APS Boundary tool--anyone get it to work yet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how concerned people are concerned about splitting up kids and neighborhoods now...but back when we did ES redistricting that literally split our neighborhood into three different schools, no one cared.

Luckily, you moved to a school with lots of room for you........oh, wait

Interesting. I saw lots of neighborhoods fighting to keep together during the ES redistricting process, especially a group of units near Taylor. Not judging, just saying I remember it.

I think this person might be talking about the NW area, where backlash from the Nottingham PTA (which wanted to get rid of all trailers) caused a neighborhood to be split three ways once they moved a few of the Tuckahoe and Glebe planning units. There was one Tuckahoe planning unit that was supposed to go to Nottingham and was instead shifted over to McK, which has now pushed McK over capacity with 730 students in a (still-unfinished) renovated building that was only intended to hold 684. Meanwhile, Nottingham remains ~40 students under capacity this year, with a total student body under 500 students. But that is a topic for its own thread...

[Anonymous]

It is for its own thread, but people need to be reminded of the a**hat behavior and that it could happen again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love how concerned people are concerned about splitting up kids and neighborhoods now...but back when we did ES redistricting that literally split our neighborhood into three different schools, no one cared.

Luckily, you moved to a school with lots of room for you........oh, wait

Interesting. I saw lots of neighborhoods fighting to keep together during the ES redistricting process, especially a group of units near Taylor. Not judging, just saying I remember it.

I think this person might be talking about the NW area, where backlash from the Nottingham PTA (which wanted to get rid of all trailers) caused a neighborhood to be split three ways once they moved a few of the Tuckahoe and Glebe planning units. There was one Tuckahoe planning unit that was supposed to go to Nottingham and was instead shifted over to McK, which has now pushed McK over capacity with 730 students in a (still-unfinished) renovated building that was only intended to hold 684. Meanwhile, Nottingham remains ~40 students under capacity this year, with a total student body under 500 students. But that is a topic for its own thread...

Well that gives me a lot of hope that APS makes smart decisions that keep in mind the impact on all kids............

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is for its own thread, but people need to be reminded of the a**hat behavior and that it could happen again.

I live in southie. Can someone break it down for me. This is about McKinley right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is for its own thread, but people need to be reminded of the a**hat behavior and that it could happen again.

I live in southie. Can someone break it down for me. This is about McKinley right?

Yes. Look at the bottom of the last page.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are bridging the Yorktown island, why? I started off doing this, but realized I wasn't increasing diversity and I wasn't sure what I was accomplishing.

From a purely geographic standpoint, it makes sense. The island itself would be totally against the rules in the current exercise. Otherwise we could solve the whole diversity question by making a new Yorktown island out of the planning units around Columbia Pike.

The issue with bridging the island is that it take kids like my DS from being able to walk to W-L to a long bus ride to Yorktown.

I am unclear as to why the island is not on the table? I understand it increases the scale of the impacted communities but it would make sense to send those kids to W/L.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I look at this the more I like moving 2315, 4815, 4818, 4829, 4899 to Yorktown, and 1202, 4604, 4606, 4612, 4695 to Wakefield. That avoids moving planning districts with high farms rates to Wakefield and it does move some to Yorktown. It doesn't take anyone out of a walk zone. 2315 is currently Swanson, tons of Swanson already goes to Yorktown. The rest are Jefferson. Similarly the Wakefield moves are Kenmore and Jefferson.

I did this as well. It makes sense but I'm sure there would be push back from the Lyon Park community. Wakefield is not good for property values.

I'm doing the same moves suggested above- connecting the island to Yorktown and moving Ashton Heights and Lyon village to Wakefield. Their property values won't budge. Especially after a year to two, because it would change the demographics at Wakefield, we'd have two schools that look like WL.

The pushback is not about property values but about community cohesion.

"Community cohesion" at the high school level is a non-issue. By that time virtually all students have friends all over the county from previous schools they have attended, sports teams and other non-APS extracurricular activities they have participated in and just the plain fact that the students are much more independent. I have had three attend W-L and their friends are all over the county and beyond.

