APS Middle School Boundaries?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ APS is pausing the 2023 Middle School Boundary Process and the Proposal to Relocate the Spanish Immersion Program until Fall 2024.” In email now.

So will be radio silence until what, August 2024? Is there no way to ask staff for updates? What if you go to SB member office hours — can they procure status?

They’ve tipped their hand that a big change is coming, will they be transparent about the process!? Or this weird cancel and delay with nary a peep the new normal and we’ll have to fight to make sure decisions aren’t made by a small group of self-interested parties like a “vision board”. Change is coming, have an open discussion and demonstrate decisions are made that benefit the majority of APS and not just those with a few staffers in the hook.

I think you just saw their "big change." It's a big nothingburger: establishing pathways (which mostly already exist) and determining where they each will go (again, with the high school pathways pretty much already in place and not changing). Based on their list of pathways, aligning boundaries will be an impossible mess. I expect this "big change" to be a shift in some boundaries and reliance on students opting into the various pathways.

I predict: disastrous failure. The whole process - from community feedback, staff final recommendations, SB lack of direction and ignorant decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These pathways are so bogus. IB? Really? How many kids will get to transfer to TJ for that pathway. This is just stupid. And if kids want to take spots at WL for OB, they have to do the full diploma. With the long waitlist they need to start sending kids back to their home schools when they are clearly only doing partial IB.

Agreed!
1. distinct pathways beginning in 6th grade is dumb. We shouldn't be pigeon-holing 11 year olds into specific paths.
2. if you're going to do something like this, every middle school should have its "pathway" and that focus be for the entire school. Immersion is clearly not taking up an entire middle school; but IB does at Jefferson.
3. These "enticements" DO NOT WORK for balancing enrollment.
4. Only 4 pathways are indicated. We have 6 middle schools. So what are the other 2 middle schools going to offer?
5. HBW's "program" description is absolutely awful. Especially the caring community part - implying care and community are not part of any other middle school.
6. How about just a good ol' fashioned emphasis on a rigorous well-rounded education for every student, allowing every student to develop and learn their special interests and talents and giving them opportunities to explore them via extracurriculars and electives in high school.

+100

I can't even believe this.
Immersion is a dying program that has to beg native speakers to attend, and English speakers are largely there only because they are not happy with their elementary and then often don't continue it.
Neither group would continue, if the option was or is in any way inconvenient.
HB is only popular because of its size - it's not a pathway description anyone would choose otherwise, let's be real.
Do you really want to decide if an 11 yr old is going to a STEM or Arts focused program through graduating from HS?

I thought they'd focus on the "honors" or "advanced" classes all middle schools are supposed to be offering soon from grade 6? I thought this was going to be a challenge for them already to fully implement.

I hate all the options too. I think they are totally bogus but HB is 1000% the most ridiculous of them all. And the only thing relocating immersion has done is educate me about how silly it is as well. At first blush, it struck me as a real alternate educational program (unlike HB) but it turns out to be a huge waste as implemented by the county.

I just read the linked NEW "Dual Immersion Framework" and I have to agree. Only 218 students are currently enrolled across the entire HS level, so that's 54 students per HS grade from the entire county. We have about 8144 HS students this year who have a ton of needs, and I'm not sure the resources spent are worth the investment.

I understood that many immersion students take the capstone AP Spanish lit class as Freshman or Sophomores, so that 218 isn't spread across all four years. I think there's another seminar class available after the AP capstone, but that seems more optional, especially if the student is taking many other AP classes to try to get into a selective college.

If you look at the course offerings, there are really only two years of HS immersion classes (biology, chemistry, algebra, geometry and AP spanish), not counting a senior project and a seminar course. Everything else would be done by freshman or sophomore year.

There is an AP Spanish literature course that I think is usually taken junior year. Maybe it's not required, I don't know? The senior project applies to every Wakefield student, not just immersion. And any student who takes AP Research can use that project as their senior project requirement for graduation. The AP Capstone classes and the senior project are the advantages of Wakefield, imo. I think the project is much more valuable than "senior experience" days. And AP Seminar and AP Research partially make-up for the lack of extensive research papers in the ELA curriculum these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ APS is pausing the 2023 Middle School Boundary Process and the Proposal to Relocate the Spanish Immersion Program until Fall 2024.” In email now.

So will be radio silence until what, August 2024? Is there no way to ask staff for updates? What if you go to SB member office hours — can they procure status?

They’ve tipped their hand that a big change is coming, will they be transparent about the process!? Or this weird cancel and delay with nary a peep the new normal and we’ll have to fight to make sure decisions aren’t made by a small group of self-interested parties like a “vision board”. Change is coming, have an open discussion and demonstrate decisions are made that benefit the majority of APS and not just those with a few staffers in the hook.

