Another choice school in N Arlington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is really no choice anymore with overcapacity. There is about a 3% chance that you can lottery into ATS. The choice is an overcrowded school with a trailer, homeschooling or private school.

Yet year after year, enrollment in the most crowded schools goes up, and real estate values in the most desirable zip codes go up. The economics of revealed preferences doesn't lie--people clearly prefer overcrowded north Arlington schools to the alternatives (longer commutes/Falls Church-Fairfax, more diverse schools/south Arlington-Alexandria, bigger mortgages/McLean-Bethesda, or lotteries/DC).

The benefits apparently outweigh the costs. There are at least three schools in N Arlington with diverse populations: Key, ATS, and ASFS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Putting key at Reed won't work. It's a Spanish immersion school is placed in that part of town, it will have to allow transfers from the neighborhoods within which it resides. That means all of the kids who are at the schools transferring to Claremont, would then be in the key district.

well certainly not all- right now kids from McKinley/Tuckahoe/Nottingham can't get into Claremont- unless they already have a sibling there.

I don't understand the discussion of moving ASFS- its not a choice school.

So, last year only 50 of the 682 students at Claremont were from the neighborhoods around Reed. If Key moved to Reed, APS would have to let in more from the neighborhood b/c it would be insane to have an immersion school in your backyard that you can't apply to b/c of zones.

They can rework the boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Build a neighborhood school at Reed. Fill with neighborhood kids. Allow folks from other overcrowded schools to transfer into Reed if there are any vacancies. I doubt there will be vacancies.

That makes sense b/c there is a real need there. What do they do in Ballston, though? Obviously, someone should stop with this density cr*p, but that's not something the SB can control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW, Reed as an ES is NOT a done deal. That was the super's recommendation. It was never presented in any of the previous CIP meetings. APS said they would form a working group to determine the location of the ES and Reed was only ever presented (publicly) as an early education center. So, when the Super presented the plan to make Reed an ES and bypass the whole NAWG plan, even the Facilities Advisory Committee was caught off guard.

Speaking as someone who was part of the vaunted SAWG, I can tell you the result you'll get if you form a NAWG: you will delay the construction of a new school by about a year, and the end result will be the one APS had in mind all along. But, please do go ahead with the charade so that you can see for yourself. Truly, APS is out of good options, so the working groups are not going to magically find one. They won't let you include the Buck property, because APS doesn't and won't own it, just like SAWG wasn't allowed to include the VHC site, or the two different sites that developers were offering in exchange for up-zoning. But if you need this process so that you can come to the same conclusion, be my guest. Just trying to show you the real picture.

Is there a good place to find this information? I'd like to share this with neighbors pushing for a NAWG, but I think it would sound better if I had a source I would point them to other than DCUM.

The meeting minutes posted online: http://www.apsva.us/Page/30469

I haven't read them, so I'm not sure that they will accurately reflect the experience, or my take on the experience. I think they tried to be fair, certainly the facilitators did, but we weren't allowed to even consider some of the sites, and APS only did renderings of APS-owned sites (all were schools if I remember correctly, to show what the campuses would look like with two schools placed on them). Also, the people who joined the WG had preconceived ideas coming in about where a school should be, and really it was a lot of what you'd expect: most coming out for their own neighborhood or school or personal best interest. Ultimately, the group decided the need for a new school in 2019 was greater than finding the ideal location, which I agreed with even before joining the WG. Doesn't mean I think they chose the most ideal site. Basically, we have a bunch of truly shitty options moving forward. So, if APS and their advisory committees are recommending a certain site, and recommending that it's choice vs. neighborhood, it is out of necessity and not some hidden agenda and I don't think you'll be able to change much with a working group, but you might delay it, which is what happened down here. If I had it to do over again, I would've rather tucked my kids into bed all of those evenings. Cynical, I know, but my advice would be to save your energy to fight for ways to mitigate the traffic/parking/etc. issues, or to help guide which of the choice programs would be moved here (how to get the least bad out of of your set of options).

Thanks for this!

[Anonymous]

Key Glebe ATS ASFS
White 35 61 59 55
Black 4 8 6 10
Hispanic 52 18 14 8
Asian 4 8 15 20

[Anonymous]

Based on my experience, the FAC has already made up its decision. And it will not waiver. You have to fight it at the Board level.

[Anonymous]

Who knew the FAC had so much power?

[Anonymous]

FAC?

What is that?

[Anonymous]

Facilities Advisor Committee - They aren't elected officials and they aren't APS employees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Facilities Advisor Committee - They aren't elected officials and they aren't APS employees.

No, they are just volunteers without a vested interest in a particular outcome who spend months and months learning about all of the factors that go into these decisions and then make their best recommendation. We should obviously just totally discount what they recommend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is really no choice anymore with overcapacity. There is about a 3% chance that you can lottery into ATS. The choice is an overcrowded school with a trailer, homeschooling or private school.

Yet year after year, enrollment in the most crowded schools goes up, and real estate values in the most desirable zip codes go up. The economics of revealed preferences doesn't lie--people clearly prefer overcrowded north Arlington schools to the alternatives (longer commutes/Falls Church-Fairfax, more diverse schools/south Arlington-Alexandria, bigger mortgages/McLean-Bethesda, or lotteries/DC).

The benefits apparently outweigh the costs. There are at least three schools in N Arlington with diverse populations: Key, ATS, and ASFS.

Long Branch and Patrick Henry also nice diverse school populations where the poverty level is on par with the country population stats overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Facilities Advisor Committee - They aren't elected officials and they aren't APS employees.

No, they are just volunteers without a vested interest in a particular outcome who spend months and months learning about all of the factors that go into these decisions and then make their best recommendation. We should obviously just totally discount what they recommend.

I would believe that more if one of them wasn't behind a petition about where a school should be located.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Key Glebe ATS ASFS
White 35 61 59 55
Black 4 8 6 10
Hispanic 52 18 14 8
Asian 4 8 15 20

Source? Seems out of date....

[Anonymous]

Some of them have preconceived notions, if not a vested interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of them have preconceived notions, if not a vested interest.

Some of them also have a vested interest.