the Key/ASFS building switch...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are 3 unused classrooms in that building that APS has refused to rehab because it's cost-prohibitive.

I can't understand how the classrooms can't be fixed up so they can be used. There must be something about them I don't understand.

They have to be dug out. Not trivial work. Suspect they knew they were swapping eventually and could just resize Immersion to fit.

DP. What do you mean by dug out? I've never been in the building/

They are like cellar rooms, for storage. Need to dig down to make height of regular room.

[Anonymous]

Seriously, what is the terror for a smaller program — most parents prefer smaller schools.

Two issues: (1) people who believe in immersion want the program to be available to anyone who is interested. Shrinking the program risks excluding kids who want the program and would benefit.

(2) A bigger program means a louder voice when APS suggests changes which might be detrimental to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No way. Suggesting schools take a public park is a complete non-starter as PP suggested. There are places to acquire land but the County and APS can't work together to sharpen pencils let alone plan for more than 20 minutes in the future.

I think you are probably right, but this would be a little different because it would be taking a park and turning it into a school playground, which is kind of like a park.

Not to the senior citizens who are the powerful voting bloc you are going to antagonize in the process.

Are there a lot of senior citizens hanging out at the playground and the sprayground at Hayes Park?

Many senior citizens use the tennis court and walking path during the day, and they'd be pretty upset to lose access to it all day.

I have a kid at ASFS. I’d rather have him bused out to Taylor than lose Hayes. It’s a great park that serves the greater community. APS/County should make better use of the space they already have instead of losing green space. Or look at vacant office space. Don’t touch the parks though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Seriously, what is the terror for a smaller program — most parents prefer smaller schools.

Two issues: (1) people who believe in immersion want the program to be available to anyone who is interested. Shrinking the program risks excluding kids who want the program and would benefit.

(2) A bigger program means a louder voice when APS suggests changes which might be detrimental to it.

The vast majority of people who want Immersion do so to avoid sub-par neighborhood schools, hence why so many non-native on the waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

3. The school board mostly agreed with APS and requested that they make a direct announcement in hopes that they would lessen debate and angst. The school board was given two options for presenting this, they went with the most open and direct communication (as opposed to having them be options during the boundary revision). Postponing making key into a neighborhood school until 2020 or 2021 gives them time to figure out if there needs to be two neighborhood schools in the area, or if there is a better place for the immersion program.
4. The main concern both APS and the school board has is that the immersion program is too large for the current ASFS building. There were questions about how to build the building out as quickly as possible. Its interesting that building out asfs when it was a neighborhood school was never really discussed, but its being seriously considered since the building may house an option program. I think this speaks volumes to the commitment that APS has to maintaining the immersion program.

I hope you're right about number 3 (and that APS will actually look at the data gathered over the next couple of years and decide then whether to really do the swap or send Key somewhere else).

I think you are wrong about number 4. APS is never going to build out ASFS if Immersion goes there. There are 3 unused classrooms in that building that APS has refused to rehab because it's cost-prohibitive. If they weren't willing to do that for permanent seats, they are not going to do it for option seats. They are sending Key to ASFS to slowly die.

DP. While I agree with you that they are unlikely to build out ASFS for the immersion program, they are not sending the program there to die. Keeping the program to 600 kids instead of 700 will not kill it. Let's drop the histrionics, hmm?

Read the second link that op posted. A direct quote from a school board member is “we need to build asfs out as soon as possible”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

3. The school board mostly agreed with APS and requested that they make a direct announcement in hopes that they would lessen debate and angst. The school board was given two options for presenting this, they went with the most open and direct communication (as opposed to having them be options during the boundary revision). Postponing making key into a neighborhood school until 2020 or 2021 gives them time to figure out if there needs to be two neighborhood schools in the area, or if there is a better place for the immersion program.
4. The main concern both APS and the school board has is that the immersion program is too large for the current ASFS building. There were questions about how to build the building out as quickly as possible. Its interesting that building out asfs when it was a neighborhood school was never really discussed, but its being seriously considered since the building may house an option program. I think this speaks volumes to the commitment that APS has to maintaining the immersion program.

I hope you're right about number 3 (and that APS will actually look at the data gathered over the next couple of years and decide then whether to really do the swap or send Key somewhere else).

