure out later on what to do with the old CC space. I don't think MPSA has to go there, and by that time, we may need a new ES in SA.
Nope. We don’t need to spend any more $$ right now. They can sit tight in the building we just spent a couple million on for another 5 years or so. It’s not like they’re tearing it down now. It’s years away. Also, this is in the same walk zone as Fleet so this isn’t where we might need a new ES in South Arlington.
Why would it cost money to move them? We just need to do boundary adjustments, and then we basically have an empty ES in North Arlington, right? If we keep them onsite during construction, we dump another million into that site to move the MPSA playground which we now know is going to get torn down in a few years. Plus, keeping them means we build the bus lane and small field now, and then later on we tear that all up and do it again with the full site. So much wasted $.
And yes, it's close to Fleet, but have you seen the housing plans on Columbia Pike? There are 4-5 new multi-story buildings being built within blocks of there.
I guess you didn’t follow the last school limbed. It costs money to pack up entire schools, change all the signage, etc. In the millions. It’s stupid and wasteful. The CC site doesn’t have to be devoted to just HS. It’s not a neighborhood school and won’t have all the amenities of a neighborhood school. That’s been debated up and down and is DEAD, okay? And the housing plans for this area of CP do not include AH, so all those market rate condos and one bedroom apartments aren’t going to result in a ton of kids. We don’t need another neighborhood school here and won’t for decades, and APS isn’t going to make crazy neighborhood boundaries again, increasing bus routes and lengths, when they just unwound that. I am not saying I agree with all their decisions but this is all crazy talk because it’s all already been decided and was set in motion ages ago when they moved Montessori out of Drew. You’re late to the party.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The existing CC building has to be renovated after the new HS is built. That will cost tens of millions of dollars. $40? $50? APS is not talking about that yet.
MPSA is going to be torn down. You could leave it on the site during construction, then renno, then move it to the old building. But that takes at least 5 years, and it also means the construction for the new building will be much harder and stupider, because they will spend $1 million building MPSA a new play area they plan to destroy, and they will build a half field instead of a full field, and the bus loop won't be optimized, etc.
They absolutely should move MPSA north now. It doesn't matter where, we have the seats, use them. Make the construction make more sense now.
Then in 5 years when you are renovating the old building, we will know what we need it for. It may be another neighborhood school in S Arlington, where they are building new multi-story family buildings at a crazy pace. Or if north Arlington has some magical growth they could move MPSA back at that point.
That's what makes the most sense.
I don't know what MPSA actually wants.
APS had proposals that said the expansion of the Career Center would be around $170-200 million for what they want.
This has all been very hard to follow. But APS is spending $170-200 million on a brand new building. The existing building will be left on the site, and needs to be renovated for some other purpose when CC moves out. That cost is probably $40-60 million IN ADDITION TO the $170-200 million for the new building. Plus whatever it costs to tear down MPSA, which won't be much.
But again, if we are tearing MPSA down anyhow, and we have 500 empty ES seats now (which we do) we should just move MPSA now and figure out later on what to do with the old CC space. I don't think MPSA has to go there, and by that time, we may need a new ES in SA.
Nope. We don’t need to spend any more $$ right now. They can sit tight in the building we just spent a couple million on for another 5 years or so. It’s not like they’re tearing it down now. It’s years away. Also, this is in the same walk zone as Fleet so this isn’t where we might need a new ES in South Arlington.
Why would it cost money to move them? We just need to do boundary adjustments, and then we basically have an empty ES in North Arlington, right? If we keep them onsite during construction, we dump another million into that site to move the MPSA playground which we now know is going to get torn down in a few years. Plus, keeping them means we build the bus lane and small field now, and then later on we tear that all up and do it again with the full site. So much wasted $.
And yes, it's close to Fleet, but have you seen the housing plans on Columbia Pike? There are 4-5 new multi-story buildings being built within blocks of there.
this is delusional - that's only true if you treat "N Arlington" as one blob, and not realize that there are multiple ES there. the "empty seats" are scattered, so you'd have to really distort boundaries to make it work, and you'd end up with overcrowding somewhere anyway just due to geography.
Distort boundaries? There is no difference between north Arlington elementary schools and those schools are all about a mile apart. Really. No one cares about the tiny differences among these schools or their boundaries except for a small group of parents for a few years while their kids are there. Move the boundaries and in two years no one will care.
DP. Okay, so you haven’t actually looked at NA schools, boundaries, walk zones, etc., and aren’t actually debating in good faith on this , if you did, you would know that moving an option school to NW Arlington would require pushing kids currently in the walk zones for the schools that would remain out of those schools, creating hundreds of kids that would need to be bused and increasing the number of buses we would need to accomplish that. Transportation costs would skyrocket.
