Aps fall boundaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bingo. Everyone’s woke until their kids have to go to school with poor kids. Hypocrites.

I get so sick of people talking on here like Abingdon is Jamestown. Abingdon has 45% FRL they already go to school with lots of poor kids. The families that live in south fairlington would probably prefer to have the option of their kids being able to bike or walk to school as opposed to being bused to a different school. Let’s say you move south fairlington to drew you now got abingdon close to 60% frl and drew at 45%. What good does that do. They need to adjust all the schools including “gulp” sending kids from south arlington to north arlington.

It's better than having Drew grossly under-filled and still 60 or more % FRL

Well if Drew is that underfilled, and they can't fill it on it's own, then maybe it's not needed and should be repurposed for something else. It is close to the Career Center and Arlington Tech needs a home so there is always that option..

Just phase out Drew, no more incoming students, this years K - 1 can transfer, 2 - 5 have an option to stay or transfer, and then in 3 years all kids will be done with the building. The kids from Drew can just be spread out to the closest elementary schools.

I agree with this.

And just how do you expect the other schools to be able to take on all of those students???
APS just needs to do a complete overhaul of all elementary school boundaries and make hard decisions without cowering in fear of pushback or political backlash. We can't keep shifting a few school boundaries at a time and leaving other schools way under-capacity while others remain above capacity. THAT is not "equity" and equity seems to be the driving force for everything these days....

The students would be split between the closest elementary schools. And boundaries are going to keep shifting with the population. the only way to avoid it is to go to full lottery which imo isn't a bad idea either.

They could also rename the school. There is evidence to suggest that when a school is failing a name change actually helps.

Or if they really want to keep Drew, then change it over the upper grades of Arlington Traditional School and add middle school. ATS would have grades K- 4 and the Drew building would have grades 5 -8

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bingo. Everyone’s woke until their kids have to go to school with poor kids. Hypocrites.

I get so sick of people talking on here like Abingdon is Jamestown. Abingdon has 45% FRL they already go to school with lots of poor kids. The families that live in south fairlington would probably prefer to have the option of their kids being able to bike or walk to school as opposed to being bused to a different school. Let’s say you move south fairlington to drew you now got abingdon close to 60% frl and drew at 45%. What good does that do. They need to adjust all the schools including “gulp” sending kids from south arlington to north arlington.

Abingdon is going down the same road that Oakridge and Fleet went down starting 10-15 years ago. Both schools’ FRL rates were more than halved in a decades time. Fleet’s rate is only what is now because they actively asked for the large Gilliam Place affordable housing building to be carved out of the Barcroft neighborhood and added to Fleet’s zone. That building hadn’t been part of Fleet - hadn’t even been built yet. Abingdon’s rate will go down significantly once Columbia Grove gets added to Drew. When South Fairlington parents line up to keep that building at their school, instead of creating a school with a poverty rate over 70 percent in one of America’s top ten wealthiest counties, they’ll have redeemed themselves.

At its crux, this is not a boundary issue. It’s a housing issue. Local democrats want to put as much housing as they can — and that means stuffing as many CAFs as possible in South Arlington, because land is cheaper and transit access is worse. If you don’t like school boundaries, and are tired of fighting with other parents about who should go where, stop voting for the local Democratic Party candidates. They only care about housing. They’ll let the schools fall apart.

I agree with PP but also disagree with PP.
Gilliam Place is in Alcova Heights which is a very small neighborhood right between Barcroft (Barcroft ES) and Arlington Heights (Fleet). Huge Fairlington insisted they couldn't have their neighborhood divided; yet nobody complained about dividing a neighborhood of about 600 homes. The rest of Alcova Hts will not be shifted to Fleet because the Barcroft principal is actually smart and willing to tell APS she needs those kids to help all the ELL students at Barcroft. But the literally poor kids in Gilliam Place don't get to go to school with the rest of their neighborhood - singled out by their APAH building.

Yes, the segregation is caused by the county's segregation housing policies. Yes, they cite they can get more units in south arlington because it's cheaper and that more units takes precedence over quality and effectiveness of policies and opportunities. I'm pretty cynical; but I believe NIMBYism is very much an unspoken part of their approach. Many of the hardcore advocates live in north arlington and send their kids to low-FRL/low-ELL schools. They don't want their neighborhoods "changed" by affordable housing development or the "quality of their schools" impacted - and will argue it's more efficient to deliver social services when all the people in need are in the same place. Nice.

