What do you expect from APS staff (option/neighborhood) on 4/30?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in Barcroft, I am not keen on having Barcroft potentially being an option school. The school is right smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood that is already burdened by WAZE and other apps that have changed our small streets (some without sidewalks) into a major cut through areas. if this were North Arlington, I bet the traffic considerations would be taken more seriously.

Second, where are all the local Barcorft kids going to go? There is no room at Randolph, Carlin Springs or Barrett for more kids, unless they set up a trailer city and make kids cross, gasp! route 50 and Columbia Pike. We are talking 4 hundred or more kids, although this will ensure that Alcova gets into Fleet. I thought the goal was to reduce the number of buses, not increase them.

After this round of analysis, I think we all have to admit that buses comes in a far distant second to capacity in the list of staff priorities. This might ultimately be the staff's trouble spot with getting the board approve their recommendation, if the numbers would make the budget problems worse rather than better.

That said, the analysis said that one benefit of making Claremont a neighborhood school is that it could help pick up a lot of families displaced by making Carlin Springs an option program. They'd have to go that way, because the boundaries at the southern part of the county are going to be a mess if they make Claremont neighborhood. Abingdon can only go so far before it hits the walk zones for Claremont, Randolpph and Drew, so my guess is that we might see Abingdon boundaries the extend in between Randolph and Drew as far as necessary to fill the school. Claremont would run up the western border to toward 50, Randolph's zone will run roughly parallel, Fleet would take a bunch of current Barcroft and a bunch of current Henry would end up at Drew and HB. If they don't have enough seats for all of that, they could look at Ashlawn as a potential straddle site, pulling planning units from both sides of 50.

[Anonymous]

What did I miss?

I have not been able to follow APS for just the last 24 hours.

The thread was on page 4 with their 'server breakdown' I believe.

It's a complete mess I assume?

Does anyone have a link to the pertinent information/data/summaries?
Which page on this thread has links?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What did I miss?

I have not been able to follow APS for just the last 24 hours.

The thread was on page 4 with their 'server breakdown' I believe.

It's a complete mess I assume?

Does anyone have a link to the pertinent information/data/summaries?
Which page on this thread has links?

Thanks!

It's all on the APS webite. Engage With Us -> Current initiatives -> Elementary planning.

The upshot is:

Campbell is staying where it is.

Claremont immersion is moving to Carlin Springs; Claremont will become neighborhood.

Key is become a neighborhood school.

For the rest, there are two options being reviewed:

1) The immersion program currently at Key moves to the ATS site and the ATS program will move to Nottingham; or
2) ATS will stay where it is and the immersion program at Key will move to Barcroft. If this happens, they will likely create a single immersion lottery for all of the county, and then will assign students who accept seats in the program to each school based on what makes for the most efficient busing routes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What did I miss?

I have not been able to follow APS for just the last 24 hours.

The thread was on page 4 with their 'server breakdown' I believe.

It's a complete mess I assume?

Does anyone have a link to the pertinent information/data/summaries?
Which page on this thread has links?

Thanks!

It's all on the APS webite. Engage With Us -> Current initiatives -> Elementary planning.

The upshot is:

Campbell is staying where it is.

Claremont immersion is moving to Carlin Springs; Claremont will become neighborhood.

Key is become a neighborhood school.

For the rest, there are two options being reviewed:

1) The immersion program currently at Key moves to the ATS site and the ATS program will move to Nottingham; or
2) ATS will stay where it is and the immersion program at Key will move to Barcroft. If this happens, they will likely create a single immersion lottery for all of the county, and then will assign students who accept seats in the program to each school based on what makes for the most efficient busing routes.

Who would be upset if they put eliminating ATS as a program altogether other than current families? Move immersion to its building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to paraphrase/cross-post what I just posted on the ATS to IB thread, because I think it's very relevant to this discuss as well but I realize most of the people here aren't looking at that thread. All of the sniping going on is just noise and details, but there is a really big core decision that needs to be made regarding our priorities as a community. There's no point in sniping about whether Nottingham should be the option site in NW until the bigger decision was made.

Leaving aside the exact details of where, the choice presented in the second draft analysis is essentially this: Is it more important that we maintain/improve neighborhood school proximity and reduce crowding in South Arlington, or that we maintain/improve access to choice programs while also improving the diversity balance across elementary schools?

Moving immersion to ATS and ATS to another school in NW (Nottingham or otherwise) will reduce access to ATS from South Arlington and make it less diverse overall. This will for a few reasons, namely that the new location will make VPI less accessible to ED families, it would increase applications to ATS from that corner of the community, and it would reduce applications from South Arlington. The transfer report on ATS makes it pretty clear that proximity to the program is a big part of who attends. On the plus side, keeping both of these option programs in North Arlington means more neighborhood seats in South Arlington, so more families there can be in close proximity to less crowded neighborhood schools.

