South Arlington and North Arlington Schools

[Anonymous]

The trick is really in balancing out the proportions of FARM kids in the schools. Or in any case, getting more into the North by building affordable or mixed income housing on some of the bigger streets up there like North Harrison near the groceries or on Lee (but not feeding into Glebe). All of those schools have less than 10% FARMs kids, and in some cases it's only 2 or 3 percent. Those schools could easily absorb some of these kids and would have the resources to get them the help they need without hurting Larla's education or sending mom and dad in a panic to send her to private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The trick is really in balancing out the proportions of FARM kids in the schools. Or in any case, getting more into the North by building affordable or mixed income housing on some of the bigger streets up there like North Harrison near the groceries or on Lee (but not feeding into Glebe). All of those schools have less than 10% FARMs kids, and in some cases it's only 2 or 3 percent. Those schools could easily absorb some of these kids and would have the resources to get them the help they need without hurting Larla's education or sending mom and dad in a panic to send her to private school.

NIMBY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it IS clear to me that we can't keep cramming FARMs kids into South Arlington where the percentage of FARMs kids is already, like, 60%. Those schools need a chance to flourish, but they won't if we keep sending them the students that need the most resources. We need to slow our roll in putting in AH on the Pike to give the kids in those schools a real chance and not transform the south into some sort of ghetto.

This is why we need to stop with the increase in AH all together. We can't figure out how to fit the kids we have NOW into the schools.

My school is closer to 80%
I'd be thrilled with 60%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it IS clear to me that we can't keep cramming FARMs kids into South Arlington where the percentage of FARMs kids is already, like, 60%. Those schools need a chance to flourish, but they won't if we keep sending them the students that need the most resources. We need to slow our roll in putting in AH on the Pike to give the kids in those schools a real chance and not transform the south into some sort of ghetto.

This is why we need to stop with the increase in AH all together. We can't figure out how to fit the kids we have NOW into the schools.

I guess I'm still enough of a bleeding heart liberal that I want us to help the people who otherwise are going to have nothing but bad choices left to them. We won't be helping poor people if we keep sticking them in the South; it will just become a ghetto. But the schools in the north are great and could easily absorb 100 of these kids amongst them. Look at all the resources they have that are going underutilized, compared to the south! I think the best answer is really to add some mixed housing in the North, to maybe increase the chances of building housing that actual teachers or school staff, police etc. would be able to use while getting some more low income families into the North.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it IS clear to me that we can't keep cramming FARMs kids into South Arlington where the percentage of FARMs kids is already, like, 60%. Those schools need a chance to flourish, but they won't if we keep sending them the students that need the most resources. We need to slow our roll in putting in AH on the Pike to give the kids in those schools a real chance and not transform the south into some sort of ghetto.

This is why we need to stop with the increase in AH all together. We can't figure out how to fit the kids we have NOW into the schools.

I guess I'm still enough of a bleeding heart liberal that I want us to help the people who otherwise are going to have nothing but bad choices left to them. We won't be helping poor people if we keep sticking them in the South; it will just become a ghetto. But the schools in the north are great and could easily absorb 100 of these kids amongst them. Look at all the resources they have that are going underutilized, compared to the south! I think the best answer is really to add some mixed housing in the North, to maybe increase the chances of building housing that actual teachers or school staff, police etc. would be able to use while getting some more low income families into the North.

But not everyone needs to live in Arlington!! If this were housing for our teachers, our firefighter, etc., I'd be all for it. Instead, when 60% is for people who don't work here or work illegally, why are we using our tax dollars for this? You don't need to live here if you aren't working here. Why are talking about destroying our parks and overcrowding our schools? I didn't always live in Arlington. I couldn't afford it. I lived somewhere else. I'm not a 1%-er and I don't live in the protected alcove or N-N-Arlington. I'm just part of Arlington that will get squeezed out as we become a county of two classes.

[Anonymous]

It's ok to be a bleeding heart liberal. It's ok to want to help people.
I start to become frustrated when we arrest critical thinking. The meeting in support of the master plan was big tear filled love fest. Everyone felt really good about themselves, but when Deeper questions and thoughts were posed, it wasn't even entertained.
We are a smarter, better educated community than that.

[Anonymous]

I hear you, but I don't like the consequences of what you're saying, which is to keep all further low income people out of Arlington altogether, even though those percentages have been shrinking already over the last decade. Shouldn't this relatively rich area be able to absorb some of the state's poor people without that much detriment to ourselves? Isn't that part of our job, really? The North is fully equipped to do this.

I'm not sure why you think that more middle class people will move here if we stop building AH altogether. Developers won't stop buying teardowns and replacing them with $2 million homes. They're not going to buy a teardown and put in a $600K house that a teacher might be able to afford. We'll just keep getting more rich people. I mean, I'm sure that's what some people want, but it didn't seem to be what you were after, and yet I don't think you realize your solution wouldn't seem to solve the problem.

