South Arlington elementary school boundary adjustments 2019

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is already a program at Randolph. We are very happy with the IB program and incredible teachers but it often gets overlooked because of the socioeconomic makeup of the school.

Randolph parent

I expect they will be beefing it up in the coming years.

Dont' Barcroft families get the option to go to Randolph if they don't want the year round calendar?

Yes, but no transportation. I have not heard of a single family taking this option. Barrett used to be the alternative option and there was a bus.

I know of at least 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lobby for the bus.
Barcroft, Alcova and DP lobby to have the line redrawn to George Mason. Alcova and Barcroft neighborhoods transfer to Randolph.
Barcroft Elementary school is under enrolled and that population wants to attend school together.
You have a chance to meaningfully shift demographics at Randolph.

You're suggesting letting Barcroft become a specialized program and the other families moving. How does that work? How do people lobby? If that was something they wanted? I have a hard enough time getting to meetings. I mostly rely on neighbors to represent us, because my kids are small.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lobby for the bus.
Barcroft, Alcova and DP lobby to have the line redrawn to George Mason. Alcova and Barcroft neighborhoods transfer to Randolph.
Barcroft Elementary school is under enrolled and that population wants to attend school together.
You have a chance to meaningfully shift demographics at Randolph.

You're suggesting letting Barcroft become a specialized program and the other families moving. How does that work? How do people lobby? If that was something they wanted? I have a hard enough time getting to meetings. I mostly rely on neighbors to represent us, because my kids are small.

Unfortunately, it's because your kids are small that you need to somehow or someway make time to engage. The winners in these processes are those who mobilize, if it's important enough to them. If you can't go to the 4hr School Board meetings, watch them live on tv or streamed the next day and then follow up with emails to the staff and SB members. SB members rotate office hours on Mondays. Get childcare for 90min and go meet with one or more of them to discuss your concerns.

Encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lobby for the bus.
Barcroft, Alcova and DP lobby to have the line redrawn to George Mason. Alcova and Barcroft neighborhoods transfer to Randolph.
Barcroft Elementary school is under enrolled and that population wants to attend school together.
You have a chance to meaningfully shift demographics at Randolph.

You're suggesting letting Barcroft become a specialized program and the other families moving. How does that work? How do people lobby? If that was something they wanted? I have a hard enough time getting to meetings. I mostly rely on neighbors to represent us, because my kids are small.

Unfortunately, it's because your kids are small that you need to somehow or someway make time to engage. The winners in these processes are those who mobilize, if it's important enough to them. If you can't go to the 4hr School Board meetings, watch them live on tv or streamed the next day and then follow up with emails to the staff and SB members. SB members rotate office hours on Mondays. Get childcare for 90min and go meet with one or more of them to discuss your concerns.

Encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same.

I’m the first poster on this chain. And I agree with the above. I hate to break this down to a zero sum game, because we are talking about children, but we have to play the game. Barcroft and Randolph both have low performance. We can have 2 schools mostly tanked by overwhelming poverty or we can have one completely tanked and the other with a reasonable mix.
Those are our options and they suck, but we need to get real.
With 2/3 VPI Montessori preference, we won’t all make the cut. So there is an opportunity to make Randolph a better option for middle class families.
Redraw Alcova to Randolph
Push the south side of Columbia pike currently at Henry into Randolph ( you guys won’t make it to Fleet)
Give Barcroft the option to bus in
That puts 3 SFH neighborhoods into Randolph
Push for a program within the school for IB, so students get tracked.
Any low income students currently zoned Barcroft would still have the option to self select into Randolph.

now they actually have to deal with all of the repercussions of their shitty housing decisions. They will Be forced to start the same kind of program at Barcroft that they have now in Carlin Springs. Which begs the question, why hasn’t that happened yet?
It hasn’t happens because they used the 20 percent of UMC kids willing to attend Barcroft and Randolph to hide the lousy scores.
That needs to stop.
They want to concentrate poverty? Fine. Deal the expense of a 6 day school week, free aftercare and everything else that goes along. Those kids need it. We have them here, so we need to provide it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lobby for the bus.
Barcroft, Alcova and DP lobby to have the line redrawn to George Mason. Alcova and Barcroft neighborhoods transfer to Randolph.
Barcroft Elementary school is under enrolled and that population wants to attend school together.
You have a chance to meaningfully shift demographics at Randolph.

