APS/SA boundary redrawing - meeting tonight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This process is about relieving overcrowding at Oakridge. What’s everyone’s take on that?

That Oakridge got its preferred outcome being sent to Hoffman Boston rather than Drew. But also that Oakridge wants to remain an Oakridge enclave on its side of 395. During SAWG they fought hard for a school on their side of 395, even though the long-term numbers and timing just didn't align for them to get the new school built at a location in Pentagon or Crystal City. Of course, it didn't help that there was no immediately available site to build that school on for a 2019 opening. But their rationale didn't sell: we can't send our kids across 395; but you can send your 4 year olds across 395 to our side for preschool until our numbers are high enough to completely fill both schools. Really?

I'm sure Oakridge has been doing its share of advocacy this past year, too. They've just chosen to do it quietly behind-the-scenes rather than open and in-your-face like Henry chose to do.

Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of the word "community" and everyone thinking theirs is is so close and strong and special and sacro-sanct; yet their great and strong community is apparently too fragile to survive a chunk of their kids going to a different school. You'll still go to school with a lot of others in your neighborhood; you'll still see neighbors and classmates and non-classmates in your local parks and restaurants; you can still host social gatherings with neighbors whose kids attend the other school; you can still have your neighborhood potlucks and festivals. In the meantime, you extend your perspective and your community to another part of Arlington - likely the one adjacent, though "separated" by a major road. I understand the angst about switching schools midstream; but I do not get why that is "tearing apart the community." Your community merely extends or evolves into another great one.

+1 I'm sick to death of hearing about "tearing apart" communities. It's elementary school. The community changes every year with kids arriving and others leaving. They will surviving moving to another school -- with a bunch of their neighbors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This process is about relieving overcrowding at Oakridge. What’s everyone’s take on that?

That Oakridge got its preferred outcome being sent to Hoffman Boston rather than Drew. But also that Oakridge wants to remain an Oakridge enclave on its side of 395. During SAWG they fought hard for a school on their side of 395, even though the long-term numbers and timing just didn't align for them to get the new school built at a location in Pentagon or Crystal City. Of course, it didn't help that there was no immediately available site to build that school on for a 2019 opening. But their rationale didn't sell: we can't send our kids across 395; but you can send your 4 year olds across 395 to our side for preschool until our numbers are high enough to completely fill both schools. Really?

I'm sure Oakridge has been doing its share of advocacy this past year, too. They've just chosen to do it quietly behind-the-scenes rather than open and in-your-face like Henry chose to do.

Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of the word "community" and everyone thinking theirs is is so close and strong and special and sacro-sanct; yet their great and strong community is apparently too fragile to survive a chunk of their kids going to a different school. You'll still go to school with a lot of others in your neighborhood; you'll still see neighbors and classmates and non-classmates in your local parks and restaurants; you can still host social gatherings with neighbors whose kids attend the other school; you can still have your neighborhood potlucks and festivals. In the meantime, you extend your perspective and your community to another part of Arlington - likely the one adjacent, though "separated" by a major road. I understand the angst about switching schools midstream; but I do not get why that is "tearing apart the community." Your community merely extends or evolves into another great one.

+1 I'm sick to death of hearing about "tearing apart" communities. It's elementary school. The community changes every year with kids arriving and others leaving. They will surviving moving to another school -- with a bunch of their neighbors.

+2. Especially since it's not like this is an area where people grow up, marry someone they went to high school with and buy a house two blocks away from their parents, where people rarely leave and new people rarely come. It's an incredibly transient area where the communities are constantly changes.

[Anonymous]

I always assumed it was midwestern transplants harping about neighborhood schools.
Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always assumed it was midwestern transplants harping about neighborhood schools.
Nope.

I'm a midwestern transplant and I'm the one who posted the comment. In some ways, transplants should be able to tolerate changes better. Maybe it's transplants from other places causing the ruckus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always assumed it was midwestern transplants harping about neighborhood schools.
Nope.

I'm a midwestern transplant and I'm the one who posted the comment. In some ways, transplants should be able to tolerate changes better. Maybe it's transplants from other places causing the ruckus.

Boston, perhaps?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"The most important educational resource the local school district allocates with its decisions, fairly or unfairly, is its high-achieving students. If Arlington school leaders continue to draw boundaries isolating high-achieving students into racially and economically isolated wealthy “neighborhood schools,” it is denying its most crucial educational resource to poor and minority kids."

As true now as when it was written six years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/de-segregating-arlington-schools/2012/10/29/d1530fe2-2085-11e2-afca-58c2f5789c5d_blog.html?utm_term=.c7d9ed894c46

So other people's kids are just that, resources, that can be allocated, allotted, and otherwise deployed to meet some social justice goal. No thanks. People are generally fine and comfortable with money, time, or other such goods being sent to help underperforming schools. But when you start treating other people's kids as if they were just tools to use and abuse is when you lose all support.

