APS Fall boundary questionnaire

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As I understand it, they were hoping to avoid a boundary change through a voluntary transfer program, but not enough families opted to transfer to Drew. I don’t know anything else about the process, though.

They did a terrible job getting the word out about this. We are zoned for Abingdon and many of my neighbors had no idea it was happening until it was announced it was over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knows. They had two chances to do it already and punted both times.

Teh 2nd time they punted because of Covid.

The first time they just...threw up their hands.

I don't know how they think they will be able to only re-draw these 2 schools. It was clear from the last go round (re-doing boundaries when Fleet opened, and Drew dropped Montessori) that the ENTRIE COUNTY needed to be adjusted to make any sort of meaningful shifts.

If they move S. Fairlington, they raise the FRL rate at Abingdon significantly. It wasn't an easy solution to do that. They need to shift things NORTH to balance all the housing on Columbia Pike. There are several very big AH complexes on the Pike that go to Abingdon, and there is no other school nearby that can absorb them. Randolph, no. Barcroft, no, Carlin Springs, no.

It's very hard to rebalance without involving more zones. They made bad choice moving Key to ATS. Mainly because Claremont's Immersion should probably be moved to Carlin Springs and make that a neighborhood school. But they can't have both Immersion schools in the same part of the county.

Why not? There was a huge emphasis on needing to be located near Spanish speaking populations and most of the Spanish speakers in Arlington county live in Buckingham and the western end of Columbia Pike.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mary and the real house wives of Madison Manor will have the answers! Team save McKinley will come to the rescue.

Don't forget Kadera has Data Dude and McKrazy to back her up. With those superpowers she can save us all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knows. They had two chances to do it already and punted both times.

Teh 2nd time they punted because of Covid.

The first time they just...threw up their hands.

I don't know how they think they will be able to only re-draw these 2 schools. It was clear from the last go round (re-doing boundaries when Fleet opened, and Drew dropped Montessori) that the ENTRIE COUNTY needed to be adjusted to make any sort of meaningful shifts.

If they move S. Fairlington, they raise the FRL rate at Abingdon significantly. It wasn't an easy solution to do that. They need to shift things NORTH to balance all the housing on Columbia Pike. There are several very big AH complexes on the Pike that go to Abingdon, and there is no other school nearby that can absorb them. Randolph, no. Barcroft, no, Carlin Springs, no.

It's very hard to rebalance without involving more zones. They made bad choice moving Key to ATS. Mainly because Claremont's Immersion should probably be moved to Carlin Springs and make that a neighborhood school. But they can't have both Immersion schools in the same part of the county.

Why not? There was a huge emphasis on needing to be located near Spanish speaking populations and most of the Spanish speakers in Arlington county live in Buckingham and the western end of Columbia Pike.

There are Spanish speaking populations all over Arlington. Are you new here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone summarize what is proposed for middle/HS please?

I am in north central Arlington with early elementary schooler.

I don't know if we have a preview yet, but I haven't been paying much attention to middle and high school boundaries. The capacity tables show Gunston, Jefferson, and Swanson need relief by 24-25 and Williamsburg has space, but those are on opposite ends of the county so any rebalancing is either a cascade or a program move. For high school more seats at WL will be coming online so they will move people from the other two to fill the mega-school. They will still be short regular high school seats, so some of it is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Capacity-Utilization-2021-to-2023-for-posting-online.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mary and the real house wives of Madison Manor will have the answers! Team save McKinley will come to the rescue.

Don't forget Kadera has Data Dude and McKrazy to back her up. With those superpowers she can save us all!

Don't worry Mary is Educator Approved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knows. They had two chances to do it already and punted both times.

Teh 2nd time they punted because of Covid.

The first time they just...threw up their hands.

I don't know how they think they will be able to only re-draw these 2 schools. It was clear from the last go round (re-doing boundaries when Fleet opened, and Drew dropped Montessori) that the ENTRIE COUNTY needed to be adjusted to make any sort of meaningful shifts.