You're suggesting letting Barcroft become a specialized program and the other families moving. How does that work? How do people lobby? If that was something they wanted? I have a hard enough time getting to meetings. I mostly rely on neighbors to represent us, because my kids are small.

Unfortunately, it's because your kids are small that you need to somehow or someway make time to engage. The winners in these processes are those who mobilize, if it's important enough to them. If you can't go to the 4hr School Board meetings, watch them live on tv or streamed the next day and then follow up with emails to the staff and SB members. SB members rotate office hours on Mondays. Get childcare for 90min and go meet with one or more of them to discuss your concerns.

Encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same.

I’m the first poster on this chain. And I agree with the above. I hate to break this down to a zero sum game, because we are talking about children, but we have to play the game. Barcroft and Randolph both have low performance. We can have 2 schools mostly tanked by overwhelming poverty or we can have one completely tanked and the other with a reasonable mix.
Those are our options and they suck, but we need to get real.
With 2/3 VPI Montessori preference, we won’t all make the cut. So there is an opportunity to make Randolph a better option for middle class families.
Redraw Alcova to Randolph
Push the south side of Columbia pike currently at Henry into Randolph ( you guys won’t make it to Fleet)
Give Barcroft the option to bus in
That puts 3 SFH neighborhoods into Randolph
Push for a program within the school for IB, so students get tracked.
Any low income students currently zoned Barcroft would still have the option to self select into Randolph.

now they actually have to deal with all of the repercussions of their shitty housing decisions. They will Be forced to start the same kind of program at Barcroft that they have now in Carlin Springs. Which begs the question, why hasn’t that happened yet?
It hasn’t happens because they used the 20 percent of UMC kids willing to attend Barcroft and Randolph to hide the lousy scores.
That needs to stop.
They want to concentrate poverty? Fine. Deal the expense of a 6 day school week, free aftercare and everything else that goes along. Those kids need it. We have them here, so we need to provide it.

Deal. Tell me where to be! I already email the school board.

[Anonymous]

Hide the lousy scores? Have you looked at Barcroft and Randolph's scores? I don't think anyone is hiding the fact that they are significantly below the county average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hide the lousy scores? Have you looked at Barcroft and Randolph's scores? I don't think anyone is hiding the fact that they are significantly below the county average.

You don’t understand how APS looks at it. They are accredited. They aren’t being taken over by the state=they are fine.

[Anonymous]

Don't forget all of the schools are great in Arlington. You decided to live there, so move, choice/option out or just live with it and be happy to be in APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't forget all of the schools are great in Arlington. You decided to live there, so move, choice/option out or just live with it and be happy to be in APS.

Or fight for your best interests.
Six to one, selling and moving out to West Springfield to another

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hide the lousy scores? Have you looked at Barcroft and Randolph's scores? I don't think anyone is hiding the fact that they are significantly below the county average.

You don’t understand how APS looks at it. They are accredited. They aren’t being taken over by the state=they are fine.

In the 4 years since I bought my house, the scores have dropped at Barcroft. We used them to choose between Barcroft or Randolph. If someone only has that to go on and really wanted to stay in this area, it would be enough to dissuade them from Barcroft. That, the the lack of any houses under $500K! I mean, what are we doing wrong here? We've gentrified the area - how are we still doing this poorly for those kids, not to mention the UMC ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hide the lousy scores? Have you looked at Barcroft and Randolph's scores? I don't think anyone is hiding the fact that they are significantly below the county average.

You don’t understand how APS looks at it. They are accredited. They aren’t being taken over by the state=they are fine.

