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

[Anonymous]

I'm new to APS, but is there a reason that if there is going to be excess capacity at Jamestown, Discovery and Nottingham, they don't just allow kids zoned for Carlin Springs to opt in as an option school? Most of the kids in Carlin Springs already take a bus and most are FRPL. That way the N. Arlington neighborhoods could keep their local schools, economically disadvantaged kids could have a choice of a school with better test scores, and economic disparity amongst all of the schools could be reduced?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So move it to Nottingham? That won’t work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Do you know who advocated to remove neighborhood preference from Key? It was folks from Cherrydale who can do basic math and knew it would precipitate this enrollment crisis and move Key.

Do you have any proof to support your conspiracy theory because I really doubt a few folks in Cherrydale sat around and connived about how to get ASFS as their neighborhood school by forcing boundary and option school changes for all Arlington ES and I've seen many posts by parents who live near Key advocating it become their neighborhood school due to the number of children living in Roslyn and Courthouse. I thought it had more to do with new ESs coming on line, balancing overcrowding and addressing the demand for immersion by people who did not live near Key.

It had to do with equality and equitable access to choice programs. The geographic guarantees and preferences in admissions have been shutting out others from elsewhere throughout the County. It had to do with people moving to Claremont in order to have guaranteed admission to Claremont immersion. Well, maybe we shouldn't have changed the policy after all, now with that program possibly being relocated to Carlin Springs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm new to APS, but is there a reason that if there is going to be excess capacity at Jamestown, Discovery and Nottingham, they don't just allow kids zoned for Carlin Springs to opt in as an option school? Most of the kids in Carlin Springs already take a bus and most are FRPL. That way the N. Arlington neighborhoods could keep their local schools, economically disadvantaged kids could have a choice of a school with better test scores, and economic disparity amongst all of the schools could be reduced?

That transfer policy already exists across the entire school system. APS operates under the assumption that families with fewer resources, including possibly transportation of their own, are less likely to be engaged or able to have their children attend schools far away from home. As a result, it's unlikely that they would get enough transfers to fill all those empty seats, or at least that's the operating assumption.

[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?

If immersion moves to Barcroft and ATS stays put, my guess is that either they will push South Arlington boundaries east until Long Branch ends up a predominantly South Arlington school or (and I think this may be more likely given the boundary challenges this would create) they would completely redo the Ashlawn boundaries to create a compact zone that ends south of 50. Maybe do the same with Barrett. This would push people currently at those schools north into McKinley and Reed, and then families displaced from there would go to Tuckahoe and Nottingham. From my rough estimates, I think this could potentially create the most compact boundaries of anything on the table yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm new to APS, but is there a reason that if there is going to be excess capacity at Jamestown, Discovery and Nottingham, they don't just allow kids zoned for Carlin Springs to opt in as an option school? Most of the kids in Carlin Springs already take a bus and most are FRPL. That way the N. Arlington neighborhoods could keep their local schools, economically disadvantaged kids could have a choice of a school with better test scores, and economic disparity amongst all of the schools could be reduced?

That transfer policy already exists across the entire school system. APS operates under the assumption that families with fewer resources, including possibly transportation of their own, are less likely to be engaged or able to have their children attend schools far away from home. As a result, it's unlikely that they would get enough transfers to fill all those empty seats, or at least that's the operating assumption.

If it's an actual option program, I'm assuming that there would be buses available like there are for the option schools.

[Anonymous]

Not to freak everyone out, but be aware that these moves will absolutely result in another round of MS rezoning in 2021.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

If immersion moves to Barcroft and ATS stays put, my guess is that either they will push South Arlington boundaries east until Long Branch ends up a predominantly South Arlington school or (and I think this may be more likely given the boundary challenges this would create) they would completely redo the Ashlawn boundaries to create a compact zone that ends south of 50. Maybe do the same with Barrett. This would push people currently at those schools north into McKinley and Reed, and then families displaced from there would go to Tuckahoe and Nottingham. From my rough estimates, I think this could potentially create the most compact boundaries of anything on the table yet.

