Question about re zoning elementary schools in S. Arlington

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09/01/2018 19:37

Subject: Question about re zoning elementary schools in S. Arlington

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Anonymous wrote:DP- Get bent. 172 ah units is nothing. Douglas park has 1,000’s. Also GP has a high percentage of units reserved for seniors.
Quit trying to make Alcova seem like it’s mostly lower class. It’s not.

I'm not going to tell you that Alcova is lower class, and I don't think this person was either. There are both working class and middle class families in Alcova, even before Gillam gets build. Alcova Heights definitely has some $1M homes, but it also has apartments, condos, and duplexes, with people of all income levels. It's not any nicer than Arlington Heights or Penrose or Barcroft, all of which are rarely have a house under $500K these days. It's just that it has no school in its own zone and is within 1 mile of 5 other schools. Does that make it able to swing the demographics? Maybe.

If you take the entire neighborhood out of Barcroft, or even half, there aren't enough students zoned to Barcroft and too many zoned to Fleet. Where would Barcroft pull students from that wouldn't raise its fr/l rate more than just pulling in Gilliam Place (which has a limited number of family units)? The only adjacent areas outside of the Barcroft neighborhood itself are low income. Fleet can take the duplexes and apartments closest to them that are cut off from the rest of Alcova. The rest, which is mainly SFHs, should stay at Barcroft. That would be a balance/compromise between efficiency/proximity and diversity.

This should be what happens.

And it may be quite likely to happen. But people shouldn't presume there won't be many children in Gilliam place. Arlington Mill Residences generated 60+ students just to Barcroft, plus some to option programs and middle and high schools. a "limited # of family units" doesn't mean there will be a limited # of families or partial families living there. Both one and two-bedroom units easily house kids.

Maybe there will be, but unless you just carve out that one block, it would be detrimental to the balance at Barcroft, due to loss of the surrounding SFHs and the need to back-fill the now empty seats with PUs from the Barcroft Apartments in Douglas Park or the new Columbia Heights apartments currently zoned Abingdon. They could carve out just that block. But will they? Probably not. If it has to be a choice between keeping the majority of Alcova and taking Gilliam Place with it, or losing Alcova and taking more bus riders from across Columbia Pike, I think keeping Alcova would be the better option for a balance of diversity at Barcroft and for proximity/efficiency.

Arguably yes for diversity; definitely for efficiency; but not for proximity. There will be walkers to Fleet; all are bussed to Barcroft.

You're being myopic. Alcova isn't the only area where proximity/efficiency matters. If you look at those maps for Barcroft, keeping Alcova zoned to Barcroft rather than moving in PUs from Douglas Park or the current Abingdon zone is more proximate and efficient because the kids they'd replace the Alcova ones with would also be bus riders, and ride further less direct routes. So, by all objective measures, Alcova, with the exception of the NE corner of the neighborhood that is cut off from the rest and that is directly across Glebe from the new school, should remain zoned to Barcroft. You aren't guaranteed to go to the exact closest school to your house, or the one that would be a better more pleasant walk, not when you're smack in the middle of three nearby schools, none of which are actually in your neighborhood.

I agree. Tell that to north arlington. My kids rode the bus to Barcroft. And I personally don't care whether our neighborhood stays with Barcroft or moves to Fleet. I have so little expectation or hope that the SB will ever care about the demographics to actually start making any decisions for demographic benefit. Like many others, I've given up and will support whatever's best for my neighborhood. My kids are done, so the educational and social aspects don't matter to us anymore. Fighting for the right thing to do in this County is more futile than resisting the Borg. I actually believe what will happen is the siphoning off of the northern part of the neighborhood to Fleet and the rest remain at Barcroft. It's just unfortunate that doing so will add so many low-income students that it essentially neutralizes the middle class impact. So, one can only hope that moving other PUs elsewhere (or retaining them where they are) will bring more economically disadvantaged to Fleet and to Oakridge.

Only the Alignment map shows a significant portion of Alcova being moved out of Barcroft. That's a pretty weak reason to disregard the demographic and efficiency and proximity criteria, especially since so many Alcova kids are in Option ES anyway, and might not be going to the MS that most of their ES peers are anyway. Really, unless your Civic Association decides to be total Orange Shirts, I can't see the SB moving more than the two PUs at the NE corner of your neighborhood to Fleet, if any at all.

The SB won't send Gilliam place to Fleet, and here's why:

1. It would involve actual acknowledgement of the fact that these under constduction 100% affordable buildings have an enormous impact on the nearby schools. The CB and SB played dumb on this issue when Arlington Mill opened a few years ago and, yes, eliminated any chance Barcroft had of becoming an integrated, widely desirable school like Patrick Henry. Just torpedoed that, forever.

2. Gilliam will be full of children and would make Fleet even more crowded. Everyone wants to go to Fleet. Conversely, Barcroft is no ones idea of good. Jam another AH complex in there and what few remaining middle class families still attend will finally throw in the towel and leave. Now there's more room, aps thinks. Problem solved!

3. For APS admin or for any SB member to say, "hey, there's a lot of kids that are going to be living at Arlington Mill/Gilliam/Berkeley, maybe we should distribute them to schools that aren't 65% on food stamps already" is a sure fire way to get the local democrats up your azz. Now you've got people calling you a racist for trying to support schools that jhave balanced demographics. Doesn't matter if you try to tell them you support AH housing AND integrated schools. That would make their job too hard, so instead, you're a racist. I feel bad for admins who live with that reality.