APS Elementary Location Working Group 4/12

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Key is projected to have over 825 kids next year. They are going to need a facility with a lot of room if they want to move Key. Not sure where that facility would be. Of course, if they move it, its possible that demand will decrease, so that less space is needed.

Is that projection the school or the zone? Not the same thing right now.

The school, I believe

The application numbers that just came out speak against that I think.
ASFS was deemed a good fit for an option School - it makes so much sense to move the Key program there.
You are not taking away a neighborhood school, because everyone around ASFS attends Taylor.
And many around Key already attend ASFS - everyone who doesn’t want Spanish.
This swap is the ONLY thing out of the whole thing that makes total sense.

Our family is walkable to ASFS by crossing Kirkwood, but zoned Taylor, this sucks. Taylor is not a close school for our neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are they going to move Key to the Ed Center location? I thought I read that was a possibility somewhere?

I have not read that anywhere?

As far as I know, the Ed Center will be used for high school seats. Possibly expansion of IB.

NP here. Apparently, the SB - or the staff, I'm not clear which - is back to thinking about using the Ed Center for elementary seats, and shifting the high school seats to the Career Center site. I understand that this issue came up at a recent working group meeting.

Right. And making the Career Center site a comprehensive HS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Key is projected to have over 825 kids next year. They are going to need a facility with a lot of room if they want to move Key. Not sure where that facility would be. Of course, if they move it, its possible that demand will decrease, so that less space is needed.

Is that projection the school or the zone? Not the same thing right now.

The school, I believe

The application numbers that just came out speak against that I think.
ASFS was deemed a good fit for an option School - it makes so much sense to move the Key program there.
You are not taking away a neighborhood school, because everyone around ASFS attends Taylor.
And many around Key already attend ASFS - everyone who doesn’t want Spanish.
This swap is the ONLY thing out of the whole thing that makes total sense.

Our family is walkable to ASFS by crossing Kirkwood, but zoned Taylor, this sucks. Taylor is not a close school for our neighborhood.

If you are east of Kirkwood and not north of Lee highway, you will probably be zoned to either walkable ASFS or walkable Key, because those units of Lyon Village are Key walk zone if neighborhood and a new ASFS boundary would include you if Key stays Immersion. https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ES_Key_WZ_Policy_Final.pdf

If you're in that part north of Lee Highway you're still going to Taylor, I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Then no one can blame any neighborhood that fights tooth and nail losing 500-600 seats while being told APS will do nothing to relieve the resulting overcrowding. Anyone would do the same.

You don't look at seats by neighborhood, but by the school system.

And families previously zoned for Key still have a neighborhood high school. Walking to school is great, but it's not reasonable to expect your kids to get to walk to school for all 13 years.

Key is zoned for Yorktown. Unless you're considering HB Woodlawn a neighborhood HS? Ha.

At least some of Key (the Lyon Village part) is zoned for W-L: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/HSZones_Letter_2017.pdf

Right, cause they don't get screwed like the rest of us. The majority of the zone where most of the students live (cross reference here if you don't believe me https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Stu17K5_PP.jpg) is shipped waaaaaaay over to Williamsburg and Yorktown. No, it's not close or convenient. We fortunately will be zoned to the new middle school at Stratford (still not a "neighborhood" school, but better), but the Yorktown situation will not change.

BTW, this is exactly what will happen if they don't change Key to neighborhood. Lyon Village will go to ASFS and those of us further east will be shipped to the hinterlands.

It's pretty clear that Key will become a neighborhood school. The question is what happens with the immersion program and other surrounding schools. But I'd say Key was a lock for a neighborhood school based on how they did the analysis and the supporting data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Key is projected to have over 825 kids next year. They are going to need a facility with a lot of room if they want to move Key. Not sure where that facility would be. Of course, if they move it, its possible that demand will decrease, so that less space is needed.

Is that projection the school or the zone? Not the same thing right now.

The school, I believe

The application numbers that just came out speak against that I think.
ASFS was deemed a good fit for an option School - it makes so much sense to move the Key program there.
You are not taking away a neighborhood school, because everyone around ASFS attends Taylor.
And many around Key already attend ASFS - everyone who doesn’t want Spanish.
This swap is the ONLY thing out of the whole thing that makes total sense.

Our family is walkable to ASFS by crossing Kirkwood, but zoned Taylor, this sucks. Taylor is not a close school for our neighborhood.

