APS 2021-2022 boundary-adjustments

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would make sense to try to align the TJ neighborhoods to WL so that kids can continue IB and for general alignment issues. But if they can't move all 3 neighborhoods (Alcova, AH, Penrose) due to numbers then its gonna be tough for whoever gets left behind.

But including Alcova, without Barcroft, doesn’t make sense since it goes Barcroft ES. That’s why Barcroft/Alcova are linked. Otherwise you leave the kids from Barcroft ES going to a different MS than their ES cohorts and then a different HS than their MS cohorts, too.

As posted a few times already, that's what the current situation for Alcova is. Alcova already breaks away from Barcroft after ES. Barcroft goes to Kenmore and Alcova already goes to TJ. So, keeping Alcova with Arl Hts and other WL neighborhoods would actually let Alcova students continue to HS with a larger cohort.

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.

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.

Most of Kenmore does not go to Wakefield, they go to W-L

And therefore Barcroft follows cohorts all the way through - there are units that go ES to MS to HS with the Barcroft neighborhood (which is a fairly sizeable population of students on its own, BTW). And Barcroft and Alcova are already in the same situation matriculating to HS (except the Barcroft cohort is probably larger than the Alcova cohort); but Barcroft has the advantage by far when matriculating to MS.

I just don't see why Barcroft is even in this conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would make sense to try to align the TJ neighborhoods to WL so that kids can continue IB and for general alignment issues. But if they can't move all 3 neighborhoods (Alcova, AH, Penrose) due to numbers then its gonna be tough for whoever gets left behind.

But including Alcova, without Barcroft, doesn’t make sense since it goes Barcroft ES. That’s why Barcroft/Alcova are linked. Otherwise you leave the kids from Barcroft ES going to a different MS than their ES cohorts and then a different HS than their MS cohorts, too.

As posted a few times already, that's what the current situation for Alcova is. Alcova already breaks away from Barcroft after ES. Barcroft goes to Kenmore and Alcova already goes to TJ. So, keeping Alcova with Arl Hts and other WL neighborhoods would actually let Alcova students continue to HS with a larger cohort.

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.

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.

Most of Kenmore does not go to Wakefield, they go to W-L

And therefore Barcroft follows cohorts all the way through - there are units that go ES to MS to HS with the Barcroft neighborhood (which is a fairly sizeable population of students on its own, BTW). And Barcroft and Alcova are already in the same situation matriculating to HS (except the Barcroft cohort is probably larger than the Alcova cohort); but Barcroft has the advantage by far when matriculating to MS.

I just don't see why Barcroft is even in this conversation.

Sounds to me someone from Barcroft is advocating to be redistricted to WL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would happen if we did it like everywhere else and had sensible feeder bounders? 2 MS to each HS.

So TJ and Gunston to Wakefield
Swanson and Kenmore to WL
Hamm and Williamsburg to Yorkdown

What are the demographics under that scenario?

Now that we have 6 MSs, that seems like the approach that would make sense, though APS is not big on that.

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.

I agree with you that a complete overhaul is needed. APS knows it; but they've been kicking that can down the road for years already. But I also agree that doing it now based on weird enrollment patterns from COVID and VL, etc. is a bad idea and will only cause more frustration and chaos in a few years. They simply need to acknowledge that they should build a fourth high school and go ahead and build it for heaven's sake. NOT a special program. NOT a virtual academy. NOT another small option school. Just build a friggin' comprehensive high school and give all of our kids reprieve from crowded, large high schools.

Nevertheless, I don't know that I agree with you re having all of Hamm go to WL and having Kenmore go to YHS. Have you really thought about that and what that entails? It entails hundreds of students south of 50 and on the west side of the County bussing up to YHS while most of the NE corner goes to centrally located WL. Nice for you - I assume you're in that little Hamm area. Though I honestly don't get why WL seems to be the holy grail of Arlington and everyone seems to prefer to be zoned there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would happen if we did it like everywhere else and had sensible feeder bounders? 2 MS to each HS.