Is it a school boundary issue? Not entirely. It's boundaries but also the physical locations of our schools exacerbated by housing policies and patterns. However, if they really wanted to, school boundaries can be the solution to the school problem by eliminating boundaries and instituting a countywide lottery/ranked choice system. But then people cry "inequity" and how important it is to be able to walk to school or to go to school with their neighborhood. Never mind the success of other systems that do it; or how many other students attending choice programs manage to thrive academically and socially; or the fact that many people will never be able to walk to school because they don't live within a reasonable walking distance to a neighborhood school. So, it absolutely is NIMBYism. I'll grant that people don't like to be the ones changed and usually want to stay at their school regardless. But South Fairlington doesn't want to go to Drew specifically. So much so, they pretended not to be so overcrowded and begged to be included in the walk zone for Abingdon....for a year until it was all done and now they have a bus again.

And I completely agree with them and I don't live in Fairlington.

Fairlington is the only fits the bill of planned community. The neighborhood is clearly bounded on all sides by major roads, has a community center and has a school. The school itself should have the boundary just be the Fairlington neighborhoods.

Following that rationale, Barcroft ES should only be for the Barcroft neighborhood and Randolph only for Douglas Park and, and, and.
That's a ridiculous justification that would only serve to encourage an elite, "gated" community.

[Anonymous]

Isn’t there a new CAF coming online in Shirlington, like almost 300 units? Is that PU carved out for Drew?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bingo. Everyone’s woke until their kids have to go to school with poor kids. Hypocrites.

I get so sick of people talking on here like Abingdon is Jamestown. Abingdon has 45% FRL they already go to school with lots of poor kids. The families that live in south fairlington would probably prefer to have the option of their kids being able to bike or walk to school as opposed to being bused to a different school. Let’s say you move south fairlington to drew you now got abingdon close to 60% frl and drew at 45%. What good does that do. They need to adjust all the schools including “gulp” sending kids from south arlington to north arlington.

Abingdon is going down the same road that Oakridge and Fleet went down starting 10-15 years ago. Both schools’ FRL rates were more than halved in a decades time. Fleet’s rate is only what is now because they actively asked for the large Gilliam Place affordable housing building to be carved out of the Barcroft neighborhood and added to Fleet’s zone. That building hadn’t been part of Fleet - hadn’t even been built yet. Abingdon’s rate will go down significantly once Columbia Grove gets added to Drew. When South Fairlington parents line up to keep that building at their school, instead of creating a school with a poverty rate over 70 percent in one of America’s top ten wealthiest counties, they’ll have redeemed themselves.

At its crux, this is not a boundary issue. It’s a housing issue. Local democrats want to put as much housing as they can — and that means stuffing as many CAFs as possible in South Arlington, because land is cheaper and transit access is worse. If you don’t like school boundaries, and are tired of fighting with other parents about who should go where, stop voting for the local Democratic Party candidates. They only care about housing. They’ll let the schools fall apart.

I agree with PP but also disagree with PP.
Gilliam Place is in Alcova Heights which is a very small neighborhood right between Barcroft (Barcroft ES) and Arlington Heights (Fleet). Huge Fairlington insisted they couldn't have their neighborhood divided; yet nobody complained about dividing a neighborhood of about 600 homes. The rest of Alcova Hts will not be shifted to Fleet because the Barcroft principal is actually smart and willing to tell APS she needs those kids to help all the ELL students at Barcroft. But the literally poor kids in Gilliam Place don't get to go to school with the rest of their neighborhood - singled out by their APAH building.

Yes, the segregation is caused by the county's segregation housing policies. Yes, they cite they can get more units in south arlington because it's cheaper and that more units takes precedence over quality and effectiveness of policies and opportunities. I'm pretty cynical; but I believe NIMBYism is very much an unspoken part of their approach. Many of the hardcore advocates live in north arlington and send their kids to low-FRL/low-ELL schools. They don't want their neighborhoods "changed" by affordable housing development or the "quality of their schools" impacted - and will argue it's more efficient to deliver social services when all the people in need are in the same place. Nice.

