Arlington redistricting 101
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Anonymous
Because it is best for the overall community. Welcome to Arlington. |
Anonymous
No school board panders to the squeakiest wheel, so it becomes a race to the bottom as who can complain the loudest in their matched t-shirts. |
Anonymous
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Anyone who has been at McKinley the past few years knows exactly why people are concerned about APS's ability to predict the consequences of major changes.
That said, we wouldn't be having these issues if Arlington wasn't a desireable place to live and if people weren't happy with APS overall. |
Anonymous
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If you have young kids who are not yet in Elementary, school, it really doesn't matter. You will buy a house, and if it's currently zoned for Nottingham, it might be changed to Discovery or Tuckahoe by the time your kids get to school.
The reason it's a big deal for those of us who have kids there now is that we want to be able to walk to school and we don't want our kids and their friends split up. That's what I care about. The schools are basically the same. The education won't be any different, but my child will be switched for 5th grade, which is the last of the elem. years, and might be separated from his friends. It stinks, but it won't affect education. APS as a whole is another matter. I have no clue why a school system with space issues has option schools or HB Woodlawn. It's time for them all to go, and everyone can go to their neighborhood school. |
Anonymous
Half the drama is overreactions on the part of rich north Arlington parents fretting about six of one thing, half a dozen of the other. The rest of the angst is middle class (for Arlington, at least) who live in south Arlington and worry about being zoned for schools that are being turned into test cram academies for 1st gen ESP students. |
Anonymous
Lol, I meant ESL. We could all use some ESP though! |
Anonymous
Maybe because nearly every other school district in our area has option schools, in fact far more of them than APS does: DC, MoCo, Fairfax, City of Alexandria, Prince George's. So don't act as if option schools are to blame for your school being overcrowded. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
We've built and renovated every recent too small, not just HB. Wakefield, W-L, Discovery, Stratford. All recently built or renovated with insufficient seats added. Other than HB, none of the other option schools have been "built" small. They are either large and in large buildings (Immersion), or they are in smaller older buildings that haven't had additions and couldn't accommodate many more children than they already do even if they were made neighborhood rather than option seats. We have not built enough seats for the kids. Does not matter if they are option or neighborhood. Capacity cannot increase except through construction, and we don't have the land or the money to build what we need. So we have to put trailers at every school we have and sacrifice green space, and overtax the cafeterias and restrooms and communal spaces. But it's not the fault of option programs. And it won't be solved by doing away with them, because those kids are still in APS. |
Anonymous
+1 Ignore the trolls who talk about the demise of Arlington. While much of MoCo, Alexandria and Fairfax real estate prices remain pretty flat or with modest increases, all of Arlington has seen dramatic increases in housing prices. If there's a sense of decline, then apparently the word hasn't gotten out to the people choosing where to live. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/local/2017-real-estate/?utm_term=.a22faad07cb0 |