In my planning unit and neighborhood, there is little community cohesion based on schools even though everyone in the neighborhood is zoned for the same middle and high schools. We are zoned for 2 different ES and by the time you add in private and APS choice ES schools, everyone is all over the place. Nevertheless we have a strong community - just based on other things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are bridging the Yorktown island, why? I started off doing this, but realized I wasn't increasing diversity and I wasn't sure what I was accomplishing.

From a purely geographic standpoint, it makes sense. The island itself would be totally against the rules in the current exercise. Otherwise we could solve the whole diversity question by making a new Yorktown island out of the planning units around Columbia Pike.

The issue with bridging the island is that it take kids like my DS from being able to walk to W-L to a long bus ride to Yorktown.

I am unclear as to why the island is not on the table? I understand it increases the scale of the impacted communities but it would make sense to send those kids to W/L.

It's not on the table because the whole goal is to take kids OUT of W-L. Adding to W-L at the same time complicates it even more.

But, I do think walkable should be a priority (both for family convenience and minimizing county bus expenses) so when I did the boundary tool I turned on the walk zone for W-L and didn't touch any of those units north of W-L that are so close to it or the units in Ashton Heights/Lyon park since they also are mostly in the walk zone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you who are bridging the Yorktown island, why? I started off doing this, but realized I wasn't increasing diversity and I wasn't sure what I was accomplishing.

From a purely geographic standpoint, it makes sense. The island itself would be totally against the rules in the current exercise. Otherwise we could solve the whole diversity question by making a new Yorktown island out of the planning units around Columbia Pike.

The issue with bridging the island is that it take kids like my DS from being able to walk to W-L to a long bus ride to Yorktown.

I am unclear as to why the island is not on the table? I understand it increases the scale of the impacted communities but it would make sense to send those kids to W/L.

It's not on the table because the whole goal is to take kids OUT of W-L. Adding to W-L at the same time complicates it even more.

But, I do think walkable should be a priority (both for family convenience and minimizing county bus expenses) so when I did the boundary tool I turned on the walk zone for W-L and didn't touch any of those units north of W-L that are so close to it or the units in Ashton Heights/Lyon park since they also are mostly in the walk zone.

how about adding X to WL but at the same time removing 2X from it? wouldn't that work too?

[Anonymous]

Are people really this uncomfortable with Wakefield, or they just don't like change under any circumstance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are people really this uncomfortable with Wakefield, or they just don't like change under any circumstance?

yes, really. from another thread, in case you missed it

Anonymous wrote:Eh, North Arlington schools have been and always will be better. I grew up in the system and have two kids in it now. I am half-minority (bi-racial, whatever the hell you want to call it) so I'll call it like I see it.

If you want your kids to be around non-whites at school, that's a wonderful goal and you should definitely stay in SA. If you want your kids to go to great colleges and universities, which leads to better careers, connections, etc., then it is North all the way.

The people who went to Wakefield went to shit colleges. W-L, unless you were doing IB, you went to shit to mediocre colleges. Bishop O'Connell kids all went to shit schools (I knew of like a dozen kids there who went to Christopher Newport...the lowest-tier state school). Yorktown and HB always had the most elite placements.

So, if you are happy with your kid going to Christopher Newport, Longwood, etc., with JMU being their stretch school, then definitely keep them in South Arlington. If you want their fallback school to be UVA, do what you can to save up the money to buy a North Arlington house.

The immigrant and low SES kids, as cute as they are, are always a huge distraction in the classroom. They drag the whole class down to their level. Everyone is always waiting for them to catch up, but they never do.

[Anonymous]

Meh. Didn't Wakefield have more kids heading off to Ivy one year?

[Anonymous]

We are walkable to W-L and would be walkable to the Wilson site (I think - it's close). Much rather have Wilson. I don't know who complained and got it switched.

[Anonymous]

Name the PU's. That way we can clearly see what parts of which neighborhood is being referenced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are walkable to W-L and would be walkable to the Wilson site (I think - it's close). Much rather have Wilson. I don't know who complained and got it switched.

You are insane. Have you ever been to Wilson site. The county has never run a truly urban school, and they were focusing on the wrong elements rather than what is important to education.