Powerful Letter to the Arlington County School Board about Diversity
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Anonymous
There were many people who showed up at the SB meetings and pointed out exactly what Matthew Herrity wrote so eloquently about. The idea that they hadn't heard this before is baloney. They didn't listen, or they didn't want to hear. I also think it is stunning that they just didn't get how badly this would play. The report that APS has 3 of the most segregated schools in the state came out just a few weeks before they made their decision. Several speakers brought up this report at one of the SB meetings, many of us wrote to them about it and talked to them in person. This decision was just colossally tone-deaf. |
Anonymous
The idea I've heard floated is that the IB program could be moved to the ed center and expanded. Students would go home to their base schools for sports, as with HB. This, of course, would draw even more white, well-off students away from Wakefield. It's a terrible idea. |
Anonymous
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The SB hasn't put up the video of the December 15 meeting yet, at which several APS students spoke, but here is Kanninen's response to those who disagree with the SB's decision:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_uRkco4fcpe-bKe25tOVRFjiCdwHQxQpHQ/view |
Anonymous
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^^ that's the point.
The only people who care, are the upper middle class whites moving into south Arlington. They just need to have enough room for those students ( away from Wakefield). That's all they have to do. Promise another option for those students. Problem solved. |
Anonymous
Hmm. Did Herrity and his friend's try to pupil place at Wakefield? Are he and his friend's parents willing to pay the county to compensate for any increased costs due to transportation? |
Anonymous
So white people are not able to live here? Where should we go? White people are the past? How racist is that? In many areas of the USA and the DMV being white does not mean high SES. |
Anonymous
| The irony is that Yorktown HS most closely mirrors the demographics of Arlington County. |
Anonymous
Of Arlington County as a whole, or of the school-age population? I don't see how it can be the latter when the other two high schools are so much more diverse (racially and economically) than Yorktown. |
Anonymous
Did you always feel that way, or have her actions lowered your opinion? (I ask because I was originally so happy that someone who understands data was going to be on the SB, and now I just . . . I don't know what. I'm not one to scream at people, but she infuriates me because she could do better and chooses not to. I seethe a lot.) |
Anonymous
Thanks for posting. Did anyone watch or attend the meeting and hear the student from Yorktown? Kanninen referenced that student in particular and seemed distressed at what I guess is an anecdote the student related? |
Anonymous
Why should students at the only high school that reflects the demographics of the county move to another high school? Especially when that high school is very diverse and high performing? Isn't the point that that model is working? What purpose would this serve? |
Anonymous
NP. I have found her infuriating during this process also. Her statements that people are playing fast and loose with the facts are hard to evaluate, and frankly ring a little false themselves, because she offered no, well, facts to support her statements. I understand data, too (that's my job), and I didn't see anything in Matthew Herrity's letter, for example, that was factually incorrect. Nor did the school board's reaction to the letter point out any factual errors. Also, I can't help but note that despite her focus on data, she apparently missed a HUGE factual error in the early supporting documents (as discussed much earlier in this thread, or maybe it was the other one)--an error that should have been immediately apparent to anyone with any numbers sense at all. (Mathematically, there was simply no way the numbers could have worked out that way, and someone with Kanninen's background and training should have seen it immediately.) What's interesting about the fact that she, and everyone, missed this is that that error made it appear that all the options being considered were going to increase the percentage of F/RL students at W-L from the current 31% to more than 40%. No one on the SB apparently blinked an eye. Which tells you just how much attention they were paying to "diversity" in this process. They just didn't see this as important in any way. I suppose you could see that in a positive light--they are convinced that APS schools are so terrific that no concentration of poor children, no matter how high, could undermine the educational process here. To me, it seems like she pays attention to the facts that are important to her, ignores the ones that aren't, and perhaps is so focused on her favorite facts that she is blind to appearances. To do this job well, she needs to at least acknowledge the facts that matter to some of her constituents, and she needs to be more savvy about how SB decisions will be perceived, by people who aren't so good with data as well as by people who are. There were also people who warned the SB that this process was becoming very demoralizing to Wakefield students, teachers, and staff. That this has happened nevertheless seems to have surprised her and others SB members. Again, it just seems like they weren't listening to things they didn't want to hear. |
Anonymous
I think this student's statement is the one referenced in the WaPo article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/va-high-school-students-assail-new-school-boundary-plan-as-apartheid/2016/12/16/2e8defc2-c3b8-11e6-9a51-cd56ea1c2bb7_story.html?utm_term=.8d211ca2941b A junior at Yorktown, her voice shaking, recounted a time when a classmate told her that slavery was justified and that she should go back to Africa. She said he then jokingly threatened to brand black people and make them his slaves if they didn’t leave the country, a remark that elicited laughter from other classmates. |
Anonymous
There are equally obnoxious students and parents at W-L. |
Anonymous
Not disagreeing (we're at W-L), but what's your point? |