Question about re zoning elementary schools in S. Arlington

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can never tell if these posts are trolls or not.
If you think the rb corridor has any special treatment by Aps you are horribly wrong. They are the ones being sent on extremely long bus routes to diversify schools in the north. All the schools on the east side of the county are option schools. Do you think that was done to benefit the kids in those neighborhoods? No, it was so kids in the nw would have brand new schools. Look at ats. The kids at ballston get bussed passed three schools to go to Ashlawn.
Look at the Williamsburg bubble. It took a lot of pressure by civic associations there for Aps to even consider getting rid of it.
Don’t even get me started on the asfs mess. How an administrator can say that immigrants are causing the school to lose accreditation and still have a job is beyond me. The message is clear though. Unless you are rich and look like what they think an ideal kid looks like, you are not welcome. Plain and simple.

I don't think the post was talking about APS - rather the County's financial investment in development along the R-B corridor and protectionism from development farther north. As compared to the commitment to preserve all the affordable housing and replace any lost affordable housing in the County in the Pike corridor, and lack of financial investment in economic development in the south.

But I don't follow your comment that all the schools in the east are choice. There's Key at the elementary level; HB at the middle/high. There may not be enough elementary schools in the east; but how is that "all" option schools?

If you draw a two mile radius around Rosslyn, the only two schools are key and the Wilson site. The closest schools if you go beyond 2 miles are asfs and long branch, both of which cannot hold the 2000+ kids that live from the river to Washington lee. There is no plan to address this. The plan is to instead draw very long boundaries that pull kids to far away schools that are 3+ miles away.
Just look at the map.

So the issue is really a very limited # of schools nearby - one elementary and one combined option middle/high. Swapping ASF and Key will provide the neighborhood elementary. There are limited middle schools and your neighborhood middle school just might not be within walking distance. Deal - like a lot of the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

So, I’m voting for the diversity map!
Anyone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, I’m voting for the diversity map!
Anyone else?

Unless you live in Fleet or Oakridge its a no brainer.

Though the maps are for discussion purposes only, aspects will become real. Some takeaways, IMHO:

1. The northern half of oakridges zone seems likely to go to HB in any reasonable scenario. I do expect that this area has been lobbying all year to avoid that, and probably would prefer to relieve overcrowding at Oakridge by dumping arna valley and long branch creek, which are poorer and in the Oakridge walk zone. So I won't be surprised to see a scenario that does just that.

2. Drew seems likely to end up with some tentacles. As expected, there will be a scenario where the zone snakes a half mile down Glebe road to include the Berkeley, a large AH complex currently being doubled in size. I think these kids currently walk to oakridge so it doesn't make much sense to me in terms of bussing costs, and it sure doesn't make sense from a diversity or compactness standpoint either. That these tentacles even exist indicates to me that planners may have to resort to some really weird boundaries to fill Drew. And if planners give Drew a high farms rate, that will worsen the problem as parents decide to send their kids to option, move, or go private.

3. The "alignment" map is a dream for alcova heights, because it sends them to fleet. It's visually appealing in that the boundaries aren't crazy looking and resemble current ones. For that reason I'd bet it does a very poor job of managing capacity. I expect under that scenario that Fleet would be very crowded, Oakridge still crowded, and Drew maybe not even at 90% of capacity, and maybe less. I would guess it's also the least diversity minded map, too.

[Anonymous]

I think that if they blend the diversity map and the efficiency map, they could have something reasonable, that doesn't look too crazy, minimizes additional busing costs, and improves diversity. I don't really care about the rest of the criteria. Alignment? My PU doesn't have it now and somehow all the kids have a managed to survive. Proximity? The expanded walk zones that the community "reported" are not reliable because people used that process to try to get their desired outcome (e.g. sending certain kids to Drew from the Oakridge walk zone and keeping Henry intact. Just read the comments on the walk zone surveys; nobody is really walking eleven blocks and crossing Columbia Pike to get their Kindergartener to school at the new Fleet).

[Anonymous]

Looks like Alcova Heights isn’t going to Fleet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I’m voting for the diversity map!
Anyone else?

Unless you live in Fleet or Oakridge its a no brainer.

