APS/SA boundary redrawing - meeting tonight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But they also pull out the VPI kids. Every single option school has two VPI classes who are guaranteed spots for K. If you compare the resident vs. actual fr/l numbers at the poorest schools, the kids choosing to attend schools outside of their neighborhoods are helping to balance the poverty levels. The best thing would be to put the option schools in places that have no other way to balance, even better if it's to a school where there aren't that many walkers, as a result of geography/uncrossable roads.

Sure but what is the Data on the number of those kids that stay on in K? I knew several that move back to their neighborhood school after VPI.

Yes it does help balance that out some but MORE upper income people are leaving disticts like Drew to go to Montessori and Immersion than there are VPI kids coming in.

But yes Claremont is a horrible location for a choice school because it IS in a walkable neighborhood and there really isn't another school close to the Columbia Forest and Claremont neighborhoods (Outside of Abingdon) Randolph is the next closest but it can't do busses. So kids are going to have to be bussed somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

But here's the thing: if you do t go to Drew some other neighborhood has to. In this case, it's Columbia Forest. You can run the numbers yourself: both the pu at Henry south of the pike and Columbia Forest have about 200 students. The farms rate for those Henry units south of the pike is about 50% so yes, diverse. Also about half white/Asian.

What about Columbia Forest planning units? It's over 80% disadvantaged. The math here is difficult because in many units, aps says there are more disadvantaged students than there are total students. Likewise, APS figures show Columbia Forest has more black and Hispanic students than total students so it's safe to say it's more racially segregated than the Henry PUs as well.

Basically, when Henry said no, we won't go to Drew aps found a poorer, more minority neighborhood to go to Drew instead, one that definitely worsens Drew's farms rate by its inclusion. And does the students in Columbia Forest no favor either- busing them past two closer schools to attend what will likely be the poorest school in the system.

The problem and the reason for all of this to begin with is that schools like Abingdon are over crowded. Abingdon's boundaries are HUGE and cover a large area, in the past that worked because lost of parents picked immersion and other choice schools so it balanced out. Now that Claremont is not guaranteed admissions and has a wait list more kids are going to default to Abingdon. They needed to break up the Abingdon school zone and moving Columbia Forest was the best way to do it.

With Barcroft Park located where it is and Randolph being a school for only walkers that whole area is going to cut off and island someone.

A good argument for moving immersion from claremont to a school that isn't in the middle of a large neighborhood of SFH.

Yes! Honestly I hate choice schools in general because they tend to make low income schools even lower because the families that choice to leave are more likely to be upper income. However if you are going to have them it would make more sense to have them located central, away from neighborhood and near another school that can be used as a neighborhood school. (Like Carlin Springs and Campbell) but that is not going to happen.

but turning Claremont into a neighborhood school would solve a lot of the Abingdon crowding issues.

I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. Immersion should've moved to Carlin Springs and Claremont should've been a neighborhood school. But they can't move both Immersion programs, so this is where we are. I would like to see the data, however, that more Abingdon families are going to crowd the neighborhood school because they aren't guaranteed at Claremont. ASFS/Key argued the same thing, and it didn't come to pass. Is there anything other than guesses that this has or will happen? Not everybody wants Immersion, especially if it's not close by.

I think the difference was the guaranteed admissions agreement Claremont had with Abingdon.


Abingdon definitely has more K kids this year than in years past but I am not sure of the numbers. Claremont also has sibling preference so some more kids from the Abingdon school district got in because of that this year but that will also change. The majority of Claremont are kids that live in the Abingdon district. (it is something like 80%) The new policy does not give Abingdon preference so that percentage is going to go down.

But here's the thing: Key had the same policy change, with siblings and neighborhood guarantee and everything, and everyone freaked out that the Key kids would start crowding into ASFS if they didn't get in to Key by right. And it did not happen. Claremont also guaranteed admission to anyone residing in Oakridge AND Drew's boundary, as well as Abingdon. Now it's just open countywide. I don't see any reason to believe that kids from Abingdon will be crowded out by other neighborhoods. Abingdon just got an addition, and it was not over capacity this year. Not sure why the Columbia Forest kids have to be pushed into Drew to make space for a crisis that isn't happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But they also pull out the VPI kids. Every single option school has two VPI classes who are guaranteed spots for K. If you compare the resident vs. actual fr/l numbers at the poorest schools, the kids choosing to attend schools outside of their neighborhoods are helping to balance the poverty levels. The best thing would be to put the option schools in places that have no other way to balance, even better if it's to a school where there aren't that many walkers, as a result of geography/uncrossable roads.

