APS/SA boundary redrawing - meeting tonight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how they arrived at their fr/l calculations for the presentation? Because maybe this isn't so bad for Drew after all. If the calculated fr/l numbers are much higher than the current actual numbers, what can Drew expect? For instance, here are the actual 2017 fr/l percentages by school vs. the calculated % in the presentation:

Abingdon: 47.16% vs. 52%
Barcroft: 59.67% vs. 62%
Henry: 31.59% vs. 29%
Hoffman Boston: 49.16% vs. 70%
Oakridge: 25.28% vs. 28%
Randolph: 73.67% vs. 92%

Do if Drew is calculated to be 85%, what is the actual? Seems like it, too, would be significantly lower? Maybe more like 65%?

Hard to say, but I doubt it'll drop more han 10 points if it does. Hoffman's rate is being cut in half because it's sending a lot of poor kids in Nauck back to Drew, for example, not because of the vagaries of resident vs enrolled students. Randolph appears to be a distinct case; the difference there may be because it sends Spanish speaking kids who are disadvantaged to claremont. The other schools on your list barely change. So I'd say Drew probably won't change much.

But I don't think that's the case. The kids whose parents knew enough a out the system got them into Montessori or or Claremont or Hoffman. If those kids are no longer given guarantees to either option school and are sent out of Hoffman to make way for the newly assigned PUs, won't more of them be at Drew (assuming the don't all get into an option program)?

Anyway, I do think they need to take a few of the adjacent Henry PUs to Drew. According to the table, there are a few that have fewer than 10 students eligible for fr/l, so that's not going to adversely harm diversity at Henry. If they can get Drew to 60% it would be manageable, IMHO. Not ideal, but manageable. I also think APS really needs to look at its model of instruction. Seems not to be working very well in schools where students probably need more explicit and direct instruction.

Last comment: this proves my point that option schools should be strategically located to assist with diversity. Look what moving Montessori to the whiter wealthier neighborhood is doing: making it less accessible for poor families who may not opt to move with the program due to concerns about distance, AND leaving behind a neighborhood school with high poverty. I understand that both the elderly Nauck residents and AMAC wanted this, but it was not a good idea for diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think APS staff have a larger plan in mind that they're not revealing. The proposed boundaries tip their hand.

Adding Columbia Forest helps balance (obviously not completely) the addition of Barcroft Apts to Drew. Abingdon loses the Columbia Forest PUs, but is slated to have boundaries changed again in the next round. Barcroft loses Barcroft Apts, but will gain Gilliam Place. Barcroft is also slated to have boundaries changed in the second round.

On net, Abingdon and Barcroft are losing PUs. Both schools are also, conveniently, adjacent to Carlin Springs' boundaries.

All of this is setting up Carlin Springs to become the new Spanish Immersion. Barcroft and Abingdon, and likely Ashlawn, will pick up the Carlin Springs PUs in the next round. Carlin Springs becomes the second Immersion school. (Claremont stays immersion.)

Drew's demographics are abysmal, but this process is setting up Ashlawn, Abingdon, Barcroft, and Carlin Springs for a better balance (potentially).

(And Key and ASFS both become neighborhood schools.)

But what about the efficiency numbers? Henry and Hoffman Boston low - Barcroft high. And Randolph's efficiency %age is really low (90%) .... So maybe Talento is "serving her community" after all and on her way to 100% FRL/ELL schools to "better serve my community."

[Anonymous]

So, I’m not trying to be obtuse (I promise) but I haven’t been following this for as many years as some of you. I only moved to S. Arlington a few years ago. So the Nauck civic association wanted Drew to be a neighborhood school. Fair, but now those in the neighborhood are upset that APS is not pulling boundary tricks to supplement with kids from outside of the neighborhood? What did everyone expect here?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the livestream capture the "Keep Henry Together" t-shirts?

The takeaway from these materials is that Columbia Forest didn't see it coming until it was too late, and that a mass of white parents wearing matching tshirts gets what they want from APS every time.

While I tend to agree and know it can be hard to change these maps once a true proposal is out, this map exposes APS on the “loud well off white people” get what they want criticism. Some of the decisions imbedded are going to be hard to justify.

And for anyone looking at the Drew boundary, do some research. On other occasions, APS has said that across the park situation didn’t create contiguous planning units.

