APS Fall boundary questionnaire

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS should have Chinese immersion not 2 Spanish immersion schools.

Drew can’t be fixed by getting rid of option schools. Even though there were complaints in the past many in the Drew zone still chose/ opted for Montessori and HB. Drew has such high poverty and ESL, community center attached, partying/ trash/shootings in lot, huge CAF scheduled for across the street! It’s sad and it’s not right but Fairlington fought hard to stay at Abington. Majority of Douglas Park and Columbia Heights walked with their feet to private or opt out.

Even if it were a great school, it’s still not a neighborhood school for Douglas Park and Columbia Heights or South Fairlington. It’s not just busy streets that need to be crossed. The walk to Henry, Fleet, even Hoffman Boston is very different than getting to Drew.

Even this thread quickly derailed into talking about other things. MONA wringing their hands about red lining and segregation can’t save this school.

South Fairlington isn’t guaranteed to stay at Abingdon this time. They are restarting the process just for those 2 schools.

It will be interesting to see if South Fairlington uses the shooting as a reason not be be redistricted. The shooting combined with the principal leaving is bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS should have Chinese immersion not 2 Spanish immersion schools.

Drew can’t be fixed by getting rid of option schools. Even though there were complaints in the past many in the Drew zone still chose/ opted for Montessori and HB. Drew has such high poverty and ESL, community center attached, partying/ trash/shootings in lot, huge CAF scheduled for across the street! It’s sad and it’s not right but Fairlington fought hard to stay at Abington. Majority of Douglas Park and Columbia Heights walked with their feet to private or opt out.

Even if it were a great school, it’s still not a neighborhood school for Douglas Park and Columbia Heights or South Fairlington. It’s not just busy streets that need to be crossed. The walk to Henry, Fleet, even Hoffman Boston is very different than getting to Drew.

Even this thread quickly derailed into talking about other things. MONA wringing their hands about red lining and segregation can’t save this school.

South Fairlington isn’t guaranteed to stay at Abingdon this time. They are restarting the process just for those 2 schools.

It will be interesting to see if South Fairlington uses the shooting as a reason not be be redistricted. The shooting combined with the principal leaving is bad.

Criminal activity is not one of the guiding principles in the boundary process. It's not a reason to be excused from being assigned to a school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:APS should have Chinese immersion not 2 Spanish immersion schools.

Drew can’t be fixed by getting rid of option schools. Even though there were complaints in the past many in the Drew zone still chose/ opted for Montessori and HB. Drew has such high poverty and ESL, community center attached, partying/ trash/shootings in lot, huge CAF scheduled for across the street! It’s sad and it’s not right but Fairlington fought hard to stay at Abington. Majority of Douglas Park and Columbia Heights walked with their feet to private or opt out.

Even if it were a great school, it’s still not a neighborhood school for Douglas Park and Columbia Heights or South Fairlington. It’s not just busy streets that need to be crossed. The walk to Henry, Fleet, even Hoffman Boston is very different than getting to Drew.

Even this thread quickly derailed into talking about other things. MONA wringing their hands about red lining and segregation can’t save this school.

Chinese may become useful when they're 20 years older; but the second most frequently spoken language in the US is Spanish. And there are far more Spanish-speakers in Arlington than Chinese. Spanish is obviously more practical and feasible for most people.

Many in the Drew zone did opt to Montessori. The HB (hoffman Boston) option was taken care of with the last re-districting.
I don't believe Drew's English learner population is that high - certainly doesn't compare to Randolph, CS, or Barcroft? The poverty level would have been much lower if APS had made the boundary it should have made the first time around. That can still be remedied for Drew. Eliminating option schools minimizes the ability to bail. People may instead bail by moving; some going private; but not all would be able to afford private and if they instead band together and attend Drew, they'd transform the school. That's what happened with other formerly high FRL schools that are now touted as highly desirable.

