South Arlington elementary school boundary adjustments 2019

[Anonymous]

I just don’t see much diffence between Barcroft and Randolph...
Other than Randolph posters don’t like the idea of their school excluding higher needs children in their neighborhood. Barcroft posters seem to not consider the farms kids currently attending Barcroft as part of their neighborhood.
Intersting dynamics at play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t see much diffence between Barcroft and Randolph...
Other than Randolph posters don’t like the idea of their school excluding higher needs children in their neighborhood. Barcroft posters seem to not consider the farms kids currently attending Barcroft as part of their neighborhood.
Intersting dynamics at play.

To me the notable difference is that the UMC in Douglas park has kinda resigned itself to the fact that most students there are low income and will be for the foreseeable future, whereas barcroft UMC, especially new arrivals in alcova heights are still coming to terms with that reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t see much diffence between Barcroft and Randolph...
Other than Randolph posters don’t like the idea of their school excluding higher needs children in their neighborhood. Barcroft posters seem to not consider the farms kids currently attending Barcroft as part of their neighborhood.
Intersting dynamics at play.

Well, many of them are not residents of our neighborhood. Either you are unfamiliar with the Civic Association or you are being deliberately obtuse. The students residing in Buchanan Gardens are residents of our neighborhood. The students in the Barcroft Apartments are in the Douglas Park neighborhood and those from Arlington Mill do not reside in our neighborhood, but rather live in the Arlington Mill neighborhood. And the students who will eventually reside in Gilliam Place will be residents of Alcova Heights. These areas are part of the current school community because of current boundaries, boundaries that are about to change, and who knows whether any or all of those students will continue to be zoned to Barcroft. I was making the point that within the known walk zone, the area that will never be zoned to any school other than Barcroft, there are many children whose families do not like the year-round calendar. If what APS is doing is trying to encourage more walking and fewer bus routes, they should be trying to determine how to keep the kids living within the Barcroft walk zone at their neighborhood school. And they dynamics are quite "interesting" when you look at the transfer report and note that the majority of families are transferring their children to other diverse schools: 44 to Campbell, 16 to Barrett, 2 to Carlin Springs, 78 to Claremont, 10 to Drew, 9 to Key, 15 to Long Branch, 49 to Randolph. It's not like they're all transferring to Discovery (1), or even ATS (39).

Clearly the calendar has had driven out more families than it has attracted. It's not a good use of limited resources.

[Anonymous]

Excellent post PP. Thank you for your research.

To the poster who keeps saying that this discussion means that people living in SFMs in Barcroft do not care about the kids from lower income families - why must you denigrate every thought as one grounded in racism. The families in SFHs matter too. We live here too. I could just as easily flip your words to mean that ONLY the lower income families matter and to hell with the UMC families. See how your logic fails?

The solution to Barcroft need not be a zero sum game, where SFH families win and lower income families lose. I think PP's facts show that there is something unique to Barcroft that is causing families to leave - and it isn't grounded in racism. I am a Barcroft parent and my kid goes to Campbell like so many others. Why, the calendar and the calendar alone. I could not send my kid to Randolph because we need a bus. My kid knows other kids at Campbell who live in the lower income families in the Barcroft zone and they too cannot accommodate the calendar. It isn't just the UMC families who opt out because of the Calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:18 - yes. that's my point. instead of the weird calendar at Barcroft, have a regular school schedule plus full-summer programming. Then you'd attract both the families who need year-round care and the families who want a normal neighborhood school plus other camps.

Yes, the argument that the lower SES families or however someone put it a few pages back, *need* the year round calendar for childcare, is of course, nonsense. Change is hard to entertain for many people.

Weren't there boundary adjustments made to South Arlington elementaries in 2003, the same year that Barcroft became "year-round"? Seems to me like going year round probably had at least something to do with balancing enrollment, and possibly was done to attract middle class families to the school by giving it a somewhat forward looking identity/approach/branding. Wouldn't be the first time. APS's own history brochure states that

"As the Hispanic population grew in the area surrounding Key Elementary, a Spanish Immersion Program was introduced in 1986 in part to attract non-Hispanic families and provide a balanced enrollment at the school."