??? Who are you talking about?

I really, really wish they hadn’t built Fleet and forced Henry to move. They should have just built another elementary in crystal city. Between this and the career center, it has been a planning disaster and tearing our community apart.

Huh? Fleet/Henry just got exactly what they wanted: a brand new school, with a lower farms rate and no one rezoned. Next up they'll have their own low farms high school.

Nope. Henry wanted to stay at Henry and build on. We were told it couldn’t be done (and this was before Reed), and that if we moved Nauck would finally get it’s own elementary that they were denied in the past.

Lol, so you are upset that you don't get to stay in an old ugly building, and have to move, student body entirely intact, to a brand new school building? Please spare me this bs.

p

Or is that you feel guilty about acting out of self interest, and your part in creating a school that is over 80% poor at Drew? I could see how that might bother you. You chose your side though.

No, I’m not upset. Just trying to say that it’s too bad that now south Arlington is fighting each other when we should be a solid front. Honestly though, I now get how north Arlington gets tired of us. I guess it’s all relative.

And I'm saying don't expect any solidarity from Drew when you print matching tshirts to avoid being rezoned to Drew.

Gotcha. FWIW, I’m 3 blocks from Fleet, so rezoning wouldn’t have personally affected me. Just supporting keeping my community together when we feel that that was promised to us. Although I see how your view that differently.

Yep, you all got what you felt you were promised (even though you weren’t), to keep yourselves together away from Drew. I dont live in the middle of any of this and even I could see straight through your rhetoric. If Drew had been some prize, it would have been like when they did the boundaries for Discovery and sure, the Nottingham people were bummed about splitting up the community, but none of the folks going to Discovery fought too hard because look where they were going. Some of you would have coped with Drew if it had a slide and was a little more white.

And the whole claim of a promise is so ridiculous. What school gets a promise that none of its planning units will be moved in a full boundary redrawing? What is the precedent for that? It’s kind of embarrassing that you all kept waiving that out there as if the rest of us were stupid enough to believe anyone in a position to make those decisions would actually promise that.

Yes, I’m such a bad person for wanting to keep the planning units that give about 30% of Henry’s farms rate with Henry. Since you don’t live anywhere near here, consider going to a Nauck civic assn meeting and hearing what that community wanted. Not all communities want rich, white influx (not that they would have got that with those Henry planning units). I certainly don’t want rich NA planning units at fleet.

Well, you can still get them in the next round. Henry's being left below capacity - do you really think it's because APS is taking into consideration enrollment growth within the proposed boundary? That's leaving room to help alleviate north Arlington when its turn comes - because the south always has to help the north get what it wants or needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how they arrived at their fr/l calculations for the presentation? Because maybe this isn't so bad for Drew after all. If the calculated fr/l numbers are much higher than the current actual numbers, what can Drew expect? For instance, here are the actual 2017 fr/l percentages by school vs. the calculated % in the presentation:

Abingdon: 47.16% vs. 52%
Barcroft: 59.67% vs. 62%
Henry: 31.59% vs. 29%
Hoffman Boston: 49.16% vs. 70%
Oakridge: 25.28% vs. 28%
Randolph: 73.67% vs. 92%

Do if Drew is calculated to be 85%, what is the actual? Seems like it, too, would be significantly lower? Maybe more like 65%?

Hard to say, but I doubt it'll drop more han 10 points if it does. Hoffman's rate is being cut in half because it's sending a lot of poor kids in Nauck back to Drew, for example, not because of the vagaries of resident vs enrolled students. Randolph appears to be a distinct case; the difference there may be because it sends Spanish speaking kids who are disadvantaged to claremont. The other schools on your list barely change. So I'd say Drew probably won't change much.

But I don't think that's the case. The kids whose parents knew enough a out the system got them into Montessori or or Claremont or Hoffman. If those kids are no longer given guarantees to either option school and are sent out of Hoffman to make way for the newly assigned PUs, won't more of them be at Drew (assuming the don't all get into an option program)?

Anyway, I do think they need to take a few of the adjacent Henry PUs to Drew. According to the table, there are a few that have fewer than 10 students eligible for fr/l, so that's not going to adversely harm diversity at Henry. If they can get Drew to 60% it would be manageable, IMHO. Not ideal, but manageable. I also think APS really needs to look at its model of instruction. Seems not to be working very well in schools where students probably need more explicit and direct instruction.