Though the maps are for discussion purposes only, aspects will become real. Some takeaways, IMHO:

1. The northern half of oakridges zone seems likely to go to HB in any reasonable scenario. I do expect that this area has been lobbying all year to avoid that, and probably would prefer to relieve overcrowding at Oakridge by dumping arna valley and long branch creek, which are poorer and in the Oakridge walk zone. So I won't be surprised to see a scenario that does just that.

2. Drew seems likely to end up with some tentacles. As expected, there will be a scenario where the zone snakes a half mile down Glebe road to include the Berkeley, a large AH complex currently being doubled in size. I think these kids currently walk to oakridge so it doesn't make much sense to me in terms of bussing costs, and it sure doesn't make sense from a diversity or compactness standpoint either. That these tentacles even exist indicates to me that planners may have to resort to some really weird boundaries to fill Drew. And if planners give Drew a high farms rate, that will worsen the problem as parents decide to send their kids to option, move, or go private.

3. The "alignment" map is a dream for alcova heights, because it sends them to fleet. It's visually appealing in that the boundaries aren't crazy looking and resemble current ones. For that reason I'd bet it does a very poor job of managing capacity. I expect under that scenario that Fleet would be very crowded, Oakridge still crowded, and Drew maybe not even at 90% of capacity, and maybe less. I would guess it's also the least diversity minded map, too.

Or Long Branch - it wraps around taking the parts of Lyon Park/Ashton Heights north of Pershing into Hoffman-Boston in addition to Ft Myer and anything south of 50, which looks like will absolutely be moved regardless.

Mainly, I think the demographics-only map is illustrative in showing how hard it is to make boundaries that balance demographics once you insist on contiguity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I’m voting for the diversity map!
Anyone else?

Unless you live in Fleet or Oakridge its a no brainer.

Though the maps are for discussion purposes only, aspects will become real. Some takeaways, IMHO:

1. The northern half of oakridges zone seems likely to go to HB in any reasonable scenario. I do expect that this area has been lobbying all year to avoid that, and probably would prefer to relieve overcrowding at Oakridge by dumping arna valley and long branch creek, which are poorer and in the Oakridge walk zone. So I won't be surprised to see a scenario that does just that.

2. Drew seems likely to end up with some tentacles. As expected, there will be a scenario where the zone snakes a half mile down Glebe road to include the Berkeley, a large AH complex currently being doubled in size. I think these kids currently walk to oakridge so it doesn't make much sense to me in terms of bussing costs, and it sure doesn't make sense from a diversity or compactness standpoint either. That these tentacles even exist indicates to me that planners may have to resort to some really weird boundaries to fill Drew. And if planners give Drew a high farms rate, that will worsen the problem as parents decide to send their kids to option, move, or go private.

3. The "alignment" map is a dream for alcova heights, because it sends them to fleet. It's visually appealing in that the boundaries aren't crazy looking and resemble current ones. For that reason I'd bet it does a very poor job of managing capacity. I expect under that scenario that Fleet would be very crowded, Oakridge still crowded, and Drew maybe not even at 90% of capacity, and maybe less. I would guess it's also the least diversity minded map, too.

Why would Oakridge still be crowded in this scenario? It looks like that map cuts their boundary in half.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, I’m voting for the diversity map!
Anyone else?

The diversity map isn't a thing you get to vote for. The staff was very explicit that those illustrative maps would not be actual proposals, the proposed maps would be a blend of those illustrative maps.

Jesus, it's the farking middle school boundary process all over again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that if they blend the diversity map and the efficiency map, they could have something reasonable, that doesn't look too crazy, minimizes additional busing costs, and improves diversity. I don't really care about the rest of the criteria. Alignment? My PU doesn't have it now and somehow all the kids have a managed to survive. Proximity? The expanded walk zones that the community "reported" are not reliable because people used that process to try to get their desired outcome (e.g. sending certain kids to Drew from the Oakridge walk zone and keeping Henry intact. Just read the comments on the walk zone surveys; nobody is really walking eleven blocks and crossing Columbia Pike to get their Kindergartener to school at the new Fleet).