So TJ and Gunston to Wakefield
Swanson and Kenmore to WL
Hamm and Williamsburg to Yorkdown

What are the demographics under that scenario?

Now that we have 6 MSs, that seems like the approach that would make sense, though APS is not big on that.

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.

I agree with you that a complete overhaul is needed. APS knows it; but they've been kicking that can down the road for years already. But I also agree that doing it now based on weird enrollment patterns from COVID and VL, etc. is a bad idea and will only cause more frustration and chaos in a few years. They simply need to acknowledge that they should build a fourth high school and go ahead and build it for heaven's sake. NOT a special program. NOT a virtual academy. NOT another small option school. Just build a friggin' comprehensive high school and give all of our kids reprieve from crowded, large high schools.

Nevertheless, I don't know that I agree with you re having all of Hamm go to WL and having Kenmore go to YHS. Have you really thought about that and what that entails? It entails hundreds of students south of 50 and on the west side of the County bussing up to YHS while most of the NE corner goes to centrally located WL. Nice for you - I assume you're in that little Hamm area. Though I honestly don't get why WL seems to be the holy grail of Arlington and everyone seems to prefer to be zoned there.

We are never getting a 4th high school in our lifetime. They will point to current drop as justification to not build it and hold up DL and Tech as ways to manage any return of population growth. Imagine all Freshmen in a huge introductory English course via DL, lectured at like online university. That’s the fallback if they need space. Count on it.

[Anonymous]

I think the current School Board plan here is to just overcrowd and make WL suck as much as possible so fewer kids will want to go there and it will be more equal with the other schools even with its IB program. There -- problem solved!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would happen if we did it like everywhere else and had sensible feeder bounders? 2 MS to each HS.

So TJ and Gunston to Wakefield
Swanson and Kenmore to WL
Hamm and Williamsburg to Yorkdown

What are the demographics under that scenario?

Now that we have 6 MSs, that seems like the approach that would make sense, though APS is not big on that.

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.

I agree with you that a complete overhaul is needed. APS knows it; but they've been kicking that can down the road for years already. But I also agree that doing it now based on weird enrollment patterns from COVID and VL, etc. is a bad idea and will only cause more frustration and chaos in a few years. They simply need to acknowledge that they should build a fourth high school and go ahead and build it for heaven's sake. NOT a special program. NOT a virtual academy. NOT another small option school. Just build a friggin' comprehensive high school and give all of our kids reprieve from crowded, large high schools.

Nevertheless, I don't know that I agree with you re having all of Hamm go to WL and having Kenmore go to YHS. Have you really thought about that and what that entails? It entails hundreds of students south of 50 and on the west side of the County bussing up to YHS while most of the NE corner goes to centrally located WL. Nice for you - I assume you're in that little Hamm area. Though I honestly don't get why WL seems to be the holy grail of Arlington and everyone seems to prefer to be zoned there.

Honestly, I didn't think that much about it when I said Kenmore should go to Yorktown. I know there were units that are by Ashlawn/Tuckahoe that were zoned for Kenmore last time they did middle schools, so I assumed that you could use that justification to say Kenmore should go to Yorktown. I live in Lyon Park, so don't go to Hamm. I'm not sure if my neighbors would like being zoned for Wakefield considering we are in the walk zone for W-L, but a lot of kids from TJ in my neighborhood end up transferring to Wakefield anyways, so I don't know.
Right now most of the NE corner of the county gets bussed to Yorktown. Its from the historical "Yorktown bubble". Its a 20 minute drive, 5.5 miles away. That's far, especially when you consider that its 4 miles to w-l and 6 miles to wakefield. Not everyone is going to go to their closest school, but saying that kenmore must go to w-l because its "convenient" and centrally located is strange since its most of kenmore is much much closer to wakefield.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the current School Board plan here is to just overcrowd and make WL suck as much as possible so fewer kids will want to go there and it will be more equal with the other schools even with its IB program. There -- problem solved!

