APS elementary planning initiative called off

[Anonymous]

I get that the APS staff have a hard job creating new boundaries that will work for everyone, but why keep punting? What else are they working on that is taking up their jobs full time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in Aurora Highlands and I really wonder what is going to happen to Oakridge. We're at 120% capacity, so the school is clearly in the top teir of schools that need capacity relief. APS has talked about building a new school at the Aurora Hill library, but if you look at the numbers we don't have enough kids to support two schools. When montessori moves out of Drew that should open up about 500 seats near Oakridge, but that will mean crossing 395 which is awful. I don't see any good solutions for the SE quadrant.

They will have to bus some kids across 395, there's no other way to help Oakridge. My guess is that much of the current Hoffman-Boston zone will go to Drew so that students from the nothern part of the Oakridge zone can be moved to Hoffman-Boston.

How many Montessori kids are moving out of Drew?

I've never been able to find good data on the number of kids at Drew who are in the Montessori program. Last year there were 275 K-5 Montessori transfers to Drew, but that only captures the Montessori students living outside the school zone; there were 234 non-transfer students at Drew who might have been in the neighborhood school portion or in the Montessori program (the remaining 61 students were other types of transfers).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get that the APS staff have a hard job creating new boundaries that will work for everyone, but why keep punting? What else are they working on that is taking up their jobs full time?

This spring is was the CIP. Doing all of those revisions in such short timeframes was an enormous undertaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS will have to fix the Key/ASF mess- have you seen the 2018-2019 boundary map? How can you have a neighborhood school attendance zone that doesn’t actually include its neighborhood school?

All they have to do is send some planning units to Longbranch (that will have some relief/space when Fleet opens) and some to Taylor. As for kids having to ride a bus 2.3 miles vs. 2.6 miles, that makes a lot more sense than busing every Rosslyn/Courthouse/Clarendon student to ASF and then busing the almost 300 kids who live around ASF to Taylor. Why pay for all those extra buses just so Rosslyn can stay at ASF? Because Rosslyn has apartments with poor people? So does Virginia Square and Bsllston. And what is wrong with adding some diversity to Taylor, or going to Longbranch? The folks in Clarendon and Courthouse might actually prefer a shorter commute to Longbranch.

Bottom line, boundaries are going to change. ASF/Key obviously need a lot of change now that APS got rid of the team model. The sooner probably the better given that eventually they are going to have to include ASF in its attendance zone. The only reason to wait to do anything is to guarantee those who currently attend ASF get to stay a bit longer at the expense of those who live around ASF.

I live on the southern side of Rosslyn. We are a household with two working parents and we don't drive on a regular basis, though we do have a personal vehicle. My first choice would be to have a neighborhood school at Key, just under a mile walk. We are not technically in the walk zone, but we are people who would walk anyway because that's what we do. My second choice would be Long Branch, 2.4 mile drive that takes about 10 min at rush hour. There are also plenty of buses on this route. Third choice is Science Focus, 2.7 miles and closer to 15 min at rush hour, limited transit options. Taylor, the school that would actually have space, would be a terrible option. It's 3.6 miles away and more like 20 minutes because I would have to drive through Rosslyn to get there. Also, the transit options are awful.

My obviously biased take is that the best long term solution, should the board be able to stomach it, is to move immersion to Carlin Springs and have a concentrated outreach effort to get neighborhood families to buy into the immersion idea. Key would continue to be a diverse school because of the neighborhood demographics and the area needs neighborhood seats. Science Focus would then be able to absorb its walk zone as well as apartments in Virginia Square and Ballston, hopefully remaining a reasonably diverse school and fixing the Ashlawn Jag. Ashlawn would then have capacity to pull up some of the Carlin Springs zone from below route 50.

+1

That's all well and good to help the NE quadrant; but SE will still need more seats, too. Moving the Claremont immersion program to Carlin Springs could address that without having to build another new school.