PP again. I don't think there will be an issue with attracting non-native Spanish speakers to immersion programs at Barcroft and Carlin Springs. If you look at Claremont, almost 75% of its applications this spring were non-Spanish speakers. Further, despite how far south it is, it draws almost 10% of its student population from schools north of Lee Highway. And many parents in the upper part of NW have lamented for years that they'd love to send their kids to an immersion school, but Claremont was simply too far for them to do logistically. If they move it to Carlin Springs and it's then just across 50, I think you'd see a significant boost in applications from North Arlington. And I don't see why moving the other program to Barcroft would create a problem given the number of people in last year's transfer report sending their kids to Key from the western side of the county, I don't see why people at the eastern edge would be less likely that people in every other part of the county to tolerate some travel for immersion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This year there were 325 applicants from predominantly english speaking families for 144 Kindergarten immersion slots. Slightly more of those applied to Claremont than to Key. Given that demand- I don't think that moving Key to Barcroft would cause any problem whatsoever in getting English speaking applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to freak everyone out, but be aware that these moves will absolutely result in another round of MS rezoning in 2021.

Source? Or concern trolling?

[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.

It is more important to make effective choice programs more accessible to ED communities and to break-up the concentrations of high poverty in our schools. There may be fewer neighborhood seats in the south with this proposal; but keep in mind that there are a lot of schools in close proximity to each other as well. Barcroft is within 1 mile of 5 elementary schools. And, I suspect a great many "walkers" (of which there are really few) to Carlin Springs will apply to the immersion program. It will all take years to work itself out as current students make their way through 5th grade and the new policies eliminating geographical preference settle in. But it all depends on how the boundaries are redrawn - are all those ED students just shoved into already high-FRL schools like Abingdon, Randolph, Barrett?

ATS will lose its diversity if it is relocated farther north. But if 2 or 3 of the highest-poverty concentrations are broken-up, that more than makes-up for the loss of "eh" economic diversity of 20% or so at ATS. Claremont becoming a neighborhood school and the new boundaries needed for Drew would create tremendous opportunities here, especially if boundary-makers can start thinking up and down instead of just south. No reason some boundaries can't start crossing the great divide of route 50 in this reorganization.

Why not Barrett for the immersion program instead of Barcroft? Still close proximity for collaboration and sharing resources with Carlin Springs - and still close to a lot of native S panish-speaking families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm new to APS, but is there a reason that if there is going to be excess capacity at Jamestown, Discovery and Nottingham, they don't just allow kids zoned for Carlin Springs to opt in as an option school? Most of the kids in Carlin Springs already take a bus and most are FRPL. That way the N. Arlington neighborhoods could keep their local schools, economically disadvantaged kids could have a choice of a school with better test scores, and economic disparity amongst all of the schools could be reduced?

I think you are getting confused by the terminology. First we have option programs, which are specially-designated schools that have no neighborhood zone but instead are filled by county-wide lottery. If you get into one of those schools are not within the walk zone, you are entitled to bus transportation to school.

Then there are neighborhood transfers, which is when someone applies to have their child attend a different neighborhood school than the one to which they are assigned, provided adequate space is available at that other school. In general, if you change schools via neighborhood transfer, APS provides no transportation for you, and you have to get your child to and from school yourself.

In your scenario, Jamestown, Discovery and Nottingham would all be neighborhood schools, which means that anyone who transferred from Carlin Springs or any other neighborhood school would have to provide their own transportation. Further, since it looks like Carlin Springs is likely to become an option school site, there will no longer be a neighborhood zone for Carlin Springs. All of the families there would have to be rezoned for other neighborhood schools around them, because APS must guarantee the availability of local neighborhood seats, even if they were to decide to transfer elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

If immersion moves to Barcroft and ATS stays put, my guess is that either they will push South Arlington boundaries east until Long Branch ends up a predominantly South Arlington school or (and I think this may be more likely given the boundary challenges this would create) they would completely redo the Ashlawn boundaries to create a compact zone that ends south of 50. Maybe do the same with Barrett. This would push people currently at those schools north into McKinley and Reed, and then families displaced from there would go to Tuckahoe and Nottingham. From my rough estimates, I think this could potentially create the most compact boundaries of anything on the table yet.