Last comment: this proves my point that option schools should be strategically located to assist with diversity. Look what moving Montessori to the whiter wealthier neighborhood is doing: making it less accessible for poor families who may not opt to move with the program due to concerns about distance, AND leaving behind a neighborhood school with high poverty. I understand that both the elderly Nauck residents and AMAC wanted this, but it was not a good idea for diversity.

The numbers released yesterday for Drew include those students currently attending Hoffman. The only way hoffman's farms rate could have gone down so much is if some chunk of those Nauck kids are disadvantaged. Just because they are disadvantaged doesn't mean they do t know how to avoid Drew. After all, that's likely what some of the disadvantaged kids in the Randolph zone are doing when they transfer to claremont. I know people don't really want to believe that Drew is going to be as poor as carlin springs, but that is the reality.

And as for the implication that the Nauck Civic Assn didn't want white kids from Henry, that's slander. They simply wanted a neighborhood school that had been denied them since bussing began in the early 1970s. They didn't ask for some segregated enclave, but that is what they are getting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did the livestream capture the "Keep Henry Together" t-shirts?

The takeaway from these materials is that Columbia Forest didn't see it coming until it was too late, and that a mass of white parents wearing matching tshirts gets what they want from APS every time.

While I tend to agree and know it can be hard to change these maps once a true proposal is out, this map exposes APS on the “loud well off white people” get what they want criticism. Some of the decisions imbedded are going to be hard to justify.

And for anyone looking at the Drew boundary, do some research. On other occasions, APS has said that across the park situation didn’t create contiguous planning units.

??? Who are you talking about?

I really, really wish they hadn’t built Fleet and forced Henry to move. They should have just built another elementary in crystal city. Between this and the career center, it has been a planning disaster and tearing our community apart.

Huh? Fleet/Henry just got exactly what they wanted: a brand new school, with a lower farms rate and no one rezoned. Next up they'll have their own low farms high school.

Nope. Henry wanted to stay at Henry and build on. We were told it couldn’t be done (and this was before Reed), and that if we moved Nauck would finally get it’s own elementary that they were denied in the past.

Lol, so you are upset that you don't get to stay in an old ugly building, and have to move, student body entirely intact, to a brand new school building? Please spare me this bs.

p

Or is that you feel guilty about acting out of self interest, and your part in creating a school that is over 80% poor at Drew? I could see how that might bother you. You chose your side though.

No, I’m not upset. Just trying to say that it’s too bad that now south Arlington is fighting each other when we should be a solid front. Honestly though, I now get how north Arlington gets tired of us. I guess it’s all relative.

And I'm saying don't expect any solidarity from Drew when you print matching tshirts to avoid being rezoned to Drew.

Gotcha. FWIW, I’m 3 blocks from Fleet, so rezoning wouldn’t have personally affected me. Just supporting keeping my community together when we feel that that was promised to us. Although I see how your view that differently.

Everyone knows that the parents and homeowners in the PUs south of the pike zoned to Henry were scared and angry about the possibility of going to Drew because of its demographics. "Keep Henry together" is just messaging because the truth is unpalatable and embarassing. Other schools are going to lose a chunk of students that have been going there for years, why should Henry be different?

I don't disagree at all that nobody wanted to be sent to Drew. Nevertheless, why can't you believe that current Henry people simply wanted to stay with their school because -- like all you northern folks -- they really love their school. It's a high-performing school and a diverse community in an active civic association. And why aren't you harassing the Oakridge people? You don't think they've been fighting tooth and nail not to go to Drew (or to Hoffman Boston, though that is more palatable to them - and look where they're going: Hoffman Boston).

BTW, Hoffman Boston is only going to be 98% capacity - so what's in the next round for them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how they arrived at their fr/l calculations for the presentation? Because maybe this isn't so bad for Drew after all. If the calculated fr/l numbers are much higher than the current actual numbers, what can Drew expect? For instance, here are the actual 2017 fr/l percentages by school vs. the calculated % in the presentation:

Abingdon: 47.16% vs. 52%
Barcroft: 59.67% vs. 62%
Henry: 31.59% vs. 29%
Hoffman Boston: 49.16% vs. 70%
Oakridge: 25.28% vs. 28%
Randolph: 73.67% vs. 92%

Do if Drew is calculated to be 85%, what is the actual? Seems like it, too, would be significantly lower? Maybe more like 65%?

