Alexandria City Public Schools new policy to possibly impact rising Kindergartners

[Anonymous]

Reposting this from Old Town Moms listserv-If anyone has information -- please share!

Thanks!
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If you are considering Alexandria City Public Schools for your rising
Kindergarteners next year, I want to alert you to a new policy that could
affect you.

In a recent letter, ACPS states that registration will begin on April 9th,
but if your home school "exceeds capacity for Kindergarten prior to June
15; then all Kindergarten applications will enter a lottery for random
selection. Every student will be assigned a rank through the lottery.
Students will be placed in the home school until all slots are filled
according to rank. The remainder will be re-assigned to another nearby or
contiguous school."

While we can all appreciate the budget challenges facing ACPS, I am
concerned that this policy, which differs from years past, undermines
parents' ability to choose their child's school in two ways:

1. If the number of registrants at your home school exceeds the number of
spots, slots will be determined at random by ACPS, no matter when you
registered your child. It is no longer first-come, first served.

2. If your child is bumped from your home school, parents are no longer
able to select an alternate school. Rather, ACPS will place your child in a
school of its choosing.

My local school Maury, will definitely be affected because it is actually
reducing the kindergarten class from 4 to 3 for next school year, hence it
will most definitely reach over-enrollment. Once it receives too many
enrollments, ALL applicants enter the lottery (not the ones that were
registered before it reached enrollment cap) as I understand the new
policy. So you won't even know whether you get your home school until late
June. So if you try to hedge your bets, and apply to some privates as your
back-ups, most privates require a signed contract before June, and those
contracts are financially binding. And thinking of Maury as an example, I
can't imagine that if you got humped from Maury, that near by George Mason
or McArthur or Barrett would have room when Maury does not. Same for
Lyles-Crouch. So where is your child going to go? Jefferson Houston
continues to have problems, so what other school? Your child could end up
being assigned to a school quite a far distance from your home, away from
your child's friends and causing a commuting nightmare for you. And many
people buy a home specifically for the school in that district. With the
new policy, that will be a mute point.

I know this topic may generate some hot topic debate, but I felt it was too
important not to post. If you have any questions or concerns about the
policy, you can email the entire school board at the link below, or attend
the next School Board Meeting on Thursday, March 22 at 7:00pm in 2000 North
Beauregard Street to share your opinions in person.

Here is the link: http://www.acps.k12.va.us/board/contactsb.php

[Anonymous]

ACPS refugee here:

Yes, this has been going on for a couple of years.

Basically the "Modified Open Enrollment" policy was enacted last year. It basically means you won't get into your neighborhood school if you don't register quickly enough. Spots are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The populations who will be hurt by this include:

-- Brown people, including those who speak English and those who do not. The Hispanic population tends to not register their kids until the first day of school. Ditto kids from the projects. So, what they'll find is that they won't get into their overcrowded school.

-- Newly arrived people. Anyone who buys a house this summer and is late for the registration deadline.

Basically, Charles Barrett is the overflow school in the city. Right now, the kids who can't or don't want to get into Tucker go to Barrett. As crowding surges, these other kids who are squeezed out of MacArthur, Maury, Lyles Crouch, etc. will be sent to Barrett.

Which should be really interesting b/c Barrett has been something of an oasis in the last year or so. But it about to accept all of the problem children.

[Anonymous]

Maury might not be over-enrolled for kindergarten next year. A substantial portion of Maury's kindergartners are families exercising their options to transfer in to Maury from Jefferson Houston (because of NCLB), and from Mt. Vernon/Tucker (b/c those are year round schools). I think Maury might be able to reduce K from 80 to 60 kids without displacing families who are actually in Maury's attendance zone--especially since there are fewer kids coming from James Bland right now while demolition/construction continues over there. I'm sad that Maury won't be open to as many outside the zone families next year, but it has become a victim of its own success, as families are flocking to the school now and staying all the way through 5th grade. Attendance has doubled in about six years, and they just don't have enough space for everyone now.

But I agree that the ACPS policy that leaves families not knowing where their kids will be until late June is terrible and needs to be resisted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ACPS refugee here:

Yes, this has been going on for a couple of years.

Basically the "Modified Open Enrollment" policy was enacted last year. It basically means you won't get into your neighborhood school if you don't register quickly enough. Spots are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The populations who will be hurt by this include:

-- Brown people, including those who speak English and those who do not. The Hispanic population tends to not register their kids until the first day of school. Ditto kids from the projects. So, what they'll find is that they won't get into their overcrowded school.

-- Newly arrived people. Anyone who buys a house this summer and is late for the registration deadline.

Basically, Charles Barrett is the overflow school in the city. Right now, the kids who can't or don't want to get into Tucker go to Barrett. As crowding surges, these other kids who are squeezed out of MacArthur, Maury, Lyles Crouch, etc. will be sent to Barrett.

Which should be really interesting b/c Barrett has been something of an oasis in the last year or so. But it about to accept all of the problem children.

