APS boundary process this fall?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like the proposed closure of Nottingham, the parental pressure was so strong, APS scuttled all the boundary changes for Taylor and everywhere else last year (to be revisited at a later date TBD). And then the whole APS planning department was fired.

So obviously APS does not want to rock the boat with either Nottingham or Taylor. That much is clear.

Well, we didn’t close Nottingham and nothings caught on fire. What was the urgency?

Ugh, I hate typing on my phone…

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.

What do you mean by richest? You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students.

I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work, if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools.

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will.

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around.

It's a little funny that APS has signaled their intention to move some of the people in the neighborhoods close to/north of Hamm to Williamsburg to make room for people in the R-B corridor at Hamm. We just keep going in circles.

That is so DOA. They are moving Immersion to WMS.

Jeeze, Taylor parents are persistent. That idea has only appeared here, touted by a few disgruntled Taylor parents, with absolutely no traction within APS admin. There are about a million other better solves than that harebrained idea.

DP. No skin in this game. What's wrong with moving Immersion to WMS? WMS is underenrolled. Last I heard Gunston was over.

The popular middle school Immersion Program actually began at Williamsburg. It would be going back to where it all started. It only moved to Gunston because Williamsburg was overcrowded and Gunston under enrolled. Option programs can move to where there is room. That’s been APS policy for decades now.

Link to the policy? You made that up. It's not an APS policy.

I didn’t mean to mislead. Option programs have moved to where there has been room over the decades. Policy or not, that has always happened since option programs were first created in the 70s through the last option program moves about 4 years ago. There certainly is no policy against moving option programs.

APS may very well move MS immersion, but they won't move it to WMS. That looks like desegregation busing.

APS doesn’t really care about desegregation or segregation one way or the other as we’ve all seen. Especially now that it has been deprioritized via the new boundary policy. Case in point—remember when APS moved immersion out of Key to the old ATS site.

APS will choose Williamsburg, Swanson, Kenmore, or whatever school based on the current priorities which deprioritize demographics. Also, for legal reasons, race cannot be considered a factor.

That's contrary to the APS Policy on Boundaries. The recent revision in 2023 added demographics as an important factor.

Can someone post a link to that part of the policy? I recall, as was debated at length on this forum, that demographics was moved off of the priority list. Walkability and keeping neighborhoods together was prioritized.

Moving Immersion to WMS:

Improved demographic balance and WMS not 100% white

Keeps walkability for neighborhood schools around WMS and keeps neighborhoods together.

Seems like a home run for all the policy priorities.

Busing isn't an appropriate solution to make WMS not 100% white. Read a history book for goodness sakes.

Take several seats, lady. This isn’t forced busing. It is relocating an OPTIONAL program to a location that has space so that every other schools doesn’t have to have a boundary change and so that the schools like Kenmore and Swanson and Jefferson don’t become less diverse as a result of a boundary shift N. FFS, Immersion Stans. Stop using Hispanic kids to suit your white agenda.

DP. Gunston has space. It was overcrowded last year until APS verified addresses and found hundreds of kids didn’t actually live in Gunston’s boundaries. Once those kids were unenrolled, Gunston was no longer overcrowded.

More than 50% of kids in the elementary immersion program are Hispanic. Assuming that percentage continues in MS and HS, isn’t busing the program to WMS using them to suit your agenda of keeping walkability for WMS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.

What do you mean by richest? You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students.

I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work, if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools.

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will.

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around.

It's a little funny that APS has signaled their intention to move some of the people in the neighborhoods close to/north of Hamm to Williamsburg to make room for people in the R-B corridor at Hamm. We just keep going in circles.

That is so DOA. They are moving Immersion to WMS.

Jeeze, Taylor parents are persistent. That idea has only appeared here, touted by a few disgruntled Taylor parents, with absolutely no traction within APS admin. There are about a million other better solves than that harebrained idea.

DP. No skin in this game. What's wrong with moving Immersion to WMS? WMS is underenrolled. Last I heard Gunston was over.

The popular middle school Immersion Program actually began at Williamsburg. It would be going back to where it all started. It only moved to Gunston because Williamsburg was overcrowded and Gunston under enrolled. Option programs can move to where there is room. That’s been APS policy for decades now.

Link to the policy? You made that up. It's not an APS policy.