Most of Douglas Park is districted to Randolph; so Drew was never intended to be a neighborhood school for DP. Regardless, a "neighborhood" school isn't defined by being located in the civic association boundaries; it's the school the neighborhood attends. So, if DP were all districted to Drew, Drew would be its neighborhood school. Just because a walk there crosses a busy road doesn't mean it wouldn't be a neighborhood school. But, DP is split with most assigned to a different neighborhood school that is actually within its boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS should have Chinese immersion not 2 Spanish immersion schools.

Drew can’t be fixed by getting rid of option schools. Even though there were complaints in the past many in the Drew zone still chose/ opted for Montessori and HB. Drew has such high poverty and ESL, community center attached, partying/ trash/shootings in lot, huge CAF scheduled for across the street! It’s sad and it’s not right but Fairlington fought hard to stay at Abington. Majority of Douglas Park and Columbia Heights walked with their feet to private or opt out.

Even if it were a great school, it’s still not a neighborhood school for Douglas Park and Columbia Heights or South Fairlington. It’s not just busy streets that need to be crossed. The walk to Henry, Fleet, even Hoffman Boston is very different than getting to Drew.

Even this thread quickly derailed into talking about other things. MONA wringing their hands about red lining and segregation can’t save this school.

South Fairlington isn’t guaranteed to stay at Abingdon this time. They are restarting the process just for those 2 schools.

It will be interesting to see if South Fairlington uses the shooting as a reason not be be redistricted. The shooting combined with the principal leaving is bad.

Criminal activity is not one of the guiding principles in the boundary process. It's not a reason to be excused from being assigned to a school.

I’m sure they’ll try

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t need to eliminate option schools, we need more of them. Look, all of the option schools end up with crazy long wait lists, and it isn’t because of where the school is located. Sure some parents just want oit if a neighborhood school, but many, many, many are actually there because they think the option school is providing a great curriculum. That is why we chose our option schools even though it had/has a lower ranking than our neighborhood school. So offer more Ats models, more expeditionary leaning, more Montessori, more Spanish immersion. Clearly people are clamoring for that.

Then why was there all that wailing about moving option schools? We don't need more option schools. This is the first year that immersion might not clear their entire waitlists and it's because they cut back the K Classes from 6 to 4. ATS is the only one that consistently has a crazy long wait list and it's expanding significantly with the move.

ATS, Campbell, and Immersion have lots of applicants and long waitlists since they started publicly tracking and releasing the info. As does Pre-K Montessori. If they move the satellite Pre-K classes all to a central location, I expect that demand to decrease fairly significantly. Montessori has demonstrated the least demand for the primary years, and yet is being expanded through grade 8. It doesn’t make objective sense.

Eliminating option schools won’t help the demographics of the highest poverty neighborhood schools. The demographics remain highly segregated (with one exception, but the school couldn’t hold double its current student population anyway, and a boundary change to alleviate crowding would result in a tighter geographical area, and that would result in the same/current imbalance) just given the children in APS living within the geographical boundaries. Our geography is highly segregated, so are the neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t need to eliminate option schools, we need more of them. Look, all of the option schools end up with crazy long wait lists, and it isn’t because of where the school is located. Sure some parents just want oit if a neighborhood school, but many, many, many are actually there because they think the option school is providing a great curriculum. That is why we chose our option schools even though it had/has a lower ranking than our neighborhood school. So offer more Ats models, more expeditionary leaning, more Montessori, more Spanish immersion. Clearly people are clamoring for that.

Then why was there all that wailing about moving option schools? We don't need more option schools. This is the first year that immersion might not clear their entire waitlists and it's because they cut back the K Classes from 6 to 4. ATS is the only one that consistently has a crazy long wait list and it's expanding significantly with the move.

ATS, Campbell, and Immersion have lots of applicants and long waitlists since they started publicly tracking and releasing the info. As does Pre-K Montessori. If they move the satellite Pre-K classes all to a central location, I expect that demand to decrease fairly significantly. Montessori has demonstrated the least demand for the primary years, and yet is being expanded through grade 8. It doesn’t make objective sense.

