People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.
ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.
Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.
Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?
Who said race? This is FRL.
There are white kids in the VPI classes.
Right, but PP said minorities. Reading comprehension, people. No wonder our kids are struggling.
Oh sorry, did that disadvantaged argument strike a nerve? You people smell of fear. Like maybe your free country day school might actually get redirected to people who really need it. Love it.
Huh? My kids don’t even go to ATS. Just saying you can’t fill a school based on race.
Well, that’s not true. How do you think our schools became (and remain) so segregated? It’s not an accident.
Housing policy (historically) and home prices (currently).
I’m not saying they aren’t segregated. I’m saying APS can’t make a policy that states certain schools must be x percent POC. Universities can’t even do that.
Should there be a greater mix demographically in our schools? I want there to be. Though realistically, how do they do that? Bus kids all over town? And what happens when even more families leave for private school? Take a look at Alexandria. It isn’t so pretty.
The Ashlawn boundary is contiguous to Carlin Springs and Barrett. Innovation has been “picked” to be the North Arlington future school for massive amounts of affordable housing, yet you have Science Focus about a mile up the road and one metro stop away. Would you consider adjusting those boundaries too radical? It wouldn’t require a “bus all over town.” I don’t think most people are aware how blatantly segregated the boundaries are in some instances. It cannot be reasonably explained away.
Are you in favor of eliminating the wrap-around services some of these title I schools offer? Spread the poor kids out between different high-performing schools, dropping them at the door and saying “good luck”?
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know APS doesn’t have the resources to offer some of those services at EVERY school.
APS and Title 1 aren’t funding those services. The county pays for most of the wraparound services, the stuff like free glasses and social workers. The funding follows the kids, so move them around and the $$ and services follow them. PTAs offer some of the other resources, like donations to holiday or food drives and scholarships to after school activities, so a wealthier PTA with fewer needy kids could provide more for each individual student. There’s a lot of research out there if you want to learn about the affects of poverty on schools, and about how it’s really detrimental for poor kids to be in majority low income schools and neighborhoods. It’s neither here nor there. APS will never do anything about it and often they make it worse when they “adjust” contiguous boundaries because it’s the last consideration on their list, when it should be first. It’s the thing that has the most bearing on education, with tons of evidence and research out there. I am not aware of the same level of research into how alignment affects student outcomes (hint: it doesn’t).
Thank you. And I just want to add that some CAF buildings already require buses to get the kids to elementary school, so those kids are getting bused anyway whether it’s to their current high-poverty school, or another nearby school. There are schools within 1-3 miles of each other that aren’t high-poverty where these kids could go. This isn’t something APS couldn’t fix if it actually cared.
Are the other nearby schools under enrolled? And if not, are you expecting some of their students to swap places into the high-poverty school? That’s a hard sell, and would lead to many families fleeing APS. Again, look at Alexandria.
I have no idea why you keep repeating this statement. Alexandria City High School is a 4400 student high school with similar demographics to Wakefield. Wakefield is ranked over 5000 spots higher than ACHS. We are talking about making the schools even LESS segregated, not more. If we shuffle things around, there will be fewer high-poverty schools in Arlington.
No. Take a look at Alexandria’s elementary and middle schools, not ACHS. A lot of Alexandria residents refuse to use the public schools, choosing private school starting at K, which is why their schools are so 💩 at ALL levels.
Which is my point: No one with means is swapping spaces into a high-poverty school. They’d rather flee APS. And as much as it sucks, we need some of those privileged families to stay. Or YES, we turn into Alexandria, where only disadvantaged families use the public schools at ANY level.
I’m not saying it’s right. But do you really think people would willingly send their kids to a failing school?
DP, and nope, we’re definitely not sending our kids to APS unless they get into ATS. We will move if they don’t get in. We’re in S Arlington. I don’t care if this is an unpopular opinion, but I expect high test scores in the schools my kids attend.
But the idea some people are suggesting is to adjust the boundaries to create more mixed-income rather than high-poverty or significantly affluent schools. Wouldn’t this help your neighborhood school? Or are you only after the 22207 schools? Why didn’t you just move there? I’m not sure where you think you can go if you can’t afford that option unless you’re leaving the area.
It doesn’t have to be perfect but the boundaries could be improved. That’s all anyone here has suggested so far. This shouldn’t freak rationale people out.