DP - no matter where you put MPSA or any option school, it eliminates a walkable neighborhood school for somebody and incurs transportation costs. Fleet is still "walkable" - but not as walkable as it was for as many as it was in its Henry location.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The existing CC building has to be renovated after the new HS is built. That will cost tens of millions of dollars. $40? $50? APS is not talking about that yet.
MPSA is going to be torn down. You could leave it on the site during construction, then renno, then move it to the old building. But that takes at least 5 years, and it also means the construction for the new building will be much harder and stupider, because they will spend $1 million building MPSA a new play area they plan to destroy, and they will build a half field instead of a full field, and the bus loop won't be optimized, etc.
They absolutely should move MPSA north now. It doesn't matter where, we have the seats, use them. Make the construction make more sense now.
Then in 5 years when you are renovating the old building, we will know what we need it for. It may be another neighborhood school in S Arlington, where they are building new multi-story family buildings at a crazy pace. Or if north Arlington has some magical growth they could move MPSA back at that point.
That's what makes the most sense.
I don't know what MPSA actually wants.
APS had proposals that said the expansion of the Career Center would be around $170-200 million for what they want.
This has all been very hard to follow. But APS is spending $170-200 million on a brand new building. The existing building will be left on the site, and needs to be renovated for some other purpose when CC moves out. That cost is probably $40-60 million IN ADDITION TO the $170-200 million for the new building. Plus whatever it costs to tear down MPSA, which won't be much.
But again, if we are tearing MPSA down anyhow, and we have 500 empty ES seats now (which we do) we should just move MPSA now and figure out later on what to do with the old CC space. I don't think MPSA has to go there, and by that time, we may need a new ES in SA.
Nope. We don’t need to spend any more $$ right now. They can sit tight in the building we just spent a couple million on for another 5 years or so. It’s not like they’re tearing it down now. It’s years away. Also, this is in the same walk zone as Fleet so this isn’t where we might need a new ES in South Arlington.
Why would it cost money to move them? We just need to do boundary adjustments, and then we basically have an empty ES in North Arlington, right? If we keep them onsite during construction, we dump another million into that site to move the MPSA playground which we now know is going to get torn down in a few years. Plus, keeping them means we build the bus lane and small field now, and then later on we tear that all up and do it again with the full site. So much wasted $.
And yes, it's close to Fleet, but have you seen the housing plans on Columbia Pike? There are 4-5 new multi-story buildings being built within blocks of there.
Anonymous wrote:Omg. Just end Montessori. Do 3-5 year olds and cancel the elementary program. It’s a scam that’s been bootstrapped by Monique o Grady and the Montessori lobby in Arlington. It’s not a high performing program and it doesn’t enroll the kids it professes to exist for after kindergarten. Cancel it!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:McK had 800 kids before ATS moved in. ATS has only 650 kids. Why not add it to that campus? How big is MPSA...If it's too big ATS could go back to 3 classes per grade and then MPSA could have 3 classes per grade so 6 classes per grade like old Mck. It'll work.
IMO, if there aren't enough in the program to fill its own school, maybe we should reconsider continuing the program.
Scatter them all back to their neighborhood middle schools.
PP here - sorry, I was focused on the middle school program. Nevertheless, Montessori has an incompatible bell schedule with regular elementary schools. They should not be in the same building at the same time. Just pick the most under-enrolled school in NA, stick MPSA there, and redraw boundaries. Don't invite input, don't coddle concerns of disruption and irreparable harm to kids being torn away from each other, don't cater to parental outcries. Just do it.
or get rid of it! It's bs. Maria M. made the program to each people with severe learning disabilities to get jobs in the real word. Not teach neurotypical kids. lemmings.
Not just the spelling of the word world is wrong with this statement. It is just completely incorrect
It’s only incorrect if you have not studied the history of psychology. Lemming.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The existing CC building has to be renovated after the new HS is built. That will cost tens of millions of dollars. $40? $50? APS is not talking about that yet.
MPSA is going to be torn down. You could leave it on the site during construction, then renno, then move it to the old building. But that takes at least 5 years, and it also means the construction for the new building will be much harder and stupider, because they will spend $1 million building MPSA a new play area they plan to destroy, and they will build a half field instead of a full field, and the bus loop won't be optimized, etc.
They absolutely should move MPSA north now. It doesn't matter where, we have the seats, use them. Make the construction make more sense now.
Then in 5 years when you are renovating the old building, we will know what we need it for. It may be another neighborhood school in S Arlington, where they are building new multi-story family buildings at a crazy pace. Or if north Arlington has some magical growth they could move MPSA back at that point.
That's what makes the most sense.
I don't know what MPSA actually wants.
APS had proposals that said the expansion of the Career Center would be around $170-200 million for what they want.
This has all been very hard to follow. But APS is spending $170-200 million on a brand new building. The existing building will be left on the site, and needs to be renovated for some other purpose when CC moves out. That cost is probably $40-60 million IN ADDITION TO the $170-200 million for the new building. Plus whatever it costs to tear down MPSA, which won't be much.