If they move S. Fairlington, they raise the FRL rate at Abingdon significantly. It wasn't an easy solution to do that. They need to shift things NORTH to balance all the housing on Columbia Pike. There are several very big AH complexes on the Pike that go to Abingdon, and there is no other school nearby that can absorb them. Randolph, no. Barcroft, no, Carlin Springs, no.

It's very hard to rebalance without involving more zones. They made bad choice moving Key to ATS. Mainly because Claremont's Immersion should probably be moved to Carlin Springs and make that a neighborhood school. But they can't have both Immersion schools in the same part of the county.

Why not? There was a huge emphasis on needing to be located near Spanish speaking populations and most of the Spanish speakers in Arlington county live in Buckingham and the western end of Columbia Pike.

There are Spanish speaking populations all over Arlington. Are you new here?

Is there data on where Spanish speaking populations live?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knows. They had two chances to do it already and punted both times.

Teh 2nd time they punted because of Covid.

The first time they just...threw up their hands.

I don't know how they think they will be able to only re-draw these 2 schools. It was clear from the last go round (re-doing boundaries when Fleet opened, and Drew dropped Montessori) that the ENTRIE COUNTY needed to be adjusted to make any sort of meaningful shifts.

If they move S. Fairlington, they raise the FRL rate at Abingdon significantly. It wasn't an easy solution to do that. They need to shift things NORTH to balance all the housing on Columbia Pike. There are several very big AH complexes on the Pike that go to Abingdon, and there is no other school nearby that can absorb them. Randolph, no. Barcroft, no, Carlin Springs, no.

It's very hard to rebalance without involving more zones. They made bad choice moving Key to ATS. Mainly because Claremont's Immersion should probably be moved to Carlin Springs and make that a neighborhood school. But they can't have both Immersion schools in the same part of the county.

Why not? There was a huge emphasis on needing to be located near Spanish speaking populations and most of the Spanish speakers in Arlington county live in Buckingham and the western end of Columbia Pike.

There are Spanish speaking populations all over Arlington. Are you new here?

Nope, not new. Are you? There are Spanish speaking populations all over, but there are a higher percentage in certain parts of the county. Slide 5 on this presentation shows K-5 Spanish speakers by planning unit. I'm not seeing many high concentration PUs in N Arlington. https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Presentation-to-Key-Staff-Nov_7_2019.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue is the MS/HS. APS has been notorious for not taking into account housing that is in the process of coming online. They don't connect with the county well on what's 2-5yrs downstream.

We are a McKinley family, so I can only give an example from here, although I'm sure there are plenty of others county-wide. When the Fisher House affordable housing was being renovated APS was refusing to plan for space for kids that they knew would be moving in 2yrs later. They used only data based on children currently in the planning units, even as they knew a certain number of family-sized apartments were being built.

APS is asking us to do the hard work for them. If you know there is a site that a developer is in the process of purchasing and it isn't on their spreadsheet, give them that data. The Febrey Lothrop property is another good example. Within 5yrs there could be dozens of SFH homes on that lot. It needs to be in the back of their heads that those children will need to go to school somewhere, likely Ashlawn or Cardinal.

Look around your community and if you think they've missed something, get it in front of them.

Just to piggyback on this point, if you’re concerned about school capacity, the biggest thing will change the population density of the County is the zoning change that will be coming at the end of the Missing Middle Study. County staff would like to change single family home zoning to allow other types of units. The issue is that the schools already can’t handle the students that will be coming here in the next 5-10 years even without zoning changes. This is the latest opportunity to share feedback with County staff. I also recommend emailing the County Board if you have concerns because once the County Staff makes a recommendation to the County Board at the end of the study, it’s unlikely the Board will make any major changes. It will be too late for meaningful feedback at that point.

https://housing.arlingtonva.us/missingmiddle/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue is the MS/HS. APS has been notorious for not taking into account housing that is in the process of coming online. They don't connect with the county well on what's 2-5yrs downstream.

