Which APS elementary schools should close?
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Anonymous
not good enough |
Anonymous
You mean close the high performing schools that are full and super popular with waiting lists, while there are under enrolled elem schools that no one wants to go to (ahem Drew). lol, no. |
Anonymous
Not the PP but sometimes posts get deleted when names are mentioned. |
Anonymous
No, the result was entirely predictable and not planning’s fault. MPSA highjacked the SAWG to get out of Drew, and then then highjacked the Career Center BLPC to get a new facility for Pre-K-8 on site. They have too many people in the right advisory groups, on the SB, and CB to be stopped. They have organized in a way that no other parent group has and been very effective in getting what they want and making it look like it wasn’t even their doing. Drew being just a neighborhood school with the old neighborhood boundaries was not going to fill, planning knew it, so did the SB, that’s why Babs said they could just move more of the Pre-K programs there rather than drawing a larger boundary if it came to that. And honestly, even with a larger boundary that assumes parents won’t use other means to not attend a high poverty school. Frankly, it’s better that a high poverty school be underenrolled anyway. More resources for fewer kids who need them. If any schools have to be consolidated it will be those in the NW, where no growth is expected. |
Anonymous
I thought the neighborhood elementary boundary system was what kept precious white and/or privileged BIPOC kids out of S. Arlington schools, that's why most N Arlington kids are in schools with >70% white kids and people will pay $1.7M to live in a 70-year-old brick rambler. |
Anonymous
| Split ATS and make Drew the S. Arlington version and the current ATS the N. Arlington version, like Key and Claremont. It increases ATS spots, which is extremely popular, and will fill Drew. Then close Nottingham. |
Anonymous
The CB definitely needs to step up, but so does Youngkin: https://www.apsva.us/post/superintendent-presents-proposed-fy-2025-budget-to-maintain-core-services/ "According to an independent review by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), Virginia school divisions receive less K-12 funding per student than the 50-state average, the regional average, and three of Virginia’s five bordering states. School divisions in other states receive 14% more per student than school divisions in Virginia, on average. This equates to about $1,900 less per student for Virginia. The JLARC estimates that annually, APS is underfunded by approximately $51 million." https://www.arlnow.com/2024/03/04/aps-superintendent-says-lean-budget-proposal-reflects-state-funding-uncertainties/ "Youngkin’s conservative budget comes despite a recent report from the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission, which found Virginia gives less funding to schools than the national average, using outdated models from the Great Recession, Durán noted. On top of this statewide deficiency, APS receives less funding from the state, says School Board member Mary Kadera. State funding accounts for 29% and 27%, respectively, of the budgets for the public school systems in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, compared to 15% for APS, she said." https://jlarc.virginia.gov/landing-2023-virginias-k-12-funding-formula.asp Formula does not adequately account for local labor costs An effective education funding formula should also account for higher labor costs. Virginia’s SOQ formula attempts to account for higher labor costs in some divisions through the cost of competing adjustment, which provides varying funding increases to divisions in and around Northern Virginia. The cost of competing adjustment provides less additional funding than actual salary differences. For example, Arlington County Public Schools receives a 9.83 percent adjustment for teachers’ salaries but its actual labor costs are 40 percent more than the average Virginia school division’s labor cost. Virginia is one of only nine states that use a staffing-based formula, and some academic experts now view it as an outdated approach. The vast majority of states (34) use a student-based funding formula that allocates divisions a specified amount of funding per student (figure). Seven states use hybrids of the staffing- and student-based approaches or another approach. A well-designed student-based funding model would be more accurate, more transparent, and easier to maintain over time than Virginia’s current staffing-based formula. |
Anonymous
Not going to happen WRT Drew. It’s untouchable as a neighborhood school and with a seat deficit predicted in the adjacent Oakridge zone, it’s going to get more kids. |
Anonymous
The programs are super popular because middle class families don't want to send their children to the low-performing schools. Not everyone can access those programs and the busing is a drain on our resources. |
Anonymous
so again you really want to close the highest performing and most popular schools? we should be opening more of them, not less. close the low performing neighborhood schools that no one wants to go to. |
Anonymous
Keeping open underenrolled adjacent schools in the NW is a drain on our resources. If a school needs to close, it should be one that underesourced kids do not attend and that isn’t controversial. What’s the big difference between any of those low poverty adjacent schools in the NW that all feed to the same middle and HS? They’re interchangeable. Close one and move kids slightly further to a school that is the same in any measurable way. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Extra buildings in APS? Turn one of them into a high school! Which site is the biggest? |
Anonymous
AMAC has joined the conversation. The Mary Coup didn't work so now they'll go after the Title I schools. |
Anonymous
Redistricting students to Drew is just going to make parents unhappy. If you make it an option school, you don't reduce the number of seats and parents voluntarily enroll instead of kicking and screaming about being moved. |