Hard to say, but I doubt it'll drop more han 10 points if it does. Hoffman's rate is being cut in half because it's sending a lot of poor kids in Nauck back to Drew, for example, not because of the vagaries of resident vs enrolled students. Randolph appears to be a distinct case; the difference there may be because it sends Spanish speaking kids who are disadvantaged to claremont. The other schools on your list barely change. So I'd say Drew probably won't change much.

But I don't think that's the case. The kids whose parents knew enough a out the system got them into Montessori or or Claremont or Hoffman. If those kids are no longer given guarantees to either option school and are sent out of Hoffman to make way for the newly assigned PUs, won't more of them be at Drew (assuming the don't all get into an option program)?

Anyway, I do think they need to take a few of the adjacent Henry PUs to Drew. According to the table, there are a few that have fewer than 10 students eligible for fr/l, so that's not going to adversely harm diversity at Henry. If they can get Drew to 60% it would be manageable, IMHO. Not ideal, but manageable. I also think APS really needs to look at its model of instruction. Seems not to be working very well in schools where students probably need more explicit and direct instruction.

Last comment: this proves my point that option schools should be strategically located to assist with diversity. Look what moving Montessori to the whiter wealthier neighborhood is doing: making it less accessible for poor families who may not opt to move with the program due to concerns about distance, AND leaving behind a neighborhood school with high poverty. I understand that both the elderly Nauck residents and AMAC wanted this, but it was not a good idea for diversity.

It would have been simpler to let Montessori have the Drew building. Then they could shut-up about needing to grow and the pre-K montessori classes could all join them and be one happy family. Then, you would have only had 200 kids to send elsewhere in boundaries with the opening of Fleet.

But, politically, they would not "take away" Nauck's neighborhood school. Call it repatriation for the bussing to three different schools across the county days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how they arrived at their fr/l calculations for the presentation? Because maybe this isn't so bad for Drew after all. If the calculated fr/l numbers are much higher than the current actual numbers, what can Drew expect? For instance, here are the actual 2017 fr/l percentages by school vs. the calculated % in the presentation:

Abingdon: 47.16% vs. 52%
Barcroft: 59.67% vs. 62%
Henry: 31.59% vs. 29%
Hoffman Boston: 49.16% vs. 70%
Oakridge: 25.28% vs. 28%
Randolph: 73.67% vs. 92%

Do if Drew is calculated to be 85%, what is the actual? Seems like it, too, would be significantly lower? Maybe more like 65%?

Hard to say, but I doubt it'll drop more han 10 points if it does. Hoffman's rate is being cut in half because it's sending a lot of poor kids in Nauck back to Drew, for example, not because of the vagaries of resident vs enrolled students. Randolph appears to be a distinct case; the difference there may be because it sends Spanish speaking kids who are disadvantaged to claremont. The other schools on your list barely change. So I'd say Drew probably won't change much.

But I don't think that's the case. The kids whose parents knew enough a out the system got them into Montessori or or Claremont or Hoffman. If those kids are no longer given guarantees to either option school and are sent out of Hoffman to make way for the newly assigned PUs, won't more of them be at Drew (assuming the don't all get into an option program)?

Anyway, I do think they need to take a few of the adjacent Henry PUs to Drew. According to the table, there are a few that have fewer than 10 students eligible for fr/l, so that's not going to adversely harm diversity at Henry. If they can get Drew to 60% it would be manageable, IMHO. Not ideal, but manageable. I also think APS really needs to look at its model of instruction. Seems not to be working very well in schools where students probably need more explicit and direct instruction.

Last comment: this proves my point that option schools should be strategically located to assist with diversity. Look what moving Montessori to the whiter wealthier neighborhood is doing: making it less accessible for poor families who may not opt to move with the program due to concerns about distance, AND leaving behind a neighborhood school with high poverty. I understand that both the elderly Nauck residents and AMAC wanted this, but it was not a good idea for diversity.

The numbers released yesterday for Drew include those students currently attending Hoffman. The only way hoffman's farms rate could have gone down so much is if some chunk of those Nauck kids are disadvantaged. Just because they are disadvantaged doesn't mean they do t know how to avoid Drew. After all, that's likely what some of the disadvantaged kids in the Randolph zone are doing when they transfer to claremont. I know people don't really want to believe that Drew is going to be as poor as carlin springs, but that is the reality.

