Arlington Science Focus -- Admissions?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My friends who paid inflated prices to buy in the Key district so they could send their kids to ASFS are shaking in their boots right now. I understand their concern, but it never seemed fair to be able to pay to play.

How is picking a house because of its assigned school "pay to play"? ASFS was their neighborhood school -- if you look at real estate listings, that's what it says. If you call aps to confirm school districts, that's where they say your neighborhood school is.

Yeah - I don't understand this argument either. A few of my friends moved into the Discovery zone because they wanted their kids to go there. One friend loved Tuckohoe and moved there. What's the difference? ASFS was never a "choice" school.

Yes, i think that this is where the big disconnect is. People who lived outside of Key/ASFS viewed ASFS and Key as "choice" schools within the team. By that reasoning, Taylor was a "choice" school and so was Jamestown. ASFS was always a neighborhood school (or at least it was for the past five years that I've lived in that zone and had kids there). 80% of the kids that attend there live in the Key/ASFS neighborhood. APS staff always called it our neighborhood school (for example when I was doing early intervention). I've had three kids at that school over the past five years, and I can say without a doubt that there is nothing different about the curriculum other than an extra hour of science a week. They have a couple of extra science activities during the year, like outside the box day, but I don't think its as emphasized as people claim it is here. Its super diverse and very academically rigorous, which is why we chose to live there and send our kids there, but its just a neighborhood school that for some reason sits outside its neighborhood. I would totally support it switching buildings with key (assuming all of the administration and teachers transferred as well) because then it would sit in the neighborhood.

Agree with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My friends who paid inflated prices to buy in the Key district so they could send their kids to ASFS are shaking in their boots right now. I understand their concern, but it never seemed fair to be able to pay to play.

How is picking a house because of its assigned school "pay to play"? ASFS was their neighborhood school -- if you look at real estate listings, that's what it says. If you call aps to confirm school districts, that's where they say your neighborhood school is.

Yeah - I don't understand this argument either. A few of my friends moved into the Discovery zone because they wanted their kids to go there. One friend loved Tuckohoe and moved there. What's the difference? ASFS was never a "choice" school.

Yes, i think that this is where the big disconnect is. People who lived outside of Key/ASFS viewed ASFS and Key as "choice" schools within the team. By that reasoning, Taylor was a "choice" school and so was Jamestown. ASFS was always a neighborhood school (or at least it was for the past five years that I've lived in that zone and had kids there). 80% of the kids that attend there live in the Key/ASFS neighborhood. APS staff always called it our neighborhood school (for example when I was doing early intervention). I've had three kids at that school over the past five years, and I can say without a doubt that there is nothing different about the curriculum other than an extra hour of science a week. They have a couple of extra science activities during the year, like outside the box day, but I don't think its as emphasized as people claim it is here. Its super diverse and very academically rigorous, which is why we chose to live there and send our kids there, but its just a neighborhood school that for some reason sits outside its neighborhood. I would totally support it switching buildings with key (assuming all of the administration and teachers transferred as well) because then it would sit in the neighborhood.

Agree with this.

So I think many of us outside the neighborhood are aware that ASFS has functioned as a neighborhood school for a number of years, and agree that it makes sense for ASFS to become, officially, a neighborhood school, and for Key Immersion to loose its attendance boundary. I just don't think you're going to have much luck getting the schools to swap locations (or getting the APS administration or the SB on board with this). Mostly because the neighbors who live close to ASFS but who are bused to Taylor want ASFS to be their neighborhood school. From what I know of the area, I think this is more likely to happen than for the two schools to switch sites. I think the kids currently in the Key zone get rezoned into neighboring schools, and ASFS gets returned to the neighborhood in which it sits.

[Anonymous]

^^lose.

[Anonymous]

Other than the Stratford decision, I haven't gotten the impression that the SB cares if students can attend a close school within their boundaries if there is a 2nd one available somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Other than the Stratford decision, I haven't gotten the impression that the SB cares if students can attend a close school within their boundaries if there is a 2nd one available somewhere.

[Anonymous]

What other neighborhood schools are close to those currently in the key zone? Wouldn't they be close enough to asfs? As a family who lives really close to both adds and taylor I hope we don't get refined to asfs. What year will this happen? My kid is enrolled in Taylor for the fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What other neighborhood schools are close to those currently in the key zone? Wouldn't they be close enough to asfs? As a family who lives really close to both adds and taylor I hope we don't get refined to asfs. What year will this happen? My kid is enrolled in Taylor for the fall.

