Who said there isn't a North-South divide?

[Anonymous]

It's nice that there's a lot of Arlington back and forth here, but let's throw some McLean shade:

Tops - Cooper and Longfellow middle, seriously great middle schools in the area.

Acceptably high - McLean and Langley High; Chesterbrook, Churchill Road, Haycock Elementary, Lemon Road Elementary (I'll count them for 1/2), Spring Hill Elementary

Only "distinguished", and starting to wrinkle my nose - Kent Gardens Elementary

Pearls officially clutched - Franklin Sherman...checked both this name and Sherman, didn't see them anywhere on the list. Bringing the whole area down. Pick it up folks, the gun store closed, there's no excuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Randolph can be 100% filled with walkers. It’s boundary may even shrink in the upcoming changes. Hopefully the Board will do the right thing and extend Ashlawn south of 50, keep Long Branch partly south of 50, keep south of CP at Fleet, move some of Arlington Ridge to Drew, make key a neighborhood school but extend boundaries further up into Lyon Park. One Arlington. Start focusing on central Arlington and let other overcrowding continue one more year till Reed opens. Just do it all at once. Be bold APS.

There isn't a snowball's chance that APS won't move only the poorest kids and AH zoned to Oakridge -- all of which is in the Oakridge walk zone - to Drew. Including the Berkeley, which is currently being renovated to be twice its current size. When that happens, Arlington ridge will pretend to care about losing their school's diversity but they won't do anything meaningful to protect it. Drew will be well over 50% farms, and Oakridge will prob be 10 or lower.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Randolph can be 100% filled with walkers. It’s boundary may even shrink in the upcoming changes. Hopefully the Board will do the right thing and extend Ashlawn south of 50, keep Long Branch partly south of 50, keep south of CP at Fleet, move some of Arlington Ridge to Drew, make key a neighborhood school but extend boundaries further up into Lyon Park. One Arlington. Start focusing on central Arlington and let other overcrowding continue one more year till Reed opens. Just do it all at once. Be bold APS.

There isn't a snowball's chance that APS won't move only the poorest kids and AH zoned to Oakridge -- all of which is in the Oakridge walk zone - to Drew. Including the Berkeley, which is currently being renovated to be twice its current size. When that happens, Arlington ridge will pretend to care about losing their school's diversity but they won't do anything meaningful to protect it. Drew will be well over 50% farms, and Oakridge will prob be 10 or lower.

How do you know this? Also, when is this decision expected to be made?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Randolph can be 100% filled with walkers. It’s boundary may even shrink in the upcoming changes. Hopefully the Board will do the right thing and extend Ashlawn south of 50, keep Long Branch partly south of 50, keep south of CP at Fleet, move some of Arlington Ridge to Drew, make key a neighborhood school but extend boundaries further up into Lyon Park. One Arlington. Start focusing on central Arlington and let other overcrowding continue one more year till Reed opens. Just do it all at once. Be bold APS.

There isn't a snowball's chance that APS won't move only the poorest kids and AH zoned to Oakridge -- all of which is in the Oakridge walk zone - to Drew. Including the Berkeley, which is currently being renovated to be twice its current size. When that happens, Arlington ridge will pretend to care about losing their school's diversity but they won't do anything meaningful to protect it. Drew will be well over 50% farms, and Oakridge will prob be 10 or lower.

How do you know this? Also, when is this decision expected to be made?

The zones for Drew and the surrounding schools will be presented this fall. I know they will move Arna Valley because of "proximity". Even though Arna Valley is entirely within the Oakridge walk zone walk zone and separated from Drew by an 8 lane freeway whose only crossing is Glebe Rd, itself a four lane artery that crosses highway exit ramps with no pedestrian signals. It's also the least well to do of the Oakridge zones neighborhood. APS wouldn't dare zone a neighborhood that is already riding buses to Oakridge and instead bus them to Drew, because they put up a huge fight and have the resources to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Randolph can be 100% filled with walkers. It’s boundary may even shrink in the upcoming changes. Hopefully the Board will do the right thing and extend Ashlawn south of 50, keep Long Branch partly south of 50, keep south of CP at Fleet, move some of Arlington Ridge to Drew, make key a neighborhood school but extend boundaries further up into Lyon Park. One Arlington. Start focusing on central Arlington and let other overcrowding continue one more year till Reed opens. Just do it all at once. Be bold APS.