PP again. I don't think there will be an issue with attracting non-native Spanish speakers to immersion programs at Barcroft and Carlin Springs. If you look at Claremont, almost 75% of its applications this spring were non-Spanish speakers. Further, despite how far south it is, it draws almost 10% of its student population from schools north of Lee Highway. And many parents in the upper part of NW have lamented for years that they'd love to send their kids to an immersion school, but Claremont was simply too far for them to do logistically. If they move it to Carlin Springs and it's then just across 50, I think you'd see a significant boost in applications from North Arlington. And I don't see why moving the other program to Barcroft would create a problem given the number of people in last year's transfer report sending their kids to Key from the western side of the county, I don't see why people at the eastern edge would be less likely that people in every other part of the county to tolerate some travel for immersion.

I highly, highly, highly doubt you will see a boost in applications from nw Arlibgton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

If immersion moves to Barcroft and ATS stays put, my guess is that either they will push South Arlington boundaries east until Long Branch ends up a predominantly South Arlington school or (and I think this may be more likely given the boundary challenges this would create) they would completely redo the Ashlawn boundaries to create a compact zone that ends south of 50. Maybe do the same with Barrett. This would push people currently at those schools north into McKinley and Reed, and then families displaced from there would go to Tuckahoe and Nottingham. From my rough estimates, I think this could potentially create the most compact boundaries of anything on the table yet.

PP again. I don't think there will be an issue with attracting non-native Spanish speakers to immersion programs at Barcroft and Carlin Springs. If you look at Claremont, almost 75% of its applications this spring were non-Spanish speakers. Further, despite how far south it is, it draws almost 10% of its student population from schools north of Lee Highway. And many parents in the upper part of NW have lamented for years that they'd love to send their kids to an immersion school, but Claremont was simply too far for them to do logistically. If they move it to Carlin Springs and it's then just across 50, I think you'd see a significant boost in applications from North Arlington. And I don't see why moving the other program to Barcroft would create a problem given the number of people in last year's transfer report sending their kids to Key from the western side of the county, I don't see why people at the eastern edge would be less likely that people in every other part of the county to tolerate some travel for immersion.

I highly, highly, highly doubt you will see a boost in applications from nw Arlibgton.

^ Arlington

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It is more important to make effective choice programs more accessible to ED communities and to break-up the concentrations of high poverty in our schools. There may be fewer neighborhood seats in the south with this proposal; but keep in mind that there are a lot of schools in close proximity to each other as well. Barcroft is within 1 mile of 5 elementary schools. And, I suspect a great many "walkers" (of which there are really few) to Carlin Springs will apply to the immersion program. It will all take years to work itself out as current students make their way through 5th grade and the new policies eliminating geographical preference settle in. But it all depends on how the boundaries are redrawn - are all those ED students just shoved into already high-FRL schools like Abingdon, Randolph, Barrett?

ATS will lose its diversity if it is relocated farther north. But if 2 or 3 of the highest-poverty concentrations are broken-up, that more than makes-up for the loss of "eh" economic diversity of 20% or so at ATS. Claremont becoming a neighborhood school and the new boundaries needed for Drew would create tremendous opportunities here, especially if boundary-makers can start thinking up and down instead of just south. No reason some boundaries can't start crossing the great divide of route 50 in this reorganization.

Why not Barrett for the immersion program instead of Barcroft? Still close proximity for collaboration and sharing resources with Carlin Springs - and still close to a lot of native S panish-speaking families.

Do you live in South Arlington? My initial reaction was the same as yours, but I live in North Arlington and don't feel like I get to substitute my notion of what I think they should want for what the families in South Arlington actually do want, so I think this is question that should be put to them as part of the decision-making process.