Eliminating option schools won’t help the demographics of the highest poverty neighborhood schools. The demographics remain highly segregated (with one exception, but the school couldn’t hold double its current student population anyway, and a boundary change to alleviate crowding would result in a tighter geographical area, and that would result in the same/current imbalance) just given the children in APS living within the geographical boundaries. Our geography is highly segregated, so are the neighborhood schools.

For some reason they updated the waitlist information for last year as of Nov 6, 2020. https://www.apsva.us/school-options/school-transfer-data-2/pre-k-elementary-options-transfers-application-data-school-year-2020-21/

Immersion cleared their entire waitlists except for 29 non-Spanish speaking first graders. Everyone else was offered a spot. There's no demand for another Spanish immersion school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t need to eliminate option schools, we need more of them. Look, all of the option schools end up with crazy long wait lists, and it isn’t because of where the school is located. Sure some parents just want oit if a neighborhood school, but many, many, many are actually there because they think the option school is providing a great curriculum. That is why we chose our option schools even though it had/has a lower ranking than our neighborhood school. So offer more Ats models, more expeditionary leaning, more Montessori, more Spanish immersion. Clearly people are clamoring for that.

Then why was there all that wailing about moving option schools? We don't need more option schools. This is the first year that immersion might not clear their entire waitlists and it's because they cut back the K Classes from 6 to 4. ATS is the only one that consistently has a crazy long wait list and it's expanding significantly with the move.

ATS, Campbell, and Immersion have lots of applicants and long waitlists since they started publicly tracking and releasing the info. As does Pre-K Montessori. If they move the satellite Pre-K classes all to a central location, I expect that demand to decrease fairly significantly. Montessori has demonstrated the least demand for the primary years, and yet is being expanded through grade 8. It doesn’t make objective sense.

Eliminating option schools won’t help the demographics of the highest poverty neighborhood schools. The demographics remain highly segregated (with one exception, but the school couldn’t hold double its current student population anyway, and a boundary change to alleviate crowding would result in a tighter geographical area, and that would result in the same/current imbalance) just given the children in APS living within the geographical boundaries. Our geography is highly segregated, so are the neighborhood schools.

For some reason they updated the waitlist information for last year as of Nov 6, 2020. https://www.apsva.us/school-options/school-transfer-data-2/pre-k-elementary-options-transfers-application-data-school-year-2020-21/

Immersion cleared their entire waitlists except for 29 non-Spanish speaking first graders. Everyone else was offered a spot. There's no demand for another Spanish immersion school.

Agree. the "demand" is a verbal demand from white parents wanting it for whatever reason. And, because there isn't a waitlist for the native Spanish-speaking students, those same parents are arguing that the 50-50 instructional model should be changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t need to eliminate option schools, we need more of them. Look, all of the option schools end up with crazy long wait lists, and it isn’t because of where the school is located. Sure some parents just want oit if a neighborhood school, but many, many, many are actually there because they think the option school is providing a great curriculum. That is why we chose our option schools even though it had/has a lower ranking than our neighborhood school. So offer more Ats models, more expeditionary leaning, more Montessori, more Spanish immersion. Clearly people are clamoring for that.

Then why was there all that wailing about moving option schools? We don't need more option schools. This is the first year that immersion might not clear their entire waitlists and it's because they cut back the K Classes from 6 to 4. ATS is the only one that consistently has a crazy long wait list and it's expanding significantly with the move.

ATS, Campbell, and Immersion have lots of applicants and long waitlists since they started publicly tracking and releasing the info. As does Pre-K Montessori. If they move the satellite Pre-K classes all to a central location, I expect that demand to decrease fairly significantly. Montessori has demonstrated the least demand for the primary years, and yet is being expanded through grade 8. It doesn’t make objective sense.