I didn’t mean to mislead. Option programs have moved to where there has been room over the decades. Policy or not, that has always happened since option programs were first created in the 70s through the last option program moves about 4 years ago. There certainly is no policy against moving option programs.

APS may very well move MS immersion, but they won't move it to WMS. That looks like desegregation busing.

APS doesn’t really care about desegregation or segregation one way or the other as we’ve all seen. Especially now that it has been deprioritized via the new boundary policy. Case in point—remember when APS moved immersion out of Key to the old ATS site.

APS will choose Williamsburg, Swanson, Kenmore, or whatever school based on the current priorities which deprioritize demographics. Also, for legal reasons, race cannot be considered a factor.

That's contrary to the APS Policy on Boundaries. The recent revision in 2023 added demographics as an important factor.

Can someone post a link to that part of the policy? I recall, as was debated at length on this forum, that demographics was moved off of the priority list. Walkability and keeping neighborhoods together was prioritized.

Moving Immersion to WMS:

Improved demographic balance and WMS not 100% white

Keeps walkability for neighborhood schools around WMS and keeps neighborhoods together.

Seems like a home run for all the policy priorities.

Busing isn't an appropriate solution to make WMS not 100% white. Read a history book for goodness sakes.

Take several seats, lady. This isn’t forced busing. It is relocating an OPTIONAL program to a location that has space so that every other schools doesn’t have to have a boundary change and so that the schools like Kenmore and Swanson and Jefferson don’t become less diverse as a result of a boundary shift N. FFS, Immersion Stans. Stop using Hispanic kids to suit your white agenda.

DP. Gunston has space. It was overcrowded last year until APS verified addresses and found hundreds of kids didn’t actually live in Gunston’s boundaries. Once those kids were unenrolled, Gunston was no longer overcrowded.

More than 50% of kids in the elementary immersion program are Hispanic. Assuming that percentage continues in MS and HS, isn’t busing the program to WMS using them to suit your agenda of keeping walkability for WMS?

Gunston's numbers are back up this year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.

What do you mean by richest? You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students.

I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work, if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools.

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will.

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around.

It's a little funny that APS has signaled their intention to move some of the people in the neighborhoods close to/north of Hamm to Williamsburg to make room for people in the R-B corridor at Hamm. We just keep going in circles.

That is so DOA. They are moving Immersion to WMS.

Jeeze, Taylor parents are persistent. That idea has only appeared here, touted by a few disgruntled Taylor parents, with absolutely no traction within APS admin. There are about a million other better solves than that harebrained idea.

DP. No skin in this game. What's wrong with moving Immersion to WMS? WMS is underenrolled. Last I heard Gunston was over.

The popular middle school Immersion Program actually began at Williamsburg. It would be going back to where it all started. It only moved to Gunston because Williamsburg was overcrowded and Gunston under enrolled. Option programs can move to where there is room. That’s been APS policy for decades now.

Link to the policy? You made that up. It's not an APS policy.

I didn’t mean to mislead. Option programs have moved to where there has been room over the decades. Policy or not, that has always happened since option programs were first created in the 70s through the last option program moves about 4 years ago. There certainly is no policy against moving option programs.

APS may very well move MS immersion, but they won't move it to WMS. That looks like desegregation busing.

APS doesn’t really care about desegregation or segregation one way or the other as we’ve all seen. Especially now that it has been deprioritized via the new boundary policy. Case in point—remember when APS moved immersion out of Key to the old ATS site.

APS will choose Williamsburg, Swanson, Kenmore, or whatever school based on the current priorities which deprioritize demographics. Also, for legal reasons, race cannot be considered a factor.

That's contrary to the APS Policy on Boundaries. The recent revision in 2023 added demographics as an important factor.

Can someone post a link to that part of the policy? I recall, as was debated at length on this forum, that demographics was moved off of the priority list. Walkability and keeping neighborhoods together was prioritized.

Moving Immersion to WMS:

Improved demographic balance and WMS not 100% white

Keeps walkability for neighborhood schools around WMS and keeps neighborhoods together.

Seems like a home run for all the policy priorities.

Busing isn't an appropriate solution to make WMS not 100% white. Read a history book for goodness sakes.

Take several seats, lady. This isn’t forced busing. It is relocating an OPTIONAL program to a location that has space so that every other schools doesn’t have to have a boundary change and so that the schools like Kenmore and Swanson and Jefferson don’t become less diverse as a result of a boundary shift N. FFS, Immersion Stans. Stop using Hispanic kids to suit your white agenda.