People forget that parts of North Arlington - including Lyon Village! - used to look a lot more like South Arlington than they do now.

The year round calendar had nothing to do with balancing enrollment. As mentioned in another post somewhere in this thread or one of the others, it was an initiative on the part of the parents who were at the school at the time. And it was not to provide child care for the low-income families. No matter what calendar you go by, there are still ten weeks off of school that require child care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t see much diffence between Barcroft and Randolph...
Other than Randolph posters don’t like the idea of their school excluding higher needs children in their neighborhood. Barcroft posters seem to not consider the farms kids currently attending Barcroft as part of their neighborhood.
Intersting dynamics at play.

Well, many of them are not residents of our neighborhood. Either you are unfamiliar with the Civic Association or you are being deliberately obtuse. The students residing in Buchanan Gardens are residents of our neighborhood. The students in the Barcroft Apartments are in the Douglas Park neighborhood and those from Arlington Mill do not reside in our neighborhood, but rather live in the Arlington Mill neighborhood. And the students who will eventually reside in Gilliam Place will be residents of Alcova Heights. These areas are part of the current school community because of current boundaries, boundaries that are about to change, and who knows whether any or all of those students will continue to be zoned to Barcroft. I was making the point that within the known walk zone, the area that will never be zoned to any school other than Barcroft, there are many children whose families do not like the year-round calendar. If what APS is doing is trying to encourage more walking and fewer bus routes, they should be trying to determine how to keep the kids living within the Barcroft walk zone at their neighborhood school. And they dynamics are quite "interesting" when you look at the transfer report and note that the majority of families are transferring their children to other diverse schools: 44 to Campbell, 16 to Barrett, 2 to Carlin Springs, 78 to Claremont, 10 to Drew, 9 to Key, 15 to Long Branch, 49 to Randolph. It's not like they're all transferring to Discovery (1), or even ATS (39).

Clearly the calendar has had driven out more families than it has attracted. It's not a good use of limited resources.

How many of those transfers out are families living within the BArcroft neighborhood and your "known walk zone"? How does that compare to the percentage of students in each of the other neighborhoods you cite? Cause, relative to the Barcroft neighborhood, there really aren't that many "outsiders" from Alcova Heights, and a lot of them have opted out of Barcroft for Immersion, Montessori, Campbell, and the handful or less of ATS-ers and private schoolers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t see much diffence between Barcroft and Randolph...
Other than Randolph posters don’t like the idea of their school excluding higher needs children in their neighborhood. Barcroft posters seem to not consider the farms kids currently attending Barcroft as part of their neighborhood.
Intersting dynamics at play.

Well, many of them are not residents of our neighborhood. Either you are unfamiliar with the Civic Association or you are being deliberately obtuse. The students residing in Buchanan Gardens are residents of our neighborhood. The students in the Barcroft Apartments are in the Douglas Park neighborhood and those from Arlington Mill do not reside in our neighborhood, but rather live in the Arlington Mill neighborhood. And the students who will eventually reside in Gilliam Place will be residents of Alcova Heights. These areas are part of the current school community because of current boundaries, boundaries that are about to change, and who knows whether any or all of those students will continue to be zoned to Barcroft. I was making the point that within the known walk zone, the area that will never be zoned to any school other than Barcroft, there are many children whose families do not like the year-round calendar. If what APS is doing is trying to encourage more walking and fewer bus routes, they should be trying to determine how to keep the kids living within the Barcroft walk zone at their neighborhood school. And they dynamics are quite "interesting" when you look at the transfer report and note that the majority of families are transferring their children to other diverse schools: 44 to Campbell, 16 to Barrett, 2 to Carlin Springs, 78 to Claremont, 10 to Drew, 9 to Key, 15 to Long Branch, 49 to Randolph. It's not like they're all transferring to Discovery (1), or even ATS (39).