That tracks. I can't believe how big its going to be, but still too small fields, cafs, common space....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the current School Board plan here is to just overcrowd and make WL suck as much as possible so fewer kids will want to go there and it will be more equal with the other schools even with its IB program. There -- problem solved!

That tracks. I can't believe how big its going to be, but still too small fields, cafs, common space....

Yeah, I live in the old Yorktown island on the eastern side of the county. If you're taking the fastest way (66) you pass under the WL parking deck halfway on the way to Yorktown, but maybe it's for the best if we are still here for high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would happen if we did it like everywhere else and had sensible feeder bounders? 2 MS to each HS.

So TJ and Gunston to Wakefield
Swanson and Kenmore to WL
Hamm and Williamsburg to Yorkdown

What are the demographics under that scenario?

Now that we have 6 MSs, that seems like the approach that would make sense, though APS is not big on that.

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.

I agree with you that a complete overhaul is needed. APS knows it; but they've been kicking that can down the road for years already. But I also agree that doing it now based on weird enrollment patterns from COVID and VL, etc. is a bad idea and will only cause more frustration and chaos in a few years. They simply need to acknowledge that they should build a fourth high school and go ahead and build it for heaven's sake. NOT a special program. NOT a virtual academy. NOT another small option school. Just build a friggin' comprehensive high school and give all of our kids reprieve from crowded, large high schools.

Nevertheless, I don't know that I agree with you re having all of Hamm go to WL and having Kenmore go to YHS. Have you really thought about that and what that entails? It entails hundreds of students south of 50 and on the west side of the County bussing up to YHS while most of the NE corner goes to centrally located WL. Nice for you - I assume you're in that little Hamm area. Though I honestly don't get why WL seems to be the holy grail of Arlington and everyone seems to prefer to be zoned there.

We are never getting a 4th high school in our lifetime. They will point to current drop as justification to not build it and hold up DL and Tech as ways to manage any return of population growth. Imagine all Freshmen in a huge introductory English course via DL, lectured at like online university. That’s the fallback if they need space. Count on it.

We all like to trash APS here; and sure APS makes it easy and gives us lots of material. But come on. "in our lifetime"? Either the system tanks and people withdraw until enrollment evens out, OR, they put it off as long as possible and try shift schedules or massive DL to avoid it. All those alternatives are going to be disastrous admissions of failure, and that will become apparent after a year or two. If that happens the system will find the political will to build the high school because the alternative would be to admit that APS is second-rate and more like ACPS than FFX. The central office and County Board can't abide that; their entire self-concept is based on Arlington being special and better. Now, I think recent years show us they are more concerned with the perception of being better than the actual reality, but reality has a way of catching up and breaking through perceptions like that. When that happens they'll decide to do something about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would make sense to try to align the TJ neighborhoods to WL so that kids can continue IB and for general alignment issues. But if they can't move all 3 neighborhoods (Alcova, AH, Penrose) due to numbers then its gonna be tough for whoever gets left behind.

But including Alcova, without Barcroft, doesn’t make sense since it goes Barcroft ES. That’s why Barcroft/Alcova are linked. Otherwise you leave the kids from Barcroft ES going to a different MS than their ES cohorts and then a different HS than their MS cohorts, too.

As posted a few times already, that's what the current situation for Alcova is. Alcova already breaks away from Barcroft after ES. Barcroft goes to Kenmore and Alcova already goes to TJ. So, keeping Alcova with Arl Hts and other WL neighborhoods would actually let Alcova students continue to HS with a larger cohort.

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.

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.

Most of Kenmore does not go to Wakefield, they go to W-L

And therefore Barcroft follows cohorts all the way through - there are units that go ES to MS to HS with the Barcroft neighborhood (which is a fairly sizeable population of students on its own, BTW). And Barcroft and Alcova are already in the same situation matriculating to HS (except the Barcroft cohort is probably larger than the Alcova cohort); but Barcroft has the advantage by far when matriculating to MS.

I just don't see why Barcroft is even in this conversation.