Is it a school boundary issue? Not entirely. It's boundaries but also the physical locations of our schools exacerbated by housing policies and patterns. However, if they really wanted to, school boundaries can be the solution to the school problem by eliminating boundaries and instituting a countywide lottery/ranked choice system. But then people cry "inequity" and how important it is to be able to walk to school or to go to school with their neighborhood. Never mind the success of other systems that do it; or how many other students attending choice programs manage to thrive academically and socially; or the fact that many people will never be able to walk to school because they don't live within a reasonable walking distance to a neighborhood school. So, it absolutely is NIMBYism. I'll grant that people don't like to be the ones changed and usually want to stay at their school regardless. But South Fairlington doesn't want to go to Drew specifically. So much so, they pretended not to be so overcrowded and begged to be included in the walk zone for Abingdon....for a year until it was all done and now they have a bus again.

And I completely agree with them and I don't live in Fairlington.

Fairlington is the only fits the bill of planned community. The neighborhood is clearly bounded on all sides by major roads, has a community center and has a school. The school itself should have the boundary just be the Fairlington neighborhoods.

Then it wouldn’t be an Arlington public school. It would essentially be a school run and paid for by the Fairlington HOA. I suspect you know that and are just trying to stir the pot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^thats not completely true. There are other portions of Alcova Heights that go to Fleet.

Which? Did they move the little section north of the fire station? There are no other "portions" of that neighborhood.

Correct. The planning units north of the fire station. Those are also in Alcova.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^thats not completely true. There are other portions of Alcova Heights that go to Fleet.

Which? Did they move the little section north of the fire station? There are no other "portions" of that neighborhood.

Correct. The planning units north of the fire station. Those are also in Alcova.

I didn't recall that they had been moved. All the more to the point of Fairlington being able to survive being split in two, if a neighborhood like Alcova can be chopped up like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bingo. Everyone’s woke until their kids have to go to school with poor kids. Hypocrites.

I get so sick of people talking on here like Abingdon is Jamestown. Abingdon has 45% FRL they already go to school with lots of poor kids. The families that live in south fairlington would probably prefer to have the option of their kids being able to bike or walk to school as opposed to being bused to a different school. Let’s say you move south fairlington to drew you now got abingdon close to 60% frl and drew at 45%. What good does that do. They need to adjust all the schools including “gulp” sending kids from south arlington to north arlington.

Abingdon is going down the same road that Oakridge and Fleet went down starting 10-15 years ago. Both schools’ FRL rates were more than halved in a decades time. Fleet’s rate is only what is now because they actively asked for the large Gilliam Place affordable housing building to be carved out of the Barcroft neighborhood and added to Fleet’s zone. That building hadn’t been part of Fleet - hadn’t even been built yet. Abingdon’s rate will go down significantly once Columbia Grove gets added to Drew. When South Fairlington parents line up to keep that building at their school, instead of creating a school with a poverty rate over 70 percent in one of America’s top ten wealthiest counties, they’ll have redeemed themselves.

At its crux, this is not a boundary issue. It’s a housing issue. Local democrats want to put as much housing as they can — and that means stuffing as many CAFs as possible in South Arlington, because land is cheaper and transit access is worse. If you don’t like school boundaries, and are tired of fighting with other parents about who should go where, stop voting for the local Democratic Party candidates. They only care about housing. They’ll let the schools fall apart.

I agree with PP but also disagree with PP.
Gilliam Place is in Alcova Heights which is a very small neighborhood right between Barcroft (Barcroft ES) and Arlington Heights (Fleet). Huge Fairlington insisted they couldn't have their neighborhood divided; yet nobody complained about dividing a neighborhood of about 600 homes. The rest of Alcova Hts will not be shifted to Fleet because the Barcroft principal is actually smart and willing to tell APS she needs those kids to help all the ELL students at Barcroft. But the literally poor kids in Gilliam Place don't get to go to school with the rest of their neighborhood - singled out by their APAH building.

Yes, the segregation is caused by the county's segregation housing policies. Yes, they cite they can get more units in south arlington because it's cheaper and that more units takes precedence over quality and effectiveness of policies and opportunities. I'm pretty cynical; but I believe NIMBYism is very much an unspoken part of their approach. Many of the hardcore advocates live in north arlington and send their kids to low-FRL/low-ELL schools. They don't want their neighborhoods "changed" by affordable housing development or the "quality of their schools" impacted - and will argue it's more efficient to deliver social services when all the people in need are in the same place. Nice.