I think you just saw their "big change." It's a big nothingburger: establishing pathways (which mostly already exist) and determining where they each will go (again, with the high school pathways pretty much already in place and not changing). Based on their list of pathways, aligning boundaries will be an impossible mess. I expect this "big change" to be a shift in some boundaries and reliance on students opting into the various pathways.

I predict: disastrous failure. The whole process - from community feedback, staff final recommendations, SB lack of direction and ignorant decisions.

Yeah they are going to try the same thing they did for High schools, make programs and pathways that attract students to other schools.

If Gunston students wanted to go to WMS, would they get a bus of have to provide transportation? Could they be guaranteed transfer to YHS? I think if the county let folks transfer from one MS to another, provide buses, and ensure they can stay with cohort in high school, that would balance a LOT of the North South imbalance without huge border changes.

[Anonymous]

How many buses do you think we have?!??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For every kid they kick back to their home school they can take another freshman from the IB waitlist. Expand the boundaries. Fill up the school. I don’t care. But stop this ruse that we are somehow creating an IB pathway when one MS offers it and there aren’t 100 spots at TJ for transfers.

All of the options and MS pathways/focus are a waste of resources.

They should just focus on strong fundamentals in elem and middle school, with an honors option in middle school (they just started this).

Kids can explore IB AP dance in high school where it’s universally available.

I would even get rid of middle school sports — it’s limited capacity so ends up just for kids who played travel since they were 6. No need to support their athletic career, their parents have already invested heavily. I think lots of intramurals and athletics during the day would be better for getting all students fit.

Can you run for school board?

I was with you til the sports. Why doesn’t your argument apply to high school? I see tons of kids at the basketball games, for example. It’s fun for more than just the players. Plus, I don’t see how athletics is any less valuable than all the other afterschool activities that are offered (and any of which are limited by space, eg, maker space).

I know my limits. Cutting high school sports and the pathways to college that provides is a non-starter, know your audience.

Only athletics have literal cut sports -- every other after school sport etc simply expands participation and shares resources (so in your example maybe they will get the maker space only once a week rather than three times a week). Middle school sports cuts people for ability, when most ability has been goosed by parents paying for travel/training for years. If you read again, I did say athletics was important, but I recommend a more inclusive implementation that benefits more students and promotes fitness for the entire student body not just those whose parents had foresight to pay for travel basketball and tennis lessons.

.

If it makes you feel any better, there’s no middle school baseball teams. And I would fully support more intramural teams but the reality is that the “cuts” are usually due to predominately space issues. For example, WMS uses YHS tennis courts (and I think they’re like ten of them?) so WMS has a huge tennis team. So does Jefferson, also tons of courts. Hamm, not so much, they have two courts. Ultimate Frisbee is usually no cut, but so many kids sign up that is basically a one day a week after school club (because they have to rotate who gets to use the fields) rather than a team sport. Basketball is probably the hardest because cuts are real but remember that the season is super, super short — like six weeks — because the “winter” is split between the girls season and the boys season, since only one team has the gym. Bottom line: you can increase access to sports in APS with only if you can increase space. And no one is biting on that.

Middle school soccer makes brutal cuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile Gunston will sit overcrowded for 2 more years and Williamsburg will be way under used for 3 more years (counting this year). Entire cohorts of kids moving through and they're doing nothing.

I know Gunston is overcrowded but I am somewhat impressed by how small my kid's class sizes are there. He has barely any classes with over 20 kids. It is interesting because someone mentioned in another post how WMS classes are 30plus kids. Also interesting because a friend at WMS says her kid does all work on the ipad and my Gunston kid does none lol (not that this has anything to do with overcrowding just though it was interesting). ANYWAY, i know that overcrowding is an issue and other resources are stressed and the hallways are chaotic. I also think PE is kind of crazy because multiple classes go at once but just found the class size comparison interesting.

Yes, this is a crazy phenomenon. Most under-enrolled school by far = completely overcrowded classrooms, most overcrowded school by far = small class sizes.

But yes, overall the overcrowded school will feel this strain more and more, while for the under-enrolled school this just seems to be mismanagement that could be fixed more easily.

Does Gunston get Title I money? That could explain it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile Gunston will sit overcrowded for 2 more years and Williamsburg will be way under used for 3 more years (counting this year). Entire cohorts of kids moving through and they're doing nothing.

I know Gunston is overcrowded but I am somewhat impressed by how small my kid's class sizes are there. He has barely any classes with over 20 kids. It is interesting because someone mentioned in another post how WMS classes are 30plus kids. Also interesting because a friend at WMS says her kid does all work on the ipad and my Gunston kid does none lol (not that this has anything to do with overcrowding just though it was interesting). ANYWAY, i know that overcrowding is an issue and other resources are stressed and the hallways are chaotic. I also think PE is kind of crazy because multiple classes go at once but just found the class size comparison interesting.

