APS Elementary Location Working Group 4/12

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t see the point of switching Carlin springs and Campbell. Both are small schools. Carlin springs is not much bigger than Campbell

Carlin Springs if 585 capacity v. Campbell's 436. I'd consider 150 students significant. Plus, there is a lot of open green space on the Kenmore site.........

The thing is, all schools are choice schools. If Randolph, Barcroft, Drew, etc aren't at capacity now, what makes the staff think they ever will be? People vote with their feet. Shifting things around to take advantage of space at schools UMC families will avoid is foolish. It's why Henry and Oakridge are so overcrowded.

All Arlington schools are good. Haven’t you heard?

So what’s the solution? Move immersion 2 south as well? Move ATS south?

I’ve been saying make Barcroft and Randolph and Carlin Springs immersion schools for years. Cater to the immigrants and give the middle class a reason to want to be there. Make those neighborhood schools immersion schools.

Why don't we just make them Spanish schools where everything is taught in Spanish and complete the segregation of Latinos and Hispanics from everyone else? geez.

What a stupid remark. I’m sorry you are so uncomfortable with our immigrant communities.

I'm not - my white middle class kids have spent the past 8 years "with our immigrant communities." I was being sarcastic in response to the previous comment to make all three of the highest ELL/FRL schools - all adjacent neighborhood schools on the west end of south Arlington - immersion and to "cater to the immigrants and give the middle class a reason to want to be there." Like the middle class all wants an immersion program and that none of us middle class families have reason to want to be with all those immigrants without some academic gimmick. If our school had been immersion, we would have sought something else. Why not say "make Tuckahoe, McKinley, and Nottingham immersion and give immigrant families reason to want to be there"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About moving the immersion schools close to the spanish speakers. You all make an assumption (as does the county) that the immigrants who live in the county's lower income housing are spanish speakers. A larger percentage are not.

My kid was at Claremont and a larger percentage of the spanish speakers were middle or upper middle class. They are educated professionals. That is why both Key and Claremont may be 50% spanish speakers, but not 50% free and reduced lunch. At a PTA meeting with a SB member, it was made very clear that if the SB wants more lower income families, it needs to educate those families about the options and why dual immersion is good for them. Many immigrants DO NOT WANT IMMERSION. They want their kids to learn english asap.

Have they considered the possibility that they would learn English more quickly in immersion? That they may not perform so far below their English-fluent classmates if they were to learn in the two languages? You are correct - APS needs to educate the families on the benefits the immersion approach may offer in obtaining the goals they have for their children.

[Anonymous]

So 5 threads on this working group. Each with own angle, but this needs popcorn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About moving the immersion schools close to the spanish speakers. You all make an assumption (as does the county) that the immigrants who live in the county's lower income housing are spanish speakers. A larger percentage are not.

My kid was at Claremont and a larger percentage of the spanish speakers were middle or upper middle class. They are educated professionals. That is why both Key and Claremont may be 50% spanish speakers, but not 50% free and reduced lunch. At a PTA meeting with a SB member, it was made very clear that if the SB wants more lower income families, it needs to educate those families about the options and why dual immersion is good for them. Many immigrants DO NOT WANT IMMERSION. They want their kids to learn english asap.

Have they considered the possibility that they would learn English more quickly in immersion? That they may not perform so far below their English-fluent classmates if they were to learn in the two languages? You are correct - APS needs to educate the families on the benefits the immersion approach may offer in obtaining the goals they have for their children.

They probably have not. But I think it would be important to note that recent immigration patterns have shifted, and the number of Spanish-speaking immigrants may not always be so great. I have noticed at our (non-immersion) school in south Arlington that the number of Latinx kids seems to be ticking down, while percentage of children whose parents have immigrated from Africa, Asia, or the Middle East seems to be ticking up. Pretty sure Spanish Immersion is a harder sell for them, despite any potential educational benefits.

[Anonymous]

What about Key immersion to Long Branch? It's only 23% potential walkers, if they'd actually included the five lowest on the master chart like the analysis implied they would, Long Branch would have a check there. It would need 6 buses to fill the rest of the school so it fell just below the staff cut-off on that criteria. It can't go to 750 but it does have the ability to add capacity with trailers for flexibility, and they could probably gradually reduce the size of the program because if Key and ASFS are both neighborhood schools, it would probably reduce the demand for the immersion program over there. Fleet opening up would give APS the ability to move some of the current Long Branch population there, Reed opening will free up capacity to shift planning units from Long Branch to Barrett, and Hoffman-Boston typically has some extra capacity so they could pick up some too in order to avoid pushing too much of the displaced population toward ASFS and Key (although with both being neighborhood school, each would be under pressure to take fewer students).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about Key immersion to Long Branch? It's only 23% potential walkers, if they'd actually included the five lowest on the master chart like the analysis implied they would, Long Branch would have a check there. It would need 6 buses to fill the rest of the school so it fell just below the staff cut-off on that criteria. It can't go to 750 but it does have the ability to add capacity with trailers for flexibility, and they could probably gradually reduce the size of the program because if Key and ASFS are both neighborhood schools, it would probably reduce the demand for the immersion program over there. Fleet opening up would give APS the ability to move some of the current Long Branch population there, Reed opening will free up capacity to shift planning units from Long Branch to Barrett, and Hoffman-Boston typically has some extra capacity so they could pick up some too in order to avoid pushing too much of the displaced population toward ASFS and Key (although with both being neighborhood school, each would be under pressure to take fewer students).

