HB Admissions are rigged

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it an open public double blind lottery like DC charters?

Anyone?

Yes it is. As far as I know, anyone is free to go and watch the lottery. They just have to call and find out when it is. It's pretty straightforward.

I think some PPs are also ignoring the fact that there are lots of families who have a kid at HB and the younger siblings did NOT get in. I know three families in that situation right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it an open public double blind lottery like DC charters?

Anyone?

Yes it is. As far as I know, anyone is free to go and watch the lottery. They just have to call and find out when it is. It's pretty straightforward.

I think some PPs are also ignoring the fact that there are lots of families who have a kid at HB and the younger siblings did NOT get in. I know three families in that situation right now.

Has anyone ever watched the lottery? My understanding is they shuffle the applications and just pick the ones off the top.

More discussion in this thread from February - http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/617620.page

The pdf that was on the APS website with the lottery procedures is no longer there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it an open public double blind lottery like DC charters?

Anyone?

Yes it is. As far as I know, anyone is free to go and watch the lottery. They just have to call and find out when it is. It's pretty straightforward.

I think some PPs are also ignoring the fact that there are lots of families who have a kid at HB and the younger siblings did NOT get in. I know three families in that situation right now.

Has anyone ever watched the lottery? My understanding is they shuffle the applications and just pick the ones off the top.

More discussion in this thread from February - http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/617620.page

The pdf that was on the APS website with the lottery procedures is no longer there.

That sends pretty easy to hack

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't think my behavior is awful, and I think I'm pretty nice. I'm just tired of paying this program that we can't afford where some kids are more equal than others. It's bad enough when admissions are fair, but if it's not fair, it's unacceptable. I think most people would agree with me.

How much more is H-B per student than other MSs/HSs?

Costs aside, there should be more fairness and transparency around the lottery/admissions.

Bump to ask again: How much more per student does APS spend for HB students?

Budget for each school is in the annual budget book, available under Finance tab on the APS website. This stuff is not secret.

Busing costs for choice programs are hard to parse out because one bus driver may be scheduled to drive a neighborhood elementary route, then an HB route (which is middle and high school), then a middle school dismissal route, then a late bus. Its not just how many x additional buses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't think my behavior is awful, and I think I'm pretty nice. I'm just tired of paying this program that we can't afford where some kids are more equal than others. It's bad enough when admissions are fair, but if it's not fair, it's unacceptable. I think most people would agree with me.

How much more is H-B per student than other MSs/HSs?

Costs aside, there should be more fairness and transparency around the lottery/admissions.

Bump to ask again: How much more per student does APS spend for HB students?

Budget for each school is in the annual budget book, available under Finance tab on the APS website. This stuff is not secret.

Busing costs for choice programs are hard to parse out because one bus driver may be scheduled to drive a neighborhood elementary route, then an HB route (which is middle and high school), then a middle school dismissal route, then a late bus. Its not just how many x additional buses.

PP said we can't afford it. PP should back that statement up.

[Anonymous]

It is a double-blind lottery.
https://www.apsva.us/school-options/high-school-choices/how-to-apply/

Names are picked from one box and numbers are picked from another box.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't think my behavior is awful, and I think I'm pretty nice. I'm just tired of paying this program that we can't afford where some kids are more equal than others. It's bad enough when admissions are fair, but if it's not fair, it's unacceptable. I think most people would agree with me.

How much more is H-B per student than other MSs/HSs?

Costs aside, there should be more fairness and transparency around the lottery/admissions.

Bump to ask again: How much more per student does APS spend for HB students?

Budget for each school is in the annual budget book, available under Finance tab on the APS website. This stuff is not secret.

Busing costs for choice programs are hard to parse out because one bus driver may be scheduled to drive a neighborhood elementary route, then an HB route (which is middle and high school), then a middle school dismissal route, then a late bus. Its not just how many x additional buses.

PP said we can't afford it. PP should back that statement up.

I'm not the PP who said we can't afford it, but I agree with that statement. We're spending $100+M to build HB a new facility in Rosslyn without increasing the capacity of the school. APS has a limited amount of bond funding available to it for school construction, due to the County's debt capacity limit (which we are already close to meeting-- google it if you don't believe me). Meanwhile, we're facing an unprecedented seat shortfall, particularly at the high school level. As a point of comparison, the School Board only has $146M allocated to build the 1300 new high school seats scheduled for 2022-- that money has to cover construction of 700 additional seats at the Career Center and 600 additional seats at the Ed Center (or whatever combo they finally decide). Nancy Van Doren stated in the School Board meeting in June that these 1300 seats need to be built as cheaply as possible to make the money stretch. Meanwhile, no corners are being cut on the HB construction-- which could have been designed to hold more seats, but the HB PAC protested that this would destroy the character of the school program and prevailed on getting the School Board to keep it at the current size. I suspect that most of the Arlington community would not be so opposed to HB if they had been willing to add capacity as part of the new construction. But they did not, and now many in the community (including those without kids) view the new HB building plans as another example of APS spending money on gold-plated objects that only benefit a small number of lucky children. There is a well-documented trail of all of this info if you have the time to watch School Board videos from the past 1 1/2 years. As the other PP said, none of this stuff is a secret.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't think my behavior is awful, and I think I'm pretty nice. I'm just tired of paying this program that we can't afford where some kids are more equal than others. It's bad enough when admissions are fair, but if it's not fair, it's unacceptable. I think most people would agree with me.

