APS Elementary Location Working Group 4/12

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no credible reason for moving Key.

Other than every criteria for a neighborhood school developed by the board thus far in the process? The only reason not to have that building as neighborhood is inertia.

The board didn’t create those criteria, the staff did. The board has sent them back to redo it with more considerations.

There’s an area at the edge of the county with a rapidly growing population and no neighborhood school. We have a building in the neighborhood that hundreds of kids could walk to, but none of them are guaranteed admission, though as recently as a year ago they were. There are no schools nearby that these kids can go to instead. Additionally, this particular area has a lot of families that are transit dependent at all income levels. Those are the reasons for a neighborhood school, what are your reasons for it to remain option?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Yes. Nobody has considered yet keeping only one Spanish immersion school; Claremont.
Making Key and ASFS neighborhood.
My prediction would be that the neighborhoods would happily enroll in their neighborhoods!

Between Claremont and Key there were 461 applications for 288 Kindergarten spots. That means that with our current immersion schools- there is a waitlist of nearly 200 for a kindergarten spot in immersion. Why on earth would you propose taking it down to one school.

Two questions that don’t have answers: how many are pure proximity applications and how many are families applying to multiple options hoping to get in at least one?

They will hopefully have more data on this soon since the ALL lotteries are centralized and electronic for the first time. Also, new this year, if you apply for multiple lotteries and your name gets pulled for one, you are dropped out of the running for the others and off any future waitlists. I think this will also make it more clear the number of families looking to avoid a neighborhood school with any available program vs. families that truly believe in the model that they are applying. In theory anyway!

That's if you accept a spot, not if they pull your name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no credible reason for moving Key.

Other than every criteria for a neighborhood school developed by the board thus far in the process? The only reason not to have that building as neighborhood is inertia.

The board didn’t create those criteria, the staff did. The board has sent them back to redo it with more considerations.

There’s an area at the edge of the county with a rapidly growing population and no neighborhood school. We have a building in the neighborhood that hundreds of kids could walk to, but none of them are guaranteed admission, though as recently as a year ago they were. There are no schools nearby that these kids can go to instead. Additionally, this particular area has a lot of families that are transit dependent at all income levels. Those are the reasons for a neighborhood school, what are your reasons for it to remain option?

They could switch it with ASFS if it’s that building that’s an issue. Beyond that, my real problem is not with Key or any other specific building, it’s that this is a fundamentally flawed process that isn’t going to solve problems, it would just move them around and maybe they would be lesser afterward, but they also might be worse. There is virtually no place in Arlington that can spare the neighborhood seats required for an option school, so the option schools necessarily overburden their neighbors while limiting flexibility to provide relief in to those neighborhoods. If we’re going to have option programs (and I do think we should), I think they need to revisit the hybrid model for those schools to allow them to spread across the county in a more balanced way. If they go through this process and make big changes, they won’t be able to justify the expense of developing a better plan any time soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no credible reason for moving Key.

Other than every criteria for a neighborhood school developed by the board thus far in the process? The only reason not to have that building as neighborhood is inertia.

The board didn’t create those criteria, the staff did. The board has sent them back to redo it with more considerations.

There’s an area at the edge of the county with a rapidly growing population and no neighborhood school. We have a building in the neighborhood that hundreds of kids could walk to, but none of them are guaranteed admission, though as recently as a year ago they were. There are no schools nearby that these kids can go to instead. Additionally, this particular area has a lot of families that are transit dependent at all income levels. Those are the reasons for a neighborhood school, what are your reasons for it to remain option?

They could switch it with ASFS if it’s that building that’s an issue. Beyond that, my real problem is not with Key or any other specific building, it’s that this is a fundamentally flawed process that isn’t going to solve problems, it would just move them around and maybe they would be lesser afterward, but they also might be worse. There is virtually no place in Arlington that can spare the neighborhood seats required for an option school, so the option schools necessarily overburden their neighbors while limiting flexibility to provide relief in to those neighborhoods. If we’re going to have option programs (and I do think we should), I think they need to revisit the hybrid model for those schools to allow them to spread across the county in a more balanced way. If they go through this process and make big changes, they won’t be able to justify the expense of developing a better plan any time soon.

That's a very different statement than there's no credible reason for moving Key. Basically what you are saying is that the status quo works well for you and you are afraid that you will be negatively impacted by changes. So your preferred better plan is to develop hybrid programs? From my understanding, that has not really worked well when tried in APS and they are getting rid of it at Drew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no credible reason for moving Key.

You might not want Key to move (and I certainly don't), but to say that "there is no credible reason for moving Key" doesn't pass the laugh test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just chiming to remind everyone that S Arlington needs overcrowding relief too... seems like people are conveniently forgetting that!

People talk about what they know. What option program locations do you think would help with S Arlington overcrowding? My understanding is the “good” schools are over enrolled and a few less desireable schools have capacity.

That's correct. There are basically no trailers South of the pike at neighborhood schools. Crowding is not evenly spread. In south Arlington, it concentrates in the schools perceived to be high quality. That's why Oakridge and Henry are packed. Would love to see transfer applications by planning unit, you really see the geography of demand and it'd be really revealing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just chiming to remind everyone that S Arlington needs overcrowding relief too... seems like people are conveniently forgetting that!

People talk about what they know. What option program locations do you think would help with S Arlington overcrowding? My understanding is the “good” schools are over enrolled and a few less desireable schools have capacity.