+100

[Anonymous]

Sure, Fleet was supposed to be a school for south arlington, but if it allows north arlington to have more neighborhood schools, sure it is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure, Fleet was supposed to be a school for south arlington, but if it allows north arlington to have more neighborhood schools, sure it is fine.

Long Branch straddles North and South Arlington. No one is talking about Fleet taking students from North Arlington, we're talking about Fleet taking Long Branch South Arlington students to help with the capacity crunch in the one part of Arlington that isn't getting any capacity relief at all under the under plans. Just like NW Arlington will take some students from further east when Reed opens (unless they make Nottingham option, that will just push more students back east again) to ease capacity in that direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure, Fleet was supposed to be a school for south arlington, but if it allows north arlington to have more neighborhood schools, sure it is fine.

Don't you worry. NVD is on it and Long Branch as a neighborhood school isn't going anywhere. They are going to send all the south Arlington kids back across the wall, but nobody in Lyon Park will be made to hoof it across the DMZ for ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, Fleet was supposed to be a school for south arlington, but if it allows north arlington to have more neighborhood schools, sure it is fine.

Don't you worry. NVD is on it and Long Branch as a neighborhood school isn't going anywhere. They are going to send all the south Arlington kids back across the wall, but nobody in Lyon Park will be made to hoof it across the DMZ for ES.

You win the BINGO!

[Anonymous]

Gah it’s one county, one tiny county. I would love the SB to just give up and draw crazy boundaries for all the schools. If you are on a bus you are fair game for crossing 50 ah the horror.

Nottingham should be ATS. Immersion moves to Barcoft. Key and ASFS are neighborhood. Half of Oakridge goes to Drew. Fleet takes Henry boundaries. Campbell stays where it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gah it’s one county, one tiny county. I would love the SB to just give up and draw crazy boundaries for all the schools. If you are on a bus you are fair game for crossing 50 ah the horror.

Nottingham should be ATS. Immersion moves to Barcoft. Key and ASFS are neighborhood. Half of Oakridge goes to Drew. Fleet takes Henry boundaries. Campbell stays where it is.

Do you live in Cherrydale?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gah it’s one county, one tiny county. I would love the SB to just give up and draw crazy boundaries for all the schools. If you are on a bus you are fair game for crossing 50 ah the horror.

Nottingham should be ATS. Immersion moves to Barcoft. Key and ASFS are neighborhood. Half of Oakridge goes to Drew. Fleet takes Henry boundaries. Campbell stays where it is.

Are you high?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:About moving the immersion schools close to the spanish speakers. You all make an assumption (as does the county) that the immigrants who live in the county's lower income housing are spanish speakers. A larger percentage are not.

My kid was at Claremont and a larger percentage of the spanish speakers were middle or upper middle class. They are educated professionals. That is why both Key and Claremont may be 50% spanish speakers, but not 50% free and reduced lunch. At a PTA meeting with a SB member, it was made very clear that if the SB wants more lower income families, it needs to educate those families about the options and why dual immersion is good for them. Many immigrants DO NOT WANT IMMERSION. They want their kids to learn english asap.

It is honestly quite crazy to think that recent non-Spanish speaking immigrants would have ANY interest in foreign language immersion.

It is also quite crazy for a government/school district to contemplate moving several schools and their families to cater to perceived preferred home choices of recent (?) immigrant populations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
But the option program at ATS can technically go anywhere. They need a neighborhood scjool closer to Ballston as that area is just going to continue to grow.

Fully agree. There should be walkable elementary schools in the Rosslyn to Ballston corridor. ATS's building is just on the edge of Ballston and should be neighborhood.

They just went through that whole exercise showing that of all sites, ATS meets all (4) criteria of an option school, and is the only site that does.
If you looked at the maps of the walk zone survey you would see that the ATS walk zone overlaps in its entirety with the Ashlawn walk zone.
That neighborhood already has a neighborhood school: Ashlawn, and it’s a darn good school, and walking distance for those planning units.