APS: New High School forum tonight 7-9 pm at Yorktown
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Anonymous
| Wouldn't officislly redrawing the boundaries like this to niw and forevermore give Wakefield all of the South officially screw Wakefield over? |
Anonymous
Not necessarily, but I worry that the new W-L dip into South Arlington near Patrick Henry is scooping out one of the higher SES parts of South Arlington, which doesn't do much to keep the various high schools' demographics (except Yorktown) within a reasonable range of economic diversity. |
Anonymous
| Those boundaries make Wakefield poorer and Yorktown richer. It's got 22213/22207 written all over it. |
Anonymous
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That map would make yorktown and WL completely white. And, there is no way those parents on the northern and eastern end of the red zone would agree to sending their kids further away to a kenmore HS when they are so close to the white schools. They know their property values would take a hit, and they would. That Kenmore HS, depending on what side of the street it follows Columbia Pike, would place the entire west end of the Pike and buckingham at the new school. It would take a tremendous number of wealthier students from north arlington to keep it from being majority low income.
One thing I keep hearing is that the SB would have to do the zoning right, put on the adult pants, etc. WHEN HAVE THEY EVER DEMONSTRATED THAT ??? never - certainly not with the new boundary change. Those people cannot get off the "all arlington schools are great" talk. I have absolutely NO FAITH that they would do the boundaries correctly. Reid is the only one no beholden to north arlington. If kenmore is the space for a new school, it must be choice otherwise south arlington is screwed once again. |
Anonymous
The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any way to make contiguous boundaries around four schools, two in mid-county, one north, one south that would NOT make the northern-most overwhelmingly affluent and the southern-most overwhelmingly poor. That's simply how housing has been divided in the county, exacerbated by county AH development priorities. The only way to really balance 4 HS (heck, even the 3 we have now) would be to randomly assign kids to schools and deal with the transportation mess that would be. But I can't imagine Arlington leadership ever having the political will to do that. |
Anonymous
My problem with map is it takes us from walkers at Yorktown to a long bus ride to the new school (after our planning unit was already screwed into McK.) But we have to decide as a county what the priorities are. Is it neighborhood schools? Is it diversity at the expense of all else? I'm not sure anymore. |
Anonymous
I think the bolded is an overstatement. How about "a reasonably level playing field even if some kids have to take a bus" -- and I would say "take a bus instead of walking," but I don't think we can say that unless we somehow eliminate parent dropoffs and kids driving to school. I'd be willing to say that while busing should be a consideration, we shouldn't be worried about bus rides of less than half an hour? 20 minutes? Because high school walkers can be walking about that long, depending on whether they stride or amble (and I like that they walk, but we're juggling a lot of factors, so maybe the walk to school can't be the way your kid gets exercise). |
Anonymous
| Also, the red extends up way to far if you only talking about 1300 seats. |
Anonymous
Well, we're obviously not going to do that. But if the North can't make Kenmore the same kind of successful mix of kids that allows the possibility of academic success for all at W-L, then it needs to stop trying to shove this down Glen Carlyn's throat over access to extracurriculars. |
Anonymous
That may be true but I'm going out on a limb to say you don't live in one of those planning units, already screwed over in the elementary school redistricting. |
Anonymous
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When I read these 20 pages of posts it convinces me that what the CB needs to do is put a moratorium on all AH in the Western Pike. If they want to add more AH, do it up along Lee Hwy.
There is no way to solve the inequality without either a drastic change to housing policy or a massive busing project. |
Anonymous
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stupid map. no SB member would touch it with a 10 feet potl just be happy with your 1300 Ed Ctr.
don't like it? move to Kenmore zone. |
Anonymous
This would be our situation as well. I would lean toward being ok with sending my kids to a Kenmore that looked like this, although I'm not (and never have been) advocating for the Kenmore option. And that's IF Kenmore has facilities that are the same as the other three high schools. But like a PP, I'm trying to be realistic- it's difficult to envision what this could do to property values. There are a whole bunch of houses zoned for Wakefield that are almost as expensive as mine, so maybe the answer is, not much. But yes, we haven't lived here long and it is scary to think about losing what little equity we have. I was at the Yorktown meeting and heard at least one W-L zoned parent express concern about property values there if W-L becomes at huge school/campus. If Ed Center is picked, W-L people (kind of rightfully) feel that they are bearing the cost of overcrowding, taking the possible financial hit, while everyone else stays the same. But in this rezoning scenario, people on the west side take the brunt. While for people north of Lee Highway, Yorktown gets relatively wealthier and for people in the far south, Wakefield possibly gets poorer. I don't know if that feels right to me either. |
Anonymous
What are long-term? 1300 was the relatively short-term need, right? |
Anonymous
^ "What about" |