APS Zoning Question - Dorothy Hamm
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Anonymous
| Hi - I have a dumb question... I'm looking at a couple houses zoned to Dorothy Hamm middle school, but then notice it doesn't match up with the high school boundaries (i.e. half of Dorothy Hamm seems to go to Yorktown, the other half to Washington Liberty). Why would it be structured like this? Doesn't it mean that kids will lose half their friends?? This seems like a serious drawback. Am I missing something? |
Anonymous
| This is not uncommon in APS. Hamm, Swanson, Jefferson and Kenmore all split the kids to more than one high school. I could be mistaken, but I think Williamsburg and Gunston are the only schools that are totally zoned to a single high school. |
Anonymous
| I thought it was weird too but it does have the benefit of pushing kids to mix up a bit more when the get to HS and I think that's beneficial. But, DS did find it a bit challenging when most of his friends went to Wakefield from TJ. One of his W-L-zoned friends decided to transfer to Wakefield to stay with that group but DS didn't want to do that. Still, he found a new group pretty quickly. |
Anonymous
| Is the result traumatic for the kids? The splitting seems silly since there are six middle schools and three high schools, so it seems an obvious solution would be a direct two-to-one... |
Anonymous
| The students that get zoned to Yorktown from Hamm live in Rosslyn. Rosslyn is a very diverse area. The housing around Yorktown does not have a lot of diverse families (expensive SFHs where mostly white people live). Yorktown is the least diverse high school in Arlington but it would have virtually no diversity if they didn’t split Hamm. |
Anonymous
^ I should add that I think they are trying to make the schools more diverse or equal as you move through the school pyramid. Elementary schools are the least diverse because they are neighborhood schools with walk zones. But as you move up through the grades, the schools can be more diverse since they consolidate different areas. |
Anonymous
The sizes of the buildings don't align so that's why they do it. It can be bumpy but traumatic seems like a huge overstatement. One of my kids shifted his friend group in MS and then they all went to a different HS. Still, most of the kids he'd been friends with in ES were at the HS so there were familiar faces and he quickly made new ones. And, social media makes it a whole lot easier to stay connected to friends who go to a different school. My other kid has had the same two BFFs since 2nd grade but expanded that circle in MS and then again in HS. Learning to navigate the social transitions is a good thing IMO and helpful to have practice with that before heading off to college. I do worry a little about the one who has always had the safety of those BFFs, college will be a challenge! |
Anonymous
| As PPs have noted, this is the way much of APS works. It is certainly a bummer on the one hand for kids to be separated from friends that go to different middle and high schools. On the other hand, it gives them the opportunity to make new friends and develop new circles. It also means your kid isn't pigeon-holed in the same way they would be in a system in which they go through all grades with the same kids. Also, the reality is that Arlington is a very small county. Kids get to know kids from other schools through camps, sports, and other activities. |
Anonymous
| There are many factors that are considered with each boundary adjustment process, and a lot of very strong opinions and push and pull. It may seem like it should be simple to evenly divide them into pyramids, but this doesn’t work unless you either have excess capacity at all schools or equal planning units with equal numbers of students in them, with numbers that don’t change at all, diversity across the board, and with schools positioned such that students are always sent to the closest one. This doesn’t even come close to the reality. |
Anonymous
Well said. I will just add that you shouldn’t expect to always be zoned to the same schools depending on how old your kids are. The younger your kids, the more likely at least one of the assigned schools could change if you stay in the same house long enough! |
Anonymous
| I’m surprised that no one has mentioned that HAMM is relatively new school. Just opened within the last five years. They had to adjust boundaries when it came online. |
Anonymous
There are plenty of neighborhoods zoned for Hamm/Yorktown that are NOT in Rosslyn, FYI. Like Woodmont, Riverwood, Dover Crystal, Donaldson Run... |
Anonymous
I was thinking that Rosslyn was the largest chunk that was split off from Hamm. My apologies if that’s not right. |
Anonymous
| Hamm is the only middle school in the W-L walk zone, so it will likely always be a split feeder school even if boundaries change again sometime in the near future. |
Anonymous
I think that’s a good guess. I mentioned school boundaries because I couldn’t tell if OP was asking about middle school bc her kids are middle school aged, or because she has younger kids (or who knows, no kids yet) and so she only asked about middle school because that’s where the split happens. I think the elementary schools in that area could get moved again in the next 5 years. Well, my guess on timing might be off, but I think something has to happen with all the building going on in Arlington. I just don’t have a great guess as to when. It was probably an irrelevant comment. |