DP. Gunston has space. It was overcrowded last year until APS verified addresses and found hundreds of kids didn’t actually live in Gunston’s boundaries. Once those kids were unenrolled, Gunston was no longer overcrowded.

More than 50% of kids in the elementary immersion program are Hispanic. Assuming that percentage continues in MS and HS, isn’t busing the program to WMS using them to suit your agenda of keeping walkability for WMS?

I really don’t care about WMS or the Taylor walkers to DHMS. If you shift everyone N to accommodate the optional program, which in theory could pull from Key in the N and Claremont, you will exacerbate already highly segregated schools. It’s unreasonable to expect everyone else and their needs to take a back seat to make sure the current Immersion kids aren’t inconvenienced. The entire Kenmore PTA Exec board would be rezoned and a school that is already at a funding and resource disadvantage would be further disadvantaged by shifting all N Arlington kids further N. Swanson will become wealthier and whiter as will Jefferson. It’s wrong on its face. Either leave it where it is or move it where there is space and the rest of the county doesn’t need to be hassled to accommodate an entirely voluntary program that isn’t serving the neediest kids anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.

What do you mean by richest? You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students.

I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work, if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools.

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will.

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around.

It's a little funny that APS has signaled their intention to move some of the people in the neighborhoods close to/north of Hamm to Williamsburg to make room for people in the R-B corridor at Hamm. We just keep going in circles.

That is so DOA. They are moving Immersion to WMS.

Jeeze, Taylor parents are persistent. That idea has only appeared here, touted by a few disgruntled Taylor parents, with absolutely no traction within APS admin. There are about a million other better solves than that harebrained idea.

DP. No skin in this game. What's wrong with moving Immersion to WMS? WMS is underenrolled. Last I heard Gunston was over.

The popular middle school Immersion Program actually began at Williamsburg. It would be going back to where it all started. It only moved to Gunston because Williamsburg was overcrowded and Gunston under enrolled. Option programs can move to where there is room. That’s been APS policy for decades now.

Link to the policy? You made that up. It's not an APS policy.

I didn’t mean to mislead. Option programs have moved to where there has been room over the decades. Policy or not, that has always happened since option programs were first created in the 70s through the last option program moves about 4 years ago. There certainly is no policy against moving option programs.

APS may very well move MS immersion, but they won't move it to WMS. That looks like desegregation busing.

APS doesn’t really care about desegregation or segregation one way or the other as we’ve all seen. Especially now that it has been deprioritized via the new boundary policy. Case in point—remember when APS moved immersion out of Key to the old ATS site.

APS will choose Williamsburg, Swanson, Kenmore, or whatever school based on the current priorities which deprioritize demographics. Also, for legal reasons, race cannot be considered a factor.

That's contrary to the APS Policy on Boundaries. The recent revision in 2023 added demographics as an important factor.

Can someone post a link to that part of the policy? I recall, as was debated at length on this forum, that demographics was moved off of the priority list. Walkability and keeping neighborhoods together was prioritized.

Moving Immersion to WMS:

Improved demographic balance and WMS not 100% white

Keeps walkability for neighborhood schools around WMS and keeps neighborhoods together.

Seems like a home run for all the policy priorities.

Busing isn't an appropriate solution to make WMS not 100% white. Read a history book for goodness sakes.

Take several seats, lady. This isn’t forced busing. It is relocating an OPTIONAL program to a location that has space so that every other schools doesn’t have to have a boundary change and so that the schools like Kenmore and Swanson and Jefferson don’t become less diverse as a result of a boundary shift N. FFS, Immersion Stans. Stop using Hispanic kids to suit your white agenda.

DP. Gunston has space. It was overcrowded last year until APS verified addresses and found hundreds of kids didn’t actually live in Gunston’s boundaries. Once those kids were unenrolled, Gunston was no longer overcrowded.

More than 50% of kids in the elementary immersion program are Hispanic. Assuming that percentage continues in MS and HS, isn’t busing the program to WMS using them to suit your agenda of keeping walkability for WMS?