Sure but what is the Data on the number of those kids that stay on in K? I knew several that move back to their neighborhood school after VPI.

Yes it does help balance that out some but MORE upper income people are leaving disticts like Drew to go to Montessori and Immersion than there are VPI kids coming in.

But yes Claremont is a horrible location for a choice school because it IS in a walkable neighborhood and there really isn't another school close to the Columbia Forest and Claremont neighborhoods (Outside of Abingdon) Randolph is the next closest but it can't do busses. So kids are going to have to be bussed somewhere.

It's 100% at ATS and pretty close to that at Campbell. Not sure about the numbers for Immersion, but it's probably similar, other wise the poverty level at Randolph would be into the 90s, rather than "just" 70%. Montessori has no VPI kids, so that's absolutely a problem, one that could be fixed by changing the fee structure (making it free for a percentage of very low-income families and charging slightly more at the upper end of the sliding scale).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

But here's the thing: if you do t go to Drew some other neighborhood has to. In this case, it's Columbia Forest. You can run the numbers yourself: both the pu at Henry south of the pike and Columbia Forest have about 200 students. The farms rate for those Henry units south of the pike is about 50% so yes, diverse. Also about half white/Asian.

What about Columbia Forest planning units? It's over 80% disadvantaged. The math here is difficult because in many units, aps says there are more disadvantaged students than there are total students. Likewise, APS figures show Columbia Forest has more black and Hispanic students than total students so it's safe to say it's more racially segregated than the Henry PUs as well.

Basically, when Henry said no, we won't go to Drew aps found a poorer, more minority neighborhood to go to Drew instead, one that definitely worsens Drew's farms rate by its inclusion. And does the students in Columbia Forest no favor either- busing them past two closer schools to attend what will likely be the poorest school in the system.

The problem and the reason for all of this to begin with is that schools like Abingdon are over crowded. Abingdon's boundaries are HUGE and cover a large area, in the past that worked because lost of parents picked immersion and other choice schools so it balanced out. Now that Claremont is not guaranteed admissions and has a wait list more kids are going to default to Abingdon. They needed to break up the Abingdon school zone and moving Columbia Forest was the best way to do it.

With Barcroft Park located where it is and Randolph being a school for only walkers that whole area is going to cut off and island someone.

A good argument for moving immersion from claremont to a school that isn't in the middle of a large neighborhood of SFH.

Yes! Honestly I hate choice schools in general because they tend to make low income schools even lower because the families that choice to leave are more likely to be upper income. However if you are going to have them it would make more sense to have them located central, away from neighborhood and near another school that can be used as a neighborhood school. (Like Carlin Springs and Campbell) but that is not going to happen.

but turning Claremont into a neighborhood school would solve a lot of the Abingdon crowding issues.

I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. Immersion should've moved to Carlin Springs and Claremont should've been a neighborhood school. But they can't move both Immersion programs, so this is where we are. I would like to see the data, however, that more Abingdon families are going to crowd the neighborhood school because they aren't guaranteed at Claremont. ASFS/Key argued the same thing, and it didn't come to pass. Is there anything other than guesses that this has or will happen? Not everybody wants Immersion, especially if it's not close by.

I think the difference was the guaranteed admissions agreement Claremont had with Abingdon.


Abingdon definitely has more K kids this year than in years past but I am not sure of the numbers. Claremont also has sibling preference so some more kids from the Abingdon school district got in because of that this year but that will also change. The majority of Claremont are kids that live in the Abingdon district. (it is something like 80%) The new policy does not give Abingdon preference so that percentage is going to go down.

