Anonymous wrote:I just moved to VA from NY and we are currently in a zone where kids are bussed to McKinley but would move to Reed under the current proposal. I’d be fine with pretty much any options because the choices are 1) go to a brand new school or 2) get bussed to any number of other good schools (I guess most likely either staying at McKinley or moving to Glebe, if not Reed). I’d actually prefer bussing with my work schedule. Am I missing something? Why are McKinley parents freaking out when they will either stay at a great school or move to what will surely be another great school?

In my opinion, two main reasons...
1) Madison Manor, Dominion Hills and the other neighborhoods around McK are very tight and like their walkable school. They want to still be able to walk to to school. APS has said that a majority will move to Reed, but the other 49% will get split between multiple schools. They can’t all go to Reed and Ashlawn. They don’t want their community split up to 3+ schools.

2) APS has done a piss poor job of planning regarding McK the past decade. They should have built Reed instead of the McK addition 5 years ago, but instead they built the addition and said it would be enough for the area. It was over budget, way over schedule and in the end McK was still overcrowded. So this school has had 5 (+\-) years with no field space, construction, and no playground for part of it. Once they built the addition, they got the districting totally wrong and when parents pointed out large errors they didn’t correct them. That is why McK and other APS think they can do a better job than staff, because historically they have done better. Now, without warning, APS says their school will become an option school. So the current families lived through the construction, overcrowding etc and now don’t get to enjoy the school. And APS says the reason McK is a good site is because it has an addition, but the addition was originally built to help the overcrowding neighborhood kids. But now the addition will be used to expand ATS. APS says the they can’t fill McK as a neighborhood school once Reed opens without funny boundaries. But they would be able to fill most of it with neighborhood kids and pre-k if they hadn’t built the addition. So it is like APS and the addition are screening them again. Without McK as a neighborhood school, all the surrounding schools will be at or over capacity within a year of Reed opening with continued growth projected.

I’m not a McK parent, but this is what I think.

Anonymous wrote:As a current McK family, I don’t love that our PTA president keeps emailing assuming we all support not moving. I understand she might have a personal preference and that’s fine to state openly. But the group think approach is pretty alienating. As in you agree with us or you’re not part of us.

Lots of McKinley families do not agree with the PTA’s position.

Please, please, please write to the school board. I've written too but am not affected by the moves. They need to hear as much as possible from Key/McK/ATS families who are fine with the proposal.

As a current McK family, I don’t love that our PTA president keeps emailing assuming we all support not moving. I understand she might have a personal preference and that’s fine to state openly. But the group think approach is pretty alienating. As in you agree with us or you’re not part of us.

Lots of McKinley families do not agree with the PTA’s position.

Freak out is about Ashlawn as a gateway to Kenmore.

MS boundaries are up next, and alignment is a guiding principal.

Anonymous wrote:I just moved to VA from NY and we are currently in a zone where kids are bussed to McKinley but would move to Reed under the current proposal. I’d be fine with pretty much any options because the choices are 1) go to a brand new school or 2) get bussed to any number of other good schools (I guess most likely either staying at McKinley or moving to Glebe, if not Reed). I’d actually prefer bussing with my work schedule. Am I missing something? Why are McKinley parents freaking out when they will either stay at a great school or move to what will surely be another great school?

Some of them are going to Ashlawn, which in some people’s minds is not as good an option.

Some have convinced themselves their property values will decrease if they are not walkable to a school. I doubt anyone has any evidence to prove this. But I’ve heard people say it.

I’m fine with the move (a current McKinley family) and agree the reaction is kind of puzzling. The ones who are real head scratchers are the ones who live quite far from McKinley and will nearly certainly go to Reed.

Opponents of the moves might want to consider whether they would be better served keeping their powder dry for the next round of boundary changes. They seem to be straining their relationships, if not burning bridges, with APS staff and many community members (like the Nottingham, Tuckahoe, and Long Branch parents who don’t appreciate attempts to throw them under the bus). When the time comes to redraw boundaries, McKinley parents in particular may find themselves without many allies, and their arguments on specific moves could be viewed with suspicion, if not deeply discounted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just moved to VA from NY and we are currently in a zone where kids are bussed to McKinley but would move to Reed under the current proposal. I’d be fine with pretty much any options because the choices are 1) go to a brand new school or 2) get bussed to any number of other good schools (I guess most likely either staying at McKinley or moving to Glebe, if not Reed). I’d actually prefer bussing with my work schedule. Am I missing something? Why are McKinley parents freaking out when they will either stay at a great school or move to what will surely be another great school?

Great questions! I’m scratching my head too. Best guess: a combination of status quo bias and the strong (and understandable) preference on the part of families within a couple of blocks of McKinley to keep their short walks to and from school. Why it’s sparking such intense outcry is beyond me, because their kids will still end up attending a great, nearby school.

There is also some opportunity hoarding/ living in the past. They are concerned about future growth in the Mckinley/Reed/Tuckahoe neighborhoods and think that making McKinley option will lead to overcrowding at those schools. Some of them lived through severe overcrowding at Tuckahoe before Discovery opened. This is their mindset- so they go into it thinking this is reducing capacity in the North West and they don't trust the staff numbers projections.

I think this is opportunity hoarding b/c it is trying to keep space for 'their' kids and their neighbors kids instead of recognizing the growth crisis in the Rosslyn/Clarendon area.

Anonymous wrote:I just moved to VA from NY and we are currently in a zone where kids are bussed to McKinley but would move to Reed under the current proposal. I’d be fine with pretty much any options because the choices are 1) go to a brand new school or 2) get bussed to any number of other good schools (I guess most likely either staying at McKinley or moving to Glebe, if not Reed). I’d actually prefer bussing with my work schedule. Am I missing something? Why are McKinley parents freaking out when they will either stay at a great school or move to what will surely be another great school?

