Discussion Boundary Map out for APS- elementary schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes feel there is someone pulling us by pretending to be from Key, to be as tone deaf as this. Same as the PPs who complained about overcrowding at ATS... can these people be for real??

wait, why can't people complain about overcrowding at ATS be 'for real'? it is over capacity as far as i know and has many trailers.

I don't think the larger class sizes at ATS are permanent though. They added larger class sizes right now because they had to figure out a way to funnel more kids away from McKinley, Glebe, and Ashlawn-- all of which are out of space, even with trailers. The transfer report will show you that about 1/4 of ATS pulls from those three school boundaries, which makes sense given the current ATS location. Once Reed opens, I thought the plan is for ATS to go back to being smaller. That's also why APS was eyeing the Nottingham site location last year as a possible location switch-- that's one of the smaller elementary school buildings, but it does have capacity for trailers if ATS needs to ramp up enrollment in the future again to help with another population boom. APS staff explained that pretty clearly at one of the work sessions.

But they also said in recent work sessions that we are going to need to add capacity to every school that isn't currently at 752. So I would guess that ATS will not scale back down.

It depends on the facility that houses it. They will size the program to fit the facility. They don't have that luxury with neighborhood schools.

Right, and I'd expect them to increase capacity at every facility that currently isn't at 752.

[Anonymous]

Looking at the maps, in several instances kids would be bussed past neighborhood schools. That didn’t seem to be ok last year, but now it is ok?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking at the maps, in several instances kids would be bussed past neighborhood schools. That didn’t seem to be ok last year, but now it is ok?

This is what the situation will be IF they don't move option schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes feel there is someone pulling us by pretending to be from Key, to be as tone deaf as this. Same as the PPs who complained about overcrowding at ATS... can these people be for real??

wait, why can't people complain about overcrowding at ATS be 'for real'? it is over capacity as far as i know and has many trailers.

So glad you came back and are still adorably tone death and clueless.

You attend a school by choice, and an overcrowded ATS is still smaller than many neighborhood schools. But here’s my hankie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sometimes feel there is someone pulling us by pretending to be from Key, to be as tone deaf as this. Same as the PPs who complained about overcrowding at ATS... can these people be for real??

wait, why can't people complain about overcrowding at ATS be 'for real'? it is over capacity as far as i know and has many trailers.

So glad you came back and are still adorably tone death and clueless.

You attend a school by choice, and an overcrowded ATS is still smaller than many neighborhood schools. But here’s my hankie.

*deaf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at the maps, in several instances kids would be bussed past neighborhood schools. That didn’t seem to be ok last year, but now it is ok?

This is what the situation will be IF they don't move option schools.

Right. Which is more important, keeping all of the option schools where they are right now or having boundaries that make more sense. That's what this map is about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is completely inequitable to move ATS to far NW Arlington. It needs to be central. There’s only one. If you move it to the wealthiest enclaves then those will be the only families who can make the trek across the county. You will lose all/most lower income families. I sure hope APS is not that clueless.

Good. Move it and make it look like the inadequate enclave within a segregated school system that it is. And, make it an even more inconvenient escape valve for UMC South Arlington parents. Option schools are a complete sop to those latter parents designed only to quiet down what would otherwise be loud and widespread outrage over the egregious economic segregation in Arlington schools.

What you say is not entirely off base but at the same time, it’s also true that the option schools are the most diverse and integrated schools in the system. It cuts both ways. Getting rid of them would not help the cause of racial and economic integration in APS. Quite the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is completely inequitable to move ATS to far NW Arlington. It needs to be central. There’s only one. If you move it to the wealthiest enclaves then those will be the only families who can make the trek across the county. You will lose all/most lower income families. I sure hope APS is not that clueless.

Good. Move it and make it look like the inadequate enclave within a segregated school system that it is. And, make it an even more inconvenient escape valve for UMC South Arlington parents. Option schools are a complete sop to those latter parents designed only to quiet down what would otherwise be loud and widespread outrage over the egregious economic segregation in Arlington schools.

What you say is not entirely off base but at the same time, it’s also true that the option schools are the most diverse and integrated schools in the system. It cuts both ways. Getting rid of them would not help the cause of racial and economic integration in APS. Quite the opposite.

Are they really more diverse and integrated than the neighborhoods in which they sit, though?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is completely inequitable to move ATS to far NW Arlington. It needs to be central. There’s only one. If you move it to the wealthiest enclaves then those will be the only families who can make the trek across the county. You will lose all/most lower income families. I sure hope APS is not that clueless.

Good. Move it and make it look like the inadequate enclave within a segregated school system that it is. And, make it an even more inconvenient escape valve for UMC South Arlington parents. Option schools are a complete sop to those latter parents designed only to quiet down what would otherwise be loud and widespread outrage over the egregious economic segregation in Arlington schools.

What you say is not entirely off base but at the same time, it’s also true that the option schools are the most diverse and integrated schools in the system. It cuts both ways. Getting rid of them would not help the cause of racial and economic integration in APS. Quite the opposite.