I’m the poster you’re responding to and yes, I wholeheartedly support this idea. My experience with this discussion (not necessarily this one but others) is that folks come out of the woodwork to vehemently argue against it for multiple reasons. It’s exhausting and made me apathetic that ANY positive change in APS will ever occur. If it does, great! We might stay. But there doesn’t seem to be any will to fix this. Wouldn’t School Board candidates run on this platform? I could be wrong but I haven’t seen it yet.
I mean, I keep asking you but you don’t respond: where are you going? Where is your magical school with great test scores and truly mixed income? You keep threatening to leave S Arlington, like there is some other option that everyone else is missing. I highly doubt that you’ve identified one and instead are just saying nonsense on a message board.
Wow, I’m the poster you’re responding to here. First, what in the world? Why are you responding so aggressively and trying invalidate a personal, family decision we’ve made? Weird. Second, I don’t owe you a response on where we’re going, and that doesn’t invalidate my family choices or mean I’m saying nonsense on a chat board. Btw, there are plenty of options - look at Bethesda or Great Falls. Heck, look out of state in this day and age of remote work.
People can choose to leave Arlington for all sorts of reasons. It’s not a threat, it’s just a fact of life. Just because a family makes a personal decision isn’t an attack on those staying in Arlington. Please stop responding as though it’s a personal attack on you - it’s not.
Totally agree with you. And I have no personal interest in an anonymous poster on a message boards threats to leave Arlington. Whether you meant it or not, your threat to leave was tied to the idea that Arlington is failing to achieve mixed-income, very high level test score elementary schools. My point was—and consistently has been—these do not exist in Great Falls or Bethesda or anywhere else within the DMV. No one on here has pointed to anywhere doing this successfully. I welcome being disproven but so far it’s crickets.
Ah, I think I see the disconnect. I have one selection criteria and that is test results. I was replying to a failed school comment. I never said anything about mixed-income but looking back at the thread, I can see where it was misconstrued.
From my perspective that is test-results focused, ATS is the number one elementary school in Arlington agnostic of equity rankings / mixed-income. Perhaps I responded to the wrong thread, but I was not implying that mixed-income is part of my calculus. Incorporating it is a great nuanced look that builds kids into empathetic, aware adults. I’m all for it. It’s just not part of my decision making right now. And that’s ok bc we all operate from what we can do when we can do it (and what we can afford).
To bring it full circle, when I think of ATS and what OP wrote that created this thread, I did not have mixed-income in mind - just a great elementary school that is clearly performing well! Why can’t the rest of Arlington do this?
Anonymous wrote:And your point about Oakridge is a good one. It wasn’t exactly low FRL in the first place. You think NA families are going to respond the same way? 😂
No, of course not. I don't expect much from the far NA families at all. But you can start moving needles at least. I'd far prefer 2 elementary schools under 5% than 2 elementaries over 70% in a system of 26 - 27(?) elementary schools. With that many schools in a 26-sq mile jurisdiction, there is no good moral excuse for any school over 50%.
Gonna disagree with you there. We desegregate the schools, we desegregate ALL of them. Jamestown gets no exemption.
Ah, if I have to, so do they! I'm not going to do it unless they do it, too!
All or nothing!
This is precisely why we never make any progress and never will.
Anonymous wrote:And your point about Oakridge is a good one. It wasn’t exactly low FRL in the first place. You think NA families are going to respond the same way? 😂
No, of course not. I don't expect much from the far NA families at all. But you can start moving needles at least. I'd far prefer 2 elementary schools under 5% than 2 elementaries over 70% in a system of 26 - 27(?) elementary schools. With that many schools in a 26-sq mile jurisdiction, there is no good moral excuse for any school over 50%.
Gonna disagree with you there. We desegregate the schools, we desegregate ALL of them. Jamestown gets no exemption.
Ah, if I have to, so do they! I'm not going to do it unless they do it, too!
All or nothing!
This is precisely why we never make any progress and never will.
After all, it is morally better to have a 2 extremely high FRL schools 70-80% and leave half the schools less than 30% with several less than 20 and a handful under 10 or even 5. Got it. ABsolutely. I see how that is unquestionably more acceptable than most schools 50% and lower with only one or two under 5%. Absolutely.
Anonymous wrote:And your point about Oakridge is a good one. It wasn’t exactly low FRL in the first place. You think NA families are going to respond the same way? 😂
No, of course not. I don't expect much from the far NA families at all. But you can start moving needles at least. I'd far prefer 2 elementary schools under 5% than 2 elementaries over 70% in a system of 26 - 27(?) elementary schools. With that many schools in a 26-sq mile jurisdiction, there is no good moral excuse for any school over 50%.