Is it a school boundary issue? Not entirely. It's boundaries but also the physical locations of our schools exacerbated by housing policies and patterns. However, if they really wanted to, school boundaries can be the solution to the school problem by eliminating boundaries and instituting a countywide lottery/ranked choice system. But then people cry "inequity" and how important it is to be able to walk to school or to go to school with their neighborhood. Never mind the success of other systems that do it; or how many other students attending choice programs manage to thrive academically and socially; or the fact that many people will never be able to walk to school because they don't live within a reasonable walking distance to a neighborhood school. So, it absolutely is NIMBYism. I'll grant that people don't like to be the ones changed and usually want to stay at their school regardless. But South Fairlington doesn't want to go to Drew specifically. So much so, they pretended not to be so overcrowded and begged to be included in the walk zone for Abingdon....for a year until it was all done and now they have a bus again.

PP here. I agree with what you wrote entirely. Yes, it’s not just that SA is cheaper place to build CAFs. It’s also just less type A and litigious in general.

The unspoken compact is this: APAH and the Board don’t try to build CAFs on Langston Blvd, and the denizens of Upper Arlington don’t complain when their taxes go up or a huge chunk of the budget goes to affordable housing. And you’re right about where advocates and executives live. It’s nice to be wealthy enough to live in NA; it allows one to buy their way out of having to care about issues like the effect of housing segregation on schools and the moral dilemmas that accompany it. It therefore also buys one out of the risk of being called a racist for pointing such things out.

[Anonymous]

Columbia Heights got chopped into 3 schools when moved from Henry. Part moved to Fleet, part to Drew, and part to Hoffman Boston but sure let’s protect the integrity of Fairlington forever. Push lease.

The entire county needs to be on the table at once. The Board is perpetuating the N/S divide and equity failings by doing boundaries this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Columbia Heights got chopped into 3 schools when moved from Henry. Part moved to Fleet, part to Drew, and part to Hoffman Boston but sure let’s protect the integrity of Fairlington forever. Push lease.

The entire county needs to be on the table at once. The Board is perpetuating the N/S divide and equity failings by doing boundaries this way.

+100

APS isn't genuinely concerned about equity. They just react to community input and make policies and decisions that they hope gives the impression they are acting in the name of equity. But they're applying "equity" in the wrong ways. Equity isn't about walking or being driven to school. It's about being given the same, and same quality, opportunities and education and skills development so that everyone has the chance to pursue whatever they want to pursue. You don't have to be able to walk to the closest school in order to get into college and become a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher. And you don't have to actually go to college at all. The point is, you COULD - that you're prepared and have the opportunity just like anyone else.

[Anonymous]

Columbia Heights got chopped into 3 schools when moved from Henry. Part moved to Fleet, part to Drew, and part to Hoffman Boston but sure let’s protect the integrity of Fairlington forever. Push lease.

Penrose is being split between Wakefield and WL in this very process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Columbia Heights got chopped into 3 schools when moved from Henry. Part moved to Fleet, part to Drew, and part to Hoffman Boston but sure let’s protect the integrity of Fairlington forever. Push lease.

The entire county needs to be on the table at once. The Board is perpetuating the N/S divide and equity failings by doing boundaries this way.

It really is housing, not boundaries. There are a few places where boundaries can practically cross route 50 but the real issue is where affordable housing is located or preserved. South Arlington is really about one third of the county, not half. It has done more than its fair share to further affordable housing goals.