Yes, this is a crazy phenomenon. Most under-enrolled school by far = completely overcrowded classrooms, most overcrowded school by far = small class sizes.

But yes, overall the overcrowded school will feel this strain more and more, while for the under-enrolled school this just seems to be mismanagement that could be fixed more easily.

Does Gunston get Title I money? That could explain it.

Title I is PreK-5th.

[Anonymous]

HB needs to go. This pathways program should be the impetus. It doesn’t enroll enough students to be anything but an unfair lottery indulgence AND “democratic caring community” is not a thing. The rest of the county should get together and demand that it be shut down and used for a real need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile Gunston will sit overcrowded for 2 more years and Williamsburg will be way under used for 3 more years (counting this year). Entire cohorts of kids moving through and they're doing nothing.

I know Gunston is overcrowded but I am somewhat impressed by how small my kid's class sizes are there. He has barely any classes with over 20 kids. It is interesting because someone mentioned in another post how WMS classes are 30plus kids. Also interesting because a friend at WMS says her kid does all work on the ipad and my Gunston kid does none lol (not that this has anything to do with overcrowding just though it was interesting). ANYWAY, i know that overcrowding is an issue and other resources are stressed and the hallways are chaotic. I also think PE is kind of crazy because multiple classes go at once but just found the class size comparison interesting.

Yes, this is a crazy phenomenon. Most under-enrolled school by far = completely overcrowded classrooms, most overcrowded school by far = small class sizes.

But yes, overall the overcrowded school will feel this strain more and more, while for the under-enrolled school this just seems to be mismanagement that could be fixed more easily.

Does Gunston get Title I money? That could explain it.

Title I is PreK-5th.

Why do you think that? It’s absolutely not. Elementary schools do get a disproportionate amount, in general, but it can cover pre K to HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile Gunston will sit overcrowded for 2 more years and Williamsburg will be way under used for 3 more years (counting this year). Entire cohorts of kids moving through and they're doing nothing.

I know Gunston is overcrowded but I am somewhat impressed by how small my kid's class sizes are there. He has barely any classes with over 20 kids. It is interesting because someone mentioned in another post how WMS classes are 30plus kids. Also interesting because a friend at WMS says her kid does all work on the ipad and my Gunston kid does none lol (not that this has anything to do with overcrowding just though it was interesting). ANYWAY, i know that overcrowding is an issue and other resources are stressed and the hallways are chaotic. I also think PE is kind of crazy because multiple classes go at once but just found the class size comparison interesting.

Yes, this is a crazy phenomenon. Most under-enrolled school by far = completely overcrowded classrooms, most overcrowded school by far = small class sizes.

But yes, overall the overcrowded school will feel this strain more and more, while for the under-enrolled school this just seems to be mismanagement that could be fixed more easily.

Does Gunston get Title I money? That could explain it.

Title I is PreK-5th.

Why do you think that? It’s absolutely not. Elementary schools do get a disproportionate amount, in general, but it can cover pre K to HS.

APS only gives Title 1 status and funding to elementary schools at or above 50% fr/l. More schools could qualify, as the Fed threshold is any school K-12 at or over 40% fr/l, but APS decided it’s better to target it at the youngest and poorest cohort. They probably aren’t wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile Gunston will sit overcrowded for 2 more years and Williamsburg will be way under used for 3 more years (counting this year). Entire cohorts of kids moving through and they're doing nothing.

I know Gunston is overcrowded but I am somewhat impressed by how small my kid's class sizes are there. He has barely any classes with over 20 kids. It is interesting because someone mentioned in another post how WMS classes are 30plus kids. Also interesting because a friend at WMS says her kid does all work on the ipad and my Gunston kid does none lol (not that this has anything to do with overcrowding just though it was interesting). ANYWAY, i know that overcrowding is an issue and other resources are stressed and the hallways are chaotic. I also think PE is kind of crazy because multiple classes go at once but just found the class size comparison interesting.

Yes, this is a crazy phenomenon. Most under-enrolled school by far = completely overcrowded classrooms, most overcrowded school by far = small class sizes.

But yes, overall the overcrowded school will feel this strain more and more, while for the under-enrolled school this just seems to be mismanagement that could be fixed more easily.

Does Gunston get Title I money? That could explain it.

Title I is PreK-5th.

Why do you think that? It’s absolutely not. Elementary schools do get a disproportionate amount, in general, but it can cover pre K to HS.

APS only gives Title 1 status and funding to elementary schools at or above 50% fr/l. More schools could qualify, as the Fed threshold is any school K-12 at or over 40% fr/l, but APS decided it’s better to target it at the youngest and poorest cohort. They probably aren’t wrong.