I'm fine with high FARMs schools and students getting a disproportionate share of resources. They already do just by virtue of living in Arlington. I am not fine with my kid being a sacrificial lamb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"The most important educational resource the local school district allocates with its decisions, fairly or unfairly, is its high-achieving students. If Arlington school leaders continue to draw boundaries isolating high-achieving students into racially and economically isolated wealthy “neighborhood schools,” it is denying its most crucial educational resource to poor and minority kids."

As true now as when it was written six years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/de-segregating-arlington-schools/2012/10/29/d1530fe2-2085-11e2-afca-58c2f5789c5d_blog.html?utm_term=.c7d9ed894c46

So other people's kids are just that, resources, that can be allocated, allotted, and otherwise deployed to meet some social justice goal. No thanks. People are generally fine and comfortable with money, time, or other such goods being sent to help underperforming schools. But when you start treating other people's kids as if they were just tools to use and abuse is when you lose all support.

I'm fine with high FARMs schools and students getting a disproportionate share of resources. They already do just by virtue of living in Arlington. I am not fine with my kid being a sacrificial lamb.

You think going to school with poor kids is a form of child abuse? Wow. What exactly is your kid sacrificing? After all. These ooor kids and schools are supposedly getting a disproportionate share of resources. Doesn't you're little lamb stand to gain then? Which is it, can't be both.

[Anonymous]

Pretty hard to argue with intentionally stupid, isn't it? PP was quite clear in his/her argument.

[Anonymous]

Exactly there is a reason certain schools are overcrowded and some people move to North Arlington or Fairfax or when school starts. When people have choices they exercise them. No one is stating resources shouldn’t be provided. Using other people’s children as the resource, that’s difficult. It seems the people advocating for this are not the ones whose children will be affected. These are tough issues that are as old as time.

[Anonymous]

It has already been discussed countless times already in this thread what high performing, and even just at grade level kids, lose when going to a high FARMS school in Arlington, mainly that teacher resources (ie attention) are given to students that are still not at grade level, while those kids that are already there are not challenged or allowed to excel.

Secondly, let's be honest here. This whole debate is about other high SES parents trying to rope other SES families to join their high FARMS schools. It is NOT about helping students struggling with English acquisition or from poor SES backgrounds. The few times people even reached out to these communities it was clear they word prefer their kids to be educated with their peers and community members.

There is this unstated assumption that ESL and FARMS kids and parents are just dying to have your little Jackson, Olivia, and Chase in their class. This just isn't true

[Anonymous]

Exactly. The poor immigrants like it that way. What’s best for their kids shouldn’t really matter. The parents want Randolph to stay just like it is. It’s their school. They like it as it is. If parents who live in the 750k dollar homes surrounding the school want to send their kids, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. But they are fine with the current arrangement. It’s their school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It has already been discussed countless times already in this thread what high performing, and even just at grade level kids, lose when going to a high FARMS school in Arlington, mainly that teacher resources (ie attention) are given to students that are still not at grade level, while those kids that are already there are not challenged or allowed to excel.

Secondly, let's be honest here. This whole debate is about other high SES parents trying to rope other SES families to join their high FARMS schools. It is NOT about helping students struggling with English acquisition or from poor SES backgrounds. The few times people even reached out to these communities it was clear they word prefer their kids to be educated with their peers and community members.

There is this unstated assumption that ESL and FARMS kids and parents are just dying to have your little Jackson, Olivia, and Chase in their class. This just isn't true

what really helps low income kids perform to their ability is simply being around high performing middle and upper middle class kids, not when rich people throw money at them and say "please go away."

We learn and model after our peers. Rich or poor, you're selling your kid short if you think he or she isn't of value to classmates simply by being in the same class. Yes, there is the issue of teacher resources but that is just another argument for loweringm the farms rates. NO ONE should attend a school with a farms rate so high that issues related to poverty dominates a teachers time. And frankly, we don't get to choose who we go to public school with, That's why it's called public school. Part of the issue is almost certainly that dc is a magnet for the upper crust of communities nationwide, and probably many went to segregated, cloistered schools themselves and have no experience with diversity. It's ok to be uneasy about that. But try to separate fear and assumptions and uncertainty with reality. Henry is by all accounts a great school with a farms rate nearly equal to the average. That fact is probably a total no go for some parents north of lee highway. If you're a Henry parent you probably laugh at that, right? That's because you actually know what it's like to have some diversity in your school, whereas they don't. It's all relative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This process is about relieving overcrowding at Oakridge. What’s everyone’s take on that?

That Oakridge got its preferred outcome being sent to Hoffman Boston rather than Drew. But also that Oakridge wants to remain an Oakridge enclave on its side of 395. During SAWG they fought hard for a school on their side of 395, even though the long-term numbers and timing just didn't align for them to get the new school built at a location in Pentagon or Crystal City. Of course, it didn't help that there was no immediately available site to build that school on for a 2019 opening. But their rationale didn't sell: we can't send our kids across 395; but you can send your 4 year olds across 395 to our side for preschool until our numbers are high enough to completely fill both schools. Really?

I'm sure Oakridge has been doing its share of advocacy this past year, too. They've just chosen to do it quietly behind-the-scenes rather than open and in-your-face like Henry chose to do.

