50%+ FARMS schools in Arlington
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Anonymous
| We are thinking of our PS options in Arlington. We are looking for honest appraisal on the DRAWBACKS of the elementary schools in the area that are 50%+ FARMS kids. For those with direct experiences on the drawbacks, could you please share some background if you are not a FARMS family. What challenges do these schools tend to deal with as a result of the majority student population of low-income students. |
Anonymous
| Less parent involvement, less active PTA, fewer extra-curriculars like chess club, etc., lower participation in whatever after-school activities do exist, less money for the extras paid for by the PTA, like playground upgrades, equipment to help teachers, etc. |
Anonymous
| A chance the admin cannot juggle the needs of the at-risk kids and the not-at-risk kids (or worse, expects them to be unpaid tutors to the at-risk kids). |
Anonymous
| The attitude from the parents that the school is responsible for everything - from feeding their kid, to making sure they have the right supplies, all the way to behavior issues. You may as a parent feel the need to do things like check your kids homework, read with them, follow up with the teacher but parents who are very young themselves and undereducated or parents who can't speak the language or parents who are just plain too tired from overwork can't or won't do these things. |
Anonymous
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yeah and i know a K FARMS kid who read 800+ books during K year and the mom did classroom volunteer like every other day. great kid/family to be with.
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Anonymous
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I recently moved to N Arlington. I'm zoned to a school that is 50%+ FARMS. Frankly, no matter what the boosters say, I'm just not comfortable with schools with demographics that skewed- I hesitate to believe that stats like that won't affect both socialization and education for my DC. So I will not even consider the elementary school literally a block from my new home in a couple years when DC starts school.
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Anonymous
This response is just ridiculous and certainly not true of our "FARMS" school. Do you actually have first-hand experience with this school or are you just hypothesizing? From my perspective, as a parent of children at a school with a high percentage of lower-income families, the main drawback is guilt. Every time we get hit up to contribute items or money for parties, field trips, t-shirts, etc. I wonder if some of my kids' classmates are going to be able to participate. As a kindergartener, my child told me one of her friends' parents said $7.50 was too much to pay for his daughter's end-of-the-year-picnic. I suppose if you're earning $7.50/hour and your kid usually eats for free then it would be. The other drawback is that the kids who get free/reduced lunch have to wait in the line and have less time for lunch. That means they tend to eat together while the kids who bring their lunch tend to eat together and are often finished before they get their lunch and sit down. This means the class often self-divides (at least at lunchtime) along the lines of higher and lower income students, giving them less time to develop friendships with other kids. Our school has very high parent participation representing all factions, has a lot of after-school activities that are well-attended ranging from after-school classes and activities for the kids to evening events and activities for students and families. Last I knew, we weren't hurting for playground or other equipment either, at least not more than any other elementary school. This whole thread is full of condescending emails written by people who sound like they don't know what they're talking about. |
Anonymous
Didn't you know about the school before you moved into the neighborhood? It seems a bit strange to make a big deal about it now, unless you always planned to go private. |
Anonymous
PP here- yes I knew and make ample income to go private, so we focussed more on the house and area we liked best rather than the school. It still does annoy me though that the country protects so much low-income housing in some areas of N Arlington resulting in such distortions. It doesn't seem sensible to me that with so many professionals with good incomes priced out of N Arlington that so many tracts of low-income housing remain here- I would much rather have Arlington's low-income protected housing turned into middle-income housing so that the subsidies go to those that really need to stay in the area for their livelihood (municipal works, police, teachers etc.). For the rest, really let the market take its course...if people making $100k/year can't afford to buy here, I don't see why it should be an entitlement for those making $25k. |
Anonymous
Interesting, I didn't think this was as big of a problem in true North Arlington anymore but in those areas that bordered close to south Arlington. We have similar problem in Alexandria City. I agree with your argument and don't think low income individuals are entitled to cheap or free housing in prime real estate areas. |
Anonymous
| If you're in North Arlington, I'm guessing you're talking about Barrett? I wouldn't be too concerned. Several of my friends have their kids there and they love it. (and one family has a very high HHI.) I know that's just anecdotal and doesn't mean much statistically, but I suspect Barrett's FARMS numbers will improve a lot as the Buckingham townhouses get farther along in construction. The bright side is that you are really close in to Metro and the area is really walkable; a lot of the "better" (whiter/richer) schools are a lot farther from Metro. (we're in a school boundary with literally 1% FARMS and frankly, I wish it was higher, because I feel like that doesn't really reflect the reality of the area or the world in general.) |
Anonymous
Nice of you to decide who should/shouldn't benefit from low-income housing and location thereof. The diversity of Arlington is what makes it such a great place to live. The schools in Arlington are great across the board. Had DC not gone to immersion school (also socio-economically diverse), we'd have chosen Barrett (which is not our neighborhood school). Snooty, Type-A white parents who're scared of non-white people are going to ruin Arlington. |
Anonymous
16:52 Here: Guess what- not white and I'm not scared of myself, but scared of what decades of informed research has said about educational environments that are low-income dominant- I'm sorry the research is pretty decisive that it ends up affecting educational outcomes for everyone. On the Barrett comment, yes Barrett is what I was referring to. The Buckingham THs though will number under 150, so they want make up for the demographics resulting from the protected garden apartment complexes. The school is likely to remain majority low-income for some time, and I believe it is also Title I. I don't buy the anecdotes, given that I know so many people convincing themselves that a medicore learning environment is "good" for their own personal justification. |
Anonymous
The only low-income apartment complex that feeds into Barrett is the recently renovated Gates of Ballston. And the portion of low income housing in the neighborhood is much, much smaller than it was ten years ago, when virtually the entire neighborhood was low income. Ballston Park across Glebe is market rate and feeds into Long Branch. The buildings south of Pershing are condos for the most part. Gates of Ballston was the only protected area of low-income housing, and there was a long drawn-out battle to keep those apartments far below market rate. The demographics have changed dramatically at Barrett over the past ten years. In the 80s it was majority white; in the 90s it became mostly poor and Hispanic; and over the past 5-10 years it has become very popular with the young families moving into Arlington Forest. The trend over the past few years is a shrinking poor and Latino population and a growing white population. As the school's middle/upper middle class population has grown, it's test scores have dramatically improved, and looking at past threads on this forum one can see that Barrett has developed quite a good reputation. It may not satisfy everyone, but as a neighborhood school, many if not most Arlington Forest parents send their kids there. One can deduce from the demographic data on the APS website that in about two years, Barrett will likely be below 50% low-income. In fact, according to that data, all North Arlington elementary schools are actually becoming less-diverse, and have a shrinking low-income population. |
Anonymous
If you're the OP, it seems like you are writing off Barrett while you are provoking a discussion about the cons of a high low-income population. So why post the original inquiry in the first place, unless you are considering Barrett? Luckily for some of the middle and upper-middle class families moving into Arlington Forest today, the "pioneers" who chose to send their kids to Barrett in the early 2000s ago set in motion a demographic shift that favors a growing middle class/white population. Because of the remaining low income apartments, I highly doubt Barrett will approach the lack of diversity at schools like McKinley, Taylor, Nottingham etc, but the low income population will continue to decline as a proportion of the overall school population. And some parents actually prefer the diverse student body at Barrett over other schools. Personally, I wouldn't be terribly concerned about a school with increasing test scores and a shrinking low income population. |