Eliminating option schools won’t help the demographics of the highest poverty neighborhood schools. The demographics remain highly segregated (with one exception, but the school couldn’t hold double its current student population anyway, and a boundary change to alleviate crowding would result in a tighter geographical area, and that would result in the same/current imbalance) just given the children in APS living within the geographical boundaries. Our geography is highly segregated, so are the neighborhood schools.

But it makes perfect and obvious sense when you remember that the face of Montessori advocacy spent the last four years on the school board and, more significantly, the last year as Chair.

I don't know if pre-K demand will go down by centralizing the program. I guess we'll see; but there's such demand for preschool that I doubt moving it to a central location within the County is really going to impact applications. It's Montessori's hope that centralizing all the preK classes will increase demand for the K-5 years; and then eventually subsequent demand for the 6-8 years. And you know what's next in about ten years....a 9-12 Montessori program.

What they DO NEED to do and SHOULD do is significantly revamp the fee schedule so non-FRL-eligible families are paying a lot more for it than they have been. Make it comparable or more expensive than private preschools, then we'll see what the real demand is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t need to eliminate option schools, we need more of them. Look, all of the option schools end up with crazy long wait lists, and it isn’t because of where the school is located. Sure some parents just want oit if a neighborhood school, but many, many, many are actually there because they think the option school is providing a great curriculum. That is why we chose our option schools even though it had/has a lower ranking than our neighborhood school. So offer more Ats models, more expeditionary leaning, more Montessori, more Spanish immersion. Clearly people are clamoring for that.

Then why was there all that wailing about moving option schools? We don't need more option schools. This is the first year that immersion might not clear their entire waitlists and it's because they cut back the K Classes from 6 to 4. ATS is the only one that consistently has a crazy long wait list and it's expanding significantly with the move.

ATS, Campbell, and Immersion have lots of applicants and long waitlists since they started publicly tracking and releasing the info. As does Pre-K Montessori. If they move the satellite Pre-K classes all to a central location, I expect that demand to decrease fairly significantly. Montessori has demonstrated the least demand for the primary years, and yet is being expanded through grade 8. It doesn’t make objective sense.

Eliminating option schools won’t help the demographics of the highest poverty neighborhood schools. The demographics remain highly segregated (with one exception, but the school couldn’t hold double its current student population anyway, and a boundary change to alleviate crowding would result in a tighter geographical area, and that would result in the same/current imbalance) just given the children in APS living within the geographical boundaries. Our geography is highly segregated, so are the neighborhood schools.

For some reason they updated the waitlist information for last year as of Nov 6, 2020. https://www.apsva.us/school-options/school-transfer-data-2/pre-k-elementary-options-transfers-application-data-school-year-2020-21/

Immersion cleared their entire waitlists except for 29 non-Spanish speaking first graders. Everyone else was offered a spot. There's no demand for another Spanish immersion school.

Agree. the "demand" is a verbal demand from white parents wanting it for whatever reason. And, because there isn't a waitlist for the native Spanish-speaking students, those same parents are arguing that the 50-50 instructional model should be changed.

It sounds like you're not at an immersion school The reason immersion is in demand is because kids end up being bilingual. The argument I hear time and again as to why there isn't more demand from Spanish speaking families is that many (not all, many) Spanish speaking students come from families with limited mobility, so they want a school that is close to where they live so they can get to activities and conferences when public transit isn't available. Put immersion schools where there are large Spanish speaking populations and you'll have more Spanish speakers in the school. I don't have data to back that up. I see the logic but I recognize this may just be a convenient thing to believe. I definitely know Spanish speaking families who sent their kids to Spanish immersion programs because they want the Spanish language education, and they drive their kids considerable distances to get there (though buses are an option).

I don't know the pedagogical arguments for and against having a 50-50 instruction model. I simply know that there are multiple ways of doing "immersion" and that there are many immersion programs around the country that do NOT follow the 50-50 model. Fairfax county calls it "one way" immersion when there are less than 50% native speakers. They have one way immersion in French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. They have "two way" (i.e. 50-50) immersion in Korean and Spanish.

