class action against APS what are our options?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:File as many complaints as you can as soon as you can. Contact the NAACP. Contact Moriah Balingit at the Washington Post. Make noise. And look for a Civil Rights attorney who may take this case on pro bono.

You have no case.

Well then you have nothing to be worried about, do you? Know what? Law suits and the threat of law suits get things done, regardless of merit. Why do you think the county stopped pursuing distribution of AH? A law suit, that was without merit and which the county ultimately won, but which wasted 12 million of their dollars.

I have nothing to worry about other than your suggesting county resources should be spent litigating a lawsuit that won't succeed. The only ones who profit from this course of action would APS's outside lawyers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the big flaw with your plan: The premise of your argument would be that the county is disadvantaging minority students against their will in order to preserve/increase segregation. In so many of the options to give more balanced diversity between the schools, though, it was the minority groups who would have been moved to achieve that diversity who protested the move and wanted to stay in the closer school (for instance, the families in Hall's Hill and the Williamsburg island who didn't want to be bused to Williamsburg rather than going to the closer school with their ES classmates just to make Williamsburg more diverse). So not only would you probably not get those families on board with your lawsuit (since prevailing would mean them having to do something they have very explicitly stated they do not want to do), but it would completely undermine your case that APS offered a more balanced option and the people who supposedly would benefit most from it rejected it in favor of a less balanced option.

But what APS capitulated to was the demands of higher SES families --- so the high school boundaries didn't move Arlington Forest families to Wakefield, and the MS boundaries didn't move Swanson families to Kenmore.

See if they take Lyon Village families out of ASFS. I'm betting no. They don't upset the potential campaign contributors.

[Anonymous]

You have no options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the big flaw with your plan: The premise of your argument would be that the county is disadvantaging minority students against their will in order to preserve/increase segregation. In so many of the options to give more balanced diversity between the schools, though, it was the minority groups who would have been moved to achieve that diversity who protested the move and wanted to stay in the closer school (for instance, the families in Hall's Hill and the Williamsburg island who didn't want to be bused to Williamsburg rather than going to the closer school with their ES classmates just to make Williamsburg more diverse). So not only would you probably not get those families on board with your lawsuit (since prevailing would mean them having to do something they have very explicitly stated they do not want to do), but it would completely undermine your case that APS offered a more balanced option and the people who supposedly would benefit most from it rejected it in favor of a less balanced option.

But what APS capitulated to was the demands of higher SES families --- so the high school boundaries didn't move Arlington Forest families to Wakefield, and the MS boundaries didn't move Swanson families to Kenmore.

See if they take Lyon Village families out of ASFS. I'm betting no. They don't upset the potential campaign contributors.

So you want to tell the people in the Williamsburg island, who specifically asked to go to Stratford instead because in some cases kids would have had to walk further to their WB bus stop than to Stratford itself, that they can't have that, that they need to be bused to Williamsburg so that diversity will be better at Williamsburg. And you want to tell the community in Hall's Hill that their kids can't go to MS with their ES friends, they instead have to get onto a bus to provide the token minority population in Williamsburg, even though they specifically said they didn't want that. And you want to move Swanson families to Kenmore and then Williamsburg families to Swanson, so that Williamsburg becomes more diverse while Swanson ends up as non-diverse as Williamsburg is current projected to be, but with no excess capacity available for transfers.

I'm curious, in all of this, where are you? Where are your kids slated to go under the revised Option A, and where would you ideally like them to go, and which PUs should be moved in or out of that school to get the demographics you want? How many of the families you're supposedly trying to protect would be forced into something they don't want just so you can get what you do want?

[Anonymous]

What's ultimately going to be embarrassing for APS is when Williamsburg and Yorktown have almost no poor kids and still underperform compared to the top schools in FCPS. The coach/emperor has no clothes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't your real beef against the county, for continuing to put affordable housing in areas where there is already a lot of low-market-rate housing? Because I think that's the real problem here.

If enough middle class families are moved as a block to a "lower achieving" school, in theory it should become a higher performing school, right?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't your real beef against the county, for continuing to put affordable housing in areas where there is already a lot of low-market-rate housing? Because I think that's the real problem here.

If enough middle class families are moved as a block to a "lower achieving" school, in theory it should become a higher performing school, right?

