the Key/ASFS building switch...

[Anonymous]

Basically immersion and AtS programs end up as de facto size limited semi-private public schools filled by kids who live nearby.

How are oak ridge kids even going to claremont — I thought Immersion was on an East-West divide — oak ridge should go to Key.

[Anonymous]

Bye bye Hayes Park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are correct about Barrett. You are incorrect about Glebe. Nobody is avoiding that school by going to Key.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Glebe's PTA had 90k from a single auction. No one is fleeing that school. Get some perspective. That more money than every disadvantaged south Arlington schools pta raises ina year, combined.

[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

Too bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Basically immersion and AtS programs end up as de facto size limited semi-private public schools filled by kids who live nearby.

How are oak ridge kids even going to claremont — I thought Immersion was on an East-West divide — oak ridge should go to Key.

Key used to the be the only Immersion school. When demand got too high, APS realized it needed to expand the program into South Arlington. It started "school within a school" immersion at 3 elementary schools: Oakridge, Abingdon and Hoffman-Boston. When they eventually created Claremont years later, they honored the Immersion legacy at those three schools by giving them admission preference to Claremont. But as of this year that's all gone away and both Key & Claremont are strictly lottery schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Too bad.

Yes, troll, we heard you before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are correct about Barrett. You are incorrect about Glebe. Nobody is avoiding that school by going to Key.

True but fact remains most attend b/c it is close to their home — and it’s curious how PP combined Glebe and Barrett numbers (since Glebe is very different from barrett) to conflate the numbers.

Regardless it’s a nice program, but its location shouldn’t be constraining neighborhoods, people who are dedicated to immersion will follow.

And I believe it will end up in an office building style like upper baileys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are correct about Barrett. You are incorrect about Glebe. Nobody is avoiding that school by going to Key.

True but fact remains most attend b/c it is close to their home — and it’s curious how PP combined Glebe and Barrett numbers (since Glebe is very different from barrett) to conflate the numbers.

Regardless it’s a nice program, but its location shouldn’t be constraining neighborhoods, people who are dedicated to immersion will follow.

And I believe it will end up in an office building style like upper baileys.

That's not going to happen in Arlington. It only happened in Bailey's because the building was in foreclosure. It's prohibitively expensive to buy and retrofit some of the priciest office space available (in Arlington) into a school. The Community Centers will be moved into vacant office space and the community centers will be turned back into schools first.

Lastly, your point about it being constrained to those nearby, DUH! Until this year you had an automatic in if you lived in the Key zone, and everybody else got what space was leftover. It can, and should, move, and people will follow. Or not, and then different families will apply. The program can survive just as well at ASFS as at Key, because Anglos will travel for it, and it's not going to be moving too far away from the Spanish-dominant households.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are correct about Barrett. You are incorrect about Glebe. Nobody is avoiding that school by going to Key.

True but fact remains most attend b/c it is close to their home — and it’s curious how PP combined Glebe and Barrett numbers (since Glebe is very different from barrett) to conflate the numbers.

Regardless it’s a nice program, but its location shouldn’t be constraining neighborhoods, people who are dedicated to immersion will follow.

And I believe it will end up in an office building style like upper baileys.

That's not going to happen in Arlington. It only happened in Bailey's because the building was in foreclosure. It's prohibitively expensive to buy and retrofit some of the priciest office space available (in Arlington) into a school. The Community Centers will be moved into vacant office space and the community centers will be turned back into schools first.

Lastly, your point about it being constrained to those nearby, DUH! Until this year you had an automatic in if you lived in the Key zone, and everybody else got what space was leftover. It can, and should, move, and people will follow. Or not, and then different families will apply. The program can survive just as well at ASFS as at Key, because Anglos will travel for it, and it's not going to be moving too far away from the Spanish-dominant households.

I was referring to the fact that transfers outside of key were largely (over 70%) from Taylor and Long Branch, who had no preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are correct about Barrett. You are incorrect about Glebe. Nobody is avoiding that school by going to Key.

True but fact remains most attend b/c it is close to their home — and it’s curious how PP combined Glebe and Barrett numbers (since Glebe is very different from barrett) to conflate the numbers.

Regardless it’s a nice program, but its location shouldn’t be constraining neighborhoods, people who are dedicated to immersion will follow.

And I believe it will end up in an office building style like upper baileys.

That's not going to happen in Arlington. It only happened in Bailey's because the building was in foreclosure. It's prohibitively expensive to buy and retrofit some of the priciest office space available (in Arlington) into a school. The Community Centers will be moved into vacant office space and the community centers will be turned back into schools first.

Lastly, your point about it being constrained to those nearby, DUH! Until this year you had an automatic in if you lived in the Key zone, and everybody else got what space was leftover. It can, and should, move, and people will follow. Or not, and then different families will apply. The program can survive just as well at ASFS as at Key, because Anglos will travel for it, and it's not going to be moving too far away from the Spanish-dominant households.

I was referring to the fact that transfers outside of key were largely (over 70%) from Taylor and Long Branch, who had no preference.

Didn't Taylor have some kind of preference because of the team concept? Not an auto-in like Key zone, but a leg up over other areas? I think many of the Long Branch transfers are native speakers, so they also had a "preference" in a way. There was a reason the transfer policy had to be re-written. It really wasn't giving people a fair chance of getting into option schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are correct about Barrett. You are incorrect about Glebe. Nobody is avoiding that school by going to Key.

True but fact remains most attend b/c it is close to their home — and it’s curious how PP combined Glebe and Barrett numbers (since Glebe is very different from barrett) to conflate the numbers.

Regardless it’s a nice program, but its location shouldn’t be constraining neighborhoods, people who are dedicated to immersion will follow.

And I believe it will end up in an office building style like upper baileys.

That's not going to happen in Arlington. It only happened in Bailey's because the building was in foreclosure. It's prohibitively expensive to buy and retrofit some of the priciest office space available (in Arlington) into a school. The Community Centers will be moved into vacant office space and the community centers will be turned back into schools first.

Lastly, your point about it being constrained to those nearby, DUH! Until this year you had an automatic in if you lived in the Key zone, and everybody else got what space was leftover. It can, and should, move, and people will follow. Or not, and then different families will apply. The program can survive just as well at ASFS as at Key, because Anglos will travel for it, and it's not going to be moving too far away from the Spanish-dominant households.

I was referring to the fact that transfers outside of key were largely (over 70%) from Taylor and Long Branch, who had no preference.

Didn't Taylor have some kind of preference because of the team concept? Not an auto-in like Key zone, but a leg up over other areas? I think many of the Long Branch transfers are native speakers, so they also had a "preference" in a way. There was a reason the transfer policy had to be re-written. It really wasn't giving people a fair chance of getting into option schools.

Pretty sure Taylor did not have any preference for Key at the Team, but possible. Didn't matter, there was NEVER a waitlist at Key until very recently, around 2015 -- and only because they started moving applicants from the Claremont wait list.

[Anonymous]

The south Arlington middle class boom is causing some of this. It’s going to get worse.

[Anonymous]

Taylor and Jamestown both had preference for key, just below kids in the zone and siblings.

[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.

People love to say this, but it hasn’t been my experience at Key at all. The non-native Spanish speaking families I know all chose Key because they value immersion. Many are zoned for “good” schools like Taylor yet chose Key.