Quite frankly, I'm sick to death of the word "community" and everyone thinking theirs is is so close and strong and special and sacro-sanct; yet their great and strong community is apparently too fragile to survive a chunk of their kids going to a different school. You'll still go to school with a lot of others in your neighborhood; you'll still see neighbors and classmates and non-classmates in your local parks and restaurants; you can still host social gatherings with neighbors whose kids attend the other school; you can still have your neighborhood potlucks and festivals. In the meantime, you extend your perspective and your community to another part of Arlington - likely the one adjacent, though "separated" by a major road. I understand the angst about switching schools midstream; but I do not get why that is "tearing apart the community." Your community merely extends or evolves into another great one.

+1 I'm sick to death of hearing about "tearing apart" communities. It's elementary school. The community changes every year with kids arriving and others leaving. They will surviving moving to another school -- with a bunch of their neighbors.

+2. Especially since it's not like this is an area where people grow up, marry someone they went to high school with and buy a house two blocks away from their parents, where people rarely leave and new people rarely come. It's an incredibly transient area where the communities are constantly changes.

+3. Obnoxious cries of keeping "current communities" misses the entire point of strategic planning and balancing enrollment. They will certainly survive going to a school with a bunch of neighbors. We can't keep schools the same, they change every year as children move on to MS and guess what, they will most likely meet again then so the "you have to keep us together" is all too dramatic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has already been discussed countless times already in this thread what high performing, and even just at grade level kids, lose when going to a high FARMS school in Arlington, mainly that teacher resources (ie attention) are given to students that are still not at grade level, while those kids that are already there are not challenged or allowed to excel.

Secondly, let's be honest here. This whole debate is about other high SES parents trying to rope other SES families to join their high FARMS schools. It is NOT about helping students struggling with English acquisition or from poor SES backgrounds. The few times people even reached out to these communities it was clear they word prefer their kids to be educated with their peers and community members.

There is this unstated assumption that ESL and FARMS kids and parents are just dying to have your little Jackson, Olivia, and Chase in their class. This just isn't true

what really helps low income kids perform to their ability is simply being around high performing middle and upper middle class kids, not when rich people throw money at them and say "please go away."

We learn and model after our peers. Rich or poor, you're selling your kid short if you think he or she isn't of value to classmates simply by being in the same class. Yes, there is the issue of teacher resources but that is just another argument for loweringm the farms rates. NO ONE should attend a school with a farms rate so high that issues related to poverty dominates a teachers time. And frankly, we don't get to choose who we go to public school with, That's why it's called public school. Part of the issue is almost certainly that dc is a magnet for the upper crust of communities nationwide, and probably many went to segregated, cloistered schools themselves and have no experience with diversity. It's ok to be uneasy about that. But try to separate fear and assumptions and uncertainty with reality. Henry is by all accounts a great school with a farms rate nearly equal to the average. That fact is probably a total no go for some parents north of lee highway. If you're a Henry parent you probably laugh at that, right? That's because you actually know what it's like to have some diversity in your school, whereas they don't. It's all relative.

The affluent parents know their kids have value to their poor classmates; they just don't believe the poor kids have value to theirs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has already been discussed countless times already in this thread what high performing, and even just at grade level kids, lose when going to a high FARMS school in Arlington, mainly that teacher resources (ie attention) are given to students that are still not at grade level, while those kids that are already there are not challenged or allowed to excel.

Secondly, let's be honest here. This whole debate is about other high SES parents trying to rope other SES families to join their high FARMS schools. It is NOT about helping students struggling with English acquisition or from poor SES backgrounds. The few times people even reached out to these communities it was clear they word prefer their kids to be educated with their peers and community members.

There is this unstated assumption that ESL and FARMS kids and parents are just dying to have your little Jackson, Olivia, and Chase in their class. This just isn't true

what really helps low income kids perform to their ability is simply being around high performing middle and upper middle class kids, not when rich people throw money at them and say "please go away."

We learn and model after our peers. Rich or poor, you're selling your kid short if you think he or she isn't of value to classmates simply by being in the same class. Yes, there is the issue of teacher resources but that is just another argument for loweringm the farms rates. NO ONE should attend a school with a farms rate so high that issues related to poverty dominates a teachers time. And frankly, we don't get to choose who we go to public school with, That's why it's called public school. Part of the issue is almost certainly that dc is a magnet for the upper crust of communities nationwide, and probably many went to segregated, cloistered schools themselves and have no experience with diversity. It's ok to be uneasy about that. But try to separate fear and assumptions and uncertainty with reality. Henry is by all accounts a great school with a farms rate nearly equal to the average. That fact is probably a total no go for some parents north of lee highway. If you're a Henry parent you probably laugh at that, right? That's because you actually know what it's like to have some diversity in your school, whereas they don't. It's all relative.

The affluent parents know their kids have value to their poor classmates; they just don't believe the poor kids have value to theirs.

+1---part of the crux of the problem. They do have value. And many wealthier parents have stereotypes and assumptions about the poor kids and their families that don't hold water. Another reason why segregation is bad.

-Randolph parent