Sounds to me someone from Barcroft is advocating to be redistricted to WL.

I jumped in when Alcova lady said split them off to W-L. Why? There’s a much higher % of kids at Kenmore that go W-L than Wakefield. There’s a smaller number of kids from TJ zoned to W-L. My kid lost most of his friends, who were zoned TJ, after the transition to MS. And is now facing losing most of his MS friends who are zoned W-L unless he gets a transfer. So yeah, moving Barcroft to W-L makes a lot of sense to me for a personal reason, and for alignment/stability/diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would happen if we did it like everywhere else and had sensible feeder bounders? 2 MS to each HS.

So TJ and Gunston to Wakefield
Swanson and Kenmore to WL
Hamm and Williamsburg to Yorkdown

What are the demographics under that scenario?

Now that we have 6 MSs, that seems like the approach that would make sense, though APS is not big on that.

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.

I agree with you that a complete overhaul is needed. APS knows it; but they've been kicking that can down the road for years already. But I also agree that doing it now based on weird enrollment patterns from COVID and VL, etc. is a bad idea and will only cause more frustration and chaos in a few years. They simply need to acknowledge that they should build a fourth high school and go ahead and build it for heaven's sake. NOT a special program. NOT a virtual academy. NOT another small option school. Just build a friggin' comprehensive high school and give all of our kids reprieve from crowded, large high schools.

Nevertheless, I don't know that I agree with you re having all of Hamm go to WL and having Kenmore go to YHS. Have you really thought about that and what that entails? It entails hundreds of students south of 50 and on the west side of the County bussing up to YHS while most of the NE corner goes to centrally located WL. Nice for you - I assume you're in that little Hamm area. Though I honestly don't get why WL seems to be the holy grail of Arlington and everyone seems to prefer to be zoned there.

We are never getting a 4th high school in our lifetime. They will point to current drop as justification to not build it and hold up DL and Tech as ways to manage any return of population growth. Imagine all Freshmen in a huge introductory English course via DL, lectured at like online university. That’s the fallback if they need space. Count on it.

We all like to trash APS here; and sure APS makes it easy and gives us lots of material. But come on. "in our lifetime"? Either the system tanks and people withdraw until enrollment evens out, OR, they put it off as long as possible and try shift schedules or massive DL to avoid it. All those alternatives are going to be disastrous admissions of failure, and that will become apparent after a year or two. If that happens the system will find the political will to build the high school because the alternative would be to admit that APS is second-rate and more like ACPS than FFX. The central office and County Board can't abide that; their entire self-concept is based on Arlington being special and better. Now, I think recent years show us they are more concerned with the perception of being better than the actual reality, but reality has a way of catching up and breaking through perceptions like that. When that happens they'll decide to do something about it.

The problem with your theory is the fact that APS never admits failure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We all like to trash APS here; and sure APS makes it easy and gives us lots of material. But come on. "in our lifetime"? Either the system tanks and people withdraw until enrollment evens out, OR, they put it off as long as possible and try shift schedules or massive DL to avoid it. All those alternatives are going to be disastrous admissions of failure, and that will become apparent after a year or two. If that happens the system will find the political will to build the high school because the alternative would be to admit that APS is second-rate and more like ACPS than FFX. The central office and County Board can't abide that; their entire self-concept is based on Arlington being special and better. Now, I think recent years show us they are more concerned with the perception of being better than the actual reality, but reality has a way of catching up and breaking through perceptions like that. When that happens they'll decide to do something about it.

Even if you are right, a decade's worth of kids will be screwed. At this point the soonest they could bring a new full comprehensive HS online is probably 2028. Maybe. We were pushing for a 4th high school as early as 2014 based on the bubble of kids that were already appearing in the lower grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We all like to trash APS here; and sure APS makes it easy and gives us lots of material. But come on. "in our lifetime"? Either the system tanks and people withdraw until enrollment evens out, OR, they put it off as long as possible and try shift schedules or massive DL to avoid it. All those alternatives are going to be disastrous admissions of failure, and that will become apparent after a year or two. If that happens the system will find the political will to build the high school because the alternative would be to admit that APS is second-rate and more like ACPS than FFX. The central office and County Board can't abide that; their entire self-concept is based on Arlington being special and better. Now, I think recent years show us they are more concerned with the perception of being better than the actual reality, but reality has a way of catching up and breaking through perceptions like that. When that happens they'll decide to do something about it.