No, that policy is changing for the upcoming school year and now it will not matter if you register early. Effectively the school board just decided that there would no longer be school boundaries - at least for Kindergarten. If that policy continues, that really sucks for people who own in the City.

I really believe that this is the City's attempt to fill Jefferson-Houston with students who will increase test scores. The oversubscribed schools are mainly George Mason, Macarthur and Lyles Crouch and the one of the closest "proximity" schools is J-H.

Barrett lost their capitol funding for physical expansion efforts. In fact, they will have to reduce their incoming K class over the next couple of years to ensure they have room to accommodate their current students. The information is on the schools website in their most recent newsletter.

[Anonymous]

I agree that this new lottery policy is a disaster and symptomatic of a flawed enrollment process across the entire system. The over-crowding at some of the schools could be alleviated by eliminating the opt-out options for those who live in the all-year schools. Last year, there were several kingergarten students in my neighborhood denied spots at our school due to the spots guaranteed to kindergarten siblings of students who opted out of their school (not NCLB, but all-year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ACPS refugee here:

Yes, this has been going on for a couple of years.

Basically the "Modified Open Enrollment" policy was enacted last year. It basically means you won't get into your neighborhood school if you don't register quickly enough. Spots are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

The populations who will be hurt by this include:

-- Brown people, including those who speak English and those who do not. The Hispanic population tends to not register their kids until the first day of school. Ditto kids from the projects. So, what they'll find is that they won't get into their overcrowded school.

-- Newly arrived people. Anyone who buys a house this summer and is late for the registration deadline.

Basically, Charles Barrett is the overflow school in the city. Right now, the kids who can't or don't want to get into Tucker go to Barrett. As crowding surges, these other kids who are squeezed out of MacArthur, Maury, Lyles Crouch, etc. will be sent to Barrett.

Which should be really interesting b/c Barrett has been something of an oasis in the last year or so. But it about to accept all of the problem children.

No, that policy is changing for the upcoming school year and now it will not matter if you register early. Effectively the school board just decided that there would no longer be school boundaries - at least for Kindergarten. If that policy continues, that really sucks for people who own in the City.

I really believe that this is the City's attempt to fill Jefferson-Houston with students who will increase test scores. The oversubscribed schools are mainly George Mason, Macarthur and Lyles Crouch and the one of the closest "proximity" schools is J-H.

Barrett lost their capitol funding for physical expansion efforts. In fact, they will have to reduce their incoming K class over the next couple of years to ensure they have room to accommodate their current students. The information is on the schools website in their most recent newsletter.

The above poster got it right. There are now no longer school boundaries starting in K. Also, Maury is going from 4 kindergarten classes to 3 classes next year.

The budget problems are absolutely horrendous. At swim lessons last week, I learned that Chinquapin had to stop plans for redoing their center because TC Williams overspent by a few million for its new construction, so all the money that was planned for a new community and aquatic center at Chinquapin has been delayed indefinitely according to their management.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The budget problems are absolutely horrendous. At swim lessons last week, I learned that Chinquapin had to stop plans for redoing their center because TC Williams overspent by a few million for its new construction, so all the money that was planned for a new community and aquatic center at Chinquapin has been delayed indefinitely according to their management.

And they are getting ready to make the same horrendous mistake again by doing a multi million dollar renovation to Jefferson-Houston. It's just like TC - the building looks great but they would have been better off pouring the money into teaching and academic programs and making doing with sub par buildings.

[Anonymous]

To the PP, the policy is changing. It is a lottery system for all- no matter your boundary or if you registered early.

YUCK!

[Anonymous]

23:36 here.

Wow. A lot has happened since I left. Apologies for providing outdated information in my post (which was accurate when I left).

Yet another reason I'm glad I got out. Arlington has its overcrowding challenges too, but it sounds like ACPS is again going down a rabbit hole with Morton Sherman.

[Anonymous]

This is crazy!

[Anonymous]

I am so upset, disappointed and worried about this.... We are in bounds for Maury, but who knows what will happen. The fact that we won't know until June is unacceptable.

How can this be just for kindergarten. Shouldn't it be all new students registering for a school. I feel my kendergartener is being unfairly penalized.

[Anonymous]

PP here....Sorry for the typos. My frustration is being manifested by spelling and grammer mistakes : )

[Anonymous]

I am incredibly angry about this. I was planning to send my son to Maury, and recognize that a spot was not guaranteed, but not knowing until June is unacceptable. Please, all parents who are affected by this, write to the school board and come to the March 22 ACPS meeting. If you wish to speak at the meeting, you need to email the clerk of the board and get on this list ahead of time.

[Anonymous]

So then would a K sent out of bounds for Kindergarten go back to his in-bounds school or would he have to stay at the new reassigned school? This sounds like a logistical nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for posting, I'm military moving into the area with a K student. Alexandria was on the list (due to commute) but it does not sound as if it matters what school I picked out, he could end up anywhere. Hmm, will research further. Good info.