But here's the thing: Key had the same policy change, with siblings and neighborhood guarantee and everything, and everyone freaked out that the Key kids would start crowding into ASFS if they didn't get in to Key by right. And it did not happen. Claremont also guaranteed admission to anyone residing in Oakridge AND Drew's boundary, as well as Abingdon. Now it's just open countywide. I don't see any reason to believe that kids from Abingdon will be crowded out by other neighborhoods. Abingdon just got an addition, and it was not over capacity this year. Not sure why the Columbia Forest kids have to be pushed into Drew to make space for a crisis that isn't happening.

ummm? They already have kids in basement rooms at Abingdon with no windows, rooms that were not designed to be classrooms. They have already run out of space. I do not have the numbers for this year yet but yeah they are close to if not over capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

But here's the thing: if you do t go to Drew some other neighborhood has to. In this case, it's Columbia Forest. You can run the numbers yourself: both the pu at Henry south of the pike and Columbia Forest have about 200 students. The farms rate for those Henry units south of the pike is about 50% so yes, diverse. Also about half white/Asian.

What about Columbia Forest planning units? It's over 80% disadvantaged. The math here is difficult because in many units, aps says there are more disadvantaged students than there are total students. Likewise, APS figures show Columbia Forest has more black and Hispanic students than total students so it's safe to say it's more racially segregated than the Henry PUs as well.

Basically, when Henry said no, we won't go to Drew aps found a poorer, more minority neighborhood to go to Drew instead, one that definitely worsens Drew's farms rate by its inclusion. And does the students in Columbia Forest no favor either- busing them past two closer schools to attend what will likely be the poorest school in the system.

The problem and the reason for all of this to begin with is that schools like Abingdon are over crowded. Abingdon's boundaries are HUGE and cover a large area, in the past that worked because lost of parents picked immersion and other choice schools so it balanced out. Now that Claremont is not guaranteed admissions and has a wait list more kids are going to default to Abingdon. They needed to break up the Abingdon school zone and moving Columbia Forest was the best way to do it.

With Barcroft Park located where it is and Randolph being a school for only walkers that whole area is going to cut off and island someone.

A good argument for moving immersion from claremont to a school that isn't in the middle of a large neighborhood of SFH.

Yes! Honestly I hate choice schools in general because they tend to make low income schools even lower because the families that choice to leave are more likely to be upper income. However if you are going to have them it would make more sense to have them located central, away from neighborhood and near another school that can be used as a neighborhood school. (Like Carlin Springs and Campbell) but that is not going to happen.

but turning Claremont into a neighborhood school would solve a lot of the Abingdon crowding issues.

I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. Immersion should've moved to Carlin Springs and Claremont should've been a neighborhood school. But they can't move both Immersion programs, so this is where we are. I would like to see the data, however, that more Abingdon families are going to crowd the neighborhood school because they aren't guaranteed at Claremont. ASFS/Key argued the same thing, and it didn't come to pass. Is there anything other than guesses that this has or will happen? Not everybody wants Immersion, especially if it's not close by.

I think the difference was the guaranteed admissions agreement Claremont had with Abingdon.


Abingdon definitely has more K kids this year than in years past but I am not sure of the numbers. Claremont also has sibling preference so some more kids from the Abingdon school district got in because of that this year but that will also change. The majority of Claremont are kids that live in the Abingdon district. (it is something like 80%) The new policy does not give Abingdon preference so that percentage is going to go down.

But here's the thing: Key had the same policy change, with siblings and neighborhood guarantee and everything, and everyone freaked out that the Key kids would start crowding into ASFS if they didn't get in to Key by right. And it did not happen. Claremont also guaranteed admission to anyone residing in Oakridge AND Drew's boundary, as well as Abingdon. Now it's just open countywide. I don't see any reason to believe that kids from Abingdon will be crowded out by other neighborhoods. Abingdon just got an addition, and it was not over capacity this year. Not sure why the Columbia Forest kids have to be pushed into Drew to make space for a crisis that isn't happening.

This is the first year for the new policy at Key, and they had one more K class than last year. So trend is still early and it is already higher for one year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

I tried to do some rough, back of the envelope calculations, and making assumptions in favor of the Drew parents on this Board (e.g., that all ED kids would be replaced by non-ED kids), it seems like moving those south-of-Columbia Pike Henry PUs to Drew would decrease Drew's poverty rate by about 10-15 percent.

I agree with the Drew parents that pulling in Columbia Heights is wrong on many levels, but I agree with Henry parents that tearing apart a school community is not the way to "improve" Drew. For example, when Montessori made its own PTA, they were assuming that Oakridge parents were coming to "save" Drew. But, it's my understanding that Nauck CA has worked hard over the past 2 years to prevent that from happening.

