Discussion Boundary Map out for APS- elementary schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s ok to bus kids past their nearest school if (and only if):
1. You can guarantee reliable transportation, especially for the areas in the county that are being planned as car less
2. You allow and provide transportation to closer elementary schools for extended day
3. You provide a transparent means of transferring to your closest school that accounts for hardships and family circumstances
My kids bus has been reliably late for the six years we have been in elementary school. We report it, they claim to work on trying to fix it, it doesn’t get resolved and by October/November everyone either walks or bikes/drives anyways. Most of the parents in my neighborhood don’t have cars, I’m not sure what we would do if we couldn’t walk when the bus doesn’t show up. It doesn’t really matter if my entire neighborhood is going to an unwalkable school— though I guess we could share an Uber when the bus doesn’t show up.

Hard no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s ok to bus kids past their nearest school if (and only if):
1. You can guarantee reliable transportation, especially for the areas in the county that are being planned as car less
2. You allow and provide transportation to closer elementary schools for extended day
3. You provide a transparent means of transferring to your closest school that accounts for hardships and family circumstances
My kids bus has been reliably late for the six years we have been in elementary school. We report it, they claim to work on trying to fix it, it doesn’t get resolved and by October/November everyone either walks or bikes/drives anyways. Most of the parents in my neighborhood don’t have cars, I’m not sure what we would do if we couldn’t walk when the bus doesn’t show up. It doesn’t really matter if my entire neighborhood is going to an unwalkable school— though I guess we could share an Uber when the bus doesn’t show up.

Relax and face reality. You’ll be just fine at your new school. As awesome as it’d be to have no cars, no where in Arlington is “being planned as car less”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s ok to bus kids past their nearest school if (and only if):
1. You can guarantee reliable transportation, especially for the areas in the county that are being planned as car less
2. You allow and provide transportation to closer elementary schools for extended day
3. You provide a transparent means of transferring to your closest school that accounts for hardships and family circumstances
My kids bus has been reliably late for the six years we have been in elementary school. We report it, they claim to work on trying to fix it, it doesn’t get resolved and by October/November everyone either walks or bikes/drives anyways. Most of the parents in my neighborhood don’t have cars, I’m not sure what we would do if we couldn’t walk when the bus doesn’t show up. It doesn’t really matter if my entire neighborhood is going to an unwalkable school— though I guess we could share an Uber when the bus doesn’t show up.

Relax and face reality. You’ll be just fine at your new school. As awesome as it’d be to have no cars, no where in Arlington is “being planned as car less”.

American Legion Development was approved with 76 parking spaces for 160 affordable units. Queens court was approved with 175 spaces for 249 units. Here’s a document discussing parking minimums in the metro corridors https://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2018/10/offstreet_residential_parking_guidelines_adopted.pdf

Arlington is definitely planning some places as carless and those are also the places without enough seats.

[Anonymous]

Car-less and family don’t really go hand in hand around here. We don’t have the infrastructure. This isn’t NYC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Car-less and family don’t really go hand in hand around here. We don’t have the infrastructure. This isn’t NYC

And yet, there are people who do it... specifically around Pentagon City, Crystal City, and R-B corridor. Where we have the buildings in place at Key and ASFS I don’t understand why we would want to zone kids somewhere else. Is there really a rational reason not to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Car-less and family don’t really go hand in hand around here. We don’t have the infrastructure. This isn’t NYC

-1 Not true. We are a car-less family near Clarendon. Sure, we get a Zipcar now and then or Uber but you don't have to have a car here when you have kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There's a big difference between placing an option program like ATS at McKinley, for example, and placing it at Nottingham. Part of the complaint from immersion middle school parents is how distant Gunston MS is at the southern border. Those are the parents who would love to see MS immersion at Williamsburg.


McKinley and Nottingham are 2 miles apart and a 7 minute drive. McKinley and Tuckahoe are 1.8 miles apart and a 6 minute drive. Nottingham and Tuckahoe are 0.9 miles apart and a 4 minute drive.