[Anonymous]

I just double checked and Park Shirlington will remain Abingdon. That’s 293 units of CAF that will remain Abingdon. Honestly, given all the CAFs that have been built in Arlington over the last decade, it’s impossible to balance the socioeconomics of schools in South Arlington. This proposal, while maybe not being the absolute best they could do for Drew, also isn’t the worst. They aren’t sending Park Shirlington or the newer CAF on Columbia Pike to Drew. Massive resistance works, in Arlington anyway. It will be a cold day in hell when they upzone the identical transit corridor of “Langston BLVD” to do its fair share to further affordable housing in Arlington. They wouldn’t even consider making the area around EFC METRO accessible to anyone but SFH owners. It’s the county’s number 1 priority, and they won’t disturb the status quo, because then the will be waking into a hornet’s nest. All are welcome, just south of 50.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just double checked and Park Shirlington will remain Abingdon. That’s 293 units of CAF that will remain Abingdon. Honestly, given all the CAFs that have been built in Arlington over the last decade, it’s impossible to balance the socioeconomics of schools in South Arlington. This proposal, while maybe not being the absolute best they could do for Drew, also isn’t the worst. They aren’t sending Park Shirlington or the newer CAF on Columbia Pike to Drew. Massive resistance works, in Arlington anyway. It will be a cold day in hell when they upzone the identical transit corridor of “Langston BLVD” to do its fair share to further affordable housing in Arlington. They wouldn’t even consider making the area around EFC METRO accessible to anyone but SFH owners. It’s the county’s number 1 priority, and they won’t disturb the status quo, because then the will be waking into a hornet’s nest. All are welcome, just south of 50.

They are only moving 60-70 students to Drew, many of whom will either option out or go to private school. This is just a prelude to sending Columbia Grove to Drew to fill it. It’s literally across the street from a Planning unit that is being moved to Drew, and it’s not in Abingdon’s walk zone. It’s just a matter of time before it’s moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just double checked and Park Shirlington will remain Abingdon. That’s 293 units of CAF that will remain Abingdon. Honestly, given all the CAFs that have been built in Arlington over the last decade, it’s impossible to balance the socioeconomics of schools in South Arlington. This proposal, while maybe not being the absolute best they could do for Drew, also isn’t the worst. They aren’t sending Park Shirlington or the newer CAF on Columbia Pike to Drew. Massive resistance works, in Arlington anyway. It will be a cold day in hell when they upzone the identical transit corridor of “Langston BLVD” to do its fair share to further affordable housing in Arlington. They wouldn’t even consider making the area around EFC METRO accessible to anyone but SFH owners. It’s the county’s number 1 priority, and they won’t disturb the status quo, because then the will be waking into a hornet’s nest. All are welcome, just south of 50.

They are only moving 60-70 students to Drew, many of whom will either option out or go to private school. This is just a prelude to sending Columbia Grove to Drew to fill it. It’s literally across the street from a Planning unit that is being moved to Drew, and it’s not in Abingdon’s walk zone. It’s just a matter of time before it’s moved.

Columbia Grove/Columbia Forest could potentially shift north in the upcoming larger scope boundary change. Maybe that's why they are holding off on moving it now. I think they may need Drew to absorb more of Oakridge's kids...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just double checked and Park Shirlington will remain Abingdon. That’s 293 units of CAF that will remain Abingdon. Honestly, given all the CAFs that have been built in Arlington over the last decade, it’s impossible to balance the socioeconomics of schools in South Arlington. This proposal, while maybe not being the absolute best they could do for Drew, also isn’t the worst. They aren’t sending Park Shirlington or the newer CAF on Columbia Pike to Drew. Massive resistance works, in Arlington anyway. It will be a cold day in hell when they upzone the identical transit corridor of “Langston BLVD” to do its fair share to further affordable housing in Arlington. They wouldn’t even consider making the area around EFC METRO accessible to anyone but SFH owners. It’s the county’s number 1 priority, and they won’t disturb the status quo, because then the will be waking into a hornet’s nest. All are welcome, just south of 50.

They are only moving 60-70 students to Drew, many of whom will either option out or go to private school. This is just a prelude to sending Columbia Grove to Drew to fill it. It’s literally across the street from a Planning unit that is being moved to Drew, and it’s not in Abingdon’s walk zone. It’s just a matter of time before it’s moved.

Columbia Grove/Columbia Forest could potentially shift north in the upcoming larger scope boundary change. Maybe that's why they are holding off on moving it now. I think they may need Drew to absorb more of Oakridge's kids...

If Oakridge needs relief, guess who will get rezoned to Drew? The Apex, a CAF with well over 100 kids. It’s across Glebe Rd from the Giant. And therefore outside of the Oakridge walk zone. So they’re on a bus already anyway. There is no scenario where Drew doesn’t get filled to the tune of a 70%-plus FRL rate.