APS Engage Update Pre-CIP Report

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the proposed plans have Rosslyn being bused back to Williamsburg, both the map that moves immersion and the map that leaves it at Gunston. Rosslyn is moving either way, according to this APS plan.

Not true. Not sure what you looked at but Rosslyn is not impacted. All will stay within the Hamm zone per the proposed maps.

Whoops, I totally misread that. You're right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Walkable is never going to be the primary factor APS uses in boundaries. It’s impossible to do so. Some of you won’t get to walk.

So what is APS’ hierarchy of priorities? What supersedes walkability? What comes after?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found you also need to see the planning units to understand the maps in Appendix H. Here is the link:

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PlanningUnitReferenceMap_FiveColor_2020.pdf

We live three minutes from DHMS (walking) and they are going to bus my child to WMS.

append H
Map 3 has most of Taylor going WMS.

Map 4 splits Taylor in half WMS and DMHS

Why does proposed shaded boundaries change from 3 to 4??

But in all cases a HUGE portion of walkable DHMS are bused to WMS.

And splitting an elementary school — I thought they wanted to stop that.

This is going to make WMS even less diverse and ruin at least a semblance of a balance at DHMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the Hamm people complaining, what is your proposal to fill Williamsburg then? Who should get bused over there? Not your children. We’ve got that.

People in the Montessori middle school program who choose to be bused already.

We don't have a problem across all middle schools. We have a problem with just two schools, Gunston & Williamsburg. They are moving immersion to Kenmore which helps remove kids from Gunston (and SB member Priddy asked staff in the meeting last night that I watched if they could see what the middle school numbers would look like if they only did that move, which i thought was a good question bc none of the document showed that impact alone).

Moving the other option program out of Gunston would help remove more kids from overcrowding, and sending it to Williamsburg could help add more kids there, and they are already okay being bused bc it's option anyway. We at least deserve to see the numbers on that.

I’d like to see the numbers, too. Looks like a lot of planning units being moved out of Kenmore to make way for Immersion, but not sure that’s necessary unless they are 100% convinced that loving immersion further N will result in a population explosion in the program? I’d think they could move just a couple out, like the APAH PU W of Upton Hills that is walkable to Swanson, to keep the population steady at Kenmore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Walkable is never going to be the primary factor APS uses in boundaries. It’s impossible to do so. Some of you won’t get to walk.

So what is APS’ hierarchy of priorities? What supersedes walkability? What comes after?

Balancing enrollment supersedes walkability. And not overcrowding facilities. Based on where schools are physically located, which is not changeable, some kids who can walk to one school but will get bused to another school. This is how it has always been and apparently it just didn't ever affect you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the Hamm people complaining, what is your proposal to fill Williamsburg then? Who should get bused over there? Not your children. We’ve got that.

Question: why is APS so bad at calculating seats/future needs? Are less families moving to WMS/DHMS? Is this driven in part by the exodus of North Arlington families to private school? Does APS track or publish that information?

Just my observations watching this over many years.

1. Covid definitely impacted things.
2. In past boundary adjustments, the School Board responds to the people screaming in their faces right in the moment. This was the case with the boundary adjustments when Hamm was opened. Hamm never had enough kids and Swanson had too many. People screamed about not leaving Swanson. Same issue with Cardinal. The McKinley community screamed and yelled to stay together and give it a couple years that school will be overcrowded. The problem is this thread. What's going on right now. Listening to current families over what makes sense longer-term.

[Anonymous]

What APS should do is review the middle and high school boundaries together to ensure logical school pyramids. Not wait to do the high school boundaries later as they propose.

[Anonymous]

Hamm isn’t overcapacity now or in any of the projections, right? Why are the units being moved?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the Hamm people complaining, what is your proposal to fill Williamsburg then? Who should get bused over there? Not your children. We’ve got that.

Question: why is APS so bad at calculating seats/future needs? Are less families moving to WMS/DHMS? Is this driven in part by the exodus of North Arlington families to private school? Does APS track or publish that information?

Just my observations watching this over many years.

1. Covid definitely impacted things.
2. In past boundary adjustments, the School Board responds to the people screaming in their faces right in the moment. This was the case with the boundary adjustments when Hamm was opened. Hamm never had enough kids and Swanson had too many. People screamed about not leaving Swanson. Same issue with Cardinal. The McKinley community screamed and yelled to stay together and give it a couple years that school will be overcrowded. The problem is this thread. What's going on right now. Listening to current families over what makes sense longer-term.

In the report APS said that Hamm was underenrolled because they used incorrect data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What APS should do is review the middle and high school boundaries together to ensure logical school pyramids. Not wait to do the high school boundaries later as they propose.

Yes, Alignment is going to be a problem if they wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hamm isn’t overcapacity now or in any of the projections, right? Why are the units being moved?

No, and their 5 year projection shows it at 98% capacity. They want to shift everyone north to fill Williamsburg.

Interesting how they used "number of students impacted" as a metric to argue for closing Nottingham but haven't applied that same metric to middle school boundaries. It just shows how they are cherry picking data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What APS should do is review the middle and high school boundaries together to ensure logical school pyramids. Not wait to do the high school boundaries later as they propose.

100% agree. Doing one and then the other might mean some folks have to switch mid MS and then again mid HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine they are actually going to close Nottingham. Once the wealthy Nottingham parents start fussing about it (and they already are), the school board will back down for sure. You don’t mess with the rich, white elementary schools in Arlington, do you?

I guess you missed when they closed McKinley.

McKinley is not Nottingham. Just sit back and wait for the uproar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What APS should do is review the middle and high school boundaries together to ensure logical school pyramids. Not wait to do the high school boundaries later as they propose.

That is way too logical for APS. They don’t think more than 5 min ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hamm isn’t overcapacity now or in any of the projections, right? Why are the units being moved?

No, and their 5 year projection shows it at 98% capacity. They want to shift everyone north to fill Williamsburg.

Interesting how they used "number of students impacted" as a metric to argue for closing Nottingham but haven't applied that same metric to middle school boundaries. It just shows how they are cherry picking data.

So they could just not do that, right? Hamms current boundary is tucked in the corner of the county. It’s not like they need to push seats up through.