Clearly the calendar has had driven out more families than it has attracted. It's not a good use of limited resources.

I don't think it's a fair assumption that all those transfers are due to the calendar. The calendar is often cited as a primary reason - but people don't like to admit it's for other reasons like school performance. If people believed the academics were equal to other schools, I'd bet my arm there would be a lot fewer transfers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:18 - yes. that's my point. instead of the weird calendar at Barcroft, have a regular school schedule plus full-summer programming. Then you'd attract both the families who need year-round care and the families who want a normal neighborhood school plus other camps.

Yes, the argument that the lower SES families or however someone put it a few pages back, *need* the year round calendar for childcare, is of course, nonsense. Change is hard to entertain for many people.

Weren't there boundary adjustments made to South Arlington elementaries in 2003, the same year that Barcroft became "year-round"? Seems to me like going year round probably had at least something to do with balancing enrollment, and possibly was done to attract middle class families to the school by giving it a somewhat forward looking identity/approach/branding. Wouldn't be the first time. APS's own history brochure states that

"As the Hispanic population grew in the area surrounding Key Elementary, a Spanish Immersion Program was introduced in 1986 in part to attract non-Hispanic families and provide a balanced enrollment at the school."

People forget that parts of North Arlington - including Lyon Village! - used to look a lot more like South Arlington than they do now.

The year round calendar had nothing to do with balancing enrollment. As mentioned in another post somewhere in this thread or one of the others, it was an initiative on the part of the parents who were at the school at the time. And it was not to provide child care for the low-income families. No matter what calendar you go by, there are still ten weeks off of school that require child care.

The news articles I've read from back then say it was the principal at the time who pushed for it, and for performance reasons. Not because it was in any way more convenient or to the benefit of some group of students or parents, but I would be interested to hear the whole story.

[Anonymous]

So it was a benefit to student performance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t see much diffence between Barcroft and Randolph...
Other than Randolph posters don’t like the idea of their school excluding higher needs children in their neighborhood. Barcroft posters seem to not consider the farms kids currently attending Barcroft as part of their neighborhood.
Intersting dynamics at play.

Well, many of them are not residents of our neighborhood. Either you are unfamiliar with the Civic Association or you are being deliberately obtuse. The students residing in Buchanan Gardens are residents of our neighborhood. The students in the Barcroft Apartments are in the Douglas Park neighborhood and those from Arlington Mill do not reside in our neighborhood, but rather live in the Arlington Mill neighborhood. And the students who will eventually reside in Gilliam Place will be residents of Alcova Heights. These areas are part of the current school community because of current boundaries, boundaries that are about to change, and who knows whether any or all of those students will continue to be zoned to Barcroft. I was making the point that within the known walk zone, the area that will never be zoned to any school other than Barcroft, there are many children whose families do not like the year-round calendar. If what APS is doing is trying to encourage more walking and fewer bus routes, they should be trying to determine how to keep the kids living within the Barcroft walk zone at their neighborhood school. And they dynamics are quite "interesting" when you look at the transfer report and note that the majority of families are transferring their children to other diverse schools: 44 to Campbell, 16 to Barrett, 2 to Carlin Springs, 78 to Claremont, 10 to Drew, 9 to Key, 15 to Long Branch, 49 to Randolph. It's not like they're all transferring to Discovery (1), or even ATS (39).

Clearly the calendar has had driven out more families than it has attracted. It's not a good use of limited resources.

How many of those transfers out are families living within the BArcroft neighborhood and your "known walk zone"? How does that compare to the percentage of students in each of the other neighborhoods you cite? Cause, relative to the Barcroft neighborhood, there really aren't that many "outsiders" from Alcova Heights, and a lot of them have opted out of Barcroft for Immersion, Montessori, Campbell, and the handful or less of ATS-ers and private schoolers.