Why though? Wouldn’t it be better for all the schools to get the federal money? Or does the school district only get a certain amount and then they have to divide it amongst Title 1 schools? I have never understood the process and why they only use it for elementary schools above 50%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many buses do you think we have?!??

There is no way around a ton of busing.

The students live in S Arlington, the seats are in N Arlington.

Domino boundaries will actually require even more buses as you bus walk zones to north schools. If you can just entice transfers from overcrowded schools like Gunston, you just need a few express buses to gather them from S. PUs then zip up George Mason to WMS or DHMS or an expanded HBW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HB needs to go. This pathways program should be the impetus. It doesn’t enroll enough students to be anything but an unfair lottery indulgence AND “democratic caring community” is not a thing. The rest of the county should get together and demand that it be shut down and used for a real need.

Agree. It’s a palace and boy would I love to lottery in there someday. But it’s fundamentally wrong to have a facility like that- particularly sited amongst affordable housing- that stands in such stark difference to what’s available to the rest of the county. These fancy option programs need to go unless the neighborhood schools are all just as good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile Gunston will sit overcrowded for 2 more years and Williamsburg will be way under used for 3 more years (counting this year). Entire cohorts of kids moving through and they're doing nothing.

I know Gunston is overcrowded but I am somewhat impressed by how small my kid's class sizes are there. He has barely any classes with over 20 kids. It is interesting because someone mentioned in another post how WMS classes are 30plus kids. Also interesting because a friend at WMS says her kid does all work on the ipad and my Gunston kid does none lol (not that this has anything to do with overcrowding just though it was interesting). ANYWAY, i know that overcrowding is an issue and other resources are stressed and the hallways are chaotic. I also think PE is kind of crazy because multiple classes go at once but just found the class size comparison interesting.

Yes, this is a crazy phenomenon. Most under-enrolled school by far = completely overcrowded classrooms, most overcrowded school by far = small class sizes.

But yes, overall the overcrowded school will feel this strain more and more, while for the under-enrolled school this just seems to be mismanagement that could be fixed more easily.

Does Gunston get Title I money? That could explain it.

Title I is PreK-5th.

Why do you think that? It’s absolutely not. Elementary schools do get a disproportionate amount, in general, but it can cover pre K to HS.

APS only gives Title 1 status and funding to elementary schools at or above 50% fr/l. More schools could qualify, as the Fed threshold is any school K-12 at or over 40% fr/l, but APS decided it’s better to target it at the youngest and poorest cohort. They probably aren’t wrong.

Why though? Wouldn’t it be better for all the schools to get the federal money? Or does the school district only get a certain amount and then they have to divide it amongst Title 1 schools? I have never understood the process and why they only use it for elementary schools above 50%.

Yes, I believe that’s why and they feel it’s better to target it the way they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These pathways are so bogus. IB? Really? How many kids will get to transfer to TJ for that pathway. This is just stupid. And if kids want to take spots at WL for OB, they have to do the full diploma. With the long waitlist they need to start sending kids back to their home schools when they are clearly only doing partial IB.

Agreed!
1. distinct pathways beginning in 6th grade is dumb. We shouldn't be pigeon-holing 11 year olds into specific paths.
2. if you're going to do something like this, every middle school should have its "pathway" and that focus be for the entire school. Immersion is clearly not taking up an entire middle school; but IB does at Jefferson.
3. These "enticements" DO NOT WORK for balancing enrollment.
4. Only 4 pathways are indicated. We have 6 middle schools. So what are the other 2 middle schools going to offer?
5. HBW's "program" description is absolutely awful. Especially the caring community part - implying care and community are not part of any other middle school.
6. How about just a good ol' fashioned emphasis on a rigorous well-rounded education for every student, allowing every student to develop and learn their special interests and talents and giving them opportunities to explore them via extracurriculars and electives in high school.

+100

I can't even believe this.
Immersion is a dying program that has to beg native speakers to attend, and English speakers are largely there only because they are not happy with their elementary and then often don't continue it.
Neither group would continue, if the option was or is in any way inconvenient.
HB is only popular because of its size - it's not a pathway description anyone would choose otherwise, let's be real.
Do you really want to decide if an 11 yr old is going to a STEM or Arts focused program through graduating from HS?

I thought they'd focus on the "honors" or "advanced" classes all middle schools are supposed to be offering soon from grade 6? I thought this was going to be a challenge for them already to fully implement.

Wow, showing your upper class bias much? You've totally missed the point that APS is trying to bring pathways and options to families whose students will go straight from HS to workforce, or roughly equivalent. They are not needing to expand more advanced/honors for families like you who wish or are trying to get into TJ HS and Ivies. Those other families - and there are MANY - deserve pathways and options too, and folks like you and me are already well served.