I really don’t care about WMS or the Taylor walkers to DHMS. If you shift everyone N to accommodate the optional program, which in theory could pull from Key in the N and Claremont, you will exacerbate already highly segregated schools. It’s unreasonable to expect everyone else and their needs to take a back seat to make sure the current Immersion kids aren’t inconvenienced. The entire Kenmore PTA Exec board would be rezoned and a school that is already at a funding and resource disadvantage would be further disadvantaged by shifting all N Arlington kids further N. Swanson will become wealthier and whiter as will Jefferson. It’s wrong on its face. Either leave it where it is or move it where there is space and the rest of the county doesn’t need to be hassled to accommodate an entirely voluntary program that isn’t serving the neediest kids anyway.

It's crazy that N. Arlington moms have latched onto the idea that it's the job of the immersion program to solve the county's zoning issues. It's such a random thing to fixate on. It's entirely reasonable that immersion thinks it's important that the program is co-located with a significant Hispanic population. That's entirely consistent with the educational goals of the program, APS's goals for ESL education, and still allows for several MS options, though none of those are WMS. It's also consistent with minimizing busing costs, as the majority of immersion students (all of Claremont) live in south Arlington and are zoned for Gunston as their home school.

If you look at maps there are absolutely Swanson students who are nearly equidistant to WMS and Swanson, who already track to Yorktown, and who could easily be moved to WMS with a very, very short bus ride. This is similar for some Hamm students who track to Yorktown--its just not a stretch that they could go to WMS. In fact, many of them did attend WMS just a few years ago before Hamm opened, including when many of those families bought their homes. This isn't a crazy suggestion, yet parents on here act like it's the most unreasonable thing they've ever heard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.

What do you mean by richest? You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students.

I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work, if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools.

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will.

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around.

People are upset about the Heights not because it was new, it’s because they way way overspent on a small fancy building.

When that location was going to be a 1300 seat neighborhood middle school, they had a very generic box building for the design.

Then when it became HB the pivoted to a boutique award winning architect to make it a show case building (and the APS staff in charge of it used that project to land a better job elsewhere, I forget his name).

It’s ridiculous that HB with 700 students had the largest middle school plot of land when our county is desperate for space. If they had simply expanded HB program, that might have alleviated a lot of overcrowding and made planning simpler. But its model requires a small school.

That's not specific to HB. That's what APS has done with all the new buildings, neighborhood or not, didn't you know that? Have you seen Discovery?

If you disagree with overspending on buildings, I am with you, but don't try to blame HB.

I blame HB for not expanding their program, and the excess for the Heights far far exceeds any other renovation. It was because it was for “HBW” — their show case program of private school size for public school cost.

It's so inconsistent to give HB the tiniest parcel in the county and then demand that it expand. How? Where? Have you been there? There is no room.

Also, you are either unaware or don't care that the building also houses the Shriver program. This program is for kids with severe special needs. Many are in wheelchairs. The building was built to meet their needs. That's just going to be more expensive. That's how it is. APS has a responsibility to educate these kids. So no your narrative that APS built a palace for HB is just plain wrong. They didn't even finish the floors!

HBW is 700 students. It was going to be a 1300 seat neighborhood middle school. Even with Shriver, there was some number between 0 and 600 that they could have expanded. The costs weren’t high because of wheel chair access, but very on brand for HBW parents to use the Shriver kids as shields — it’s a pattern on many prior threads.

So first you ignore the Shriver program altogether like it doesn't exist then you come right back with accusing HB of using it as "on brand." Sorry, no. You're just an HB hater.

Shriver is independent of HBW completely. It was only located with HBW originally because they had a tiny population on a huge campus so could accommodate at the original Stratford sight. They had to move with HBW because the property would still be under construction when it became a neighborhood school, so they moved to the Heights but they are in no way associated with HBW other than sharing an address.

It was on brand because EVERY TIME people talk about expanding HBW and how it got to keep 700 students on a site originally intended for 1300, they trot out their building neighbors: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/285/1145192.page

No Shriver was not going to stay in a middle school, it's a program for kids up to age 22! The Heights was specifically built for their specialized needs. Sorry you have a problem with people raising the needs of the severely disabled kids. I guess you'd prefer they not exist?

Talking about Shriver is just a red herring, and the ad hominem attack as if I am anti-disabled is a nice touch. My point is most of the cost of the Heights was not because of the Shriver program, and the program could have been located elsewhere, it is not part of HBW.

But again, HBW brings up Shriver as an excuse to protect them from criticism. It’s just not material to the discussion. You could have accommodated hundreds of more students at Heights, but HBW said it would hurt their “model”.

you just can't let this go. you're looking for a reason to hate on hb. who do you think "you" is anyways? i have a kid at hb now, we weren't there back when this decision was made. i had nothing to do with it. but actually those at hb at the time WANTED to stay where they were. hb got moved anyways. but still you all complain at the result.