Key will be come immersion/choice only. ASFS will become a neighborhood school. Considering that Jamestown and Discovery are undercapacity I would prepare yourself that any planning units currently zoned for Key/ASFS, Taylor, Jamestown, and Discovery will be in a boundary redistricting process within the next year or two. Marshall your arguments now. For those of us at McKinley, we know you'll get fucked by the other schools if you aren't well organized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Other than the Stratford decision, I haven't gotten the impression that the SB cares if students can attend a close school within their boundaries if there is a 2nd one available somewhere.

That wasn't about proximity. That was about future donors to campaigns being happy.

A lot of SB members are thinking about (a) their political careers and (b) not fighting -- especially if NVD is going to claw your eyes out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What other neighborhood schools are close to those currently in the key zone? Wouldn't they be close enough to asfs? As a family who lives really close to both adds and taylor I hope we don't get refined to asfs. What year will this happen? My kid is enrolled in Taylor for the fall.

My understanding is that changes will be implemented in the fall of 2018. They haven't made any comments on the timeline for boundary changes aside from whenever Reed opens - 2020? They can't comment on boundary changes yet because they haven't done the analysis yet to figure it out.

[Anonymous]

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What's not fair? I have a very hard time seeing how Key will even reach 30 percent English speakers under the new proposal.

you think English speaking kids won't elect immersion if its a lottery program? I don't understand.

Make ASFS the neighborhood school for Cherrydale instead of putting those kids on a bus. Make Taylor the neighborhood school for Lyon Village. A lot of LV families will decide to send their kids to Key just to have a geographically convenient school, the way Ashlawn and McKinley-zoned families apply to ATS not because they are in love with the program but because dropoff is on the way to work.

We walk to ASF from Lyon Village. Cherrydale and LV shoukd both be ASF. They are right next to it.

APS runs a bus from ASFS to Lyon Village. Most families don't walk.

Because they never made a safe crosswalk across Kirkwood. Cars speed down that road like maniacs and there is zero lighted crosswalk or a crossing guard so even kids old enough to walk by themselves couldn't do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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APS considers it a team school with priority based first on Key/ASFS zone families who don't want Key, then Taylor and Jamestown and then ultimately the rest of the county - even if in practical application only Key/ASFS families are now admitted. This is how the team used to work and students from all over the county attended ASFS.

And the rest of the county probably considers it very unfair - a choice school for which they aren't even able to enter the lottery.

APS is planning to turn almost every school into a STEM school, plus a smidgen of arts filtered for their benefit to STEM. So ASFS will be even less special than it already is.

Give it to Cherrydale! (And I live in LV, but my neighborhood doesn't blind me to stupidity or unfairness)

Key--my kids could safely walk there from my house. They did to sports practices. I always had said I wish Key was not immersion, not choice and just our neighborhood school. It's a nice walk only through neighborhood streets--not major road crossings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What other neighborhood schools are close to those currently in the key zone? Wouldn't they be close enough to asfs? As a family who lives really close to both adds and taylor I hope we don't get refined to asfs. What year will this happen? My kid is enrolled in Taylor for the fall.

My understanding is that changes will be implemented in the fall of 2018. They haven't made any comments on the timeline for boundary changes aside from whenever Reed opens - 2020? They can't comment on boundary changes yet because they haven't done the analysis yet to figure it out.

They said that kids currently enrolled wouldn't be forced to move if there was redistricting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What other neighborhood schools are close to those currently in the key zone? Wouldn't they be close enough to asfs? As a family who lives really close to both adds and taylor I hope we don't get refined to asfs. What year will this happen? My kid is enrolled in Taylor for the fall.

Asfs is the only school near the key zone-- it's only a half mile or so from key and most of the key/asfs zone is within two miles of asfs. Taylor would be the next closest, but it's close to three miles away from most of the key zone, then glebe, then longbranch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What other neighborhood schools are close to those currently in the key zone? Wouldn't they be close enough to asfs? As a family who lives really close to both adds and taylor I hope we don't get refined to asfs. What year will this happen? My kid is enrolled in Taylor for the fall.

My understanding is that changes will be implemented in the fall of 2018. They haven't made any comments on the timeline for boundary changes aside from whenever Reed opens - 2020? They can't comment on boundary changes yet because they haven't done the analysis yet to figure it out.

PP above who asked. Thanks. Well just plugged into google and we are a mile from both schools. My kid will have started Taylor by then so I hope we can stay there. But given that those in the current key zone need an ES who knows what will end up happening. It's funny because we were zoned for Taylor and accepted that there wasn't even any space at asfs. Then I heard that some parents there were mean and tons of homework and felt good about Taylor especially since we know a lot of families who will be sending their kids to Taylor as well. None if this is horrible of course save the hs situation which is horrible.

[Anonymous]

I think I heard the tuition is $850,000 now. But you can spread payments over 30 years.