Can you elaborate on the Nauck CA point and the Montessori PTA point? I've seen reference to at least the former a couple of times on this thread. I can see how the community would be resentful of some white-savior type motif, but Drew can't be filled with Nauck proper. It's too small. As to the PTA, currently the Montessori is running an entirely separate administration, including PTA, this year to prepare for the transition. I'm not sure why Oakridge is a more sensible zone to draw from than Henry, but also not sure why its relevant either way.

PP is making stuff up. My understanding is they didn't want the units that were most proximate to Drew (aka The Berkley) to be moved in because that would increase the poverty at Drew even further, while making Oakrdige less diverse. Nobody was ever talking about busing in Arlington Ridge or Aurora Highlands. That was never going to happen, and anyone who thinks the Nauck CA could've made that happen doesn't know anything about anything.

Pffft. The "they" trying to keep out the Berkeley are the white gentrifiers. You need to talk to the older generation that runs Nauck CA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

But here's the thing: if you do t go to Drew some other neighborhood has to. In this case, it's Columbia Forest. You can run the numbers yourself: both the pu at Henry south of the pike and Columbia Forest have about 200 students. The farms rate for those Henry units south of the pike is about 50% so yes, diverse. Also about half white/Asian.

What about Columbia Forest planning units? It's over 80% disadvantaged. The math here is difficult because in many units, aps says there are more disadvantaged students than there are total students. Likewise, APS figures show Columbia Forest has more black and Hispanic students than total students so it's safe to say it's more racially segregated than the Henry PUs as well.

Basically, when Henry said no, we won't go to Drew aps found a poorer, more minority neighborhood to go to Drew instead, one that definitely worsens Drew's farms rate by its inclusion. And does the students in Columbia Forest no favor either- busing them past two closer schools to attend what will likely be the poorest school in the system.

The problem and the reason for all of this to begin with is that schools like Abingdon are over crowded. Abingdon's boundaries are HUGE and cover a large area, in the past that worked because lost of parents picked immersion and other choice schools so it balanced out. Now that Claremont is not guaranteed admissions and has a wait list more kids are going to default to Abingdon. They needed to break up the Abingdon school zone and moving Columbia Forest was the best way to do it.

With Barcroft Park located where it is and Randolph being a school for only walkers that whole area is going to cut off and island someone.

A good argument for moving immersion from claremont to a school that isn't in the middle of a large neighborhood of SFH.

Yes! Honestly I hate choice schools in general because they tend to make low income schools even lower because the families that choice to leave are more likely to be upper income. However if you are going to have them it would make more sense to have them located central, away from neighborhood and near another school that can be used as a neighborhood school. (Like Carlin Springs and Campbell) but that is not going to happen.

but turning Claremont into a neighborhood school would solve a lot of the Abingdon crowding issues.

I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. Immersion should've moved to Carlin Springs and Claremont should've been a neighborhood school. But they can't move both Immersion programs, so this is where we are. I would like to see the data, however, that more Abingdon families are going to crowd the neighborhood school because they aren't guaranteed at Claremont. ASFS/Key argued the same thing, and it didn't come to pass. Is there anything other than guesses that this has or will happen? Not everybody wants Immersion, especially if it's not close by.

I think the difference was the guaranteed admissions agreement Claremont had with Abingdon.


Abingdon definitely has more K kids this year than in years past but I am not sure of the numbers. Claremont also has sibling preference so some more kids from the Abingdon school district got in because of that this year but that will also change. The majority of Claremont are kids that live in the Abingdon district. (it is something like 80%) The new policy does not give Abingdon preference so that percentage is going to go down.

But here's the thing: Key had the same policy change, with siblings and neighborhood guarantee and everything, and everyone freaked out that the Key kids would start crowding into ASFS if they didn't get in to Key by right. And it did not happen. Claremont also guaranteed admission to anyone residing in Oakridge AND Drew's boundary, as well as Abingdon. Now it's just open countywide. I don't see any reason to believe that kids from Abingdon will be crowded out by other neighborhoods. Abingdon just got an addition, and it was not over capacity this year. Not sure why the Columbia Forest kids have to be pushed into Drew to make space for a crisis that isn't happening.