ATS and McKinley are 1.9 miles apart and a 6 minute drive. ATS and Nottingham are 2.9 miles apart and a 9 minute drive. ATS and Tuckahoe are 2.9 miles apart and a 10 minute drive.

This is all from GoogleMaps. I am not making it up. I'm not sure what a "big difference" we're talking about here. At most, the location differences mean 1 mile and 4 minutes. If you are coming from say, the Buckingham neighborhood, it is a 14 min drive to Nottingham and an 11 minute drive to McKinley. Moving ATS to McKinley instead of Nottingham makes no difference from a convenience perspective.

If ATS (or another choice program) is relocated to the NW, there really isn't a significant difference from a driving perspective between the McKinley, Tuckahoe, and Nottingham sites. They need to look at building size. If the NW is only going to be overcapacity by +133 seats, then that suggests that if they relocate an option school, then it should go to the smallest of the three buildings. Otherwise, the NW is back to a deficit of neighborhood seats immediately.

This is the problem. People continue to look at capacity and enrollment and growth and deficits in sections. the capacity isn't there no matter where you put the programs. You can move kids - and yes kids can go to a neighborhood school that isn't the closest one to their house. Capacity is an issue no matter where the programs are located. But people only want to solve their own "quadrant" without considering what the impacts are elsewhere.

But there isn’t any growth predicted for the NW quadrant. That’s the issue. Other than SFH turnover, there will be no new developments in the next 10-20 years. Meanwhile, across S Arlington and in NE Arlington around the R-B corridor, they know there will be a lot of development, much of it multifamily and with 2 + bedrooms, and that generate kids, even more kids than SFHs if it’s CAF. All the AH in the county is going in these areas, the ones that NW zoning prevents and will continue to prevent. Accessible dwelling units aren’t going to produce any extra kids, and SFH turnover is a lot slower at generating kids. So, basically, whether by option or by boundary, they need to shift kids N and W. And it’s not a temporary problem that trailers can fix, because it’s a feature of the housing plan. Until they build more schools in the E and S, there isn’t another choice.

Precisely why people need to stop looking at just their own school or their own quadrant.

I didn't even read this entire post but: I live by ATS and my kids go to McK. It's a 20 min drive in the PM during after-care time. Feel free to use your google maps all that you want but I suggest you make the !@#$%^& drive. Also, McK after-care is an s-show.

And that isn’t ideal, but it’s better than planning for some schools to sit under capacity for years while an adjacent school is crammed full. Surely, as a McK parent, you don’t think that should be their goal? I don’t think they want to bus kids three schools over, but they also don’t want to repeat the McK mistake. If they don’t move option schools, they don’t have the ability to draw these nice boundaries AND balance capacity. We have to pick our poison, I guess. I think even with option program moves there will always be some kids just on the edge of one boundary who are closer to another school. There’s no way they can avoid that in every situation. But they are definitely not adopting this map, and everyone should remain calm. Also, Reed is definitely a neighborhood school and will be unless the SB votes to change it, which is not likely at all.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, in looking at the maps, my first question is about the zones. They seem contrived and certainly aren't even. Why are there only 2 schools in Zone 4? Why is Taylor Zone 2 and McK zone 1? If those switched, how would it impact the deficits. It feels like manipulated data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, in looking at the maps, my first question is about the zones. They seem contrived and certainly aren't even. Why are there only 2 schools in Zone 4? Why is Taylor Zone 2 and McK zone 1? If those switched, how would it impact the deficits. It feels like manipulated data.

Of course it’s contrived. This is a map that illustrates the issues that boundary process will involve. It’s an exaggeration for effect, not an actual proposal. It’s labeled as such. Can people not read, or do they just not bother?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is completely inequitable to move ATS to far NW Arlington. It needs to be central. There’s only one. If you move it to the wealthiest enclaves then those will be the only families who can make the trek across the county. You will lose all/most lower income families. I sure hope APS is not that clueless.

Good. Move it and make it look like the inadequate enclave within a segregated school system that it is. And, make it an even more inconvenient escape valve for UMC South Arlington parents. Option schools are a complete sop to those latter parents designed only to quiet down what would otherwise be loud and widespread outrage over the egregious economic segregation in Arlington schools.