Do you mean around Oakridge? If Key was neighborhood some zones could be shifted up, as well - some of Long Branch to Science Focus, and then more units S of 50 up to Long Branch, and so on? I don't know if that would work, honestly. I only truly know my corner of the county.

This gets tricky because Long Branch is so close to Fleet. Kids that are close to Long Branch across 50 are going to be walk-zone to Fleet. Unless they somehow curve the boundary around Fleet's boundary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS will have to fix the Key/ASF mess- have you seen the 2018-2019 boundary map? How can you have a neighborhood school attendance zone that doesn’t actually include its neighborhood school?

All they have to do is send some planning units to Longbranch (that will have some relief/space when Fleet opens) and some to Taylor. As for kids having to ride a bus 2.3 miles vs. 2.6 miles, that makes a lot more sense than busing every Rosslyn/Courthouse/Clarendon student to ASF and then busing the almost 300 kids who live around ASF to Taylor. Why pay for all those extra buses just so Rosslyn can stay at ASF? Because Rosslyn has apartments with poor people? So does Virginia Square and Bsllston. And what is wrong with adding some diversity to Taylor, or going to Longbranch? The folks in Clarendon and Courthouse might actually prefer a shorter commute to Longbranch.

Bottom line, boundaries are going to change. ASF/Key obviously need a lot of change now that APS got rid of the team model. The sooner probably the better given that eventually they are going to have to include ASF in its attendance zone. The only reason to wait to do anything is to guarantee those who currently attend ASF get to stay a bit longer at the expense of those who live around ASF.

This is a parody post, right? It’s weak, and slightly pathetic.

You know someone has made a valid point when the immediate response is to start name-calling.

New poster, but I thought it was a parody too.
I wish people would stop saying you can move kids to long branch. Yes, some of that school will be rezoned to fleet, but only enough to relieve the immediate over crowding there. If they do anything with asfs, it will be to move people to Taylor.
They also said they aren’t touching the Ashlawn boundary in 2019. So Ashlawn lads you’re still at Ashlawn for the next three years.

Since when have you ever been able to rely on what "they" (ie APS) says? NVD gave pretty clear direction to come back with a whole-County, one-time solution for ES boundaries this fall.

That was something she wanted them to look at the feasibility of, not a determination that it will happen (especially since she's only one vote out of five). Further, there are two different parts of the process that people are conflating here. The first is when they draw the new map(s), and the second is when that map will be implemented; NVD was talking about the former, not the latter. Whether they draw full the map this fall or in 2020, they cannot implement most of the portion affecting ASFS until Reed opens in 2021 because they have no place to move students in the meantime. Even if they draw a full map this fall, most likely they will go back to their original plan of looking at the most current data and projections again in 2020 to see if any tweaks should be made to the map before the final phase of implementation in 2021.

And here's the thing, the staff is going to draw a full map this summer/fall no matter what they show the public. They're going to draw one keeping the current school locations, and they're going to draw one based on where they think the option schools should go (maybe two versions of this if they think there are two strong proposals). They will do this so that they can make sure that whatever they do with the green-zone schools they're definitely rezoning this fall won't needlessly constrain them for the next phase. To the extent these maps reveal planning units in the yellow zone that can be moved in 2019 to give relief without creating new problems or limiting options for the 2020 redraw, they will publish those as well. But there is little value to them publishing a full rezoning map this fall because all that will add to the process is a whole lot of extra fighting about whether a planning unit should go to McKinley or Reed, Nottingham or Tuckahoe, only to have that decision possibly revisited (and thus fight the same battle all over again) two years later when they look at whether any tweaks should be made before those changes are implemented.

I get why some people want changes to happen sooner, but we need to deal in reality when setting our expectations or we just make the process even more contentious for no productive purpose.

