APS: New High School forum tonight 7-9 pm at Yorktown

[Anonymous]

Any new HS at kenmore will never have less than 35% farms unless it is completely lottery. Most of the families south of it are in affordable units and the county will basically let as many affordable units go up as the developers can handle. The single family homes in glen carlyn and probably barcroft don't have enough kids to change the percentage.

The kenmore zone to the north is not that big and very soon gets within walking distance of WL - think those parents will not scream about moving to kenmore? And then it gets close to yorktown.

Ideally, a new HS is needed on the east side of the county, not the west.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any new HS at kenmore will never have less than 35% farms unless it is completely lottery. Most of the families south of it are in affordable units and the county will basically let as many affordable units go up as the developers can handle. The single family homes in glen carlyn and probably barcroft don't have enough kids to change the percentage.

The kenmore zone to the north is not that big and very soon gets within walking distance of WL - think those parents will not scream about moving to kenmore? And then it gets close to yorktown.

Ideally, a new HS is needed on the east side of the county, not the west.

We are way past ideally at this point and more like bottom of the barrel in terms of locations. If the new HS goes to Kenmore it needs to either be a choice that many find desirable and whose program can accommodate 1300 students (which HB allegedly cannot even when it's a MS and HS combined) or the SB will have to act like grown ups and redraw boundaries while ignoring any complaints/pressure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The kenmore zone to the north is not that big and very soon gets within walking distance of WL - think those parents will not scream about moving to kenmore? And then it gets close to yorktown.

Too bad, orange shirts!

Seriously, why can't the School Board ever say No to anyone? Aren't they parents? Didn't that give them a lot of practice?

[Anonymous]

There are plenty of SFHs in the middle civic associations between Columbia Pike and Rt 50. But we're all zoned for Wakefield, so I guess we don't have to worry as much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^Lady, nobody succeeds once the numbers get to 4,000---rich or poor. Studies continually bear that out.

+1

You're saying this like it's a known fact, but five minutes of googling on my part turned up mixed results. Smaller high schools can sometimes correlate with higher achievement, but larger high schools also can correlate with higher achievement, particularly with more affluent students. (Hello, North Arlington!)

I understand the desire to keep W-L smaller (using "smaller" loosely since 2,200 isn't really all that small to me). But at the same time you guys seem totally uncaring about what adding a high school to the south with such a high FARMS rate will do to THAT population. The high FARMS rate has a much higher correlation to actual student achievement and success than the size of the school, but you don't seem to care since it won't be your school. Get out of your own head a minute and think about the devastating effect this will have on South Arlington.

[Anonymous]

N Arlington's overcrowding issue should be resolved within N Arlington,while S Arlington's performance/demographic issue should be resolved within S Arlington. Neither is easy or even solvable. Crowded schools or crappy schools? Make a choice and then be happy with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^Lady, nobody succeeds once the numbers get to 4,000---rich or poor. Studies continually bear that out.

+1

You're saying this like it's a known fact, but five minutes of googling on my part turned up mixed results. Smaller high schools can sometimes correlate with higher achievement, but larger high schools also can correlate with higher achievement, particularly with more affluent students. (Hello, North Arlington!)

I understand the desire to keep W-L smaller (using "smaller" loosely since 2,200 isn't really all that small to me). But at the same time you guys seem totally uncaring about what adding a high school to the south with such a high FARMS rate will do to THAT population. The high FARMS rate has a much higher correlation to actual student achievement and success than the size of the school, but you don't seem to care since it won't be your school. Get out of your own head a minute and think about the devastating effect this will have on South Arlington.

But it's right on 50, so its boundaries could include a lot of North Arlington, if the SB would just put on its big kid pants and do it rather than saying "We're one Arlington and all our schools are good so it doesn't matter that we roll right over when someone from North Arlington has a tantrum."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:N Arlington's overcrowding issue should be resolved within N Arlington,while S Arlington's performance/demographic issue should be resolved within S Arlington. Neither is easy or even solvable. Crowded schools or crappy schools? Make a choice and then be happy with it.

I would roll my eyes at this, but this may actually be the unofficial position of the School Board!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has convinced me that a choice program at W-L at the ed center might not be that bad -- if they set it up as a completely separate school that shared the same campus. There would still be contention for shared resources such as the cafeteria and gym but at least there would be equity for extra curriculars. The ninth grade academy is definitely not equitable/fair for W-L kids, having a HB like program there though might be.

How is it equitable if the field and sports teams would have a HS student population of 4000? Not to mention it's the smallest of the 3 HS campuses. If the other HS's are only 2800 or so total then we're talking 30% larger student population on much smaller fields, etc.

For HB, the kids come from all across the county and then go back to their home school for sports teams. If we did something like that, where its a "choice school" that happens to be co-located with W-L (like another HB, or an HB and a world languages program that is open county wide), it would pull from all over the county and the kids would go back to their home school for sports. Kind of sucks for those kids, but they made the decision to go to a choice program instead of their neighborhood school, and the effect on W-L is minimized then. Think like discovery and williamsburg being co-located. They could even stagger start times to minimize the effect on traffic since effectively they would be two independent schools. If they built a new gym for them in the ed center, and the only shared resource was the cafeteria/field space for gym class, then I think this would probably be the best option.

The main thing is figuring out a way where W-L doesn't end up a 4000 kid school, which is unfair to the kids that go there. Or making a poor kids school at Kenmore -- I totally agree with the other posters that we are setting that school and its kids up for failure if it only pulls from the poorer parts of town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It almost seems like what should be required from the North to succeed in getting the Kenmore 4th Comprehensive High School is an actual commitment from enough parents in high real estate areas to send their kids there.

Would this help keep the HSs balanced?

Would this approx map work for most people? Assuming four full comprehensive HSs.

[Anonymous]

why not TJ? it's slightly larger than WL and in the middle of the county and borders 50 too. would be perfect to serve both NE and SE Arl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:N Arlington's overcrowding issue should be resolved within N Arlington,while S Arlington's performance/demographic issue should be resolved within S Arlington. Neither is easy or even solvable. Crowded schools or crappy schools? Make a choice and then be happy with it.

Exactly, because they are two separate counties, I keep forgetting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It almost seems like what should be required from the North to succeed in getting the Kenmore 4th Comprehensive High School is an actual commitment from enough parents in high real estate areas to send their kids there.

Would this help keep the HSs balanced?

Would this approx map work for most people? Assuming four full comprehensive HSs.

I haven't looked at this closely but what is the southeast boundary on the red zone? The larger one?
I have no objection to that map, but using it my kid still winds up at Wakefield (which I'm fine with.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It almost seems like what should be required from the North to succeed in getting the Kenmore 4th Comprehensive High School is an actual commitment from enough parents in high real estate areas to send their kids there.

Would this help keep the HSs balanced?

Would this approx map work for most people? Assuming four full comprehensive HSs.

In theory, it looks fine, however our PU is one of those that would move in this scenario from Yorktown to Kenmore. I'd want to know what the general FARMS % the SB would expect with re-zoning that looked like this hypothetical. I'm not in love with Yorktown, but if my family were moved from a school with a very low FARMS rate to one where it's 40% or more, yeah, I'd be upset not just for the realities of that school environment for my family but for the huge hit to my property value.

For the SB to do Kenmore without totally screwing over the poor kids, they have to make a good faith effort not to just "sacrifice" a handful of well-off kids. There needs to be a real, true effort to balance.

[Anonymous]

I'm in the red and I wouldn't be OK with that map at all. The SB has messed around with my area enough and I'm tired to being tossed around. Also, it makes Yorktown all the more rich & privileged. No thanks.