I disagree. I think that getting rid of them and making APS look even more segregated than it already is would help integration. Currently, to the extent people in the northern parts of the county are even aware that schools that are 2/3 low income are relatively commonplace in the south, they can at least point to diamonds in the rough like ATS, Claremont, Key, with their Goldilocks diversity. I want that "well but" to be taken away, because the fact of the matter is, having one or two integrated schools does jack sh*t for the students who don't hit the lottery. Right now, we're apparently comfortable with that outcome for large swaths of the county, as long as some students have the ability to go option. I don't find that to be acceptable.

And, if I'm wrong and in fact we just become more segregated, then fine. Let's all live with the fact that many, many people in this county choose their homes in order to be able to send their kids to overwhelmingly white schools at least one of which is less than 1% low income. But tell me again how I need to vote blue wave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at the maps, in several instances kids would be bussed past neighborhood schools. That didn’t seem to be ok last year, but now it is ok?

This is what the situation will be IF they don't move option schools.

It would be A solution, not THE solution. It was meant to scare people. It was an idiotic move b/c those boundaries will never happen and they will never equalize the enrollment. Some schools will always be under (hint - the closer you are to McLean, the better)

[Anonymous]

You would think immersion is going to ATS. They will eliminate the traditional model. And do this all again when the next elementary school is built. That school will be the IV with immersion in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You would think immersion is going to ATS. They will eliminate the traditional model. And do this all again when the next elementary school is built. That school will be the IV with immersion in it.

They are not going to eliminate ATS in this cycle or ever. They would be more likely to evolve it into something else. Also, we already have an IB elementary school. It's just not an option school, it's Randolph. That's the IB with Immersion target.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with the option school parents- those that say things like 'moving ATS north would be inequitable' and 'you don't understand immersion- we have to stay in Courthouse'- is that they generally think of themselves as 'better' more diverse people than the rest of us plebes at neighborhood schools. They are for the most part social justice minded. Thus, they can't admit even to themselves that they are really promoting their own interests in their current locations- so they come up with specious arguments like the above, then get a lot of validation of the arguments from other option school parents. The reasoning does sound good at first- but when you probe it you realize both that it is not really true, or doesn't hold up to competing reasoning.
e.g. some version of options schools have to be centrally located to be accessible to everyone. That's great in theory- and if we had a multitude of centrally located school sites I don't think anyone would object. But surely you can't think it is more 'equitable' to keep ATS centrally located, and bus kids who are currently west of the Pike past 1) Campbell; 2) Carlin Springs; 3)Ashlawn;4) ATS; 5)Barrett- all the way to McKinley so as to keep the option schools centrally located?

Or alternatively- surely APS can do a better job of finding school sites that are centrally located. I have a pipe dream of building another school on top of Key- pursue that at the cost of a bizillian dollars and several additional years of suffocating overcrowding rather than making me leave the Key school site.

Obviously, this self interest disguised as others interest is not limited to option school parents- see the flip out in Westover over the map as the Westover residents realize that they are going to have to use the Reed school site for kids other than their own.

I am not a choice school parent; but I wholeheartedly agree with thoughtful placement of choice programs to ensure as reasonable accessibility by as many students as possible. That is not a self-interest argument. The Key community is just another community that doesn't want its school moved - like everyone else at all the neighborhood schools.

There's a big difference between placing an option program like ATS at McKinley, for example, and placing it at Nottingham. Part of the complaint from immersion middle school parents is how distant Gunston MS is at the southern border. Those are the parents who would love to see MS immersion at Williamsburg.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You would think immersion is going to ATS. They will eliminate the traditional model. And do this all again when the next elementary school is built. That school will be the IV with immersion in it.

They are not going to eliminate ATS in this cycle or ever. They would be more likely to evolve it into something else. Also, we already have an IB elementary school. It's just not an option school, it's Randolph. That's the IB with Immersion target.

How is evolving it into something else not eliminating it? The something else would be something from the IPP, and none of those options are Traditional Model.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm thinking it might be a helpful exercise to actually start with the middle schools and try to balance those for enrollment and demographics. Then you could set up elementary schools to feed into the middle schools. Maybe just as a thought exercise. But I would love to see APS not separate small groups of students as they go through levels.

One more thought: It's so clear looking at this map that Key should be a neighborhood school.

Yes!! This would hopefully help them avoid another situation where the schools are left with giant capacity imbalances immediately after the boundary is drawn. And, would hopefully help them avoid misaligning a handful of planning units, or moving an option program out of convenience rather than for an instructional reason.

First, they need to decide what the MS options are going to be, then decide which locations make the most sense for those options (not just plop a program somewhere based on available capacity and it’s the easiest thing to do, but base it on INSTRUCTION). For instance, Kenmore would be a good candidate for the arts program, since they already have the nicest arts facilities. I think Spanish immersion could work here as well, given the population. It could also work at Jefferson, and it dovetails with IB, like they plan for the new IB ES). Montessori could go to Hamm or WMS or Swanson, or stay at Gunston. Maybe they might consider where the ES program will eventually relocate and move the MS Montessori close to that. Then they count how many spaces they’d like to make available to the MS option lottery, and then move that exact number of kids out of each the zoned boundaries, plus however many they need to balance capacity somewhat equally. Then work the ES boundaries based on that plan, to minimize the alignment problems.

Or as new facilities and additions are built, the option programs become self-contained in preK-8 facilities.