On the other hand, keeping ATS where it is and moving immersion to Barcroft means maintaining greater access to ATS for South Arlington, making immersion even more accessible, and potentially breaking up the poverty clusters around Carlin Springs and Barcroft (and possibly cascading to Randolph as well) if APS were to start busing kids across 50 (Ashlawn will have tons of excess capacity after Reed, and busing across 50 means no crazy boundaries there anymore). The resulting shift in boundaries could do a lot to improve socioeconomic diversity generally in the elementary schools. The downside to all of this increased access to option schools and improvements in diversity is that South Arlington would have fewer neighborhood seats (how many fewer would depend on how the moves affected applications to choice programs from North Arlington), and many families may lose proximity to their neighborhood schools. Since ED families generally face the greatest challenges from losing proximity to neighborhood schools and from overcrowding, this is no small consideration.

That's a really big decision to make on policy/priorities, and it's not an easy one. Until we decide where we fall on that, the rest of this debate is just a waste of our time.

I’ll cut to the chase: rich white people always come out on top.

[Anonymous]

Move ATS to a location in s Arlington.

[Anonymous]

No skin in this game, but seems like ATS should be left alone. Strong demand, great results....if it ain’t broke..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What did I miss?

I have not been able to follow APS for just the last 24 hours.

The thread was on page 4 with their 'server breakdown' I believe.

It's a complete mess I assume?

Does anyone have a link to the pertinent information/data/summaries?
Which page on this thread has links?

Thanks!

It's all on the APS webite. Engage With Us -> Current initiatives -> Elementary planning.

The upshot is:

Campbell is staying where it is.

Claremont immersion is moving to Carlin Springs; Claremont will become neighborhood.

Key is become a neighborhood school.

For the rest, there are two options being reviewed:

1) The immersion program currently at Key moves to the ATS site and the ATS program will move to Nottingham; or
2) ATS will stay where it is and the immersion program at Key will move to Barcroft. If this happens, they will likely create a single immersion lottery for all of the county, and then will assign students who accept seats in the program to each school based on what makes for the most efficient busing routes.

NP here. Full disclosure NO skin in this as none of our kids will be going to any of the schools listed above, but curious, what happens to Nottingham if immersion is moved from Key to Barcroft. Won't there be tons of over crowding in the south if barcroft kids get displced? Can they guarantee enough native English speaking kids if both immersion moves to the south?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No skin in this game, but seems like ATS should be left alone. Strong demand, great results....if it ain’t broke..

But there are arguments for increasing access for lower income students. It should be moved so that is has greater proximity to that population base.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Move ATS to a location in s Arlington.

If this happens, I think you will see much fewer families from N Arlington applying (which will be a good thing). I think you also put into its admissions process more slots from schools that are above capacity and scale it somehow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What did I miss?

I have not been able to follow APS for just the last 24 hours.

The thread was on page 4 with their 'server breakdown' I believe.

It's a complete mess I assume?

Does anyone have a link to the pertinent information/data/summaries?
Which page on this thread has links?

Thanks!

It's all on the APS webite. Engage With Us -> Current initiatives -> Elementary planning.

The upshot is:

Campbell is staying where it is.

Claremont immersion is moving to Carlin Springs; Claremont will become neighborhood.

Key is become a neighborhood school.

For the rest, there are two options being reviewed:

1) The immersion program currently at Key moves to the ATS site and the ATS program will move to Nottingham; or
2) ATS will stay where it is and the immersion program at Key will move to Barcroft. If this happens, they will likely create a single immersion lottery for all of the county, and then will assign students who accept seats in the program to each school based on what makes for the most efficient busing routes.

NP here. Full disclosure NO skin in this as none of our kids will be going to any of the schools listed above, but curious, what happens to Nottingham if immersion is moved from Key to Barcroft. Won't there be tons of over crowding in the south if barcroft kids get displced? Can they guarantee enough native English speaking kids if both immersion moves to the south?

DP. My view is ... no. They won’t be able to get enough native English speakers. Placing two immersion schools in south Arlington could well result in the demise of one. If Key goes to ATS, though, I tend to think that that would end up ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Move ATS to a location in s Arlington.

If this happens, I think you will see much fewer families from N Arlington applying (which will be a good thing). I think you also put into its admissions process more slots from schools that are above capacity and scale it somehow.

Works for me.

[Anonymous]

Making Barcroft immersion is a great idea. They need to break up that pocket of poverty between Barcroft and Randolph.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cherrydalers suck!

Please. We live in Cherryvale and perfectly happy at Taylor. All of my kid's closest friends happen to live close to key and asfs so he'll lose his closest friends. We did not lobby for any of this. Even the families I know who live close to asfs told me they preferred to stay at Taylor so not all of us want this.

Let me be more specific then: the ones behind this fiasco suck.

They may have jumped on the opportunity, but they didn’t create it. Without neighborhood preference, Key has to be a neighborhood school. There are just too many kids around it for it.

The mass of ASFS humanity at office hours etc can now oAt themselces in tbe back and think they kept it as a neighborhood school. But really, it was the principals and the idea of putting both schools perhaps closer together and moving one to Carlin Springs.

Now, Tallento is going to try and prevent CS from becoming an option school crying about the traffic. But, she better lose. This plan makes much more sense so long as they don’t move ATS to the NW and make it the N Arlington free private school.

No, she'll cry about the community being torn apart.

[Anonymous]

Claremont parent here, I really do not want to move to Carlin Springs and would be much happier with a move to Barcroft (but this is for selfish proximity locations). I really don't want to lose the outdoor classroom space at Claremont, but I really know nothing about the Carlin Springs campus.