Post-ATS Education - Middle and High School

[Anonymous]

This string went off the rails…I thought it was all about the person who thinks their kid is too elite to interact with kids from S.A.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

First of all, I wasn't complaining. I was just offering a perspective as to why keeping some programs at select locations might make sense.
Second of all, I understand what so many people on these complaint boards apparently can't - that it's not actually possible to balance enrollment systemwide at all the neighborhood schools without some students going to a school that isn't the absolute closest to their home. So sometimes what seems like a wasted and unnecessary bus really isn't. ASFS/Key now Innovation have always been a mess in terms of walking to the neighborhood school. And you seem to think it's fine for others' kids to have unnecessarily long bus rides so yours doesn't get bussed at all because you can walk to a different school. And, even your reasoning suggests they aren't just bussing for the sake of bussing, as if they redistricted you now it would be hard on the kids because of the "community" factor. Well, other kids have "community factors" too. People like you just can't see how the things in your own school/neighborhood/area impact things in others' school/neighborhood/area. That's why APS makes these decisions and not individual neighborhoods or parent groups. Unfortunately, APS listens too much to neighborhoods and parent groups when making their decisions.

So this is an example of how people shouldn’t talk about things they don’t know.
There are over 200 kids in my neighborhood that can walk to innovation. My neighborhood was the only part of Asfs to stay at asfs this year. Instead of allowing us to walk to school (less than 500 ft for over 100 kids btw, it is literally across the street), we are bussed to asfs. Conversely, parts of Rosslyn that are 0.9 miles from innovation and 1.2 miles from asfs respectively are bussed to innovation because of a desire to maintain a contiguous boundary and because they didn’t like the optics of bussing them past a school to another one. So instead of giving those kids a two minute longer bus ride, they are spending over a half a million dollars in bussing. They also didn’t just move everyone from asfs to innovation because the school was projected to open over capacity. It opened at under 2/3rds capacity (less than 400 kids)! There is no way you can objectively look at this situation and say that this was well planned.

Now the damage has been done, I am not ok with my second grader having to switch school communities again because aps screwed up. When school started, we figured out that there were no kids from asfs in her class. Literally not a single one. According to other parents, there are only a handful in each other class, the school is mostly kids who came from taylor and Ashlawn. So no I’m not ok with her having to move communities again because aps screwed up. You cannot look at this objectively and say this is best for the county! It’s so badly managed!

What is the address of this place in Rosslyn that is .9 from Innovation and 1.2 from ASFS? I don't think it is physically possible. You guys did get screwed and it turns out there is plenty of room due to various factors (most kids staying with immersion, people with kids moving out of condos and apts during the pandemic, Queen's Court not filling yet). They tried to be conservative and overshot it for this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No. The ATS approach is fine for those who want it, but most parents don’t. ATS “works” because it’s a self selecting group.

This is stupid logic. The parents aren't the ones in school. It doesn't matter what the parents *want.* It matters what works for the kids.
ATS' approach "worked" for decades. It became "ATS" option program because it rebuked the open classroom fad that was taking place, enabling some families to escape the trend. There is nothing special about ATS or its instructional approach. The self-selection merely brings a lot of over-anxious parents together into the same school.

You're defining "what works for the kids" as ES SOL scores.

I don't care about those. I care about things that my kids (now in HS & college) developed just fine without homework every night in every grade. And they developed them better than their friends who went to ATS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS works because it is a self-selected group of kids.

ATS works because it is protected from kids who enroll after the first day of school, the second day of school, the 3rd month of school. When you have fewer disruptions to your student body, the environment is more controlled. They are protected from people who move into the county in the middle of the school year.

If all schools could control enrollment that way, life would be different. I think it's a testament to Arlington schools how well they manage and integrate kids who come in after the deadlines and learn.

This, plus parents who pay enough attention to deadlines and school communication to actually apply

How about teachers and administration with good communication so parents know what's going on when and when deadlines are for what? School communication can be sub-par. It's not always the parents' (or even the kids') fault.