This is the first year for the new policy at Key, and they had one more K class than last year. So trend is still early and it is already higher for one year.

But ASFS, the neighborhood alternative, did not have an explosion of students, as feared. I think the same is true for Abingdon. There won't suddenly be dozens more kids who didn't get into Immersion showing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

I tried to do some rough, back of the envelope calculations, and making assumptions in favor of the Drew parents on this Board (e.g., that all ED kids would be replaced by non-ED kids), it seems like moving those south-of-Columbia Pike Henry PUs to Drew would decrease Drew's poverty rate by about 10-15 percent.

I agree with the Drew parents that pulling in Columbia Heights is wrong on many levels, but I agree with Henry parents that tearing apart a school community is not the way to "improve" Drew. For example, when Montessori made its own PTA, they were assuming that Oakridge parents were coming to "save" Drew. But, it's my understanding that Nauck CA has worked hard over the past 2 years to prevent that from happening.

Can you elaborate on the Nauck CA point and the Montessori PTA point? I've seen reference to at least the former a couple of times on this thread. I can see how the community would be resentful of some white-savior type motif, but Drew can't be filled with Nauck proper. It's too small. As to the PTA, currently the Montessori is running an entirely separate administration, including PTA, this year to prepare for the transition. I'm not sure why Oakridge is a more sensible zone to draw from than Henry, but also not sure why its relevant either way.

PP is making stuff up. My understanding is they didn't want the units that were most proximate to Drew (aka The Berkley) to be moved in because that would increase the poverty at Drew even further, while making Oakrdige less diverse. Nobody was ever talking about busing in Arlington Ridge or Aurora Highlands. That was never going to happen, and anyone who thinks the Nauck CA could've made that happen doesn't know anything about anything.

Pffft. The "they" trying to keep out the Berkeley are the white gentrifiers. You need to talk to the older generation that runs Nauck CA.

It doesn't matter, they were never proposing to move anyone other than The Berkley to Drew. Are you trying to tell me Portia cherry-picked Columbia Forest over the Fleet PUs. No. GMAFB. What's one white neighborhood vs. another one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

But here's the thing: if you do t go to Drew some other neighborhood has to. In this case, it's Columbia Forest. You can run the numbers yourself: both the pu at Henry south of the pike and Columbia Forest have about 200 students. The farms rate for those Henry units south of the pike is about 50% so yes, diverse. Also about half white/Asian.

What about Columbia Forest planning units? It's over 80% disadvantaged. The math here is difficult because in many units, aps says there are more disadvantaged students than there are total students. Likewise, APS figures show Columbia Forest has more black and Hispanic students than total students so it's safe to say it's more racially segregated than the Henry PUs as well.

Basically, when Henry said no, we won't go to Drew aps found a poorer, more minority neighborhood to go to Drew instead, one that definitely worsens Drew's farms rate by its inclusion. And does the students in Columbia Forest no favor either- busing them past two closer schools to attend what will likely be the poorest school in the system.

The problem and the reason for all of this to begin with is that schools like Abingdon are over crowded. Abingdon's boundaries are HUGE and cover a large area, in the past that worked because lost of parents picked immersion and other choice schools so it balanced out. Now that Claremont is not guaranteed admissions and has a wait list more kids are going to default to Abingdon. They needed to break up the Abingdon school zone and moving Columbia Forest was the best way to do it.

With Barcroft Park located where it is and Randolph being a school for only walkers that whole area is going to cut off and island someone.

A good argument for moving immersion from claremont to a school that isn't in the middle of a large neighborhood of SFH.

Yes! Honestly I hate choice schools in general because they tend to make low income schools even lower because the families that choice to leave are more likely to be upper income. However if you are going to have them it would make more sense to have them located central, away from neighborhood and near another school that can be used as a neighborhood school. (Like Carlin Springs and Campbell) but that is not going to happen.

but turning Claremont into a neighborhood school would solve a lot of the Abingdon crowding issues.

I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. Immersion should've moved to Carlin Springs and Claremont should've been a neighborhood school. But they can't move both Immersion programs, so this is where we are. I would like to see the data, however, that more Abingdon families are going to crowd the neighborhood school because they aren't guaranteed at Claremont. ASFS/Key argued the same thing, and it didn't come to pass. Is there anything other than guesses that this has or will happen? Not everybody wants Immersion, especially if it's not close by.

