2024/25 Boundary Map APS

[Anonymous]

It’s a shame boundaries may get put off indefinitely. It would’ve been great to sort out the boundary inconsistencies that were meant to be temporary, and a nice side effect could’ve been improved demographic balance, walkability, higher transit use, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Re above post. Also it appears the FCPS boundary changes are equity focused and directed by school board members who want to see a more even demographic distribution among schools, especially high schools. There are no plans for that in APS.

Good for them!
"Progressive Arlington" always touting how it is a leader will have nothing to do with anything like that, despite being a fraction the size of FCPS and Fairfax County.

Because the epicenter of political power has traditionally been in N Arlington. (Although that may be shifting.) And large-scale boundary changes are sure to have political repercussions. When the school board was appointed, boundaries were easier to change at the macro level.

I really don't think it's just about N Arlington power. I think parents across the county mostly want their kids to go to a school that is nearby and to stay with their cohort of friends. I think APS can do better than the last disaster of a plan that still has everyone on edge and distristful that the next set of boundary revisions are going to be awful and are unwanted.

That was a disaster. Proposing to bus kids who lived a block away from DHMS, who could see the school from their windows.

Thank you, Taylor parent. Good to see you're still vigilant.

Don’t worry. I’m still watching.

-Taylor Parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a shame boundaries may get put off indefinitely. It would’ve been great to sort out the boundary inconsistencies that were meant to be temporary, and a nice side effect could’ve been improved demographic balance, walkability, higher transit use, etc.

Those issues run counter to each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a shame boundaries may get put off indefinitely. It would’ve been great to sort out the boundary inconsistencies that were meant to be temporary, and a nice side effect could’ve been improved demographic balance, walkability, higher transit use, etc.

Those issues run counter to each other.

Yes, prioritizing walking comes means we can’t have demographic balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a shame boundaries may get put off indefinitely. It would’ve been great to sort out the boundary inconsistencies that were meant to be temporary, and a nice side effect could’ve been improved demographic balance, walkability, higher transit use, etc.

Those issues run counter to each other.

Yes, prioritizing walking comes means we can’t have demographic balance.

What about having a bit of the best of both worlds? Walkability shouldn’t mean preserving the entire 1.5 mile walk radius. Public transit (now free for students) could offer an alternative if zoning moves students to a school further away. Already there are plenty of neighborhoods closer to one school that are zoned to another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

Because then it places immersion at the furthest school in the county from a large percentage of the native Spanish speakers and/or low income families, so APS views that as an equity problem.

This is the cycle they get caught in. Not being able to settle on what their real priorities are and then making decisions. They did the survey years ago about the six components of the decision and overwhelmingly proximity came out first. Around the edges there will always be units for which that won't work out, but it makes it very hard for them to do major overhauls if they want to be responsive to what the large majority of APS families want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know how to build a map by planning unit that shows the different elementary/middle/HS combinations? I often hear parents say “no one else is split up like our PU” and I am curious if that is actually true or if there are pockets like this all over the county. I would like to advocate during future boundary debates to minimize these isolated PUs.

I’m not impacted by the MS boundary process, but we live in a planning unit where ours is the only PU at our elementary where kids will stay together through HS. A small portion of our ES will go to MS together. Then we will be split from those ES friends, but joined again in HS with kids who went to the same ES but different MS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

Because then it places immersion at the furthest school in the county from a large percentage of the native Spanish speakers and/or low income families, so APS views that as an equity problem.

This is the cycle they get caught in. Not being able to settle on what their real priorities are and then making decisions. They did the survey years ago about the six components of the decision and overwhelmingly proximity came out first. Around the edges there will always be units for which that won't work out, but it makes it very hard for them to do major overhauls if they want to be responsive to what the large majority of APS families want.

Right, people complain Williamsburg is not diverse and is too empty, but they also complain that something like moving Immersion there (which would add students and diversity) is inequitable. What are our actual goals here? To be fair, I wouldn't want to be moved there either if I was in the Immersion program, that school is terrible to get to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

Because then it places immersion at the furthest school in the county from a large percentage of the native Spanish speakers and/or low income families, so APS views that as an equity problem.

This is the cycle they get caught in. Not being able to settle on what their real priorities are and then making decisions. They did the survey years ago about the six components of the decision and overwhelmingly proximity came out first. Around the edges there will always be units for which that won't work out, but it makes it very hard for them to do major overhauls if they want to be responsive to what the large majority of APS families want.

Right, people complain Williamsburg is not diverse and is too empty, but they also complain that something like moving Immersion there (which would add students and diversity) is inequitable. What are our actual goals here? To be fair, I wouldn't want to be moved there either if I was in the Immersion program, that school is terrible to get to.

I know some are consigned to a future reality where we have two overwhelmingly caucasian schools, Williamsburg and Yorktown, since it’s not equitable to bus socio-economically diverse students to those schools. And instead focus on evening the demographic balance and disparities between Wakefield and W-L.

In other words let Yorktown and Williamsburg just be themselves for better or worse, even if APS will continue on the trajectory of the most segregated district in the region. Focus demographic balance on the other school pyramids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

Because then it places immersion at the furthest school in the county from a large percentage of the native Spanish speakers and/or low income families, so APS views that as an equity problem.

This is the cycle they get caught in. Not being able to settle on what their real priorities are and then making decisions. They did the survey years ago about the six components of the decision and overwhelmingly proximity came out first. Around the edges there will always be units for which that won't work out, but it makes it very hard for them to do major overhauls if they want to be responsive to what the large majority of APS families want.