I think you are wrong about number 4. APS is never going to build out ASFS if Immersion goes there. There are 3 unused classrooms in that building that APS has refused to rehab because it's cost-prohibitive. If they weren't willing to do that for permanent seats, they are not going to do it for option seats. They are sending Key to ASFS to slowly die.

DP. While I agree with you that they are unlikely to build out ASFS for the immersion program, they are not sending the program there to die. Keeping the program to 600 kids instead of 700 will not kill it. Let's drop the histrionics, hmm?

Read the second link that op posted. A direct quote from a school board member is “we need to build asfs out as soon as possible”.

LOL, are you new here? School board members say things all the time that don't reflect reality but do reflect what their constituents want to hear. Remember how in the work session all of the board members expressed grave concern about the whole swap idea and made out like that was the first time they'd heard about it, even though we now have the memos to show that there had been significant discussion between the staff and the board prior to that meeting about the swap and how to present it to the community?

[Anonymous]

The vast majority of people who want Immersion do so to avoid sub-par neighborhood schools, hence why so many non-native on the waitlist.

That's certainly a common belief, particularly amongst those who are (depending on your perspective) either hostile to immersion or not in favor of immersion. I don't know if there is any data to support or refute this hypothesis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The vast majority of people who want Immersion do so to avoid sub-par neighborhood schools, hence why so many non-native on the waitlist.

That's certainly a common belief, particularly amongst those who are (depending on your perspective) either hostile to immersion or not in favor of immersion. I don't know if there is any data to support or refute this hypothesis.

And I don't think its true that the vast majority of immersion students come from "sub-par neigborhood schools." For example, Key has 404 transfer students. Of those 404, at least 245 are from what I think most people would agree are not sub-par neighborhood schools: Discovery (19), Jamestown (18), Long Branch (90), Patrick Henry (32) and Taylor (86), plus the roughly 300 kids who are from the ASFS zone. (See this document: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Transfer-Report-2017-18.pdf). Claremont has more kids from schools perceived by some as sub-par, but by now I think many are pretty comfortable with Abington (231 at Claremont) and Oakridge (92).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The vast majority of people who want Immersion do so to avoid sub-par neighborhood schools, hence why so many non-native on the waitlist.

That's certainly a common belief, particularly amongst those who are (depending on your perspective) either hostile to immersion or not in favor of immersion. I don't know if there is any data to support or refute this hypothesis.

And I don't think its true that the vast majority of immersion students come from "sub-par neigborhood schools." For example, Key has 404 transfer students. Of those 404, at least 245 are from what I think most people would agree are not sub-par neighborhood schools: Discovery (19), Jamestown (18), Long Branch (90), Patrick Henry (32) and Taylor (86), plus the roughly 300 kids who are from the ASFS zone. (See this document: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Transfer-Report-2017-18.pdf). Claremont has more kids from schools perceived by some as sub-par, but by now I think many are pretty comfortable with Abington (231 at Claremont) and Oakridge (92).

Long Branch and Taylor attndees are about proximity, both those schools are at the far end of their zone. If you are going to metro anyways, it’s a no-brained.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ESZones_Letter_2018_web.pdf

Whoa, 19 from Discovery! Probably got vertigo from the slide.

What is more telling will be the long waitlist you are saying needs to be met.

[Anonymous]

Long Branch and Taylor attndees are about proximity, both those schools are at the far end of their zone. If you are going to metro anyways, it’s a no-brained.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ESZones_Letter_2018_web.pdf

Whoa, 19 from Discovery! Probably got vertigo from the slide.

What is more telling will be the long waitlist you are saying needs to be met.

As I've said a few times, its possible that if the program is moved, the demand for it will go down, but I don't think the evidence is there to say for sure that will happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No way. Suggesting schools take a public park is a complete non-starter as PP suggested. There are places to acquire land but the County and APS can't work together to sharpen pencils let alone plan for more than 20 minutes in the future.

I think you are probably right, but this would be a little different because it would be taking a park and turning it into a school playground, which is kind of like a park.

Not to the senior citizens who are the powerful voting bloc you are going to antagonize in the process.

Are there a lot of senior citizens hanging out at the playground and the sprayground at Hayes Park?

Many senior citizens use the tennis court and walking path during the day, and they'd be pretty upset to lose access to it all day.