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Anonymous wrote:Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.

What do you mean by richest? You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students.

I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work, if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools.

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will.

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around.

It's a little funny that APS has signaled their intention to move some of the people in the neighborhoods close to/north of Hamm to Williamsburg to make room for people in the R-B corridor at Hamm. We just keep going in circles.

That is so DOA. They are moving Immersion to WMS.

Jeeze, Taylor parents are persistent. That idea has only appeared here, touted by a few disgruntled Taylor parents, with absolutely no traction within APS admin. There are about a million other better solves than that harebrained idea.

DP. No skin in this game. What's wrong with moving Immersion to WMS? WMS is underenrolled. Last I heard Gunston was over.

The popular middle school Immersion Program actually began at Williamsburg. It would be going back to where it all started. It only moved to Gunston because Williamsburg was overcrowded and Gunston under enrolled. Option programs can move to where there is room. That’s been APS policy for decades now.

Link to the policy? You made that up. It's not an APS policy.

I didn’t mean to mislead. Option programs have moved to where there has been room over the decades. Policy or not, that has always happened since option programs were first created in the 70s through the last option program moves about 4 years ago. There certainly is no policy against moving option programs.

APS may very well move MS immersion, but they won't move it to WMS. That looks like desegregation busing.

APS doesn’t really care about desegregation or segregation one way or the other as we’ve all seen. Especially now that it has been deprioritized via the new boundary policy. Case in point—remember when APS moved immersion out of Key to the old ATS site.

APS will choose Williamsburg, Swanson, Kenmore, or whatever school based on the current priorities which deprioritize demographics. Also, for legal reasons, race cannot be considered a factor.

That's contrary to the APS Policy on Boundaries. The recent revision in 2023 added demographics as an important factor.

Can someone post a link to that part of the policy? I recall, as was debated at length on this forum, that demographics was moved off of the priority list. Walkability and keeping neighborhoods together was prioritized.

Moving Immersion to WMS:

Improved demographic balance and WMS not 100% white

Keeps walkability for neighborhood schools around WMS and keeps neighborhoods together.

Seems like a home run for all the policy priorities.

Busing isn't an appropriate solution to make WMS not 100% white. Read a history book for goodness sakes.

Take several seats, lady. This isn’t forced busing. It is relocating an OPTIONAL program to a location that has space so that every other schools doesn’t have to have a boundary change and so that the schools like Kenmore and Swanson and Jefferson don’t become less diverse as a result of a boundary shift N. FFS, Immersion Stans. Stop using Hispanic kids to suit your white agenda.

DP. Gunston has space. It was overcrowded last year until APS verified addresses and found hundreds of kids didn’t actually live in Gunston’s boundaries. Once those kids were unenrolled, Gunston was no longer overcrowded.

More than 50% of kids in the elementary immersion program are Hispanic. Assuming that percentage continues in MS and HS, isn’t busing the program to WMS using them to suit your agenda of keeping walkability for WMS?

I really don’t care about WMS or the Taylor walkers to DHMS. If you shift everyone N to accommodate the optional program, which in theory could pull from Key in the N and Claremont, you will exacerbate already highly segregated schools. It’s unreasonable to expect everyone else and their needs to take a back seat to make sure the current Immersion kids aren’t inconvenienced. The entire Kenmore PTA Exec board would be rezoned and a school that is already at a funding and resource disadvantage would be further disadvantaged by shifting all N Arlington kids further N. Swanson will become wealthier and whiter as will Jefferson. It’s wrong on its face. Either leave it where it is or move it where there is space and the rest of the county doesn’t need to be hassled to accommodate an entirely voluntary program that isn’t serving the neediest kids anyway.

It's crazy that N. Arlington moms have latched onto the idea that it's the job of the immersion program to solve the county's zoning issues. It's such a random thing to fixate on. It's entirely reasonable that immersion thinks it's important that the program is co-located with a significant Hispanic population. That's entirely consistent with the educational goals of the program, APS's goals for ESL education, and still allows for several MS options, though none of those are WMS. It's also consistent with minimizing busing costs, as the majority of immersion students (all of Claremont) live in south Arlington and are zoned for Gunston as their home school.