I only have "anecdata" for that, but I personally live in the walk zone in the neighborhood itself and there are a lot of kids living here. Not very many go to Barcroft, and the most often cited reason is the calendar. Are they all lying? I don't know. Why give them an excuse? And as another PP has pointed out, many families who move in already have their kids in a private or option school before moving here, so that suggests to me that there isn't some huge demand for this calendar from outside the neighborhood.

For myself, I can say that at the time we moved in we didn't have kids, and we didn't know whether we would live here until we did. Then when we did and the oldest was about to start K, we tried to keep an open mind as we toured schools. But the calendar was a real negative. I think that if we had stuck with it, we might've "gotten used to it" or "dealt with it" but we decided it was easier to accept the spot at an option school instead.

Other posters have pointed out that school performance is a consideration. I won't deny that's true for many. But that also suggests to me that this unique calendar isn't a positive in that regard. In other localities there are "magnet" schools with different calendars, and families opt into those schools, usually from a lower performing neighborhood school. Not because they love the calendar, but because they prefer a "better" school. But Barcroft isn't even an option school, it's just a neighborhood school that could maybe accommodate a handful of transfers.

So I've been told that this unique calendar isn't meant to be a draw, isn't meant to improve educational outcomes (as measured by test scores), and isn't meant to provide free summer care. So, what is it for? I need a real reason, and some data to support that reason. I think I understand why it was started, but I'm asking does it really make sense to continue it? When there are streets that are walkable to Barcroft that have multiple ES kids taking buses to three or maybe even more different ES outside the neighborhood?

[Anonymous]

NP here who lives in one of the SFH neighborhoods zoned for Barcroft (but has a child at a choice school). Does it still seem likely that the Barcroft year-round calendar will be changed in the near future? I know that some of my neighbors with kids at Barcroft (yes, some neighbors do send their kids to Barcroft) more or less assumed that the year-round calendar would be abandoned soon. They got the sense that the new principal was not fully committed to the modified calendar. But it was a while ago that I had those conversations, and I haven't heard much about the calendar - one way or the other - since then. Is doing away with the modified calendar still on the table?

For what it's worth, I like the calendar. It's much more like the school calendar I grew up with (in Europe) than the traditional American school calendar is. I think it's a superior calendar (and would be even better if adopted across the board in APS). When DC was nearing kindergarten and we were considering schools, I viewed the Barcroft calendar as a plus for that school. But it wasn't a big enough draw to make up for the fact that our choice options were higher performing schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it was a benefit to student performance.

Well, that was the idea. Dunno if the outcomes were actually better.

[Anonymous]

From the walk zone maps, it appears Barcroft ES will be losing some sfh’s from Alcova and gaining Caf’s From the new apt building. I’m skeptical changing the calendar one way or another will make a difference to the demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just don’t see much diffence between Barcroft and Randolph...
Other than Randolph posters don’t like the idea of their school excluding higher needs children in their neighborhood. Barcroft posters seem to not consider the farms kids currently attending Barcroft as part of their neighborhood.
Intersting dynamics at play.

Well, many of them are not residents of our neighborhood. Either you are unfamiliar with the Civic Association or you are being deliberately obtuse. The students residing in Buchanan Gardens are residents of our neighborhood. The students in the Barcroft Apartments are in the Douglas Park neighborhood and those from Arlington Mill do not reside in our neighborhood, but rather live in the Arlington Mill neighborhood. And the students who will eventually reside in Gilliam Place will be residents of Alcova Heights. These areas are part of the current school community because of current boundaries, boundaries that are about to change, and who knows whether any or all of those students will continue to be zoned to Barcroft. I was making the point that within the known walk zone, the area that will never be zoned to any school other than Barcroft, there are many children whose families do not like the year-round calendar. If what APS is doing is trying to encourage more walking and fewer bus routes, they should be trying to determine how to keep the kids living within the Barcroft walk zone at their neighborhood school. And they dynamics are quite "interesting" when you look at the transfer report and note that the majority of families are transferring their children to other diverse schools: 44 to Campbell, 16 to Barrett, 2 to Carlin Springs, 78 to Claremont, 10 to Drew, 9 to Key, 15 to Long Branch, 49 to Randolph. It's not like they're all transferring to Discovery (1), or even ATS (39).