Great questions! I’m scratching my head too. Best guess: a combination of status quo bias and the strong (and understandable) preference on the part of families within a couple of blocks of McKinley to keep their short walks to and from school. Why it’s sparking such intense outcry is beyond me, because their kids will still end up attending a great, nearby school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the McKinley PTA actually submit its December 19 boundaries-only proposal to APS? I don’t see it posted on the APS website, so it’s not clear whether staff will be in a position to answer questions about it—like how many students would be reassigned, how many walkers would be converted to bus riders, which schools would be or would soon be over capacity, where pre-K would be located, and whether demographic disparities would be worsened.

My understanding is that they did. I think it might not hVe been posted because this phase is only about the locations of schools, not boundaries. Unlike their Nottingham and Tuckahoe as option site proposals, their boundary-only scenario isn’t really about locations, it’s about boundaries, and that’s not what this phase is about.

That makes sense, but I think it’d be a big missed opportunity if staff didn’t directly and specifically address the McKinley PTA’s boundary-only proposal. It was offered to support the argument that any capacity issues can be solved only with boundary changes. APS staff has its own boundary-only scenario that serves as a benchmark against which the moves proposal is measured. Ostensibly the staff’s own maps for that scenario minimize the number of reassigned kids and account for other factors (like preK and demographics) better than any community-created map, and even the staff’s scenario had over 4,000 students switching schools. If staff is trying to make the point that, no, we can’t solve the capacity problems just by changing boundaries, what better way to do that than to take the lead opponents’ own map and make clear to everyone else the staggering number of kids across the county that would have to move or become bus riders?

A deep dive into the McKinley PTA map, or even the staff’s own boundaries-only map, could illustrate the futility of no-moves scenarios more persuasively than just high-level summary figures while sapping alternative proposals of any credibility. It might help get neutral or apprehensive parents off the sidelines if they realized that keeping Key, ATS, and McKinley where they are would require far more reassignments than if they moved, and that the opponents of the moves are more than willing to let thousands of other kids get reassigned as long as theirs get to stay put.

I just moved to VA from NY and we are currently in a zone where kids are bussed to McKinley but would move to Reed under the current proposal. I’d be fine with pretty much any options because the choices are 1) go to a brand new school or 2) get bussed to any number of other good schools (I guess most likely either staying at McKinley or moving to Glebe, if not Reed). I’d actually prefer bussing with my work schedule. Am I missing something? Why are McKinley parents freaking out when they will either stay at a great school or move to what will surely be another great school?

Anonymous wrote:Did the McKinley PTA actually submit its December 19 boundaries-only proposal to APS? I don’t see it posted on the APS website, so it’s not clear whether staff will be in a position to answer questions about it—like how many students would be reassigned, how many walkers would be converted to bus riders, which schools would be or would soon be over capacity, where pre-K would be located, and whether demographic disparities would be worsened.

My understanding is that they did. I think it might not hVe been posted because this phase is only about the locations of schools, not boundaries. Unlike their Nottingham and Tuckahoe as option site proposals, their boundary-only scenario isn’t really about locations, it’s about boundaries, and that’s not what this phase is about.

Did the McKinley PTA actually submit its December 19 boundaries-only proposal to APS? I don’t see it posted on the APS website, so it’s not clear whether staff will be in a position to answer questions about it—like how many students would be reassigned, how many walkers would be converted to bus riders, which schools would be or would soon be over capacity, where pre-K would be located, and whether demographic disparities would be worsened.

Anonymous wrote:I have been watching this whole debate from the sidelines. What I don’t get- ats isn’t close to Spanish speakers. Barcroft is. So is Carlin springs. Moving to ats site isn’t going to make any difference if the goal is to get more Spanish speakers to apply.

I understand why no one wants to upset Carlin springs, but why not barcroft? Huge Spanish speaking community blocks away. And little buy in from the neighborhood, most kids transfer out. Aps has toyed with taking Alcova out of that zone anyways, but there has been pushback because it would make the school too poor. So make it key, that would change everything for that school.

The problem is it’s a highly walkable school, even if many of kids in the actual walk zone opt for other schools. They won’t turn any neighborhood school into options if they have the potential for a lot of walkers, even if it satisfies another objective, like being walking distance to Spanish speakers (like Barrett). Carlin Springs isn’t walkable for Spanish speakers either, but it is proximate. Moving Spanish Immersion to ATS makes it more proximate to kids attending Barrett, and Barcroft, even if they can’t walk, or so the thinking goes, especially if the parents needing to use public transportation is vital to participation (bus line along George Mason from those schools to ATS). ATS will always be some option school, because it’s not walkable due to being right up against those busy roads. Eventually, I think they will come back to Carlin Springs, because it has a similar profile and they’d rather it become an option school rather than a neighborhood school because it’s not walkable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least one of her comments, the one questioning the “angle” of the Jamestown mom, was edited or deleted from AEM. I wonder who requested the removal.

Eh, she might have just thought better of it on reflection and deleted the comment herself. Let’s not get too tinfoil-hatty here.

Given the history of her comments, unlikely. Though, I admit, I don't know what comment is being referred to here - I didn't see it. Or maybe I did and didn't see it as any surprise...

DP. The comment was odd, something like “I remember your family from when I taught at Jamestown. Not sure what your angle is here...”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least one of her comments, the one questioning the “angle” of the Jamestown mom, was edited or deleted from AEM. I wonder who requested the removal.

Eh, she might have just thought better of it on reflection and deleted the comment herself. Let’s not get too tinfoil-hatty here.

Given the history of her comments, unlikely. Though, I admit, I don't know what comment is being referred to here - I didn't see it. Or maybe I did and didn't see it as any surprise...