If you look at maps there are absolutely Swanson students who are nearly equidistant to WMS and Swanson, who already track to Yorktown, and who could easily be moved to WMS with a very, very short bus ride. This is similar for some Hamm students who track to Yorktown--its just not a stretch that they could go to WMS. In fact, many of them did attend WMS just a few years ago before Hamm opened, including when many of those families bought their homes. This isn't a crazy suggestion, yet parents on here act like it's the most unreasonable thing they've ever heard.

I’m a South Arlington mom and guess what? Immersion at MS and HS is closed to ESL kids unless they started in ES. Know where the ESL kids are placed at Wakefield? Not Immersion. They’re in Gen Ed classes with a push-in ESL support. All the LIES about how you’re helping ESL kids and families when they’re entirely excluded unless they arrived here and got in during ES. LIES

Take it elsewhere, we’re on to you.

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Anonymous wrote:Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.

What do you mean by richest? You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students.

I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work, if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools.

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will.

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around.

It's a little funny that APS has signaled their intention to move some of the people in the neighborhoods close to/north of Hamm to Williamsburg to make room for people in the R-B corridor at Hamm. We just keep going in circles.

That is so DOA. They are moving Immersion to WMS.

Jeeze, Taylor parents are persistent. That idea has only appeared here, touted by a few disgruntled Taylor parents, with absolutely no traction within APS admin. There are about a million other better solves than that harebrained idea.

DP. No skin in this game. What's wrong with moving Immersion to WMS? WMS is underenrolled. Last I heard Gunston was over.

The popular middle school Immersion Program actually began at Williamsburg. It would be going back to where it all started. It only moved to Gunston because Williamsburg was overcrowded and Gunston under enrolled. Option programs can move to where there is room. That’s been APS policy for decades now.

Link to the policy? You made that up. It's not an APS policy.

I didn’t mean to mislead. Option programs have moved to where there has been room over the decades. Policy or not, that has always happened since option programs were first created in the 70s through the last option program moves about 4 years ago. There certainly is no policy against moving option programs.

APS may very well move MS immersion, but they won't move it to WMS. That looks like desegregation busing.

APS doesn’t really care about desegregation or segregation one way or the other as we’ve all seen. Especially now that it has been deprioritized via the new boundary policy. Case in point—remember when APS moved immersion out of Key to the old ATS site.

APS will choose Williamsburg, Swanson, Kenmore, or whatever school based on the current priorities which deprioritize demographics. Also, for legal reasons, race cannot be considered a factor.

That's contrary to the APS Policy on Boundaries. The recent revision in 2023 added demographics as an important factor.

Can someone post a link to that part of the policy? I recall, as was debated at length on this forum, that demographics was moved off of the priority list. Walkability and keeping neighborhoods together was prioritized.

Moving Immersion to WMS:

Improved demographic balance and WMS not 100% white

Keeps walkability for neighborhood schools around WMS and keeps neighborhoods together.

Seems like a home run for all the policy priorities.

Busing isn't an appropriate solution to make WMS not 100% white. Read a history book for goodness sakes.

Take several seats, lady. This isn’t forced busing. It is relocating an OPTIONAL program to a location that has space so that every other schools doesn’t have to have a boundary change and so that the schools like Kenmore and Swanson and Jefferson don’t become less diverse as a result of a boundary shift N. FFS, Immersion Stans. Stop using Hispanic kids to suit your white agenda.

DP. Gunston has space. It was overcrowded last year until APS verified addresses and found hundreds of kids didn’t actually live in Gunston’s boundaries. Once those kids were unenrolled, Gunston was no longer overcrowded.

More than 50% of kids in the elementary immersion program are Hispanic. Assuming that percentage continues in MS and HS, isn’t busing the program to WMS using them to suit your agenda of keeping walkability for WMS?

I really don’t care about WMS or the Taylor walkers to DHMS. If you shift everyone N to accommodate the optional program, which in theory could pull from Key in the N and Claremont, you will exacerbate already highly segregated schools. It’s unreasonable to expect everyone else and their needs to take a back seat to make sure the current Immersion kids aren’t inconvenienced. The entire Kenmore PTA Exec board would be rezoned and a school that is already at a funding and resource disadvantage would be further disadvantaged by shifting all N Arlington kids further N. Swanson will become wealthier and whiter as will Jefferson. It’s wrong on its face. Either leave it where it is or move it where there is space and the rest of the county doesn’t need to be hassled to accommodate an entirely voluntary program that isn’t serving the neediest kids anyway.