What you say is not entirely off base but at the same time, it’s also true that the option schools are the most diverse and integrated schools in the system. It cuts both ways. Getting rid of them would not help the cause of racial and economic integration in APS. Quite the opposite.

Are they really more diverse and integrated than the neighborhoods in which they sit, though?

Pretty much. I’m UMC and can not afford to buy a home in the neighborhoods surrounding Henry, Key, ATS, or Claremont.

That answers the question how?
Because you can't afford those neighborhoods means the diversity of choice schools in those neighborhoods is greater than the residential diversity?

Yup. Those are not diverse neighborhoods. A neighborhood with $750k fixer uppers is not diverse. Lyon Village is not diverse. Arlington Heights is not diverse. Bluemont is not diverse. They are SFH enclaves that are unaffordable to actual middle class families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, in looking at the maps, my first question is about the zones. They seem contrived and certainly aren't even. Why are there only 2 schools in Zone 4? Why is Taylor Zone 2 and McK zone 1? If those switched, how would it impact the deficits. It feels like manipulated data.

Of course it’s contrived. This is a map that illustrates the issues that boundary process will involve. It’s an exaggeration for effect, not an actual proposal. It’s labeled as such. Can people not read, or do they just not bother?

The zones are done to match the county planning transportation corridors- because that's how their growth forecasts are. I don't think the zones matter as much as looking at the map and thinking about the need to redraw boundaries and move Key immersion from the Key school site.
For those of you who are saying this is an awful map- and a 4th grader could have done better- do you think there is a 'better' map that 1) doesn't involve moving any current option schools and 2) utilizes the full capacity of every school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, in looking at the maps, my first question is about the zones. They seem contrived and certainly aren't even. Why are there only 2 schools in Zone 4? Why is Taylor Zone 2 and McK zone 1? If those switched, how would it impact the deficits. It feels like manipulated data.

They included all of the schools that have a neighborhood zoned with the rb corridor in zone 2. Taylor has half of Virginia square and the area north of the Clarendon (western Lyon village), and also north Rosslyn currently goes to taylor. The Ashlawn tail is the area around ballston/va square which is why it’s in zone 2. Ashlawn would have been in zone 1 if it hadn’t been for the area around va square. McKinley doesn’t have any part of its zone along the metro, thus its im zone 1.
They should have done the zones by civic association boundary using planning units, it’s just those ignore historically where people have been zoned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s ok to bus kids past their nearest school if (and only if):
1. You can guarantee reliable transportation, especially for the areas in the county that are being planned as car less
2. You allow and provide transportation to closer elementary schools for extended day
3. You provide a transparent means of transferring to your closest school that accounts for hardships and family circumstances
My kids bus has been reliably late for the six years we have been in elementary school. We report it, they claim to work on trying to fix it, it doesn’t get resolved and by October/November everyone either walks or bikes/drives anyways. Most of the parents in my neighborhood don’t have cars, I’m not sure what we would do if we couldn’t walk when the bus doesn’t show up. It doesn’t really matter if my entire neighborhood is going to an unwalkable school— though I guess we could share an Uber when the bus doesn’t show up.

Public school systems are not intended to, nor are they mandated to, optimize convenience for the parents. This is your child's education, not childcare service to accommodate your schedule and preferred logistics. Your convenience may be an inconvenience to someone else. APS cannot possibly give everyone their ideal. A school district needs to provide the best educational experience they can for its students overall within prudent use of available resources. If it's too inconvenient for you, then move or find something else. Which would be less inconvenient? Your neighborhood is apparently able to get their kids to school by walking, biking, or driving. Be grateful. Others aren't so fortunate and they have late buses and no-shows, too.

[Anonymous]

Eh. Maybe Westover will get its school. But not all of it. Many of them will end up at Tuckahoe and Nottingham. Reed will be for current Glebe & McKinley parts of Westover. And there will be lots of busses. That’s right, baby boomers, I said busses!

[Anonymous]

Walkers unite!