But you aren't and have never been zoned ASFS. Sorry, this is not new information. You've lost nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would people think about giving priority admission to choice programs to students from adjacent elementary schools (the schools where, if the option site were instead a neighborhood site, the school's boundaries would likely draw from their zones) when those schools are facing a capacity crisis. So if ATS stays where it is, when any of Barrett, Ashlawn, Reed, or Glebe are facing disproportionate overcrowding as compared to the system as a whole, they are guaranteed that X number of seats in the incoming kindergarten class are set aside for students from their zone, and any students from their zone who don't get a seat through that lottery get put into the general lottery with all the other applicants (so they should end up with more than the minimum number of students getting in, the minimum just sets a guaranteed floor). If seats open up in later grades, waitlisted students from those schools are offered the seat first before it goes to the person at the top of the list from another school. If the program moved to Nottingham, then the priority would go to Tuckahoe, Discovery and Reed instead. If you moved it to Carlin Springs, Campbell/Claremont (depending on which one would become neighborhood) and Barcroft get priority. It wouldn't be a cure-all for whichever area loses potential neighborhood seats to an option program, but would at least help alleviate some of the burden that would result.

Haha, we *JUST* took away neighborhood priority to Key Immersion. They are not going to walk that back anytime soon, would be so embarrassing.

Yes, we finally eliminated the geographic entitlements which were unjust and only exacerbated the crowding problems. The only seat set-asides there should be are for ED students to facilitate economically diverse option programs and to minimize the negative socioeconomic impact on south arlington neighborhood schools that results from disproportionate numbers of non-ED families opting out of those schools. People cry "social engineering!" (as though that's a bad thing) But what do you think our housing policies and transfer policies have been? Social engineering for segregated society.

[Anonymous]

An interesting idea is allowing a certain percentage of neighborhood transfers with provided transportation if you would have qualified for Vpi. That would probably help diversity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An interesting idea is allowing a certain percentage of neighborhood transfers with provided transportation if you would have qualified for Vpi. That would probably help diversity

Elementary transfers where?

[Anonymous]

I am moving to NOVA with elementary age kids and have been trying to follow all of this but am so confused by all of this. Do my kids have to lottery in to a school no matter what? Or does your residence address provide you with an automatic (regardless of walkable) school pyramid elementary/middle/high pyramid and you don't have to deal with lotteries unless you want some special programming or something? I realize this is a basic question but I am baffled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am moving to NOVA with elementary age kids and have been trying to follow all of this but am so confused by all of this. Do my kids have to lottery in to a school no matter what? Or does your residence address provide you with an automatic (regardless of walkable) school pyramid elementary/middle/high pyramid and you don't have to deal with lotteries unless you want some special programming or something? I realize this is a basic question but I am baffled.

In Arlington (as with most of the DC area) it is really about money. You just buy a house near the good schools (and the other wealthy people) and hopefully Larla stays off the pole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am moving to NOVA with elementary age kids and have been trying to follow all of this but am so confused by all of this. Do my kids have to lottery in to a school no matter what? Or does your residence address provide you with an automatic (regardless of walkable) school pyramid elementary/middle/high pyramid and you don't have to deal with lotteries unless you want some special programming or something? I realize this is a basic question but I am baffled.

Sorry you are so confused.

[Anonymous]

The County ties itself into knots with its catering to rich n Arlington folks, its empty talk about egalitarianism, and it’s odd fetishization of option schools. Just effing carve out neighborhood zones, keep one big immersion option and call it a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am moving to NOVA with elementary age kids and have been trying to follow all of this but am so confused by all of this. Do my kids have to lottery in to a school no matter what? Or does your residence address provide you with an automatic (regardless of walkable) school pyramid elementary/middle/high pyramid and you don't have to deal with lotteries unless you want some special programming or something? I realize this is a basic question but I am baffled.

In other words, does my white privilege buy me a pyramid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am moving to NOVA with elementary age kids and have been trying to follow all of this but am so confused by all of this. Do my kids have to lottery in to a school no matter what? Or does your residence address provide you with an automatic (regardless of walkable) school pyramid elementary/middle/high pyramid and you don't have to deal with lotteries unless you want some special programming or something? I realize this is a basic question but I am baffled.

Yes. But you wouldn't think that from the hysteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am moving to NOVA with elementary age kids and have been trying to follow all of this but am so confused by all of this. Do my kids have to lottery in to a school no matter what? Or does your residence address provide you with an automatic (regardless of walkable) school pyramid elementary/middle/high pyramid and you don't have to deal with lotteries unless you want some special programming or something? I realize this is a basic question but I am baffled.

In other words, does my white privilege buy me a pyramid?

No, actually. Regardless of how it started - which a poster cannot control - most of the country doesn't have this lottery nonsense and uses basic school zones, its a very valid question/point of confusion and there is no reason to ascribe racism to it.