Clearly the calendar has had driven out more families than it has attracted. It's not a good use of limited resources.

How many of those transfers out are families living within the BArcroft neighborhood and your "known walk zone"? How does that compare to the percentage of students in each of the other neighborhoods you cite? Cause, relative to the Barcroft neighborhood, there really aren't that many "outsiders" from Alcova Heights, and a lot of them have opted out of Barcroft for Immersion, Montessori, Campbell, and the handful or less of ATS-ers and private schoolers.

I only have "anecdata" for that, but I personally live in the walk zone in the neighborhood itself and there are a lot of kids living here. Not very many go to Barcroft, and the most often cited reason is the calendar. Are they all lying? I don't know. Why give them an excuse? And as another PP has pointed out, many families who move in already have their kids in a private or option school before moving here, so that suggests to me that there isn't some huge demand for this calendar from outside the neighborhood.

For myself, I can say that at the time we moved in we didn't have kids, and we didn't know whether we would live here until we did. Then when we did and the oldest was about to start K, we tried to keep an open mind as we toured schools. But the calendar was a real negative. I think that if we had stuck with it, we might've "gotten used to it" or "dealt with it" but we decided it was easier to accept the spot at an option school instead.

Other posters have pointed out that school performance is a consideration. I won't deny that's true for many. But that also suggests to me that this unique calendar isn't a positive in that regard. In other localities there are "magnet" schools with different calendars, and families opt into those schools, usually from a lower performing neighborhood school. Not because they love the calendar, but because they prefer a "better" school. But Barcroft isn't even an option school, it's just a neighborhood school that could maybe accommodate a handful of transfers.

So I've been told that this unique calendar isn't meant to be a draw, isn't meant to improve educational outcomes (as measured by test scores), and isn't meant to provide free summer care. So, what is it for? I need a real reason, and some data to support that reason. I think I understand why it was started, but I'm asking does it really make sense to continue it? When there are streets that are walkable to Barcroft that have multiple ES kids taking buses to three or maybe even more different ES outside the neighborhood?

It was meant to improve educational outcomes.

While test scores may not reflect success in that regard, there are many factors contributing to that. First, the calendar has never had 100% support from Superintendent Murphy or APS. As another poster suggests, it would have been stronger if other schools in the system also adopted the calendar. But teacher contract issues based on the traditional calendar and district-wide teacher training conducted in August means a lot of substitute teachers at the very beginning of the year when students are trying to get used to their new teachers, classrooms, and rules; and very much takes away from some of the main benefits of a modified calendar.

I would also suggest that anticipated test score increases may be based on data from schools with different demographics. There is a very high %age of ELL students at Barcroft. So, it might have been worthwhile for APS to do some long-term analysis (something APS never bothers to do) to see any impacts on longer-term ELL students' performance by reducing summer learning and language proficiency losses over time, for instance. Also, the calendar could be more effective if all the students actually come to school when the school year starts. Many students still don't show up until september. People new to the school aren't always aware of the different calendar. There are various little things like these that all contribute to the situation.

Regardless, anyone who expects the calendar change to magically make test scores on par with our top test-scoring schools is naive and is dismissing all the other potential benefits of such a calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the walk zone maps, it appears Barcroft ES will be losing some sfh’s from Alcova and gaining Caf’s From the new apt building. I’m skeptical changing the calendar one way or another will make a difference to the demographics.

Alcova being re-districted elsewhere would be fewer SFHs to Barcroft; but what apartment building is adding CAF's in that attendance zone? Food Star redevelopment is market rate - not affordable housing/CAFs. There's a small condominium building under construction on Columbia Pike; but that's supposed to be ownership units, not affordable housing. But I agree, the boundary changes in south Arlington are not going to help Carlin Springs, Randolph, or Barcroft.