I think the difference was the guaranteed admissions agreement Claremont had with Abingdon.


Abingdon definitely has more K kids this year than in years past but I am not sure of the numbers. Claremont also has sibling preference so some more kids from the Abingdon school district got in because of that this year but that will also change. The majority of Claremont are kids that live in the Abingdon district. (it is something like 80%) The new policy does not give Abingdon preference so that percentage is going to go down.

But here's the thing: Key had the same policy change, with siblings and neighborhood guarantee and everything, and everyone freaked out that the Key kids would start crowding into ASFS if they didn't get in to Key by right. And it did not happen. Claremont also guaranteed admission to anyone residing in Oakridge AND Drew's boundary, as well as Abingdon. Now it's just open countywide. I don't see any reason to believe that kids from Abingdon will be crowded out by other neighborhoods. Abingdon just got an addition, and it was not over capacity this year. Not sure why the Columbia Forest kids have to be pushed into Drew to make space for a crisis that isn't happening.

This is the first year for the new policy at Key, and they had one more K class than last year. So trend is still early and it is already higher for one year.

But ASFS, the neighborhood alternative, did not have an explosion of students, as feared. I think the same is true for Abingdon. There won't suddenly be dozens more kids who didn't get into Immersion showing up.

Because the Key community did a massive public outreach effort to make sure people knew they could attend Key and help the understand the application process. APS cannot continue to keep letting parents do it's job for them. These families would absolutely have ended up at ASF had it not been for the Key outreach efforts.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

But here's the thing: if you do t go to Drew some other neighborhood has to. In this case, it's Columbia Forest. You can run the numbers yourself: both the pu at Henry south of the pike and Columbia Forest have about 200 students. The farms rate for those Henry units south of the pike is about 50% so yes, diverse. Also about half white/Asian.

What about Columbia Forest planning units? It's over 80% disadvantaged. The math here is difficult because in many units, aps says there are more disadvantaged students than there are total students. Likewise, APS figures show Columbia Forest has more black and Hispanic students than total students so it's safe to say it's more racially segregated than the Henry PUs as well.

Basically, when Henry said no, we won't go to Drew aps found a poorer, more minority neighborhood to go to Drew instead, one that definitely worsens Drew's farms rate by its inclusion. And does the students in Columbia Forest no favor either- busing them past two closer schools to attend what will likely be the poorest school in the system.

The problem and the reason for all of this to begin with is that schools like Abingdon are over crowded. Abingdon's boundaries are HUGE and cover a large area, in the past that worked because lost of parents picked immersion and other choice schools so it balanced out. Now that Claremont is not guaranteed admissions and has a wait list more kids are going to default to Abingdon. They needed to break up the Abingdon school zone and moving Columbia Forest was the best way to do it.

With Barcroft Park located where it is and Randolph being a school for only walkers that whole area is going to cut off and island someone.

A good argument for moving immersion from claremont to a school that isn't in the middle of a large neighborhood of SFH.

Yes! Honestly I hate choice schools in general because they tend to make low income schools even lower because the families that choice to leave are more likely to be upper income. However if you are going to have them it would make more sense to have them located central, away from neighborhood and near another school that can be used as a neighborhood school. (Like Carlin Springs and Campbell) but that is not going to happen.

but turning Claremont into a neighborhood school would solve a lot of the Abingdon crowding issues.

I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. Immersion should've moved to Carlin Springs and Claremont should've been a neighborhood school. But they can't move both Immersion programs, so this is where we are. I would like to see the data, however, that more Abingdon families are going to crowd the neighborhood school because they aren't guaranteed at Claremont. ASFS/Key argued the same thing, and it didn't come to pass. Is there anything other than guesses that this has or will happen? Not everybody wants Immersion, especially if it's not close by.

I think the difference was the guaranteed admissions agreement Claremont had with Abingdon.


Abingdon definitely has more K kids this year than in years past but I am not sure of the numbers. Claremont also has sibling preference so some more kids from the Abingdon school district got in because of that this year but that will also change. The majority of Claremont are kids that live in the Abingdon district. (it is something like 80%) The new policy does not give Abingdon preference so that percentage is going to go down.