I understand your point, I just disagree. You are advocating for the perfect solution for the NW quadrant in 2021 while limiting the ability to balance enrollment of the entire system for two more years and a suboptimal system end solution. I'd rather rip the band aid off in 2019, and create a more equitable system-wide solution. I agree for two years McKinley, Nottingham, Discovery, and Tuckahoe will be burdened disproportionately. But it's only for two years and their strain will be much less than that of many other schools across Arlington have experienced for several years.

[Anonymous]

Gotta live Oakridge posters. Seriously, they have the most crowded school in the county WITH A BROKEN HVAC system. You hardly hear them murmur a peep. NW quadrant needs to follow their example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS will have to fix the Key/ASF mess- have you seen the 2018-2019 boundary map? How can you have a neighborhood school attendance zone that doesn’t actually include its neighborhood school?

All they have to do is send some planning units to Longbranch (that will have some relief/space when Fleet opens) and some to Taylor. As for kids having to ride a bus 2.3 miles vs. 2.6 miles, that makes a lot more sense than busing every Rosslyn/Courthouse/Clarendon student to ASF and then busing the almost 300 kids who live around ASF to Taylor. Why pay for all those extra buses just so Rosslyn can stay at ASF? Because Rosslyn has apartments with poor people? So does Virginia Square and Bsllston. And what is wrong with adding some diversity to Taylor, or going to Longbranch? The folks in Clarendon and Courthouse might actually prefer a shorter commute to Longbranch.

Bottom line, boundaries are going to change. ASF/Key obviously need a lot of change now that APS got rid of the team model. The sooner probably the better given that eventually they are going to have to include ASF in its attendance zone. The only reason to wait to do anything is to guarantee those who currently attend ASF get to stay a bit longer at the expense of those who live around ASF.

This is a parody post, right? It’s weak, and slightly pathetic.

You know someone has made a valid point when the immediate response is to start name-calling.

New poster, but I thought it was a parody too.
I wish people would stop saying you can move kids to long branch. Yes, some of that school will be rezoned to fleet, but only enough to relieve the immediate over crowding there. If they do anything with asfs, it will be to move people to Taylor.
They also said they aren’t touching the Ashlawn boundary in 2019. So Ashlawn lads you’re still at Ashlawn for the next three years.

Since when have you ever been able to rely on what "they" (ie APS) says? NVD gave pretty clear direction to come back with a whole-County, one-time solution for ES boundaries this fall.

That was something she wanted them to look at the feasibility of, not a determination that it will happen (especially since she's only one vote out of five). Further, there are two different parts of the process that people are conflating here. The first is when they draw the new map(s), and the second is when that map will be implemented; NVD was talking about the former, not the latter. Whether they draw full the map this fall or in 2020, they cannot implement most of the portion affecting ASFS until Reed opens in 2021 because they have no place to move students in the meantime. Even if they draw a full map this fall, most likely they will go back to their original plan of looking at the most current data and projections again in 2020 to see if any tweaks should be made to the map before the final phase of implementation in 2021.

And here's the thing, the staff is going to draw a full map this summer/fall no matter what they show the public. They're going to draw one keeping the current school locations, and they're going to draw one based on where they think the option schools should go (maybe two versions of this if they think there are two strong proposals). They will do this so that they can make sure that whatever they do with the green-zone schools they're definitely rezoning this fall won't needlessly constrain them for the next phase. To the extent these maps reveal planning units in the yellow zone that can be moved in 2019 to give relief without creating new problems or limiting options for the 2020 redraw, they will publish those as well. But there is little value to them publishing a full rezoning map this fall because all that will add to the process is a whole lot of extra fighting about whether a planning unit should go to McKinley or Reed, Nottingham or Tuckahoe, only to have that decision possibly revisited (and thus fight the same battle all over again) two years later when they look at whether any tweaks should be made before those changes are implemented.

I get why some people want changes to happen sooner, but we need to deal in reality when setting our expectations or we just make the process even more contentious for no productive purpose.

