APS 2021-2022 boundary-adjustments
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Anonymous
It's great that the school moves reduced bus riders countywide. That doesn't make it a good use of resources to bus kids who live three blocks from Cardinal (starting at the north side of 22nd street) to Tuckahoe to make room for bus riders from Madison Manor who could have taken their bus to Tuckahoe. It sounds like you have some emotions around this decision. That's fine and normal, but I wish APS would not make decisions on that basis. There is no perfect scenario. There's always going to be someone going to a school that isn't the closest to their house or who could walk to one but gets a bus to another. It's all a balancing act and people need to start accepting that and getting over it. |
Anonymous
APS proposed to bus those kids to Glebe, putting it at 126% capacity with kids using hallways as classrooms and inadequate commons spaces, while Nottingham is only at 70% capacity (and Taylor is also under capacity). This first priority has to be keeping schools from being overcapacity as crowding makes it difficult to educate students. APS needs to equitably use its capacity. People are acting like Drew is the only school below capacity this year. The Abingdon/Drew moves do need to happen but there is balancing that wasn't addressed in NA too. |
Anonymous
I absolutely agree. I'm less concerned with the ES our neighborhood kids attend and more concerned with avoiding the situation you are describing. Also, if they make friends in MS (at Kenmore), they will leave them behind again when they go to high school (at Wakefield). It would make a lot of sense to adjust that MS boundary and send them to TJ, but I don't think that's on the table. |
Anonymous
Right, which is why it would be wrong to do it to Barcroft, who would then be in the situation you’re describing where they move separately from ES to MS to HS. Move Barcroft and Alcova together to W-L. Alcova stays TJ for MS and Barcroft stays Kenmore. Then both neighborhoods get split up the same number of times rather than transferring the pain from only Alcova to only Barcroft. It’s not ideal, but seems a bit more fair than just fixing the issue for Alcova by making it worse for Barcroft. This way they both travel from MS to HS with neighborhood cohorts, plus they might reconnect with ES friends. |
Anonymous
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Or the kids can stay friends even though they go to different schools
Columbia Heights was moved from Fleet to Drew and is still at TJ not Gunston. Most of the kids in CH are at private elementary schools already. The middle school Language program should move to Hamm or Swanson. Let’s see how many people continue with it or ho back to their home school. Reality is the entire coynty needs boundaries done practically every year. |
Anonymous
What’s the rationale for proposing MS language move to Hamm or Swanson? Remember, Swanson has no bus ramp. Are you proposing the extra buses just line Patrick Henry? There’s literally no place to put more kids or more bus traffic. Does Hamm need more kids? Are therw a lot of native Spanish speakers near Hamm? I am genuinely curious. |
Anonymous
| There aren’t that many kids in middle school Spanish program. It is taking space at Gunston though that needs seats. Jefferson is also overcrowded. Special programs need to move where the space is. They could also move Montessori middle school. |
Anonymous
We run into the same thing we did with fights over moving an elementary lottery school to the upper NW. The MS with the most space is Williamsburg, but you will get cries of equity if you move a lottery program to the far northern end of the county. |
Anonymous
Jefferson isn’t overcrowded, in fact it has quite a bit of capacity, according to APS’s enrollment numbers. If they need to move the special programs, this would be a logical place. |
Anonymous
I see no logic in your argument. Spread the pain to more rather than minimizing it for those who already endure it? And what you're saying just isn't true. Barcroft does not split off from its ES cohorts - it follows everyone except Alcova to KMS (Alcova is the only part of Barcroft Elementary that leaves for TJ). I don't think anyone has suggested moving Barcroft to WL, except you (or whoever) who suggests keeping barcroft and alcova hand-in-hand. I don't even see why Barcroft would even be in consideration for WL at all in the first place. It currently aligns with other Kenmore units from elementary and to Wakefield; it is very convenient to Wakefield; other neighborhoods are closer to WL and already go to TJ. Moving Alcova's HS does not impact Barcroft in the least. Moving Arl Hts and Penrose to WL significantly isolates Alcova a second time going to WHS. FWIW, the only reason Alcova is still at Barcroft ES is because the principal (wisely) advocated to APS leadership for it to stay because she needs more native English speakers for her English language learners. So, Alcova's just a pawn caught in the middle of it all. Those kids should matter, too, and be given a break: either send them to WL with Arl Hts and Penrose, or send units other than Arl Hts and Penrose and Douglas Park to to WL. I fail to see how moving Alcova to WL makes it more difficult for Barcroft - nothing changes for Barcroft in that scenario. Barcroft currently follows cohorts all the way through. |
Anonymous
PP here....that last sentence got shifted out of position in my response. "Nothing changing for Barcroft in that scenario" refers to Alcova being moved to WL. |
Anonymous
This is why they should not be doing a boundary adjustment for next year. Jefferson was at capacity prior to the COVID shutdown. Enrollment numbers from last year and this year (which aren't even official yet) are a wrong basis on which to change boundaries to reduce crowding or to balance enrollment. We do know Hamm is under capacity because it was well below capacity its opening year. APS is about to move a bunch of kids to TJ and Jefferson will become the most crowded school in two years. They'll need to "adjust" again. They'll say they're going to do a full boundary overhaul at that time anyway; but this is about the third consecutive boundary revision that's been scaled down; so don't hold your breath. |
Anonymous
Gunston is way overcrowded though, with some of the 204 VLP MS kids coming back and unenrollments coming back next school year. For the classes entering Grades 6-8 next year, their class sizes are down 630+ since they were in Grades 3-5 in June 2020. If APS get s*it together this year, some of them are coming back for next school year. And we all know the situation with Drew and Abingdon. Hamm 854 (Building capacity 1000) Gunston 1,114 (Building capacity 992) Jefferson 852 (Building capacity 1,086) Kenmore 932 (Building capacity 1,045) Swanson 891 (Building capacity 948) Williamsburg 791 (Building Capacity 997) |
Anonymous
Most of Kenmore does not go to Wakefield, they go to W-L |
Anonymous
The neighborhood that WL is located in is zoned for Hamm. I think maybe having Kenmore go to Yorktown, and having all of Hamm go to WL would make more sense. These are bigger changes than what they should do this year though -- the projections are horrible. Seriously ridiculously off. They predicted that Innovation would be at 98% capacity (that was the justification for not moving all of ASFS there, which would have left a lot of flexibility for a future rezoning since then they could have said that innovation wasn't the new school but asfs was). Innovation has less than 400 kids! That's at 4/6th capacity. ASFS is at 80% capacity. They thought it was going to be over capacity this year. Who knows if thats just COVID and the kids are coming back, but the projections are WRONG. We should not be disrupting kids who have already had a tough time during the pandemic using numbers that are this off. They should change as little as possible, and then kick it down the line at least two years until they figure out who is coming back from private. |