We are a McKinley family, so I can only give an example from here, although I'm sure there are plenty of others county-wide. When the Fisher House affordable housing was being renovated APS was refusing to plan for space for kids that they knew would be moving in 2yrs later. They used only data based on children currently in the planning units, even as they knew a certain number of family-sized apartments were being built.

APS is asking us to do the hard work for them. If you know there is a site that a developer is in the process of purchasing and it isn't on their spreadsheet, give them that data. The Febrey Lothrop property is another good example. Within 5yrs there could be dozens of SFH homes on that lot. It needs to be in the back of their heads that those children will need to go to school somewhere, likely Ashlawn or Cardinal.

Look around your community and if you think they've missed something, get it in front of them.

Just to piggyback on this point, if you’re concerned about school capacity, the biggest thing will change the population density of the County is the zoning change that will be coming at the end of the Missing Middle Study. County staff would like to change single family home zoning to allow other types of units. The issue is that the schools already can’t handle the students that will be coming here in the next 5-10 years even without zoning changes. This is the latest opportunity to share feedback with County staff. I also recommend emailing the County Board if you have concerns because once the County Staff makes a recommendation to the County Board at the end of the study, it’s unlikely the Board will make any major changes. It will be too late for meaningful feedback at that point.

https://housing.arlingtonva.us/missingmiddle/

I may be misunderstanding your post, but it sounds to me like you're saying the answer is to stop an effort to make more housing affordable to families that are in the missing middle. Wouldn't a better and more inclusive alternative be more schools? Larger schools? Why is the answer that I should move out of a community I've been a part of for over a decade if I want to buy a home that doesn't stretch my budget?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue is the MS/HS. APS has been notorious for not taking into account housing that is in the process of coming online. They don't connect with the county well on what's 2-5yrs downstream.

We are a McKinley family, so I can only give an example from here, although I'm sure there are plenty of others county-wide. When the Fisher House affordable housing was being renovated APS was refusing to plan for space for kids that they knew would be moving in 2yrs later. They used only data based on children currently in the planning units, even as they knew a certain number of family-sized apartments were being built.

APS is asking us to do the hard work for them. If you know there is a site that a developer is in the process of purchasing and it isn't on their spreadsheet, give them that data. The Febrey Lothrop property is another good example. Within 5yrs there could be dozens of SFH homes on that lot. It needs to be in the back of their heads that those children will need to go to school somewhere, likely Ashlawn or Cardinal.

Look around your community and if you think they've missed something, get it in front of them.

Just to piggyback on this point, if you’re concerned about school capacity, the biggest thing will change the population density of the County is the zoning change that will be coming at the end of the Missing Middle Study. County staff would like to change single family home zoning to allow other types of units. The issue is that the schools already can’t handle the students that will be coming here in the next 5-10 years even without zoning changes. This is the latest opportunity to share feedback with County staff. I also recommend emailing the County Board if you have concerns because once the County Staff makes a recommendation to the County Board at the end of the study, it’s unlikely the Board will make any major changes. It will be too late for meaningful feedback at that point.

https://housing.arlingtonva.us/missingmiddle/

I may be misunderstanding your post, but it sounds to me like you're saying the answer is to stop an effort to make more housing affordable to families that are in the missing middle. Wouldn't a better and more inclusive alternative be more schools? Larger schools? Why is the answer that I should move out of a community I've been a part of for over a decade if I want to buy a home that doesn't stretch my budget?

No, I’m not saying that! I am saying that the school capacity issue needs to be considered at the same time as the zoning change. It’s only my opinion that the issue deserves to be looked at holistically, rather than as merely a housing issue, since the schools are already strained.

If you disagree and think the housing can be handled without consideration of school capacity, you would be welcome to provide that feedback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The bigger issue is the MS/HS. APS has been notorious for not taking into account housing that is in the process of coming online. They don't connect with the county well on what's 2-5yrs downstream.

We are a McKinley family, so I can only give an example from here, although I'm sure there are plenty of others county-wide. When the Fisher House affordable housing was being renovated APS was refusing to plan for space for kids that they knew would be moving in 2yrs later. They used only data based on children currently in the planning units, even as they knew a certain number of family-sized apartments were being built.