And as for the implication that the Nauck Civic Assn didn't want white kids from Henry, that's slander. They simply wanted a neighborhood school that had been denied them since bussing began in the early 1970s. They didn't ask for some segregated enclave, but that is what they are getting.

They may not have specifically asked for a segregated enclave; but they absolutely wanted to be in control of the new school and do not want parents from the other schools coming in to be in charge. Montessori found it imperative to go ahead and start a separate PTA for itself this year and, for all intents and purposes, leave Drew in the dust without Drew even knowing who would be coming next year. So Drew PTA didn't even have a chance to start off its new life in an inclusive and cooperative and welcoming manner. But thanks for the memories, Montessori. Good luck to you, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, I’m not trying to be obtuse (I promise) but I haven’t been following this for as many years as some of you. I only moved to S. Arlington a few years ago. So the Nauck civic association wanted Drew to be a neighborhood school. Fair, but now those in the neighborhood are upset that APS is not pulling boundary tricks to supplement with kids from outside of the neighborhood? What did everyone expect here?

I live in Nauck. And from what I can tell they ARE pulling boundary tricks to ensure the school remains at a high FARMS rate. They are pulling in neighbors that aren't attached or connected to Nauck in order to keep the high poverty rate instead of pulling in neighborhoods that are actually attached and now zoned to FLEET.

The Nauck neighborhood is small the zone has to pull from outside the immediate neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Sorry but no one is stopping Drew from having a PTA. Blaming Montessori is convenient but this move isn’t a surprise. Also not one single PU got rezoned from Oakridge to Drew. Interesting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but no one is stopping Drew from having a PTA. Blaming Montessori is convenient but this move isn’t a surprise. Also not one single PU got rezoned from Oakridge to Drew. Interesting?

What does PU stand for? I keep reading it and can't figure it out. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but no one is stopping Drew from having a PTA. Blaming Montessori is convenient but this move isn’t a surprise. Also not one single PU got rezoned from Oakridge to Drew. Interesting?

What does PU stand for? I keep reading it and can't figure it out. Thanks!

Planning unit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but no one is stopping Drew from having a PTA. Blaming Montessori is convenient but this move isn’t a surprise. Also not one single PU got rezoned from Oakridge to Drew. Interesting?

What does PU stand for? I keep reading it and can't figure it out. Thanks!

Planning unit.

Oh duh. Thanks. I blame it on a lack of sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I’m not trying to be obtuse (I promise) but I haven’t been following this for as many years as some of you. I only moved to S. Arlington a few years ago. So the Nauck civic association wanted Drew to be a neighborhood school. Fair, but now those in the neighborhood are upset that APS is not pulling boundary tricks to supplement with kids from outside of the neighborhood? What did everyone expect here?

I live in Nauck. And from what I can tell they ARE pulling boundary tricks to ensure the school remains at a high FARMS rate. They are pulling in neighbors that aren't attached or connected to Nauck in order to keep the high poverty rate instead of pulling in neighborhoods that are actually attached and now zoned to FLEET.

The Nauck neighborhood is small the zone has to pull from outside the immediate neighborhood.

Yeah THIS. It's all about the shirts again. Proximity is not anywhere in this proposal from APS. They are going to bus kids from across the park rather than send the adjacent PUs. And no, the adjacent PUs from Oakridge would not help, that would be the only place with a CAF inside the Oakridge boundary, and it's walkable to that school but not Drew. This is messed up. The couple of PUs from Fleet that aren't high poverty and that are adjacent to the school and that aren't in any walk zone need to be moved into Drew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but no one is stopping Drew from having a PTA. Blaming Montessori is convenient but this move isn’t a surprise. Also not one single PU got rezoned from Oakridge to Drew. Interesting?

Montessori hatched this plan back during the SAWG, and honestly, from what I hear from them, they are not losing too much sleep over what happens to the kids who are left behind. But it's probably right since the school now is a living example of apartheid right in our own county, and it's definitely better for the kids in the graded program not to forced to be second class students any longer. It would be better if Montessori weren't so exclusive to start, though. Welcome in the kids on fr/l by abolishing the Pre-K fee barrier for qualifying students.