Discussion Boundary Map out for APS- elementary schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how are option schools not a luxury good then? We are basically paying for public schools for kids who would otherwise go private. That's not a good use of taxpayer dollars.

Personally, I think some of them would stay and pressure APS to fix the demographic mess it has. It ain't perfect. But it might help some.

To the people arguing that the options schools have the best mix, yes, that's true, they tend to be good yes. But they make the problems worse at the neighborhood schools. So is it worth it? Plus they cost more. I just don't see how we can afford them.

The bolded part is especially true. One of the NW schools has seen attrition as more families are leaving and moving to private. It helped get their numbers below 95% (without preschool). We need to get rid of public private school on the APS dime.

Well then maybe we should create public schools that everyone WANTS to go to.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

And who is going to pay for that? Money doesn’t just grow on trees.

Is it surprising that people who struggle financially have no concept of budgets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

Doesn’t San Francisco do this and it’s a terrible outcome...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

The problems are with capitalism, private property, and resource hoarding by wealthy whites. It will take disruptive changes to make things better.

Time for you to vote for Bernie I guess. Lol.

Nope. Warren all the way. Ordered my action figure too.

So you are in favor of capitalists, or not? Because, hate to break it to you about Warren, but...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

Lol. The SB has said ad nauseam, even during option schools discussions, that neighborhood schools are and will continue to be the backbone of APS. You’re fighting a losing battle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

Lol. The SB has said ad nauseam, even during option schools discussions, that neighborhood schools are and will continue to be the backbone of APS. You’re fighting a losing battle.

I'm not actually fighting any battle - it was just a logical solution to the stated problem. Nevertheless, since you're going to continue the battle against integration because there's just nothing that can be done by schools because it's all the County's fault and only the County can fix it: stop complaining about walk zones and expanded walk zones and zones that can overlap and unbalanced enrollment and locations of option programs. 'cause you can have more diverse neighborhood schools than Arlington currently has by busing kids who are already bused to different schools - they clearly are not going to schools in their neighborhood anyway; so whatever school they are assigned to is their neighborhood's school. "Neighborhood school" isn't narrowly-defined as a school building within the physical boundary of one's actual neighborhood. It is actually the school to which one's neighborhood is assigned - along with other neighborhoods, or parts of neighborhoods since people believe all civic associations regardless of size can be split up, - regardless in which neighborhood the school actually physically resides. The SB clearly is not planning to create a school in every neighborhood so everyone can attend "their neighborhood" school.

There are things to be given and things to be taken no matter what. "The losing battle" people merely believe it's time to change which things are given and which are taken - that it's time for different sacrifices by different people, and different compromises for the benefits of more integrated schools despite housing patterns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, you all. Find the middle ground. I agree that we should have public schools people want to go to. I agree in theory that option schools could be a tool to help with that. But it's also 100% clear that option schools in Arlington now just serve to give people an out from an "undesirable" neighborhood school.

It was eye-opening last year to see Drew's FARM rate go up 20% (or whatever) when they showed actual attendance vs. boundaries.

Plus the busing costs a ton. Plus when you have schools with super high opt out rates its impossible to predict attendance with high confidence. These are real problems, and large ones.

I think if we dumped option schools we probably could get all schools to under 50% FARMs. And that would be a really good thing for everyone. You might have to draw some weird boundaries, but at least you could, because you could predict where the kids actually were.

More importantly, it would make everyone invested in solving this. Will some people go private? Yes. And that's fine. But it won't be everyone.

And before you complain about others being "entitled" to the school they "paid for" think about how you are coming across as being "entitled" to anything other than a neighborhood school. Guess what? You aren't entitled to your option school any more than anyone else is entitled to go to their closest school.

Not without really “creative” boundaries. Drew’s actual fr/l rate hasn’t been publicized, but there was never a 20 point swing from the attendance zone vs. actually enrolled, it was 9 (66% vs. 57%).

The only school that moved down significantly and to 50/50 was Barcroft, and only with Alcova Heights included and with Gilliam Place going to Fleet; Randolph was about a 5% difference, Carlin Springs would be less. Barcroft is the outlier here.

The option schools aren’t making it any hard to draw economically balanced boundaries. Our County Board made it impossible. APS can’t draw anything approaching a neighborhood boundary and wind up with all schools in South Arlington at 50%. And it doesn’t matter because this isn’t what’s happening anyway. They aren’t going to do squat about segregation, so plan accordingly.

I had to go look it up, but yes. The very first proposal for Drew was 83% poverty (https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/School-Level-Data-Table-for-Existing-and-Proposed-Boundaries-Final.pdf). They got that by taking the estimated number of poor students/how many they thought would enroll based on existing opt-out rates. There was such an uproar after that they changed how they approached it. The second proposal for Drew was 60% poverty (https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/School-Level-Data-Table-Revised-October-2018.pdf). They got that by taking the estimated number of poor students/how many actually live in the attendance zone. In other words, the non-opt-out demographics of Drew were 23% better.