This. Check out San Francisco public schools to see how non-neighborhood schools and extensive busing works out.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-school-segregation.html?ogrp=ctr&unlocked_article_code=1.U04.Bysl.XSXrh0Kt7zIG&smid=url-share

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

Because then it places immersion at the furthest school in the county from a large percentage of the native Spanish speakers and/or low income families, so APS views that as an equity problem.

This is the cycle they get caught in. Not being able to settle on what their real priorities are and then making decisions. They did the survey years ago about the six components of the decision and overwhelmingly proximity came out first. Around the edges there will always be units for which that won't work out, but it makes it very hard for them to do major overhauls if they want to be responsive to what the large majority of APS families want.

Right, people complain Williamsburg is not diverse and is too empty, but they also complain that something like moving Immersion there (which would add students and diversity) is inequitable. What are our actual goals here? To be fair, I wouldn't want to be moved there either if I was in the Immersion program, that school is terrible to get to.

I think the complaint are less about it's inequitable and more about the model will fail if it's moved to Williamsburg. The model is supposed to be a mix of native spanish and english speakers. APS could just kill immersion past elemetnary school. ACPS doesn't offer it as a separate track past elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

Because then it places immersion at the furthest school in the county from a large percentage of the native Spanish speakers and/or low income families, so APS views that as an equity problem.

This is the cycle they get caught in. Not being able to settle on what their real priorities are and then making decisions. They did the survey years ago about the six components of the decision and overwhelmingly proximity came out first. Around the edges there will always be units for which that won't work out, but it makes it very hard for them to do major overhauls if they want to be responsive to what the large majority of APS families want.

Right, people complain Williamsburg is not diverse and is too empty, but they also complain that something like moving Immersion there (which would add students and diversity) is inequitable. What are our actual goals here? To be fair, I wouldn't want to be moved there either if I was in the Immersion program, that school is terrible to get to.

I know some are consigned to a future reality where we have two overwhelmingly caucasian schools, Williamsburg and Yorktown, since it’s not equitable to bus socio-economically diverse students to those schools. And instead focus on evening the demographic balance and disparities between Wakefield and W-L.

In other words let Yorktown and Williamsburg just be themselves for better or worse, even if APS will continue on the trajectory of the most segregated district in the region. Focus demographic balance on the other school pyramids.

The solution is to have Yorktown cut down deeper into the western part of the county (Swanson/Kenmore) and WL to stick to the eastern side (Hamm/TJ). Guston stays with Wakefield. Fill Wakefield with the kids in the southern most parts and split the rest between Yorktown and WL. Split WMS to balance enrollment between Yorktown and WL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

Because then it places immersion at the furthest school in the county from a large percentage of the native Spanish speakers and/or low income families, so APS views that as an equity problem.

This is the cycle they get caught in. Not being able to settle on what their real priorities are and then making decisions. They did the survey years ago about the six components of the decision and overwhelmingly proximity came out first. Around the edges there will always be units for which that won't work out, but it makes it very hard for them to do major overhauls if they want to be responsive to what the large majority of APS families want.

Right, people complain Williamsburg is not diverse and is too empty, but they also complain that something like moving Immersion there (which would add students and diversity) is inequitable. What are our actual goals here? To be fair, I wouldn't want to be moved there either if I was in the Immersion program, that school is terrible to get to.

I think the complaint are less about it's inequitable and more about the model will fail if it's moved to Williamsburg. The model is supposed to be a mix of native spanish and english speakers. APS could just kill immersion past elemetnary school. ACPS doesn't offer it as a separate track past elementary.

It is ridiculous to kill a successful program because a few Swanson or Hamm students don't want to attend WMS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a long thread about this recently if you search.

In summary, APS is doing nothing while Williamsburg sits under enrolled and several other middle schools are bursting. People have varying opinions about this, which you can read.

So move Immersion to Williamsburg from Gunston.

Because then it places immersion at the furthest school in the county from a large percentage of the native Spanish speakers and/or low income families, so APS views that as an equity problem.

This is the cycle they get caught in. Not being able to settle on what their real priorities are and then making decisions. They did the survey years ago about the six components of the decision and overwhelmingly proximity came out first. Around the edges there will always be units for which that won't work out, but it makes it very hard for them to do major overhauls if they want to be responsive to what the large majority of APS families want.

Right, people complain Williamsburg is not diverse and is too empty, but they also complain that something like moving Immersion there (which would add students and diversity) is inequitable. What are our actual goals here? To be fair, I wouldn't want to be moved there either if I was in the Immersion program, that school is terrible to get to.

I know some are consigned to a future reality where we have two overwhelmingly caucasian schools, Williamsburg and Yorktown, since it’s not equitable to bus socio-economically diverse students to those schools. And instead focus on evening the demographic balance and disparities between Wakefield and W-L.

In other words let Yorktown and Williamsburg just be themselves for better or worse, even if APS will continue on the trajectory of the most segregated district in the region. Focus demographic balance on the other school pyramids.

The solution is to have Yorktown cut down deeper into the western part of the county (Swanson/Kenmore) and WL to stick to the eastern side (Hamm/TJ). Guston stays with Wakefield. Fill Wakefield with the kids in the southern most parts and split the rest between Yorktown and WL. Split WMS to balance enrollment between Yorktown and WL.

If that’s workable, on the surface that sounds good.