Gonna disagree with you there. We desegregate the schools, we desegregate ALL of them. Jamestown gets no exemption.
Ah, if I have to, so do they! I'm not going to do it unless they do it, too!
All or nothing!
This is precisely why we never make any progress and never will.
After all, it is morally better to have a 2 extremely high FRL schools 70-80% and leave half the schools less than 30% with several less than 20 and a handful under 10 or even 5. Got it. ABsolutely. I see how that is unquestionably more acceptable than most schools 50% and lower with only one or two under 5%. Absolutely.
Why should Jamestown be exempt? You’re saying things can’t change there too?
Anonymous wrote:I mean, it’s the whole point of this thread, no?
People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.
ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.
Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.
Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?
Who said race? This is FRL.
There are white kids in the VPI classes.
Right, but PP said minorities. Reading comprehension, people. No wonder our kids are struggling.
Oh sorry, did that disadvantaged argument strike a nerve? You people smell of fear. Like maybe your free country day school might actually get redirected to people who really need it. Love it.
Huh? My kids don’t even go to ATS. Just saying you can’t fill a school based on race.
Well, that’s not true. How do you think our schools became (and remain) so segregated? It’s not an accident.
Housing policy (historically) and home prices (currently).
I’m not saying they aren’t segregated. I’m saying APS can’t make a policy that states certain schools must be x percent POC. Universities can’t even do that.
Should there be a greater mix demographically in our schools? I want there to be. Though realistically, how do they do that? Bus kids all over town? And what happens when even more families leave for private school? Take a look at Alexandria. It isn’t so pretty.
The Ashlawn boundary is contiguous to Carlin Springs and Barrett. Innovation has been “picked” to be the North Arlington future school for massive amounts of affordable housing, yet you have Science Focus about a mile up the road and one metro stop away. Would you consider adjusting those boundaries too radical? It wouldn’t require a “bus all over town.” I don’t think most people are aware how blatantly segregated the boundaries are in some instances. It cannot be reasonably explained away.
Are you in favor of eliminating the wrap-around services some of these title I schools offer? Spread the poor kids out between different high-performing schools, dropping them at the door and saying “good luck”?
I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know APS doesn’t have the resources to offer some of those services at EVERY school.
APS and Title 1 aren’t funding those services. The county pays for most of the wraparound services, the stuff like free glasses and social workers. The funding follows the kids, so move them around and the $$ and services follow them. PTAs offer some of the other resources, like donations to holiday or food drives and scholarships to after school activities, so a wealthier PTA with fewer needy kids could provide more for each individual student. There’s a lot of research out there if you want to learn about the affects of poverty on schools, and about how it’s really detrimental for poor kids to be in majority low income schools and neighborhoods. It’s neither here nor there. APS will never do anything about it and often they make it worse when they “adjust” contiguous boundaries because it’s the last consideration on their list, when it should be first. It’s the thing that has the most bearing on education, with tons of evidence and research out there. I am not aware of the same level of research into how alignment affects student outcomes (hint: it doesn’t).
+100
Title I does provide class size caps that are currently lower than APS' limits. It also provides things like free books through RIF -- something wealthier PTAs could assume responsibility for and then some. It may also help with more staffing requirements, but I'm not sure. APS will tout the critical importance of the extra funding Title I provides (justifying the concentration of poverty in a few schools); but then give answers like Barbara Kanninen did many years ago when asked about potential Title I funding cuts from the Feds: title 1 funding is such a small portion of the budget, it really doesn't make a difference. Which is it, then? Like everything else, it's a convenient excuse or irrelevant as suits the argument at the time.
Good points, also Title 1 funding in APS only goes to elementary schools, and schools have told me the worst place to be is just below qualified. It translates to extra staff.
Anonymous wrote:I mean, it’s the whole point of this thread, no?
People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
+1
Almost every single N Arlington family does avoid ATS. They don’t enter the lottery. There’s a handful that do and of course I’m sure they want what you describe but you are dead wrong to think that most pope want to be in a mixed income school. Rich people do not.
Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me its FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. Its FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and its student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.