At least with mixed housing there seems more of a chance, to me, that middle class people who work in Arlington might be able to use some of it. But I don't really want to live in an Arlington where the main housing being built is new $2M SFHs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it IS clear to me that we can't keep cramming FARMs kids into South Arlington where the percentage of FARMs kids is already, like, 60%. Those schools need a chance to flourish, but they won't if we keep sending them the students that need the most resources. We need to slow our roll in putting in AH on the Pike to give the kids in those schools a real chance and not transform the south into some sort of ghetto.

This is why we need to stop with the increase in AH all together. We can't figure out how to fit the kids we have NOW into the schools.

My school is closer to 80%
I'd be thrilled with 60%

Is there actual data on FARMS % by school? Just wondering what school, PP. I am in South Arl and kids are not yet to elem age but watching this thread with interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hear you, but I don't like the consequences of what you're saying, which is to keep all further low income people out of Arlington altogether, even though those percentages have been shrinking already over the last decade. Shouldn't this relatively rich area be able to absorb some of the state's poor people without that much detriment to ourselves? Isn't that part of our job, really? The North is fully equipped to do this.

I'm not sure why you think that more middle class people will move here if we stop building AH altogether. Developers won't stop buying teardowns and replacing them with $2 million homes. They're not going to buy a teardown and put in a $600K house that a teacher might be able to afford. We'll just keep getting more rich people. I mean, I'm sure that's what some people want, but it didn't seem to be what you were after, and yet I don't think you realize your solution wouldn't seem to solve the problem.

At least with mixed housing there seems more of a chance, to me, that middle class people who work in Arlington might be able to use some of it. But I don't really want to live in an Arlington where the main housing being built is new $2M SFHs.

You are responding to different posters I think.
I'm not opposed to mixed use housing spread through out the county. In fact I think that is exactly what we need to be doing.
The children raised in those environments will flourish as opposed to languish.
I am absolutely against concentrated 100 commited subsidized housing, especially more along the Pike. I also don't believe in AH at any cost. So, if we can't muster the political will to make it happen the right/most effective way- I'm not willing to sacrifice my kids education and property value.

I know that sounds terrible, harsh, and selfish... I know that, by if I'm going to be footing the bill, I don't want these policy to directly come back and smack me in the face/wallet.
I don't want to only see 2m+ McMansions everywhere either. I want to live among all kinds of people.
Right now the county is picking winners and losers. I feel the meddling is going to end up with more losers, and that includes middle class homeowners.
If they don't slow down what is happening on the Pike it will be a 50 year recovery. I understand that we are losing large numbers of disadvantaged people right now, but the county engineering is going to have lasting ramifications that will be reverberate in countless unforeseen ways, many of them not good. And most of them expensive.

As to middle class displacement - there is a theory that AH takes away from the amount and adds to the expensive of market rate housing. The burden is shifted to market rate units- the market demands more for them- middle class gets pushed further out...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it IS clear to me that we can't keep cramming FARMs kids into South Arlington where the percentage of FARMs kids is already, like, 60%. Those schools need a chance to flourish, but they won't if we keep sending them the students that need the most resources. We need to slow our roll in putting in AH on the Pike to give the kids in those schools a real chance and not transform the south into some sort of ghetto.

This is why we need to stop with the increase in AH all together. We can't figure out how to fit the kids we have NOW into the schools.

My school is closer to 80%
I'd be thrilled with 60%

Is there actual data on FARMS % by school? Just wondering what school, PP. I am in South Arl and kids are not yet to elem age but watching this thread with interest.

Great schools has data

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it IS clear to me that we can't keep cramming FARMs kids into South Arlington where the percentage of FARMs kids is already, like, 60%. Those schools need a chance to flourish, but they won't if we keep sending them the students that need the most resources. We need to slow our roll in putting in AH on the Pike to give the kids in those schools a real chance and not transform the south into some sort of ghetto.

This is why we need to stop with the increase in AH all together. We can't figure out how to fit the kids we have NOW into the schools.

My school is closer to 80%
I'd be thrilled with 60%

Is there actual data on FARMS % by school? Just wondering what school, PP. I am in South Arl and kids are not yet to elem age but watching this thread with interest.

Great schools has data

Data on the APS website is more recent and updated every October or November.

[Anonymous]

Here is a link that provides the 2014 FARMs percentages per Arlington school: http://www.apsva.us/Page/1113

Almost every elementary school in the south is at 50% or more FARMs, with Carlin Springs and Randolph at more than 80%. While in the North many schools aren't even at 5%.

[Anonymous]

So... When we were talking about failing businesses along the pike - we were mainly referring to west of George Mason.

Here's some upbeat news for Glebe and the Pike

https://www.arlnow.com/2015/11/02/sugar-shack-donuts-1000-degrees-neapolitan-pizza-coming-to-columbia-pike/


Of course this build is a MIXED INCOME BUILDING!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is a link that provides the 2014 FARMs percentages per Arlington school: http://www.apsva.us/Page/1113

Almost every elementary school in the south is at 50% or more FARMs, with Carlin Springs and Randolph at more than 80%. While in the North many schools aren't even at 5%.

Thank you, PPs.

[Anonymous]

When we moved in ( 7 years ago) Randolph had been around 70% and trending down...