APS DHMS walk zone nuclear option
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Anonymous
How often does a middle school parent need to go to their kid’s school? |
Anonymous
I have a middle schooler. I went to the school for PT conference twice. That was it. There is very little need for a middle school parent to need to travel to the school. They can use https://www.commuterpage.com/tools-resources/guaranteed-ride-home/ for a taxi if they need to pickup a sick kid; county can enhance it with the $M saved by not busing kids out of walk zones. |
Anonymous
Except they’re moving it to another school in S Arlington that only has capacity for the program if they kick out all the higher SES neighborhoods, some in the walk zone, and then reconfigure ALL the other school boundaries, making many more kids across the county bus riders, rather than just putting the program in one of the N schools that has capacity. Really, the option program should go where there is space. Far less disruptive to all the other schools and there isn’t any evidence that moving it will harm the program, just conjecture. |
Anonymous
Never, except for outside of school hours optional things, like concerts, or very rarely if you have to pick up a sick kid. |
Anonymous
There is a middle school that is projected to be at 65% capacity in a few years. That same middle school is often bemoaned as needing more diversity. Two birds, one stone, no communities bussed involuntarily? Or “noooo not like that!!!” |
Anonymous
MS is not like ES. There are very few reasons to go to the MS as a parent. My son just finished MS and even this year there was a remote option for conferences. I don't think this argument works as well for MS. Sure there are times when you have to pick up a sick kid but the older they get the fewer and farther between these times become. MS parents don't get invited to classroom events during the day. The birthday celebrations, class parties, skit/shows are left behind in ES. In response to some other posters my son went to Key and one of the reasons he did not continue in immersion was distance. Gunston is just too far. The bus would have been before 7am. My son ended up going to Hamm and he could walk, ride his bike, take the school bus, or public bus. The bus picked him up at 7:23 and he was at school 5 min later. My kid needed that extra 30 min of sleep. Our family is not the only one that left the program due to distance. It is hard to say with certainty but my son might have continued if the program were at WMS. Someone also commented that GMS was full of white immersion parents tying to escape their neighborhood school. That makes no sense unless per this thread you are implying that were trying to avoid WMS. Most families we knew would have been DHMS, TJ, Kenmore, or Swanson, but I am sure there would have been some WMS too, but not enough to fill the entire English speaking part of the program. The families I know, who stuck with immersion did so b/c they valued an immersion education over other benefits such as a walkable middle school. As for whether or not the kids in the walk zone walked to DHMS, I believe most did. They are middle schoolers so they biked or walked. Again this is not the same as ES where some walkers were dropped off by parents on their way to work. I do feel for the families who will go from a walkable MS to the bus but it is what it is. APS loves messing with boundaries. |
Anonymous
Or attend IEP meetings. Attend PTA meetings. Other volunteering. |
Anonymous
Fair point on IEP meetings but that's usually one meeting once a year and now APS offers a virtual option. We haven't come in person in years since virtual is so much more convenient. PTAs do virtual meetings too, and they are much better attended. I never went to a PTA meeting in middle school back in the in person before times. There's very little parent volunteering in middle school. Parent involvement in MS is a world apart from elementary. I'm wondering if some of these posters have little kids and don't know this yet. |
Anonymous
There’s no volunteering in MS except to chaperone a field trip outside of the building. They don’t want you in the school building. All conferences and IEP meetings can be virtual unless otherwise requested. |
Anonymous
Do we even have data that the people who are zoned for immersion don’t have cars, or are PPs just assuming they are too poor? |
Anonymous
People just like to pull out the poor people card when they need justification for their arguments. They seem concerned and caring and not self-centered that way. "Immersion" doesn't mean "poor," anyway. |
Anonymous
Agreed. But in general only the poor will taking hour plus bus rides to a WMS immersion site. The rest will drive or take an Uber. |
Anonymous
And how often is that actually needed for most people? |
Anonymous
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How big is Immersion in middle school?
WMS is at 79% capacity, under 800 students. They use these weasel words but don’t show the actual numbers: “ None of the middle schools have the seats required to maintain a capacity utilization at or below 100%. As result of this analysis, the existence of the immersion program at any of the middle schools does not improve school capacity, transportation choices, or APS Transportation Services. ” At 79%, WMS can likely accommodate all of Immersion and not exceed 105%. Change a couple of transfers or planning units and it’s done Kenmore is at 91%, so sticking Immersion there causes the waterfall impact across dozens of planning units. They aren’t even showing the numbers, just stating Kenmore is the answer. |
Anonymous
Are those the current numbers? I thought the numbers for the year that this potential move would happen are even lower than that— something like 65% for Wburg and in the low 80s for Kenmore. If memory serves. |