This is an interesting comment, but I think that APS just needs to offer more schools that use the ATS model. This is a public school district. It’s unfair to offer a product like ATS- the literal best public elementary school in Virginia- when it benefits so few of the taxpaying population. I would be fine with them setting aside percentage for students receiving FRL, but there’s no getting around the fact that we need more ATS slots for everyone.
All of the options are built and supported by the fact that there is demand for 125%, maybe 175%, of capacity, but no more. As a public system, you don't want to build an option building that then depends on you struggling to fill it every year. As others have noted here, there are huge swaths of APS system that do NOT want rigid ATS for their kids. And if your answer is,fine, don't build buildings, just implement inside current schoools, then I strongly suggest you look into the lessons learned from the failures of "schools win schools" in APS. Long story short, nothing makes a local school more like a civil war battleground than when you ty to divide up its classrooms between very different pedagogies. See Montessori experience at Drew.
But demand for ATS is almost 200% of current capacity. Way more than demand for other options.
This is a fact. look at the waitlists. You could fill a second APS and I think you could fill quite a few more HBs. That said, why is HB such a short school if it was a new build? Why didn't APS maximize that space. Wait, I know why. WE HAVE A HORRIBLE SCHOOL BOARD AND THEY ALL MUST GO.
Its true that part of the reason HB works is because all the adults know all the kids, and the kids know that they have a lot of freedom but at the same time have to act to a reasonable standard. It wouldn't work with twice as many kids, or if there were tons of kids there that didn't really want to be there. Not every teacher wants to be in a school where the students can wander around freely and address them directly, and not every teenager can handle being in a building where they can wander around freely and address adults directly--especially if they haven't been given increasing amounts of independence and responsibility all along, and seen it modeled from all of their older peers.
I had kids at both Gunston and HB and I can tell you -- you can't just take parts of the HB model and plunk it down somewhere else, or double it in size. I assume the same is true with ATS. Or at least, you won't automatically get the same results. Not to say there aren't aspects that could be replicated other places, or lessons to be learned, it's just not something you can easily do 1:1.
100 agree with this take on HB. I also have a kid at HB and one in a different APS MS. You just can't replicate the HB model in a much larger school. Whatever - it's a moot point - the site in Rosslyn can't handle trailers.
I am definitely in favor of more programs of a smaller size though since parents seem to want that.
And the rest of us would like to deal in reality. If a program like HB only works because it's small, then we should have gotten rid of it and put a bigger choice school on the Wilson site. A 7-12 program for 1300 kids would still be a lot smaller than the current MS and HS programs, and for kids who are satisfied with team sports limited to frisbee, it would be a godsend.
I'm not interested in replicating ATS until someone shows that it has benefits that last past 5th grade. If you want to define success as high SOLs in 5th, you're free to do so, and good luck getting into a school that will deliver. But the rest of us want something with bigger benefits.
They considered that and the cost of building than 6 stories were not just incrementally higher, they were geometrically higher. (That's universal--it's why you see so many apartment buildings that height, too.)
I'm not sure where you're getting that. Community presentations showed that the least expensive way to get 1300 more seats was to build them on Wilson. But 22207 parents and HB parents created a unified whine that stopped the SB from doing so
Sure, because 1300 families didn't want to send their kids to a neighborhood school in downtown Rosslyn with no fields, no outdoor space, and no parking. That is not a crazy position. And the Heights building technically could hold more kids than it does if it had all traditional classrooms, but there are only 25 kids on the 2 floors used by the Shriver program.
Can anyone clarify, if Shriver truly occupies two entire floors at the Heights? And only for 25 students?!
Anonymous wrote:I mean, it’s the whole point of this thread, no?
People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
+1
Almost every single N Arlington family does avoid ATS. They don’t enter the lottery. There’s a handful that do and of course I’m sure they want what you describe but you are dead wrong to think that most pope want to be in a mixed income school. Rich people do not.
Well, we have a high HHI and definitely applied. I can see the benefits of attending the neighborhood school though.
Anonymous wrote:I mean, it’s the whole point of this thread, no?
People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
+1
Almost every single N Arlington family does avoid ATS. They don’t enter the lottery. There’s a handful that do and of course I’m sure they want what you describe but you are dead wrong to think that most pope want to be in a mixed income school. Rich people do not.
Well, we have a high HHI and definitely applied. I can see the benefits of attending the neighborhood school though.
As I said, you exist! But numbers wise, you prove my point. How many people apply from N Arlington schools and how many do not? You are a tiny tiny portion of this world. I’m only pointing out that the fact that a handful of people applying to ATS from N Arlington each year does not in fact prove that “we want ATS-like mixed income schools.”