In the 4 years since I bought my house, the scores have dropped at Barcroft. We used them to choose between Barcroft or Randolph. If someone only has that to go on and really wanted to stay in this area, it would be enough to dissuade them from Barcroft. That, the the lack of any houses under $500K! I mean, what are we doing wrong here? We've gentrified the area - how are we still doing this poorly for those kids, not to mention the UMC ones.

No we haven’t. Sure, the single family homes are full of wealthy people, but Barcroft Apartments is still there...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hide the lousy scores? Have you looked at Barcroft and Randolph's scores? I don't think anyone is hiding the fact that they are significantly below the county average.

You don’t understand how APS looks at it. They are accredited. They aren’t being taken over by the state=they are fine.

In the 4 years since I bought my house, the scores have dropped at Barcroft. We used them to choose between Barcroft or Randolph. If someone only has that to go on and really wanted to stay in this area, it would be enough to dissuade them from Barcroft. That, the the lack of any houses under $500K! I mean, what are we doing wrong here? We've gentrified the area - how are we still doing this poorly for those kids, not to mention the UMC ones.

No we haven’t. Sure, the single family homes are full of wealthy people, but Barcroft Apartments is still there...

They aren't the problem. That is mostly zoned for Randolph. It's Arlington Mill and the other buildings that I think changed the scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hide the lousy scores? Have you looked at Barcroft and Randolph's scores? I don't think anyone is hiding the fact that they are significantly below the county average.

You don’t understand how APS looks at it. They are accredited. They aren’t being taken over by the state=they are fine.

In the 4 years since I bought my house, the scores have dropped at Barcroft. We used them to choose between Barcroft or Randolph. If someone only has that to go on and really wanted to stay in this area, it would be enough to dissuade them from Barcroft. That, the the lack of any houses under $500K! I mean, what are we doing wrong here? We've gentrified the area - how are we still doing this poorly for those kids, not to mention the UMC ones.

No we haven’t. Sure, the single family homes are full of wealthy people, but Barcroft Apartments is still there...

They aren't the problem. That is mostly zoned for Randolph. It's Arlington Mill and the other buildings that I think changed the scores.

It’s the same thing. You haven’t gentrified that area. There are more poor families today than there were 12 years ago.
You guys have to let go of Barcroft elementary. You got played and that school ain’t recovering. Get your bus to Randolph and draw the line at George Mason. You have one chance next year to make this happen, or you’re putting in an application at our Savior Lutheran.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hide the lousy scores? Have you looked at Barcroft and Randolph's scores? I don't think anyone is hiding the fact that they are significantly below the county average.

You don’t understand how APS looks at it. They are accredited. They aren’t being taken over by the state=they are fine.

In the 4 years since I bought my house, the scores have dropped at Barcroft. We used them to choose between Barcroft or Randolph. If someone only has that to go on and really wanted to stay in this area, it would be enough to dissuade them from Barcroft. That, the the lack of any houses under $500K! I mean, what are we doing wrong here? We've gentrified the area - how are we still doing this poorly for those kids, not to mention the UMC ones.

No we haven’t. Sure, the single family homes are full of wealthy people, but Barcroft Apartments is still there...

They aren't the problem. That is mostly zoned for Randolph. It's Arlington Mill and the other buildings that I think changed the scores.

It’s the same thing. You haven’t gentrified that area. There are more poor families today than there were 12 years ago.
You guys have to let go of Barcroft elementary. You got played and that school ain’t recovering. Get your bus to Randolph and draw the line at George Mason. You have one chance next year to make this happen, or you’re putting in an application at our Savior Lutheran.

Mason does seem to be the gentrification line. I'm looking at the next school board meetings now.

I do have one question though: will it look strange if a non-white person starts asking these questions? I remember when CARD protested, it was an awfully pale looking group.

[Anonymous]

Strange how?
FYI- even if you drew the line at George Mason, Randolph would still be very diverse and likely majority poor. We likely are talking about moving the farms rate from 75% to 55%.
But make no mistake that comes at the expense of Barcroft elementary. This situation blows and we can all thank the county board for it.