APS has not yet released the 2019 FARMs numbers so who knows what it actually is today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

Lol. The SB has said ad nauseam, even during option schools discussions, that neighborhood schools are and will continue to be the backbone of APS. You’re fighting a losing battle.

I'm not actually fighting any battle - it was just a logical solution to the stated problem. Nevertheless, since you're going to continue the battle against integration because there's just nothing that can be done by schools because it's all the County's fault and only the County can fix it: stop complaining about walk zones and expanded walk zones and zones that can overlap and unbalanced enrollment and locations of option programs. 'cause you can have more diverse neighborhood schools than Arlington currently has by busing kids who are already bused to different schools - they clearly are not going to schools in their neighborhood anyway; so whatever school they are assigned to is their neighborhood's school. "Neighborhood school" isn't narrowly-defined as a school building within the physical boundary of one's actual neighborhood. It is actually the school to which one's neighborhood is assigned - along with other neighborhoods, or parts of neighborhoods since people believe all civic associations regardless of size can be split up, - regardless in which neighborhood the school actually physically resides. The SB clearly is not planning to create a school in every neighborhood so everyone can attend "their neighborhood" school.

There are things to be given and things to be taken no matter what. "The losing battle" people merely believe it's time to change which things are given and which are taken - that it's time for different sacrifices by different people, and different compromises for the benefits of more integrated schools despite housing patterns.

———
+1

And see: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/opinion/sunday/it-was-never-about-busing.html

[Anonymous]

When do the FRL numbers come out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

And who is going to pay for that? Money doesn’t just grow on trees.

Is it surprising that people who struggle financially have no concept of budgets?

Ouch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, you all. Find the middle ground. I agree that we should have public schools people want to go to. I agree in theory that option schools could be a tool to help with that. But it's also 100% clear that option schools in Arlington now just serve to give people an out from an "undesirable" neighborhood school.

It was eye-opening last year to see Drew's FARM rate go up 20% (or whatever) when they showed actual attendance vs. boundaries.

Plus the busing costs a ton. Plus when you have schools with super high opt out rates its impossible to predict attendance with high confidence. These are real problems, and large ones.

I think if we dumped option schools we probably could get all schools to under 50% FARMs. And that would be a really good thing for everyone. You might have to draw some weird boundaries, but at least you could, because you could predict where the kids actually were.

More importantly, it would make everyone invested in solving this. Will some people go private? Yes. And that's fine. But it won't be everyone.

And before you complain about others being "entitled" to the school they "paid for" think about how you are coming across as being "entitled" to anything other than a neighborhood school. Guess what? You aren't entitled to your option school any more than anyone else is entitled to go to their closest school.

Not without really “creative” boundaries. Drew’s actual fr/l rate hasn’t been publicized, but there was never a 20 point swing from the attendance zone vs. actually enrolled, it was 9 (66% vs. 57%).

The only school that moved down significantly and to 50/50 was Barcroft, and only with Alcova Heights included and with Gilliam Place going to Fleet; Randolph was about a 5% difference, Carlin Springs would be less. Barcroft is the outlier here.

The option schools aren’t making it any hard to draw economically balanced boundaries. Our County Board made it impossible. APS can’t draw anything approaching a neighborhood boundary and wind up with all schools in South Arlington at 50%. And it doesn’t matter because this isn’t what’s happening anyway. They aren’t going to do squat about segregation, so plan accordingly.

I had to go look it up, but yes. The very first proposal for Drew was 83% poverty (https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/School-Level-Data-Table-for-Existing-and-Proposed-Boundaries-Final.pdf). They got that by taking the estimated number of poor students/how many they thought would enroll based on existing opt-out rates. There was such an uproar after that they changed how they approached it. The second proposal for Drew was 60% poverty (https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/School-Level-Data-Table-Revised-October-2018.pdf). They got that by taking the estimated number of poor students/how many actually live in the attendance zone. In other words, the non-opt-out demographics of Drew were 23% better.

APS has not yet released the 2019 FARMs numbers so who knows what it actually is today.

You can't have it both ways. If APS really want to solve the FARMs rate at Drew they would have made it a full Option school. BUT the community strongly didn't want that so they made it neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

Doesn’t San Francisco do this and it’s a terrible outcome...

Yes. Cambridge Mass does it too with a better outcome I believe, but I don't know enough about it. The idea is intriguing but I think transportation would be challenging and expensive. Also, Arlingtonians of all income levels seem very fond of their neighborhood schools so it would probably be DOA politically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

And who is going to pay for that? Money doesn’t just grow on trees.

Is it surprising that people who struggle financially have no concept of budgets?

It's hard to master budgets when you don't have any resources to create one for.
Lucky for those people, they have folks like you to take care of everything for them. Oh, that's right, you're happy to leave them all on their own struggling together in their own neighborhood school.