It's crazy that N. Arlington moms have latched onto the idea that it's the job of the immersion program to solve the county's zoning issues. It's such a random thing to fixate on. It's entirely reasonable that immersion thinks it's important that the program is co-located with a significant Hispanic population. That's entirely consistent with the educational goals of the program, APS's goals for ESL education, and still allows for several MS options, though none of those are WMS. It's also consistent with minimizing busing costs, as the majority of immersion students (all of Claremont) live in south Arlington and are zoned for Gunston as their home school.

If you look at maps there are absolutely Swanson students who are nearly equidistant to WMS and Swanson, who already track to Yorktown, and who could easily be moved to WMS with a very, very short bus ride. This is similar for some Hamm students who track to Yorktown--its just not a stretch that they could go to WMS. In fact, many of them did attend WMS just a few years ago before Hamm opened, including when many of those families bought their homes. This isn't a crazy suggestion, yet parents on here act like it's the most unreasonable thing they've ever heard.

I’m a South Arlington mom and guess what? Immersion at MS and HS is closed to ESL kids unless they started in ES. Know where the ESL kids are placed at Wakefield? Not Immersion. They’re in Gen Ed classes with a push-in ESL support. All the LIES about how you’re helping ESL kids and families when they’re entirely excluded unless they arrived here and got in during ES. LIES

Take it elsewhere, we’re on to you.

Total straw man. No one has said that new ESL students join immersion in MS. But that doesn't mean the same resources and support staff don't support both ESL students in immersion and non-immersion ESL students. Staff can support different groups of students during different parts of the day. The immersion program has 36% ESL students in MS, as well as many students who are native Spanish speakers who have officially graduated from receiving ESL supports. So yes, it does support ESL students.

[Anonymous]

Didn’t immersion serve a dedicated Hispanic ESL population when it was a neighborhood school, Key ES at its original Courthouse location? It moved and became an option program because upper middle class families wanted more room for their kids in the program.

I doubt all immersion families truly value the original purpose of immersion, to help ESL students. It’s become a prized option program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t immersion serve a dedicated Hispanic ESL population when it was a neighborhood school, Key ES at its original Courthouse location? It moved and became an option program because upper middle class families wanted more room for their kids in the program.

I doubt all immersion families truly value the original purpose of immersion, to help ESL students. It’s become a prized option program.

Uh no, the Key community didn't want to move. APS wanted to put a neighborhood elementary school at the Key location and forced the move. Key still follows the 50/50 model that it did before the move. That hasn't changed at all.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Didn’t immersion serve a dedicated Hispanic ESL population when it was a neighborhood school, Key ES at its original Courthouse location? It moved and became an option program because upper middle class families wanted more room for their kids in the program.

I doubt all immersion families truly value the original purpose of immersion, to help ESL students. It’s become a prized option program.

Uh no, the Key community didn't want to move. APS wanted to put a neighborhood elementary school at the Key location and forced the move. Key still follows the 50/50 model that it did before the move. That hasn't changed at all.

And did it die like you cried when they moved Key to the former ATS site? No. MS can also move without destroying the program. It’s not serving the largest populations of ESL kids now at any level from K-12, who are in the South Arlington neighborhood schools, schools which you want to further segregate and impoverish for your own selfish convenience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t immersion serve a dedicated Hispanic ESL population when it was a neighborhood school, Key ES at its original Courthouse location? It moved and became an option program because upper middle class families wanted more room for their kids in the program.

I doubt all immersion families truly value the original purpose of immersion, to help ESL students. It’s become a prized option program.

Uh no, the Key community didn't want to move. APS wanted to put a neighborhood elementary school at the Key location and forced the move. Key still follows the 50/50 model that it did before the move. That hasn't changed at all.

Ahh. Thanks for clarifying. Those must have been the planners that got fired last year. There was a whole lot of planning going on (and the implementation of those plans) between 2017 and now.

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Anonymous wrote:Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.

What do you mean by richest? You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students.

I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work, if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools.

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will.

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around.

People are upset about the Heights not because it was new, it’s because they way way overspent on a small fancy building.

When that location was going to be a 1300 seat neighborhood middle school, they had a very generic box building for the design.

Then when it became HB the pivoted to a boutique award winning architect to make it a show case building (and the APS staff in charge of it used that project to land a better job elsewhere, I forget his name).