APS is asking us to do the hard work for them. If you know there is a site that a developer is in the process of purchasing and it isn't on their spreadsheet, give them that data. The Febrey Lothrop property is another good example. Within 5yrs there could be dozens of SFH homes on that lot. It needs to be in the back of their heads that those children will need to go to school somewhere, likely Ashlawn or Cardinal.

Look around your community and if you think they've missed something, get it in front of them.

Just to piggyback on this point, if you’re concerned about school capacity, the biggest thing will change the population density of the County is the zoning change that will be coming at the end of the Missing Middle Study. County staff would like to change single family home zoning to allow other types of units. The issue is that the schools already can’t handle the students that will be coming here in the next 5-10 years even without zoning changes. This is the latest opportunity to share feedback with County staff. I also recommend emailing the County Board if you have concerns because once the County Staff makes a recommendation to the County Board at the end of the study, it’s unlikely the Board will make any major changes. It will be too late for meaningful feedback at that point.

https://housing.arlingtonva.us/missingmiddle/

I may be misunderstanding your post, but it sounds to me like you're saying the answer is to stop an effort to make more housing affordable to families that are in the missing middle. Wouldn't a better and more inclusive alternative be more schools? Larger schools? Why is the answer that I should move out of a community I've been a part of for over a decade if I want to buy a home that doesn't stretch my budget?

No, I’m not saying that! I am saying that the school capacity issue needs to be considered at the same time as the zoning change. It’s only my opinion that the issue deserves to be looked at holistically, rather than as merely a housing issue, since the schools are already strained.

If you disagree and think the housing can be handled without consideration of school capacity, you would be welcome to provide that feedback.

Ok, I agree it makes sense to consider school capacity and zoning together, but is the zoning board going to care unless they have purview over schools. Which part of Arlington county government has purview over both the schools and zoning? I think that person (or board) is the one who needs to be contacted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone summarize what is proposed for middle/HS please?

I am in north central Arlington with early elementary schooler.

I don't know if we have a preview yet, but I haven't been paying much attention to middle and high school boundaries. The capacity tables show Gunston, Jefferson, and Swanson need relief by 24-25 and Williamsburg has space, but those are on opposite ends of the county so any rebalancing is either a cascade or a program move. For high school more seats at WL will be coming online so they will move people from the other two to fill the mega-school. They will still be short regular high school seats, so some of it is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Capacity-Utilization-2021-to-2023-for-posting-online.pdf

I wonder what they will do with the in Bluemont kids who go to Kenmore that they bus all the way up to Yorktown for HS. Seems like it might make more sense to send them to WL, and send some Swanson kids to Williamsburg an Yorktown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As I understand it, they were hoping to avoid a boundary change through a voluntary transfer program, but not enough families opted to transfer to Drew. I don’t know anything else about the process, though.

Yup - that’s what I’ve come to understand too. Such a farce - Fairlington already let their racist flags fly last time - no way there were going to be enough voluntary transfers to Drew.

Unless you send your kids to one of the 60+% FRM schools, you don't really have any room to talk trash.

Of course I don’t live in Fairlington. Ew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone summarize what is proposed for middle/HS please?

I am in north central Arlington with early elementary schooler.

I don't know if we have a preview yet, but I haven't been paying much attention to middle and high school boundaries. The capacity tables show Gunston, Jefferson, and Swanson need relief by 24-25 and Williamsburg has space, but those are on opposite ends of the county so any rebalancing is either a cascade or a program move. For high school more seats at WL will be coming online so they will move people from the other two to fill the mega-school. They will still be short regular high school seats, so some of it is just moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Capacity-Utilization-2021-to-2023-for-posting-online.pdf

I wonder what they will do with the in Bluemont kids who go to Kenmore that they bus all the way up to Yorktown for HS. Seems like it might make more sense to send them to WL, and send some Swanson kids to Williamsburg an Yorktown

We could go bold with the full lottery/kids ride the ART bus model for high school. That would be fun.