+1

+2

Don't put this all on the school board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't your real beef against the county, for continuing to put affordable housing in areas where there is already a lot of low-market-rate housing? Because I think that's the real problem here.

If enough middle class families are moved as a block to a "lower achieving" school, in theory it should become a higher performing school, right?

+1

+2

Don't put this all on the school board.

But knee-jerk reactions are so much easier than actually educating yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So you want to tell the people in the Williamsburg island, who specifically asked to go to Stratford instead because in some cases kids would have had to walk further to their WB bus stop than to Stratford itself, that they can't have that, that they need to be bused to Williamsburg so that diversity will be better at Williamsburg.

No, and I'm not sure where you're getting that. I know the MS ship has sailed, but it would have made a lot more sense (in terms of logistics and finances) to build a 1300 student MS on the Wilson Building site. But the whiny white folks in 22207 did their thing, and now there's another school in the white zone. I think we ought to be doing what's best for non-ED families. I don't care if Williamsburg gets ever whiter; those families have made it clear that they don't value diversity, so why give them any?

But APS could be making choices that preserve the few ways individual schools reflect the demographics of APS as a whole, and that doesn't happy because the privileged whine and APS rolls right the fuck over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the big flaw with your plan: The premise of your argument would be that the county is disadvantaging minority students against their will in order to preserve/increase segregation. In so many of the options to give more balanced diversity between the schools, though, it was the minority groups who would have been moved to achieve that diversity who protested the move and wanted to stay in the closer school (for instance, the families in Hall's Hill and the Williamsburg island who didn't want to be bused to Williamsburg rather than going to the closer school with their ES classmates just to make Williamsburg more diverse). So not only would you probably not get those families on board with your lawsuit (since prevailing would mean them having to do something they have very explicitly stated they do not want to do), but it would completely undermine your case that APS offered a more balanced option and the people who supposedly would benefit most from it rejected it in favor of a less balanced option.

But what APS capitulated to was the demands of higher SES families --- so the high school boundaries didn't move Arlington Forest families to Wakefield, and the MS boundaries didn't move Swanson families to Kenmore.

See if they take Lyon Village families out of ASFS. I'm betting no. They don't upset the potential campaign contributors.

So you want to tell the people in the Williamsburg island, who specifically asked to go to Stratford instead because in some cases kids would have had to walk further to their WB bus stop than to Stratford itself, that they can't have that, that they need to be bused to Williamsburg so that diversity will be better at Williamsburg. And you want to tell the community in Hall's Hill that their kids can't go to MS with their ES friends, they instead have to get onto a bus to provide the token minority population in Williamsburg, even though they specifically said they didn't want that. And you want to move Swanson families to Kenmore and then Williamsburg families to Swanson, so that Williamsburg becomes more diverse while Swanson ends up as non-diverse as Williamsburg is current projected to be, but with no excess capacity available for transfers.

I'm curious, in all of this, where are you? Where are your kids slated to go under the revised Option A, and where would you ideally like them to go, and which PUs should be moved in or out of that school to get the demographics you want? How many of the families you're supposedly trying to protect would be forced into something they don't want just so you can get what you do want?

PP - well said! In this last round, they didn't "capitulate" to the higher SES families - they listened to the families in Halls Hill and the Williamsburg Island. Some of them might be of higher SES, but many of them are not. And now they are not being split from their friends, or bused to a school further away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So you want to tell the people in the Williamsburg island, who specifically asked to go to Stratford instead because in some cases kids would have had to walk further to their WB bus stop than to Stratford itself, that they can't have that, that they need to be bused to Williamsburg so that diversity will be better at Williamsburg.

No, and I'm not sure where you're getting that. I know the MS ship has sailed, but it would have made a lot more sense (in terms of logistics and finances) to build a 1300 student MS on the Wilson Building site. But the whiny white folks in 22207 did their thing, and now there's another school in the white zone. I think we ought to be doing what's best for non-ED families. I don't care if Williamsburg gets ever whiter; those families have made it clear that they don't value diversity, so why give them any?

But APS could be making choices that preserve the few ways individual schools reflect the demographics of APS as a whole, and that doesn't happy because the privileged whine and APS rolls right the fuck over.