It’s ridiculous that HB with 700 students had the largest middle school plot of land when our county is desperate for space. If they had simply expanded HB program, that might have alleviated a lot of overcrowding and made planning simpler. But its model requires a small school.

That's not specific to HB. That's what APS has done with all the new buildings, neighborhood or not, didn't you know that? Have you seen Discovery?

If you disagree with overspending on buildings, I am with you, but don't try to blame HB.

I blame HB for not expanding their program, and the excess for the Heights far far exceeds any other renovation. It was because it was for “HBW” — their show case program of private school size for public school cost.

It's so inconsistent to give HB the tiniest parcel in the county and then demand that it expand. How? Where? Have you been there? There is no room.

Also, you are either unaware or don't care that the building also houses the Shriver program. This program is for kids with severe special needs. Many are in wheelchairs. The building was built to meet their needs. That's just going to be more expensive. That's how it is. APS has a responsibility to educate these kids. So no your narrative that APS built a palace for HB is just plain wrong. They didn't even finish the floors!

HBW is 700 students. It was going to be a 1300 seat neighborhood middle school. Even with Shriver, there was some number between 0 and 600 that they could have expanded. The costs weren’t high because of wheel chair access, but very on brand for HBW parents to use the Shriver kids as shields — it’s a pattern on many prior threads.

So first you ignore the Shriver program altogether like it doesn't exist then you come right back with accusing HB of using it as "on brand." Sorry, no. You're just an HB hater.

Shriver is independent of HBW completely. It was only located with HBW originally because they had a tiny population on a huge campus so could accommodate at the original Stratford sight. They had to move with HBW because the property would still be under construction when it became a neighborhood school, so they moved to the Heights but they are in no way associated with HBW other than sharing an address.

It was on brand because EVERY TIME people talk about expanding HBW and how it got to keep 700 students on a site originally intended for 1300, they trot out their building neighbors: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/285/1145192.page

No Shriver was not going to stay in a middle school, it's a program for kids up to age 22! The Heights was specifically built for their specialized needs. Sorry you have a problem with people raising the needs of the severely disabled kids. I guess you'd prefer they not exist?

Talking about Shriver is just a red herring, and the ad hominem attack as if I am anti-disabled is a nice touch. My point is most of the cost of the Heights was not because of the Shriver program, and the program could have been located elsewhere, it is not part of HBW.

But again, HBW brings up Shriver as an excuse to protect them from criticism. It’s just not material to the discussion. You could have accommodated hundreds of more students at Heights, but HBW said it would hurt their “model”.

you just can't let this go. you're looking for a reason to hate on hb. who do you think "you" is anyways? i have a kid at hb now, we weren't there back when this decision was made. i had nothing to do with it. but actually those at hb at the time WANTED to stay where they were. hb got moved anyways. but still you all complain at the result.

It’s very simple. When we say that your program should be expanded just like ALL the other upper schools in Arlington, HB parents skirt around reasons why it can’t happen, from “it’s the program”, to “it’s actually the Shriver program occupying the space that would fit 600 students”. Yeah HB could have stayed at Stratford if it expanded to accept more students there wouldn’t have been a need for a new middle school; but they preferred to move and pretend they were “forced to”.

An HB parent was the one who called out how they were “forced to move” , when the topic was about how the Heights building consumed about 3 schools worth of capital. They were the ones who decided to play the victim rather than accepting that they received largess from an ambitious buildings planner looking to make a name for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t immersion serve a dedicated Hispanic ESL population when it was a neighborhood school, Key ES at its original Courthouse location? It moved and became an option program because upper middle class families wanted more room for their kids in the program.

I doubt all immersion families truly value the original purpose of immersion, to help ESL students. It’s become a prized option program.

Uh no, the Key community didn't want to move. APS wanted to put a neighborhood elementary school at the Key location and forced the move. Key still follows the 50/50 model that it did before the move. That hasn't changed at all.

And did it die like you cried when they moved Key to the former ATS site? No. MS can also move without destroying the program. It’s not serving the largest populations of ESL kids now at any level from K-12, who are in the South Arlington neighborhood schools, schools which you want to further segregate and impoverish for your own selfish convenience.

No, but the move forced us to go from 6 K classes to 4 due to reduced building size. So APS shrunk the immersion program with the move. That is a big part of why we fought the move.

[Anonymous]

When are these decisions being announced?