Even if you are right, a decade's worth of kids will be screwed. At this point the soonest they could bring a new full comprehensive HS online is probably 2028. Maybe. We were pushing for a 4th high school as early as 2014 based on the bubble of kids that were already appearing in the lower grades.

This. You've screwed all of the kids currently in APS except for maybe the youngest grades of elem. The others will be stuck with this disaster through highschool, so essentially "their lifetime", at least their public school lifetime. So, yeah it is a big deal.

[Anonymous]

And therefore Barcroft follows cohorts all the way through - there are units that go ES to MS to HS with the Barcroft neighborhood (which is a fairly sizeable population of students on its own, BTW). And Barcroft and Alcova are already in the same situation matriculating to HS (except the Barcroft cohort is probably larger than the Alcova cohort); but Barcroft has the advantage by far when matriculating to MS.

I just don't see why Barcroft is even in this conversation.


Sounds to me someone from Barcroft is advocating to be redistricted to WL.

OP here. I wasn't advocating anything (although other posters are) - I just looked at a map and can do basic math. WL is gaining about 500 seats and they want some of them to be filled via redistricting (but probably not all). If you look at a map the 4 neighborhoods listed - Barcroft, Alcova, Penrose, AH - are the only ones with proximity to WL to make it work. There are probably too many kids in all 4 neighborhoods to move all of them together to WL so it seems like they'd maybe move 2. Geographically it makes sense to either move the western or the eastern 2. I suppose they could move Penrose and Barcroft and leave AH and Alcova in Wakefield (or vice versa) but that seems like weird choice to me. They could theoretically only move 1 neighborhood. Maybe just Penrose/Foxcraft Heights or just Barcroft?

I don't think it will only be the units they rezoned a few years ago (half of Penrose & FoxHeights) because that wasn't alot of kids.

Since both Kenmore and TJ feed to both high schools I don't think they are going to worry to much about alignment. They've also been willing to totally isolate families during the past few re-zones so I don't think its a high concern to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would happen if we did it like everywhere else and had sensible feeder bounders? 2 MS to each HS.

So TJ and Gunston to Wakefield
Swanson and Kenmore to WL
Hamm and Williamsburg to Yorkdown

What are the demographics under that scenario?

Now that we have 6 MSs, that seems like the approach that would make sense, though APS is not big on that.

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.

I agree with you that a complete overhaul is needed. APS knows it; but they've been kicking that can down the road for years already. But I also agree that doing it now based on weird enrollment patterns from COVID and VL, etc. is a bad idea and will only cause more frustration and chaos in a few years. They simply need to acknowledge that they should build a fourth high school and go ahead and build it for heaven's sake. NOT a special program. NOT a virtual academy. NOT another small option school. Just build a friggin' comprehensive high school and give all of our kids reprieve from crowded, large high schools.

Nevertheless, I don't know that I agree with you re having all of Hamm go to WL and having Kenmore go to YHS. Have you really thought about that and what that entails? It entails hundreds of students south of 50 and on the west side of the County bussing up to YHS while most of the NE corner goes to centrally located WL. Nice for you - I assume you're in that little Hamm area. Though I honestly don't get why WL seems to be the holy grail of Arlington and everyone seems to prefer to be zoned there.

We are never getting a 4th high school in our lifetime. They will point to current drop as justification to not build it and hold up DL and Tech as ways to manage any return of population growth. Imagine all Freshmen in a huge introductory English course via DL, lectured at like online university. That’s the fallback if they need space. Count on it.

Chill out, there is a lot of housing coming online for Hamm and W&L that will fill those schools in the next few years.