Staff said they will be using the expanded walk zones developed last fall that don't require any county improvements such as hawk signals to implement. They are using only what's in their control to define walk zones for this process, so what people said they would do if given another crossing guard is irrelevant. If the county does make some of the suggested improvements down the road, that could be used at that point to reconsider whether particular units get bus service to their zoned school, but no planning units will have their zoning decided based on anticipated county immprovements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that if they blend the diversity map and the efficiency map, they could have something reasonable, that doesn't look too crazy, minimizes additional busing costs, and improves diversity. I don't really care about the rest of the criteria. Alignment? My PU doesn't have it now and somehow all the kids have a managed to survive. Proximity? The expanded walk zones that the community "reported" are not reliable because people used that process to try to get their desired outcome (e.g. sending certain kids to Drew from the Oakridge walk zone and keeping Henry intact. Just read the comments on the walk zone surveys; nobody is really walking eleven blocks and crossing Columbia Pike to get their Kindergartener to school at the new Fleet).

Overall, I don't think alignment is critical, either; except our PU splits off from elementary AND from middle school. The middle school split is worse, in my opinion, because our kids have already left behind many friends leaving elementary school, and friendships change so much during the three short years of middle school just to be split off from them again heading into high school. Especially with an additional middle school coming on line soon, aligning MS with HS should become easier.

[Anonymous]

Wow. So they put the maps up and this thread just died.
Really interesting. So... I’m guessing most posters aren’t actually living or know much first hand about south Arlington.
The asfs thread is ridiculous, but you can’t say they aren’t engaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. So they put the maps up and this thread just died.
Really interesting. So... I’m guessing most posters aren’t actually living or know much first hand about south Arlington.
The asfs thread is ridiculous, but you can’t say they aren’t engaged.

Guess we really are more chill than NA parents after all. On the other hand, I'll bet a lot of parents who are zoned to Henry or Oakridge now, or want to be, are furiously lobbying the school board about it as we speak. There's some shameful sh1t on the table. Sending Alcova to Fleet? The Berkeley Apts
to Drew? Those kids can see Oakridge out their window. It's literally across the street.

[Anonymous]

The panicked threads will grow when the actual proposals are on the table instead of just the example maps. The ASFS thread is crazy because they actually said the swap is happening. I agree that there is likely lots of quiet lobbying happening right now.


--S. Arlington parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. So they put the maps up and this thread just died.
Really interesting. So... I’m guessing most posters aren’t actually living or know much first hand about south Arlington.
The asfs thread is ridiculous, but you can’t say they aren’t engaged.

Guess we really are more chill than NA parents after all. On the other hand, I'll bet a lot of parents who are zoned to Henry or Oakridge now, or want to be, are furiously lobbying the school board about it as we speak. There's some shameful sh1t on the table. Sending Alcova to Fleet? The Berkeley Apts
to Drew? Those kids can see Oakridge out their window. It's literally across the street.

Well, those maps are the proposal so still not a whole lot to talk about. One commonality seems to be that Ft. Myer and units s. of 50 are leaving Long Branch, prob to Hoffman Boston and/or Fleet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. So they put the maps up and this thread just died.
Really interesting. So... I’m guessing most posters aren’t actually living or know much first hand about south Arlington.
The asfs thread is ridiculous, but you can’t say they aren’t engaged.

Guess we really are more chill than NA parents after all. On the other hand, I'll bet a lot of parents who are zoned to Henry or Oakridge now, or want to be, are furiously lobbying the school board about it as we speak. There's some shameful sh1t on the table. Sending Alcova to Fleet? The Berkeley Apts
to Drew? Those kids can see Oakridge out their window. It's literally across the street.

Zoning the Berkeley to Drew would probably sentence Drew to a farms rate over 60% in perpetuity, and anyone who cares about Drew or those kids in the Berkeley should speak up about it to the SB.

Nauck is still pretty poor and has several AH complexes of its own. Drew simply can't absorb the Berkeley without consequence. The Berkeley is going to have 250 units when the expansion is complete, 150 of them committed affordable. There are going to be at least that many children living there. They could easily comprise half the students at the new Drew.

I'm concerned the upcoming boundary scenarios will reference old data, for a Berkeley half the size it will eventually be. Keep your eyes out for that. Those kids can easily walk to Oakridge and would benefit greatly from attending a scho with a 20% farms rate and a large, active PTA.