[Anonymous]

Also, I wouldn't rely too much on data from last year. #pandemic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t need to eliminate option schools, we need more of them. Look, all of the option schools end up with crazy long wait lists, and it isn’t because of where the school is located. Sure some parents just want oit if a neighborhood school, but many, many, many are actually there because they think the option school is providing a great curriculum. That is why we chose our option schools even though it had/has a lower ranking than our neighborhood school. So offer more Ats models, more expeditionary leaning, more Montessori, more Spanish immersion. Clearly people are clamoring for that.

Then why was there all that wailing about moving option schools? We don't need more option schools. This is the first year that immersion might not clear their entire waitlists and it's because they cut back the K Classes from 6 to 4. ATS is the only one that consistently has a crazy long wait list and it's expanding significantly with the move.

ATS, Campbell, and Immersion have lots of applicants and long waitlists since they started publicly tracking and releasing the info. As does Pre-K Montessori. If they move the satellite Pre-K classes all to a central location, I expect that demand to decrease fairly significantly. Montessori has demonstrated the least demand for the primary years, and yet is being expanded through grade 8. It doesn’t make objective sense.

Eliminating option schools won’t help the demographics of the highest poverty neighborhood schools. The demographics remain highly segregated (with one exception, but the school couldn’t hold double its current student population anyway, and a boundary change to alleviate crowding would result in a tighter geographical area, and that would result in the same/current imbalance) just given the children in APS living within the geographical boundaries. Our geography is highly segregated, so are the neighborhood schools.

But it makes perfect and obvious sense when you remember that the face of Montessori advocacy spent the last four years on the school board and, more significantly, the last year as Chair.

I don't know if pre-K demand will go down by centralizing the program. I guess we'll see; but there's such demand for preschool that I doubt moving it to a central location within the County is really going to impact applications. It's Montessori's hope that centralizing all the preK classes will increase demand for the K-5 years; and then eventually subsequent demand for the 6-8 years. And you know what's next in about ten years....a 9-12 Montessori program.

What they DO NEED to do and SHOULD do is significantly revamp the fee schedule so non-FRL-eligible families are paying a lot more for it than they have been. Make it comparable or more expensive than private preschools, then we'll see what the real demand is.

Why would anyone pay more for public Montessori than private You're just making it impossible for middle class Arlington families to do Montessori. The UMC is already in private.

[Anonymous]

Arlington parents of all backgrounds have said over and over in surveys, public comment, etc. how important neighborhood schools (ie proximity) is to them. When you have two working parents, pick up at aftercare on the other side of the county just isn't feasible. That's more important to most parents than uprooting the entire system to balance numbers. Sorry, that's the truth. Start with the high school kids for the grand lottery experiment. If it goes well, move to the middle schoolers. Only then can you attempt the full lottery elementary idea.


Then maybe we should end options programs


That is what the Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer should do.


APS option schools just make neighborhood schools more inequitable. Like a giant sucking sound - of stable families leaving their neighborhood schools for a *better* option. APS should do better.

This comes up all the time and people are just wrong about this. The numbers do not work. Even if every kid went to their local school instead of option - it still would not make a dent in the demographic make up of the low performing school. 1 building in south arlington has more than twice the # of kids of an entire single family neighborhood. If you have a school with 5+ affordable housing buildings and 1 single family neighborhood - that school is not improving.

If you get rid of option schools - lets be generous and say of the wealthier families 1/3 of people will move, 1/3 will go private and 1/3 will stay (btw many fewer kids went to Drew during the last redistrict than even those #s would indicate). Regardless the people who are left will not be large enough to reform an entire school. They will also not be wealthy enough to reform an entire school. You can't expect a dozen middle class families to pull a school with 700 students out of its hole. The wealthy families will have bailed and the only people left are those who didn't have money to bail and one or two bleeding heart types. They are absolutely not the people who can fundraise 800k for the PTA.