I understand your point, I just disagree. You are advocating for the perfect solution for the NW quadrant in 2021 while limiting the ability to balance enrollment of the entire system for two more years and a suboptimal system end solution. I'd rather rip the band aid off in 2019, and create a more equitable system-wide solution. I agree for two years McKinley, Nottingham, Discovery, and Tuckahoe will be burdened disproportionately. But it's only for two years and their strain will be much less than that of many other schools across Arlington have experienced for several years.

I wasn't advocating for anything there, I was laying out the considerations for why I don't think the school board will do what you want them to do. What you are proposing would be very expensive, a logistical nightmare, would potentially violate APS transfer policy, so I wouldn't pin my hopes on it if I were you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gotta live Oakridge posters. Seriously, they have the most crowded school in the county WITH A BROKEN HVAC system. You hardly hear them murmur a peep. NW quadrant needs to follow their example.

Um, NW isn't making all of the noise about how APS should change its plan for the fall, that's ASFS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gotta live Oakridge posters. Seriously, they have the most crowded school in the county WITH A BROKEN HVAC system. You hardly hear them murmur a peep. NW quadrant needs to follow their example.

Um, NW isn't making all of the noise about how APS should change its plan for the fall, that's ASFS.

It’s actually NE would-be ASFS doing all the whining, current ASFS isn’t making a peep because they don’t want to change schools sooner than necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gotta live Oakridge posters. Seriously, they have the most crowded school in the county WITH A BROKEN HVAC system. You hardly hear them murmur a peep. NW quadrant needs to follow their example.

Um, NW isn't making all of the noise about how APS should change its plan for the fall, that's ASFS.

Why would the NW quadrant make noise now? Nottingham and Tuckahoe already got what they wanted by getting APS to cancel the location review.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gotta live Oakridge posters. Seriously, they have the most crowded school in the county WITH A BROKEN HVAC system. You hardly hear them murmur a peep. NW quadrant needs to follow their example.

Um, NW isn't making all of the noise about how APS should change its plan for the fall, that's ASFS.

Why would the NW quadrant make noise now? Nottingham and Tuckahoe already got what they wanted by getting APS to cancel the location review.

They didn’t really get what they wanted because the process was only suspended, not cancelled. If Nottingham and Tuckahoe really wanted to secure their positions, they would also push for a full rezoning this fall because the staff won’t be able to do option changes and boundaries in the time remaining, so the rezoning would have to done with no option changes and that would lock things in for at least the next 5-7 years. That they’re not clamoring for this (yet) suggests they get it’s a silly idea and/or accept the inevitability of the location review.

[Anonymous]

Current ASFS don’t want change because they are still lobbying APS to kick Key out so they can move ASFS to Key in 2021.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Current ASFS don’t want change because they are still lobbying APS to kick Key out so they can move ASFS to Key in 2021.

Why would APS move ASFS to Key?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Current ASFS don’t want change because they are still lobbying APS to kick Key out so they can move ASFS to Key in 2021.

No one at current ASFS wants the Key school. Most are happy to stay were they are. If the Cherrydale contingent painting that picture b/c they want to kick out the Rosslyn folk and take ASFS as their neighborhood school.

Seriously, it can wait a couple years for the transfers to roll out and for Reed to open and they do something that helps all No Arlington schools not just folks trying to wiggle out of Ashlawn/Glebe/Taylor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Current ASFS don’t want change because they are still lobbying APS to kick Key out so they can move ASFS to Key in 2021.

No one at current ASFS wants the Key school. Most are happy to stay were they are. If the Cherrydale contingent painting that picture b/c they want to kick out the Rosslyn folk and take ASFS as their neighborhood school.

Seriously, it can wait a couple years for the transfers to roll out and for Reed to open and they do something that helps all No Arlington schools not just folks trying to wiggle out of Ashlawn/Glebe/Taylor.

I’m in favor of whatever fixes the ASFS problem the soonest. I’m really tired of all the incessant ASFS whining on all sides. Really. There are more important issues than just one school.