That's correct. There are basically no trailers South of the pike at neighborhood schools. Crowding is not evenly spread. In south Arlington, it concentrates in the schools perceived to be high quality. That's why Oakridge and Henry are packed. Would love to see transfer applications by planning unit, you really see the geography of demand and it'd be really revealing.

Are you serious? Oakridge is one of the most crowded schools in the county. Until they JUST finished the addition at Abingdon there were tons of trailers. Randolph has a trailer. Hoffman Boston is a huge building that used to be a high school.

[Anonymous]

Randolph is underenrolled. So is Barcroft. Look at numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Randolph is underenrolled. So is Barcroft. Look at numbers.

Randolph, as of this month, is under capacity by 3 students. 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no credible reason for moving Key.

Other than every criteria for a neighborhood school developed by the board thus far in the process? The only reason not to have that building as neighborhood is inertia.

The board didn’t create those criteria, the staff did. The board has sent them back to redo it with more considerations.

There’s an area at the edge of the county with a rapidly growing population and no neighborhood school. We have a building in the neighborhood that hundreds of kids could walk to, but none of them are guaranteed admission, though as recently as a year ago they were. There are no schools nearby that these kids can go to instead. Additionally, this particular area has a lot of families that are transit dependent at all income levels. Those are the reasons for a neighborhood school, what are your reasons for it to remain option?

They could switch it with ASFS if it’s that building that’s an issue. Beyond that, my real problem is not with Key or any other specific building, it’s that this is a fundamentally flawed process that isn’t going to solve problems, it would just move them around and maybe they would be lesser afterward, but they also might be worse. There is virtually no place in Arlington that can spare the neighborhood seats required for an option school, so the option schools necessarily overburden their neighbors while limiting flexibility to provide relief in to those neighborhoods. If we’re going to have option programs (and I do think we should), I think they need to revisit the hybrid model for those schools to allow them to spread across the county in a more balanced way. If they go through this process and make big changes, they won’t be able to justify the expense of developing a better plan any time soon.

That's a very different statement than there's no credible reason for moving Key. Basically what you are saying is that the status quo works well for you and you are afraid that you will be negatively impacted by changes. So your preferred better plan is to develop hybrid programs? From my understanding, that has not really worked well when tried in APS and they are getting rid of it at Drew.

You're talking to two different posters, I'm not the one who said there's no credible reason for moving Key. I'm also not saying the status quo is working well for me (we're also at a school that's over capacity, it's just not Key/ASFS), what I'm saying is that the initial staff analysis makes clear there will be no good proposal coming out of it that actually solves problems for the system as a whole rather than simply moving the problem around. So sure, make that move and make the families in the Key/ASFS who want to stay in the neighborhood instead of moving with Key happy, but then piss off at least as many families who are hurt by that decision. For the SB, that's not a winning solution. But it'll be an expensive one, so their options for fixing the new problems it creates will be limited in the short-term. I want the SB to find a good solution to this (whether it's hybrid schools or not) rather than waste our money on a bad one that can't be readily fixed for the sake of saying they did *something*.

[Anonymous]

So 3. but don't complaint about the trailers. underenrolled by 3 today in Arlington is luxurious.

[Anonymous]

Funny, because a couple years ago Barcroft was one of the most over crowded schools in the county. It was because the school was on an upward bound and the local UMC neighborhood families started to send their kids there. Then, the county allowed Arlington Mill to be zoned for Barcoft (and not Carlin Springs) and the numbers shot up, new principal came in (and not a good one) and once again the neighborhood left. I was amazed at the number of families that transfer out of Barcroft and Alcova Heights.

The SB is now seriously considering taking out most of Alcova Heights from the boundary because of proximity to Fleet (but of course the new CAF will go to Barcroft), dooming the school to be even higher than its current 60%FR/L. The only place the school has to draw from is low income housing to fill the empty Alcova Heights seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It has been many years of dealing with kids at different elementary and middle schools, sports, after-school activities. It has been years of frustration since Taylor is not a close, easy to get to school for our neighborhood - ASFS would have made our life easier - we both work out of the county in different directions. So although we like Taylor and the families, it seems like it shouldn't have to be this difficult.

[Anonymous]

All of Alcova is not going to Fleet. Wishful thinking. The board is interested in Barcroft as an option school because it is land locked. Randoph is projected to be at 110% from just walk zone so I doubt anyone is moving there. Fleet was supposed to replace Henry when Montessori moved in... it was not the new elementary school promised S Arlington to relieve overcrowding. Oakridge will need to split between Drew and Hoffman Boston with portions of Henry and Abingdon moving to Drew maybe... last night there was mention of moving Campbell to Claremont, Carlin Springs to Campbell... where does either Immersion go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of Alcova is not going to Fleet. Wishful thinking. The board is interested in Barcroft as an option school because it is land locked. Randoph is projected to be at 110% from just walk zone so I doubt anyone is moving there. Fleet was supposed to replace Henry when Montessori moved in... it was not the new elementary school promised S Arlington to relieve overcrowding. Oakridge will need to split between Drew and Hoffman Boston with portions of Henry and Abingdon moving to Drew maybe... last night there was mention of moving Campbell to Claremont, Carlin Springs to Campbell... where does either Immersion go?

If they move the neighborhood school currently at Carlin Springs to Campbell, doesn't that leave Carlin Springs open to take the immersion program currently at Claremont that would be displaced by Campbell?