Anonymous wrote:I mean, it’s the whole point of this thread, no?
People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
+1
Almost every single N Arlington family does avoid ATS. They don’t enter the lottery. There’s a handful that do and of course I’m sure they want what you describe but you are dead wrong to think that most pope want to be in a mixed income school. Rich people do not.
Well, we have a high HHI and definitely applied. I can see the benefits of attending the neighborhood school though.
As I said, you exist! But numbers wise, you prove my point. How many people apply from N Arlington schools and how many do not? You are a tiny tiny portion of this world. I’m only pointing out that the fact that a handful of people applying to ATS from N Arlington each year does not in fact prove that “we want ATS-like mixed income schools.”
It doesn’t prove anything. People are allowed to be satisfied with their high-performing schools in their neighborhood. It doesn’t mean they’re opposed to mixed income schools.
Anonymous wrote:I mean, it’s the whole point of this thread, no?
People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
+1
Almost every single N Arlington family does avoid ATS. They don’t enter the lottery. There’s a handful that do and of course I’m sure they want what you describe but you are dead wrong to think that most pope want to be in a mixed income school. Rich people do not.
Well, we have a high HHI and definitely applied. I can see the benefits of attending the neighborhood school though.
As I said, you exist! But numbers wise, you prove my point. How many people apply from N Arlington schools and how many do not? You are a tiny tiny portion of this world. I’m only pointing out that the fact that a handful of people applying to ATS from N Arlington each year does not in fact prove that “we want ATS-like mixed income schools.”
True. It merely shows that you don't "need" ATS because your schools are already high-performing overall and your UMC kids are not negatively impacted or impeded by their school's need to focus on large portions of the student body requiring extra supports and attention.
Anonymous wrote:I mean, it’s the whole point of this thread, no?
People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
+1
Almost every single N Arlington family does avoid ATS. They don’t enter the lottery. There’s a handful that do and of course I’m sure they want what you describe but you are dead wrong to think that most pope want to be in a mixed income school. Rich people do not.
Well, we have a high HHI and definitely applied. I can see the benefits of attending the neighborhood school though.
As I said, you exist! But numbers wise, you prove my point. How many people apply from N Arlington schools and how many do not? You are a tiny tiny portion of this world. I’m only pointing out that the fact that a handful of people applying to ATS from N Arlington each year does not in fact prove that “we want ATS-like mixed income schools.”
True. It merely shows that you don't "need" ATS because your schools are already high-performing overall and your UMC kids are not negatively impacted or impeded by their school's need to focus on large portions of the student body requiring extra supports and attention.
The “mixed income” part isn’t the magic sauce, though - it’s the high level of parental engagement. It’s probably the single largest factor in a child’s success. I guess we could pick off all of the highly engaged students and bus them all over north Arlington, but I’m not sure it helps those left behind. Bussing the less engaged students would be a complete disaster.
Anonymous wrote:I mean, it’s the whole point of this thread, no?
People want diverse schools, but don’t want to sacrifice academic achievement. It isn’t about keeping one’s kids from “the poors.” (Otherwise, people would avoid ATS too!)
+1
Almost every single N Arlington family does avoid ATS. They don’t enter the lottery. There’s a handful that do and of course I’m sure they want what you describe but you are dead wrong to think that most pope want to be in a mixed income school. Rich people do not.
Well, we have a high HHI and definitely applied. I can see the benefits of attending the neighborhood school though.
As I said, you exist! But numbers wise, you prove my point. How many people apply from N Arlington schools and how many do not? You are a tiny tiny portion of this world. I’m only pointing out that the fact that a handful of people applying to ATS from N Arlington each year does not in fact prove that “we want ATS-like mixed income schools.”
True. It merely shows that you don't "need" ATS because your schools are already high-performing overall and your UMC kids are not negatively impacted or impeded by their school's need to focus on large portions of the student body requiring extra supports and attention.
The “mixed income” part isn’t the magic sauce, though - it’s the high level of parental engagement. It’s probably the single largest factor in a child’s success. I guess we could pick off all of the highly engaged students and bus them all over north Arlington, but I’m not sure it helps those left behind. Bussing the less engaged students would be a complete disaster.
OK, but that's not the point that was being made. The point is, there aren't as many NA putting in for the lottery because they're satisfied with their high-performing neighborhood schools.
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