How much more is H-B per student than other MSs/HSs?

Costs aside, there should be more fairness and transparency around the lottery/admissions.

Bump to ask again: How much more per student does APS spend for HB students?

Budget for each school is in the annual budget book, available under Finance tab on the APS website. This stuff is not secret.

Busing costs for choice programs are hard to parse out because one bus driver may be scheduled to drive a neighborhood elementary route, then an HB route (which is middle and high school), then a middle school dismissal route, then a late bus. Its not just how many x additional buses.

PP said we can't afford it. PP should back that statement up.

I'm not the PP who said we can't afford it, but I agree with that statement. We're spending $100+M to build HB a new facility in Rosslyn without increasing the capacity of the school. APS has a limited amount of bond funding available to it for school construction, due to the County's debt capacity limit (which we are already close to meeting-- google it if you don't believe me). Meanwhile, we're facing an unprecedented seat shortfall, particularly at the high school level. As a point of comparison, the School Board only has $146M allocated to build the 1300 new high school seats scheduled for 2022-- that money has to cover construction of 700 additional seats at the Career Center and 600 additional seats at the Ed Center (or whatever combo they finally decide). Nancy Van Doren stated in the School Board meeting in June that these 1300 seats need to be built as cheaply as possible to make the money stretch. Meanwhile, no corners are being cut on the HB construction-- which could have been designed to hold more seats, but the HB PAC protested that this would destroy the character of the school program and prevailed on getting the School Board to keep it at the current size. I suspect that most of the Arlington community would not be so opposed to HB if they had been willing to add capacity as part of the new construction. But they did not, and now many in the community (including those without kids) view the new HB building plans as another example of APS spending money on gold-plated objects that only benefit a small number of lucky children. There is a well-documented trail of all of this info if you have the time to watch School Board videos from the past 1 1/2 years. As the other PP said, none of this stuff is a secret.

I was asking from an operating perspective - per-student costs.

As far as capital projects and physical space, APS should have left H-B where it was. H-B did not want to move to the new building. There are other programs in that building. It won't go unused. This space wouldn't fit a 4th comprehensive HS anyway.

The SB should have created the 4th HS at Kenmore to add seats if seats are an issue.

Don't blame H-B for poor APS capital planning. They decided to build a $$$ building there.

If H-B operating costs (truly the cost of the program) were significantly more than other programs then the costs should be evaluated and potentially changes made.

[Anonymous]

I don't blame the HB PAC for the over-the-top plan design at the Wilson School. I blame them for fighting so hard against adding more students and growing the size of the school. When you have elementary schools like Oakridge projected to top off at 866 students this fall, it really rubs people the wrong way to hear HB parents whine that the program must "remain small" to preserve the quality of their program. HB's combined middle and high school enrollment this fall is projected to be 702 students-- that makes HB smaller than five of our county elementary schools (Claremont, Key, Oakridge, Taylor, and McKinley). HB needs to be part of the overcrowding solution instead of just whining that they "deserve" to remain small since they "gave up" the Stratford building. I don't think the HB parents fully understand how badly they came off to the rest of the Arlington community during those discussions-- but that is exactly why the HB backlash has grown so much over the past two years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't blame the HB PAC for the over-the-top plan design at the Wilson School. I blame them for fighting so hard against adding more students and growing the size of the school. When you have elementary schools like Oakridge projected to top off at 866 students this fall, it really rubs people the wrong way to hear HB parents whine that the program must "remain small" to preserve the quality of their program. HB's combined middle and high school enrollment this fall is projected to be 702 students-- that makes HB smaller than five of our county elementary schools (Claremont, Key, Oakridge, Taylor, and McKinley). HB needs to be part of the overcrowding solution instead of just whining that they "deserve" to remain small since they "gave up" the Stratford building. I don't think the HB parents fully understand how badly they came off to the rest of the Arlington community during those discussions-- but that is exactly why the HB backlash has grown so much over the past two years.

I don't have direct experience with H-B but I can see why it's not scalable. You want to kill a successful program? I don't. Create another H-B. Or two. In the career center and ed center.

