What's the latest in waste and mismanagement by the Arlington Public School System? It's not what you might suspect, the multi-million dollar interior makeover of recently-constructed Yorktown High School, approved by the School Board last Thursday.
No, latest APS Taj Mahal project is the crosswalk under construction on South Abingdon Street near Abingdon elementary School, which is on-track to cost between $100,000 and $200,000 when completed sometime this Spring. Work has yet to commence on the raised portion of the crosswalk across South Abingdon Street, which may cost another $50,000, or more.
Neighborhood residents, who are still fuming over the number of use permit condition violations that were allowed to occur during Abingdon School's renovation and expansion, never wanted a Taj Mahal crosswalk, which will only be used an hour in the morning and in the afternoon, but wanted a crossing guard on Abingdon Street at 29th at the vehicle entrance to the school. Fairlington's NannyCrat civic association and Abingdon PTA didn't want parents to be slowed down dropping their kids off and picking them up at the school, so they decided to go with an extravagant crosswalk down the street instead.
Neither of Arlington's two news bloggers, Nanny Scott McCaffrey and Scott-the-Bro Brodbeck (both live close to Abingdon School) is going to write a word about this huge waste of money, so thanks in advance for running a feature and publishing a photo.
L.D. South 29th Street
24 comments:
Last Thursday the School Board increased the contract amount to Abindon School's project management firm by $89,600 to a total of $1.35 million to cover construction of school infrastructure that has nothing to do with education.
Yorktown. What occurs after 35 years and 3 generations of Yups in 22207.
Half the cost of Abingdon School renovations had nothing to do with education.
Did APS leave any faculty-student-administration amenity out of its planning for the Yorktown mega millions makeover?
Between 50 and 100 non-resident parents (most moved out of Arlington and rent their former condo residences) drop off and pick up their kids at Abingdon School. Thank you Barbara Kanninen for keeping it going and growing.
Scott McCaffrey and Scott Brodbeck are too busy cramming more ads and more Democratic Party and County Government propaganda into ArlNow and the Sun Gazette / Inside Nova to notice what's going on down the street from their homes.
As far as I know Abingdon doesn't have any renewable energy installed on-site, though solar may be installed in the future.
Yorktown is part of the County's ongoing fiscal nightmare that started a decade ago when the all-Democrat School Board and County Board decided to build Taj Mahal schools to complement the tear-down McMansions being constructed in 22207 and elsewhere. So you have more and more upscale parents who are insatiable in their demands for every possible amenity in brand new schools and brand new parks and recreation infrastructure, and one-party government that's addicted to growth-for-the-sake-of-growth. A bad combination that does not bode well for the County's future. Of course the schools are off-limits except to parents, teachers, staff, administrators, and the police so we don't know what's occurring at Yorktown except from the litany of complaints from parents every School Board meeting. There's also massive censorship be the local media 'cause greedy publishers can't risk offending anyone, especially parents who buy $1.5 million tear-down McMansions in 22207. So the charades continue.
Upscale amenities at Yorktown? How much is being spent to install more I-Phone charging stations. $200,000? $300,000?
Bro Brodbeck should know better. $ara$ota $cott McCaffrey was, is, and always will be a shill for the status quo.
Then there are the Millenniums, born in 2000 and graduating from APS this year. Major league problems integrating them into the 21st Century workforce according to what was presented to the S.B at its last meeting. We're paying $19,000 per student per year..for what?
Local media are all about $$$$
Bought an expensive HP laptop recently. Runs Windows 10 on Infinity (Comcast) and have experienced too many screen freezes when visiting Inside Nova, so forget it.
Agree. Internet Service Providers + Local Media Blogs = 90% advertising content
Anyone else noticed that the first hour of Arlington School Board meetings is invariably a hug-fest and the 3 or 4 hours after that is a litany of complaints?
Last night Fairlington's NannyCrat civic association organized a tour of Abingdon School. As many in the neighborhood predicted Abingdon is already close to capacity and most likely be over capacity this Fall. The renovated school is full of music and art amenities, but (as usual with APS) too few classrooms. Bring on the relocatables in 2020.
I live in the neighborhood and attended the walking tour of Abingdon. Did not see the local media present. School should be re-named Abingdon Arts Focus Elementary School. I did not see anything related to math and science at all. Only lots of things related to art and music. The VIP Dems who attended (Christian Dorsey and Barbara Kanninen) couldn't say enough good things about the school. Was obvious that the school was designed to please the school's PTA parents.
Only what we deserve for electing and re-electing Jay Fisette to the County Board for 20 years and paying hundreds of millions to build his pet vanity projects around the County.
I would like to see where Abingdon students stand in about a year compared with the rest of APS elementary school students insofar as whatever has replaced SOLs as a measure of student achievement.
How much will the students' vegetable garden cost to build?
At least 100 mature trees that were supposed to be saved were removed from the Abingdon grounds by APS.
County is run by a gang of cheap, sleazy, lazy, limousine liberals...that's why.
First relocatable will likely appear at Abingdon School Summer of 2019 to be followed by a litany of complaints by parents to the School Board and County Board.
Raccoon problem in Fairlington Villages was caused by APS removing wildlife habitat to the north of the school.
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