But again, if we are tearing MPSA down anyhow, and we have 500 empty ES seats now (which we do) we should just move MPSA now and figure out later on what to do with the old CC space. I don't think MPSA has to go there, and by that time, we may need a new ES in SA.
Nope. We don’t need to spend any more $$ right now. They can sit tight in the building we just spent a couple million on for another 5 years or so. It’s not like they’re tearing it down now. It’s years away. Also, this is in the same walk zone as Fleet so this isn’t where we might need a new ES in South Arlington.
Why would it cost money to move them? We just need to do boundary adjustments, and then we basically have an empty ES in North Arlington, right? If we keep them onsite during construction, we dump another million into that site to move the MPSA playground which we now know is going to get torn down in a few years. Plus, keeping them means we build the bus lane and small field now, and then later on we tear that all up and do it again with the full site. So much wasted $.
And yes, it's close to Fleet, but have you seen the housing plans on Columbia Pike? There are 4-5 new multi-story buildings being built within blocks of there.
this is delusional - that's only true if you treat "N Arlington" as one blob, and not realize that there are multiple ES there. the "empty seats" are scattered, so you'd have to really distort boundaries to make it work, and you'd end up with overcrowding somewhere anyway just due to geography.
Distort boundaries? There is no difference between north Arlington elementary schools and those schools are all about a mile apart. Really. No one cares about the tiny differences among these schools or their boundaries except for a small group of parents for a few years while their kids are there. Move the boundaries and in two years no one will care.
DP. Okay, so you haven’t actually looked at NA schools, boundaries, walk zones, etc., and aren’t actually debating in good faith on this , if you did, you would know that moving an option school to NW Arlington would require pushing kids currently in the walk zones for the schools that would remain out of those schools, creating hundreds of kids that would need to be bused and increasing the number of buses we would need to accomplish that. Transportation costs would skyrocket.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:McK had 800 kids before ATS moved in. ATS has only 650 kids. Why not add it to that campus? How big is MPSA...If it's too big ATS could go back to 3 classes per grade and then MPSA could have 3 classes per grade so 6 classes per grade like old Mck. It'll work.
IMO, if there aren't enough in the program to fill its own school, maybe we should reconsider continuing the program.
Scatter them all back to their neighborhood middle schools.
PP here - sorry, I was focused on the middle school program. Nevertheless, Montessori has an incompatible bell schedule with regular elementary schools. They should not be in the same building at the same time. Just pick the most under-enrolled school in NA, stick MPSA there, and redraw boundaries. Don't invite input, don't coddle concerns of disruption and irreparable harm to kids being torn away from each other, don't cater to parental outcries. Just do it.
or get rid of it! It's bs. Maria M. made the program to each people with severe learning disabilities to get jobs in the real word. Not teach neurotypical kids. lemmings.
Not just the spelling of the word world is wrong with this statement. It is just completely incorrect
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:McK had 800 kids before ATS moved in. ATS has only 650 kids. Why not add it to that campus? How big is MPSA...If it's too big ATS could go back to 3 classes per grade and then MPSA could have 3 classes per grade so 6 classes per grade like old Mck. It'll work.
IMO, if there aren't enough in the program to fill its own school, maybe we should reconsider continuing the program.
Scatter them all back to their neighborhood middle schools.
PP here - sorry, I was focused on the middle school program. Nevertheless, Montessori has an incompatible bell schedule with regular elementary schools. They should not be in the same building at the same time. Just pick the most under-enrolled school in NA, stick MPSA there, and redraw boundaries. Don't invite input, don't coddle concerns of disruption and irreparable harm to kids being torn away from each other, don't cater to parental outcries. Just do it.
or get rid of it! It's bs. Maria M. made the program to each people with severe learning disabilities to get jobs in the real word. Not teach neurotypical kids. lemmings.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:McK had 800 kids before ATS moved in. ATS has only 650 kids. Why not add it to that campus? How big is MPSA...If it's too big ATS could go back to 3 classes per grade and then MPSA could have 3 classes per grade so 6 classes per grade like old Mck. It'll work.
IMO, if there aren't enough in the program to fill its own school, maybe we should reconsider continuing the program.
Scatter them all back to their neighborhood middle schools.
PP here - sorry, I was focused on the middle school program. Nevertheless, Montessori has an incompatible bell schedule with regular elementary schools. They should not be in the same building at the same time. Just pick the most under-enrolled school in NA, stick MPSA there, and redraw boundaries. Don't invite input, don't coddle concerns of disruption and irreparable harm to kids being torn away from each other, don't cater to parental outcries. Just do it.
or get rid of it! It's bs. Maria M. made the program to each people with severe learning disabilities to get jobs in the real word. Not teach neurotypical kids. lemmings.
Not just the spelling of the word world is wrong with this statement. It is just completely incorrect