Aspects of ATS' approach would still be effective in other schools without the self-selected parents. It isn't the opting-in that makes ATS work. But it is true that ATS has been able to select its students and parents to some extent by exclusion, especially by excluding special needs students and students who are "too much" for ATS to handle -- whether directly, or by "encouraging" their withdrawal.

Lmao is it tho?

Nope. A bunch of the 5th grade boys who I know have 504 plans and IEPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS works because it is a self-selected group of kids.

ATS works because it is protected from kids who enroll after the first day of school, the second day of school, the 3rd month of school. When you have fewer disruptions to your student body, the environment is more controlled. They are protected from people who move into the county in the middle of the school year.

If all schools could control enrollment that way, life would be different. I think it's a testament to Arlington schools how well they manage and integrate kids who come in after the deadlines and learn.

This, plus parents who pay enough attention to deadlines and school communication to actually apply

How about teachers and administration with good communication so parents know what's going on when and when deadlines are for what? School communication can be sub-par. It's not always the parents' (or even the kids') fault.

Aspects of ATS' approach would still be effective in other schools without the self-selected parents. It isn't the opting-in that makes ATS work. But it is true that ATS has been able to select its students and parents to some extent by exclusion, especially by excluding special needs students and students who are "too much" for ATS to handle -- whether directly, or by "encouraging" their withdrawal.

Lmao is it tho?

Nope. A bunch of the 5th grade boys who I know have 504 plans and IEPs.

+1 it would be a violation of federal law to exclude students with disabilities and given how much scrutiny ATS is under they’d never get away with it. They may send some students to countywide programs, but that’s something that all schools do.

[Anonymous]

My child at ATS child has a 504. We know many kids there with IEP's or 504's. They actually have a very strong reputation for supporting students with special needs. They don't shy away from offering services, unlike some APS schools like McKinley and Nottingham.

[Anonymous]

They can support some IEP/504 kids because they pick and choose their “diversity” from the pre-school program. ATS is a cult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They can support some IEP/504 kids because they pick and choose their “diversity” from the pre-school program. ATS is a cult.

The VPI program is a lottery and run like every other VPI lottery for any APS school that offers that program. ATS doesn’t set the criteria for how the lottery works. Nor do they get to “pick and choose” who gets in. I am kind of missing your point, PP.

[Anonymous]

From my daughter's year, most kids went to Kenmore and Swanson. My kid went Kenmore, then Yorktown. (she transferred into Kenmore -- from Gunston then Williamsburg - we moved in July of her 5th grade year.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can support some IEP/504 kids because they pick and choose their “diversity” from the pre-school program. ATS is a cult.

The VPI program is a lottery and run like every other VPI lottery for any APS school that offers that program. ATS doesn’t set the criteria for how the lottery works. Nor do they get to “pick and choose” who gets in. I am kind of missing your point, PP.

Their point is that they don’t understand how the lottery works

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They can support some IEP/504 kids because they pick and choose their “diversity” from the pre-school program. ATS is a cult.

What the f are you talking about? They don’t pick and choose anyone. They have a lottery like everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was the experience so bad that it’s making you consider private??

No, quite the opposite in fact.

I guess I should add that we live south of Rt 50 and are zoned to TJ and Wakefield. It's not that I think public school is bad or that these are bad schools, but I was wondered where students generally ended up. I didn't mean it to be taken the way this conversation is going!

Oh but you did, and it is. You live south of 50 and you didn’t want your kids to go to your neighborhood school. Now elementary is coming to a close and your neighborhood didn’t gentrify enough for you to want to combine your kid with other kids who live near you. If you chose ATS for its educational philosophy, I don’t see how HB or Montessori could be attractive to you. If you chose it mainly to get away from your neighborhood school, then yes, you need to apply for a specialty program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child at ATS child has a 504. We know many kids there with IEP's or 504's. They actually have a very strong reputation for supporting students with special needs. They don't shy away from offering services, unlike some APS schools like McKinley and Nottingham.

Me too and you are not even me! amazing.