Actually yes they are out there early every morning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No way. Suggesting schools take a public park is a complete non-starter as PP suggested. There are places to acquire land but the County and APS can't work together to sharpen pencils let alone plan for more than 20 minutes in the future.

I think you are probably right, but this would be a little different because it would be taking a park and turning it into a school playground, which is kind of like a park.

Not to the senior citizens who are the powerful voting bloc you are going to antagonize in the process.

Are there a lot of senior citizens hanging out at the playground and the sprayground at Hayes Park?

Many senior citizens use the tennis court and walking path during the day, and they'd be pretty upset to lose access to it all day.

Actually yes they are out there early every morning

Yep - there is a healthy crowd of seniors frequently at this park. Not happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There are 3 unused classrooms in that building that APS has refused to rehab because it's cost-prohibitive.

I can't understand how the classrooms can't be fixed up so they can be used. There must be something about them I don't understand.

They have to be dug out. Not trivial work. Suspect they knew they were swapping eventually and could just resize Immersion to fit.

No. APS intended and planned for an entire school year to do this about 4 years ago when my daughter was at the school. The lower level of the school is built into a hill going down towards 66. The side on the lower part of the hill closest to 66 has regular classrooms with windows and the other side had the computer lab, some closet space and this space that is all underground on the upper side of the hill. We heard about it all year. The trailers were going to be removed from the playground because students would be moved into these soon-to-be-built new classrooms. And then that summer when they were about to start something happened - I don't know what because that is when my daughter moved on to middle school - and the classrooms were not dug out. All I heard was that APS realized it could not be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Seriously, what is the terror for a smaller program — most parents prefer smaller schools.

Two issues: (1) people who believe in immersion want the program to be available to anyone who is interested. Shrinking the program risks excluding kids who want the program and would benefit.

(2) A bigger program means a louder voice when APS suggests changes which might be detrimental to it.

The vast majority of people who want Immersion do so to avoid sub-par neighborhood schools, hence why so many non-native on the waitlist.

One look at the transfer report shows that to be mostly
false. The largest sending school to Key is Long Beach, followed by Taylor. 90 students each. The most "subpar" sending schools to key are Barrett and Glebe, I guess, which send a combined 90 students to key, and probably most of them Spanish speakers the school desperately needs. These four schools account for over half of the student body.

At Claremont, neighborhood preference and the fact that Spanish speakers aren't so segregated from English speakers by neighborhood makes it harder to analyze what portion of students are avoiding neighborhood schools. But 230 come from Abington and 92 came from Oakridge. That's about half the student body. Those schools don't have subpar performance, at least not relative to the other south Arlington elementaries nearby. Oakridge has a lower farms rate than claremont, in fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Seriously, what is the terror for a smaller program — most parents prefer smaller schools.

Two issues: (1) people who believe in immersion want the program to be available to anyone who is interested. Shrinking the program risks excluding kids who want the program and would benefit.

(2) A bigger program means a louder voice when APS suggests changes which might be detrimental to it.

The vast majority of people who want Immersion do so to avoid sub-par neighborhood schools, hence why so many non-native on the waitlist.

One look at the transfer report shows that to be mostly
false. The largest sending school to Key is Long Beach, followed by Taylor. 90 students each. The most "subpar" sending schools to key are Barrett and Glebe, I guess, which send a combined 90 students to key, and probably most of them Spanish speakers the school desperately needs. These four schools account for over half of the student body.

At Claremont, neighborhood preference and the fact that Spanish speakers aren't so segregated from English speakers by neighborhood makes it harder to analyze what portion of students are avoiding neighborhood schools. But 230 come from Abington and 92 came from Oakridge. That's about half the student body. Those schools don't have subpar performance, at least not relative to the other south Arlington elementaries nearby. Oakridge has a lower farms rate than claremont, in fact.

Barrett and Glebe do not have anywhere near test scores or resources of other no Arlington schools.

Again, read PPs : Long Branch and Taylor attndees are about proximity, both those schools are at the far end of their zone. If you are going to metro anyways, it’s a no-brained.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ESZones_Letter_2018_web.pdf

Whoa, 19 from Discovery! Probably got vertigo from the slide.

What is more telling will be the long waitlist you are saying needs to be met.