This is exactly what APS chose not to do, move kids at some schools around to at least feel like the community was more diverse and balanced, while leaving alone the rich kids in the north. They tried to apply the same criteria to every planning unit. If you want diversity, then own it and bus everyone. Bus the Columbia Forest kids to Stratford, the Williamsburg area kids to Kenmore, and the Westover kids to Gunston. Now everyone's unhappy. But you don't let the richest and whitest off the hook while messing around with other families who also have their own desires not to be schlepped all over town to fix bad county policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:File as many complaints as you can as soon as you can. Contact the NAACP. Contact Moriah Balingit at the Washington Post. Make noise. And look for a Civil Rights attorney who may take this case on pro bono.

You have no case.

Well then you have nothing to be worried about, do you? Know what? Law suits and the threat of law suits get things done, regardless of merit. Why do you think the county stopped pursuing distribution of AH? A law suit, that was without merit and which the county ultimately won, but which wasted 12 million of their dollars.

So you're advocating filing a suit that you know is frivolous? I hope you end up paying fees for APS after someone forwards this thread to Arlington lawyers.

I'm not the OP, and I don't actually think it's without merit. In particular, the number of SWD is curiously higher at the higher poverty schools. Maybe someone should look into that. And capacity is being pushed higher at the higher poverty schools, while the wealthiest school is left under capacity for some nebulous program that may or may not materialize, and most assuredly won't result in greater diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So you want to tell the people in the Williamsburg island, who specifically asked to go to Stratford instead because in some cases kids would have had to walk further to their WB bus stop than to Stratford itself, that they can't have that, that they need to be bused to Williamsburg so that diversity will be better at Williamsburg.

No, and I'm not sure where you're getting that. I know the MS ship has sailed, but it would have made a lot more sense (in terms of logistics and finances) to build a 1300 student MS on the Wilson Building site. But the whiny white folks in 22207 did their thing, and now there's another school in the white zone. I think we ought to be doing what's best for non-ED families. I don't care if Williamsburg gets ever whiter; those families have made it clear that they don't value diversity, so why give them any?

But APS could be making choices that preserve the few ways individual schools reflect the demographics of APS as a whole, and that doesn't happy because the privileged whine and APS rolls right the fuck over.

What are you talking about? Under revised Option A, Stratford will be an appropriately diverse school; by 2022, it's projected to have 21% ED, 24% EL and 46% non-white. If they'd put the middle school on the Wilson site instead, that would have shifted the richer/whiter PUs currently slated for Stratford back to WB while lumping the poorer/less-white Stratford PUs to the Wilson MS along with similar populations currently slated for Jefferson (and maybe a little slice of the less-affluent part of Swanson). Under that scenario, there's most likely a general clockwise shift in the boundaries (except for Gunston, which probably doesn't change much at all) that means WB doesn't get meaningfully more diverse, Swanson probably gets substantially less diverse, Kenmore might get a little relief, but you've effectively created a second Kenmore on the other side of the county, which isn't really an improvement overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't your real beef against the county, for continuing to put affordable housing in areas where there is already a lot of low-market-rate housing? Because I think that's the real problem here.

If enough middle class families are moved as a block to a "lower achieving" school, in theory it should become a higher performing school, right?

+1

+2

Don't put this all on the school board.

Correct. APS staff, allegedly, are the ones making these proposals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:File as many complaints as you can as soon as you can. Contact the NAACP. Contact Moriah Balingit at the Washington Post. Make noise. And look for a Civil Rights attorney who may take this case on pro bono.

You have no case.

Well then you have nothing to be worried about, do you? Know what? Law suits and the threat of law suits get things done, regardless of merit. Why do you think the county stopped pursuing distribution of AH? A law suit, that was without merit and which the county ultimately won, but which wasted 12 million of their dollars.

So you're advocating filing a suit that you know is frivolous? I hope you end up paying fees for APS after someone forwards this thread to Arlington lawyers.

I'm not the OP, and I don't actually think it's without merit. In particular, the number of SWD is curiously higher at the higher poverty schools. Maybe someone should look into that. And capacity is being pushed higher at the higher poverty schools, while the wealthiest school is left under capacity for some nebulous program that may or may not materialize, and most assuredly won't result in greater diversity.

Why in the world is that suspicious to you? Raising a child with disabilities is expensive, housing is one of the biggest line items in most people's budgets, and so when you need to shift money around to pay for increased healthcare expenses, moving to a less expensive neighborhood is a no-brainer.