APS should take back all of the old schools (community centers) and stop trying to cram so many kids into so few schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't blame the HB PAC for the over-the-top plan design at the Wilson School. I blame them for fighting so hard against adding more students and growing the size of the school. When you have elementary schools like Oakridge projected to top off at 866 students this fall, it really rubs people the wrong way to hear HB parents whine that the program must "remain small" to preserve the quality of their program. HB's combined middle and high school enrollment this fall is projected to be 702 students-- that makes HB smaller than five of our county elementary schools (Claremont, Key, Oakridge, Taylor, and McKinley). HB needs to be part of the overcrowding solution instead of just whining that they "deserve" to remain small since they "gave up" the Stratford building. I don't think the HB parents fully understand how badly they came off to the rest of the Arlington community during those discussions-- but that is exactly why the HB backlash has grown so much over the past two years.

I don't have direct experience with H-B but I can see why it's not scalable. You want to kill a successful program? I don't. Create another H-B. Or two. In the career center and ed center.

APS should take back all of the old schools (community centers) and stop trying to cram so many kids into so few schools.

Where does that money come from though? Going back to the debt limit comment... it is not monopoly money. We have a hard stop on how much money we can borrow for school construction, and we are very, very close to that limit. Those community centers would all need at least some renovation to work as high school programs-- the bond capacity simply isn't there for multiple smaller projects, unless you can get the County to give up on other bond funding priorities like metro, parks and rec, affordable housing, etc.

Also, the Ed Center and Career Center programs need to hold 700-800 students each to create enough capacity for 2022-- HB's high school program is only 453 students. So if HB really isn't "scalable" (to use your word), then the program couldn't be replicated in those two locations because it would not create enough seats. Now, if you want to talk about growing HB at the Wilson Center to 700 high school students and then replicate **that** program at the Ed Center and the Career Center, then you might find more community support for your idea.

And I have yet to hear anyone explain in a meaningful way why HB's high school program wouldn't work if it grew to 700 students... which is still less than half the size of our comprehensive high schools today. Why exactly is 450 the magic number for HB to work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't blame the HB PAC for the over-the-top plan design at the Wilson School. I blame them for fighting so hard against adding more students and growing the size of the school. When you have elementary schools like Oakridge projected to top off at 866 students this fall, it really rubs people the wrong way to hear HB parents whine that the program must "remain small" to preserve the quality of their program. HB's combined middle and high school enrollment this fall is projected to be 702 students-- that makes HB smaller than five of our county elementary schools (Claremont, Key, Oakridge, Taylor, and McKinley). HB needs to be part of the overcrowding solution instead of just whining that they "deserve" to remain small since they "gave up" the Stratford building. I don't think the HB parents fully understand how badly they came off to the rest of the Arlington community during those discussions-- but that is exactly why the HB backlash has grown so much over the past two years.

I don't have direct experience with H-B but I can see why it's not scalable. You want to kill a successful program? I don't. Create another H-B. Or two. In the career center and ed center.

APS should take back all of the old schools (community centers) and stop trying to cram so many kids into so few schools.

Where does that money come from though? Going back to the debt limit comment... it is not monopoly money. We have a hard stop on how much money we can borrow for school construction, and we are very, very close to that limit. Those community centers would all need at least some renovation to work as high school programs-- the bond capacity simply isn't there for multiple smaller projects, unless you can get the County to give up on other bond funding priorities like metro, parks and rec, affordable housing, etc.

Also, the Ed Center and Career Center programs need to hold 700-800 students each to create enough capacity for 2022-- HB's high school program is only 453 students. So if HB really isn't "scalable" (to use your word), then the program couldn't be replicated in those two locations because it would not create enough seats. Now, if you want to talk about growing HB at the Wilson Center to 700 high school students and then replicate **that** program at the Ed Center and the Career Center, then you might find more community support for your idea.

And I have yet to hear anyone explain in a meaningful way why HB's high school program wouldn't work if it grew to 700 students... which is still less than half the size of our comprehensive high schools today. Why exactly is 450 the magic number for HB to work?

Co-locate two H-Bs at one facility. Not sure about the 450 limit.

[Anonymous]

^ and raise taxes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is a double-blind lottery.
https://www.apsva.us/school-options/high-school-choices/how-to-apply/

Names are picked from one box and numbers are picked from another box.

That is not a double-blind lottery. It isn't possible to have a double-blind lottery when you're drawing names for spot in a program.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/double+blind

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a double-blind lottery.
https://www.apsva.us/school-options/high-school-choices/how-to-apply/

Names are picked from one box and numbers are picked from another box.

That is not a double-blind lottery. It isn't possible to have a double-blind lottery when you're drawing names for spot in a program.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/double+blind

If you randomly pull applications out of a box and number them in the order you pull them, and then you randomly pull numbers out of a separate box, that is double blind. The order in which the applications were first pulled (which was random) has nothing to do with the order in which they are selected (which is also random).