But here's the thing: Key had the same policy change, with siblings and neighborhood guarantee and everything, and everyone freaked out that the Key kids would start crowding into ASFS if they didn't get in to Key by right. And it did not happen. Claremont also guaranteed admission to anyone residing in Oakridge AND Drew's boundary, as well as Abingdon. Now it's just open countywide. I don't see any reason to believe that kids from Abingdon will be crowded out by other neighborhoods. Abingdon just got an addition, and it was not over capacity this year. Not sure why the Columbia Forest kids have to be pushed into Drew to make space for a crisis that isn't happening.

This is the first year for the new policy at Key, and they had one more K class than last year. So trend is still early and it is already higher for one year.

But ASFS, the neighborhood alternative, did not have an explosion of students, as feared. I think the same is true for Abingdon. There won't suddenly be dozens more kids who didn't get into Immersion showing up.

Because the Key community did a massive public outreach effort to make sure people knew they could attend Key and help the understand the application process. APS cannot continue to keep letting parents do it's job for them. These families would absolutely have ended up at ASF had it not been for the Key outreach efforts.

But that's different than what PP is saying. What I am saying is there is no evidence that people who live close to option schools are going to be crowded out simply because they lost neighborhood preference, leading to massive overcrowding at the nearest neighborhood school. The majority of people apply to the option schools that are close to where they live. Kids who live nearest to Claremont are not going to be routed by a bunch of families from East Falls Church.

[Anonymous]

Abingdon can help when families come, they can help inform them of the Claremont option. This all assumes the timelines for application to the lottery has not passed of course.

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Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

But here's the thing: if you do t go to Drew some other neighborhood has to. In this case, it's Columbia Forest. You can run the numbers yourself: both the pu at Henry south of the pike and Columbia Forest have about 200 students. The farms rate for those Henry units south of the pike is about 50% so yes, diverse. Also about half white/Asian.

What about Columbia Forest planning units? It's over 80% disadvantaged. The math here is difficult because in many units, aps says there are more disadvantaged students than there are total students. Likewise, APS figures show Columbia Forest has more black and Hispanic students than total students so it's safe to say it's more racially segregated than the Henry PUs as well.

Basically, when Henry said no, we won't go to Drew aps found a poorer, more minority neighborhood to go to Drew instead, one that definitely worsens Drew's farms rate by its inclusion. And does the students in Columbia Forest no favor either- busing them past two closer schools to attend what will likely be the poorest school in the system.

The problem and the reason for all of this to begin with is that schools like Abingdon are over crowded. Abingdon's boundaries are HUGE and cover a large area, in the past that worked because lost of parents picked immersion and other choice schools so it balanced out. Now that Claremont is not guaranteed admissions and has a wait list more kids are going to default to Abingdon. They needed to break up the Abingdon school zone and moving Columbia Forest was the best way to do it.

With Barcroft Park located where it is and Randolph being a school for only walkers that whole area is going to cut off and island someone.

A good argument for moving immersion from claremont to a school that isn't in the middle of a large neighborhood of SFH.

Yes! Honestly I hate choice schools in general because they tend to make low income schools even lower because the families that choice to leave are more likely to be upper income. However if you are going to have them it would make more sense to have them located central, away from neighborhood and near another school that can be used as a neighborhood school. (Like Carlin Springs and Campbell) but that is not going to happen.

but turning Claremont into a neighborhood school would solve a lot of the Abingdon crowding issues.

I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. Immersion should've moved to Carlin Springs and Claremont should've been a neighborhood school. But they can't move both Immersion programs, so this is where we are. I would like to see the data, however, that more Abingdon families are going to crowd the neighborhood school because they aren't guaranteed at Claremont. ASFS/Key argued the same thing, and it didn't come to pass. Is there anything other than guesses that this has or will happen? Not everybody wants Immersion, especially if it's not close by.

I think the difference was the guaranteed admissions agreement Claremont had with Abingdon.


Abingdon definitely has more K kids this year than in years past but I am not sure of the numbers. Claremont also has sibling preference so some more kids from the Abingdon school district got in because of that this year but that will also change. The majority of Claremont are kids that live in the Abingdon district. (it is something like 80%) The new policy does not give Abingdon preference so that percentage is going to go down.