There isn't a snowball's chance that APS won't move only the poorest kids and AH zoned to Oakridge -- all of which is in the Oakridge walk zone - to Drew. Including the Berkeley, which is currently being renovated to be twice its current size. When that happens, Arlington ridge will pretend to care about losing their school's diversity but they won't do anything meaningful to protect it. Drew will be well over 50% farms, and Oakridge will prob be 10 or lower.

How do you know this? Also, when is this decision expected to be made?

He doesn’t know it, he’s speculating. And likely wrong.

[Anonymous]

What about barcroft and Carlin springs? Barcroft is a hot mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about barcroft and Carlin springs? Barcroft is a hot mess.

I don’t know why people think Barcroft is for some reason more deserving than other south Arlington schools. Really puzzling to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: When that happens, Arlington ridge will pretend to care about losing their school's diversity but they won't do anything meaningful to protect it. Drew will be well over 50% farms, and Oakridge will prob be 10 or lower.

I live in Arlington Ridge and for us the school's diversity is a huge plus. PLease tell me how to meaningfully protect it, because I am there.

[Anonymous]

I’ll tell you another symptom (cause? effect?) of the North/South divide in APS: teacher turnover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Randolph can be 100% filled with walkers. It’s boundary may even shrink in the upcoming changes. Hopefully the Board will do the right thing and extend Ashlawn south of 50, keep Long Branch partly south of 50, keep south of CP at Fleet, move some of Arlington Ridge to Drew, make key a neighborhood school but extend boundaries further up into Lyon Park. One Arlington. Start focusing on central Arlington and let other overcrowding continue one more year till Reed opens. Just do it all at once. Be bold APS.

There isn't a snowball's chance that APS won't move only the poorest kids and AH zoned to Oakridge -- all of which is in the Oakridge walk zone - to Drew. Including the Berkeley, which is currently being renovated to be twice its current size. When that happens, Arlington ridge will pretend to care about losing their school's diversity but they won't do anything meaningful to protect it. Drew will be well over 50% farms, and Oakridge will prob be 10 or lower.

How do you know this? Also, when is this decision expected to be made?

He doesn’t know it, he’s speculating. And likely wrong.

If he's wrong, what do you think is the likeliest boundary change? When Montessori leaves, Drew will have a lot of empty seats to fill and Oakridge, which is the neighboring zone, is very overcrowded. Saying "no one knows" is disingenuous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: When that happens, Arlington ridge will pretend to care about losing their school's diversity but they won't do anything meaningful to protect it. Drew will be well over 50% farms, and Oakridge will prob be 10 or lower.

I live in Arlington Ridge and for us the school's diversity is a huge plus. PLease tell me how to meaningfully protect it, because I am there.

Don’t fight being rezoned to Hoffman Boston.

[Anonymous]

I hope the Board zones the wealthy areas of Oakridge to Drew. HB can be filled by the apartments near it alone. Sure move the pentagon city parts to HB but that isn’t where most of the kids are. Most of Oakridge is bussed or dropped off so busing over 395 will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So to recap, housing patterns are very segregated so schools are also very segregated. The only way to integrate all schools is extensive bussing, but no one wants their own kids to be required to bus to a school across the county because we all know it takes a long time to go short distances in this county. The only politically viable way to move in the direction of increased integration is moving option schools in the Reed process and drawing some zones across 50 where possible. Probably won’t happen though.

There actually was a lot of support building for the plan that would have moved immersion to Barcroft and Carlin Springs, kept ATS and Campbell where they are and drawn the Ashlawn boundary across 50 before the process was suspended.

In regards to moving the option schools (specifically Key & Claremont) I would love for the SB to revisit that option before Reed opens in a few years. It didn't solve every problem, but at least it could have mitigated some of the issues across several schools. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll tell you another symptom (cause? effect?) of the North/South divide in APS: teacher turnover.

Agreed. And the Board refuses to change the compensation scheme to incentivize teachers to stay in the Title I schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So to recap, housing patterns are very segregated so schools are also very segregated. The only way to integrate all schools is extensive bussing, but no one wants their own kids to be required to bus to a school across the county because we all know it takes a long time to go short distances in this county. The only politically viable way to move in the direction of increased integration is moving option schools in the Reed process and drawing some zones across 50 where possible. Probably won’t happen though.

There actually was a lot of support building for the plan that would have moved immersion to Barcroft and Carlin Springs, kept ATS and Campbell where they are and drawn the Ashlawn boundary across 50 before the process was suspended.

In regards to moving the option schools (specifically Key & Claremont) I would love for the SB to revisit that option before Reed opens in a few years. It didn't solve every problem, but at least it could have mitigated some of the issues across several schools. We can't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Agreed!