What

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Arlington parents of all backgrounds have said over and over in surveys, public comment, etc. how important neighborhood schools (ie proximity) is to them. When you have two working parents, pick up at aftercare on the other side of the county just isn't feasible. That's more important to most parents than uprooting the entire system to balance numbers. Sorry, that's the truth. Start with the high school kids for the grand lottery experiment. If it goes well, move to the middle schoolers. Only then can you attempt the full lottery elementary idea.


Then maybe we should end options programs


That is what the Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer should do.


APS option schools just make neighborhood schools more inequitable. Like a giant sucking sound - of stable families leaving their neighborhood schools for a *better* option. APS should do better.

This comes up all the time and people are just wrong about this. The numbers do not work. Even if every kid went to their local school instead of option - it still would not make a dent in the demographic make up of the low performing school. 1 building in south arlington has more than twice the # of kids of an entire single family neighborhood. If you have a school with 5+ affordable housing buildings and 1 single family neighborhood - that school is not improving.

If you get rid of option schools - lets be generous and say of the wealthier families 1/3 of people will move, 1/3 will go private and 1/3 will stay (btw many fewer kids went to Drew during the last redistrict than even those #s would indicate). Regardless the people who are left will not be large enough to reform an entire school. They will also not be wealthy enough to reform an entire school. You can't expect a dozen middle class families to pull a school with 700 students out of its hole. The wealthy families will have bailed and the only people left are those who didn't have money to bail and one or two bleeding heart types. They are absolutely not the people who can fundraise 800k for the PTA.



What

I realize this is a minor point in your post, but what could a PTA even do with $800K that would make a difference? Our PTA tells us they aren't allowed (by the governing PTA rules) to buy text books (but somehow they can buy books for the library), can't buy play ground equipment, or shade tents, or make any permanent improvements to buildings, or pay for more teachers or aids. So what can a PTA really do besides coat drives, food drives, gift drives, read a thons, and the like. I don't see those kinds of things changing schools drastically.

[Anonymous]

This is what the Jamestown Elementary School PTA in North Arlington claims to do with their funds based on their website. I think alot of the key is to the afterschool enrichment programs.

Funds the schoolʼs technology needs including laptops, ipads, and other hand-held learning devices
Supplements the teacher training budget by funding professional development for teachers
Provides direct contributions to the teachers for the purchase of extra materials for classrooms and other areas of the school
Enhances the children’s arts education through Artists-in-Residence Programs, whereby artists are brought in and work with the students on a permanent art project
Enhances the childrenʼs music education through funding many musical performances throughout the year
Enhances the childrenʼs reading education through funding the Author-in-Residence Programs, whereby many authors come and read their books to the students
Funds the ever-popular school play
Coordinates the popular After School Enrichment programs and Reflections Contest
Hosts many social events throughout the year to build a stronger community such as the Ice Cream Social, Jamestown Auction, and Spring Fair

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is what the Jamestown Elementary School PTA in North Arlington claims to do with their funds based on their website. I think alot of the key is to the afterschool enrichment programs.

Funds the schoolʼs technology needs including laptops, ipads, and other hand-held learning devices
Supplements the teacher training budget by funding professional development for teachers
Provides direct contributions to the teachers for the purchase of extra materials for classrooms and other areas of the school
Enhances the children’s arts education through Artists-in-Residence Programs, whereby artists are brought in and work with the students on a permanent art project
Enhances the childrenʼs music education through funding many musical performances throughout the year
Enhances the childrenʼs reading education through funding the Author-in-Residence Programs, whereby many authors come and read their books to the students
Funds the ever-popular school play
Coordinates the popular After School Enrichment programs and Reflections Contest
Hosts many social events throughout the year to build a stronger community such as the Ice Cream Social, Jamestown Auction, and Spring Fair

Does coordinate after school enrichment mean pay for, or just find vendors to offer programs? If the PTA is paying for after school enrichment, then I'm impressed. Otherwise, it sounds like what one parent in our PTA does (great, but not a benefit unless you can pay for it).