But here's the thing: Key had the same policy change, with siblings and neighborhood guarantee and everything, and everyone freaked out that the Key kids would start crowding into ASFS if they didn't get in to Key by right. And it did not happen. Claremont also guaranteed admission to anyone residing in Oakridge AND Drew's boundary, as well as Abingdon. Now it's just open countywide. I don't see any reason to believe that kids from Abingdon will be crowded out by other neighborhoods. Abingdon just got an addition, and it was not over capacity this year. Not sure why the Columbia Forest kids have to be pushed into Drew to make space for a crisis that isn't happening.

This is the first year for the new policy at Key, and they had one more K class than last year. So trend is still early and it is already higher for one year.

But ASFS, the neighborhood alternative, did not have an explosion of students, as feared. I think the same is true for Abingdon. There won't suddenly be dozens more kids who didn't get into Immersion showing up.

Because the Key community did a massive public outreach effort to make sure people knew they could attend Key and help the understand the application process. APS cannot continue to keep letting parents do it's job for them. These families would absolutely have ended up at ASF had it not been for the Key outreach efforts.

But that's different than what PP is saying. What I am saying is there is no evidence that people who live close to option schools are going to be crowded out simply because they lost neighborhood preference, leading to massive overcrowding at the nearest neighborhood school. The majority of people apply to the option schools that are close to where they live. Kids who live nearest to Claremont are not going to be routed by a bunch of families from East Falls Church.

Also, I agree with your point about APS not publicizing or doing enough outreach about the options to ELL and ED families.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure they will have some new 'exciting' videos and twitter feeds and there you go problem solved.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants. Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals. Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew.

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.

I tried to do some rough, back of the envelope calculations, and making assumptions in favor of the Drew parents on this Board (e.g., that all ED kids would be replaced by non-ED kids), it seems like moving those south-of-Columbia Pike Henry PUs to Drew would decrease Drew's poverty rate by about 10-15 percent.

I agree with the Drew parents that pulling in Columbia Heights is wrong on many levels, but I agree with Henry parents that tearing apart a school community is not the way to "improve" Drew. For example, when Montessori made its own PTA, they were assuming that Oakridge parents were coming to "save" Drew. But, it's my understanding that Nauck CA has worked hard over the past 2 years to prevent that from happening.

Can you elaborate on the Nauck CA point and the Montessori PTA point? I've seen reference to at least the former a couple of times on this thread. I can see how the community would be resentful of some white-savior type motif, but Drew can't be filled with Nauck proper. It's too small. As to the PTA, currently the Montessori is running an entirely separate administration, including PTA, this year to prepare for the transition. I'm not sure why Oakridge is a more sensible zone to draw from than Henry, but also not sure why its relevant either way.

PP is making stuff up. My understanding is they didn't want the units that were most proximate to Drew (aka The Berkley) to be moved in because that would increase the poverty at Drew even further, while making Oakrdige less diverse. Nobody was ever talking about busing in Arlington Ridge or Aurora Highlands. That was never going to happen, and anyone who thinks the Nauck CA could've made that happen doesn't know anything about anything.

Pffft. The "they" trying to keep out the Berkeley are the white gentrifiers. You need to talk to the older generation that runs Nauck CA.

It doesn't matter, they were never proposing to move anyone other than The Berkley to Drew. Are you trying to tell me Portia cherry-picked Columbia Forest over the Fleet PUs. No. GMAFB. What's one white neighborhood vs. another one?

You have a short memory (or were not involved in the South Arlington working group). APS said from the very very beginning that if Montessori moved, Drew’s new boundaries would come from Hoffman Boston and Oakridge. Go back and read the SAWG community forum notes. You can’t find them in APS’s site but they are cached in google.

[Anonymous]

^^^I wasn't in the SAWG but I did go to the meetings about what was going to happen at Drew. The parent and PTA communities from Abingdon, Henry, Hoffman-Boston, Oakridge, and I think Randolph too were all participating from the start, because those schools could potentially send students to Drew. I frankly do not understand how there could have been any sort of commitment to draw from only Hoffman-Boston and Oakridge, because doing so doesn't make geographical or numeric sense.