What do you expect from APS staff (option/neighborhood) on 4/30?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Campbell is a Title 1 school with 59% free
and reduced lunch. It also has an innovative
Expeditionary Learning curriculum, an outdoor ed
program and kids/teachers/parents seem happy there.

It’s hard to know what to think as a parent at a high performing Arlington school who would potentially like to send their child to a diverse school with an EL program and finds many things attractive about Campbell.

Thoughts?
How significant are the title 1 status and high free and reduced lunch numbers in judging potential quality of school?

Less important at self-selecting option schools where parent involvement is high. More so at neighborhood schools where it is t.

I don't think those measures indicate school quality, but they certainly indicate school focus. To attract MC families to these schools, admins need to convince them that their children, who probably all attended preschool and are starting school at or above grade level, are going to be given enough attention and challenge, and not written off with comments like, "they'll be fine". Yes, the disadvantaged kids plain need more help but everyone wants their kid to get a lot of attention. This task is made harder by the absence of tracking. I've heard buzzy phrases like individualized learning in place of tracking but TBH I need to read more to know if its real or just marketing.

Tracking needs to happen in south Arlington if they want middle class buy in.

No, they will not track. WILL NOT. Except (indirectly) through boundaries that reinforce residential segregation. That's why the most realistic thing is for them to turn the schools with the least amount of UMC buy-in to option schools. That way they ensure a large enough cohort of kids who've had preschool preparation, either through private preschool or VPI, at those schools, so that parents don't have to worry as much about their DC being ignored if they are at or above grade level at Kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
How in earth does anything any of these changes is going to reduce the number of farms kids at barcroft, Carlin springs and Randolph???? You don’t change the farms rate at barcroft by eliminating the space as a neighborhood School. All you are doing is shifting those same poor kids to other poor schools. The UMC in barcroft will largely leave if they can. Same thing with Carlin springs, do you really think those kids will go to ashlawn? Hell no. They will go to Randolph and Barrett and maybe some to Abingdon (and make Abingdon even less diverse).

And I think the SB is leaving Campbell well enough alone because it is already a neighborhood school when you look at who goes there. Sure, a handful of kids from north Arlington and a couple other areas in south Arlington will go there, but the overwhelming majority of the school is from local vpi and Carlin springs. I suspect Campbell will open up more vpi classrooms at Campbell if barcroft is changed to an option School.

I think the thought is to pull a large chunk of Carlin springs into ashlawn (with a similar sized chunk of ashlawn going to asfs). They could similarly pull a chunk of long branch into asfs and then based off of that have long branch’s boundary go deeper into south Arlington. By extending boundaries south, it should increase diversity at those schools, but I might be wrong there. Also putting immersion at Carlin springs would bring a lot of umc to that school— I imagine the farms rate would be close to that of key or Claremont.

The planning units immediately south of the current Long Branch border are the entire Fleet walking zone. They aren't going to Long Branch with Fleet right there. In fact Fleets going to suck up 1 or 2 more Long Branch PUs due to walking zones. Unless they start pulling from Arlington view and some of the farthest east PUs out of Oakridge I don't see how Long Branch even maintains its current amount of South Arlington Students let alone gets more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How in earth does anything any of these changes is going to reduce the number of farms kids at barcroft, Carlin springs and Randolph???? You don’t change the farms rate at barcroft by eliminating the space as a neighborhood School. All you are doing is shifting those same poor kids to other poor schools. The UMC in barcroft will largely leave if they can. Same thing with Carlin springs, do you really think those kids will go to ashlawn? Hell no. They will go to Randolph and Barrett and maybe some to Abingdon (and make Abingdon even less diverse).

And I think the SB is leaving Campbell well enough alone because it is already a neighborhood school when you look at who goes there. Sure, a handful of kids from north Arlington and a couple other areas in south Arlington will go there, but the overwhelming majority of the school is from local vpi and Carlin springs. I suspect Campbell will open up more vpi classrooms at Campbell if barcroft is changed to an option School.

I think the thought is to pull a large chunk of Carlin springs into ashlawn (with a similar sized chunk of ashlawn going to asfs). They could similarly pull a chunk of long branch into asfs and then based off of that have long branch’s boundary go deeper into south Arlington. By extending boundaries south, it should increase diversity at those schools, but I might be wrong there. Also putting immersion at Carlin springs would bring a lot of umc to that school— I imagine the farms rate would be close to that of key or Claremont.

The planning units immediately south of the current Long Branch border are the entire Fleet walking zone. They aren't going to Long Branch with Fleet right there. In fact Fleets going to suck up 1 or 2 more Long Branch PUs due to walking zones. Unless they start pulling from Arlington view and some of the farthest east PUs out of Oakridge I don't see how Long Branch even maintains its current amount of South Arlington Students let alone gets more.

So would Long Branch pull down students from Ft Myer and Rosslyn?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How in earth does anything any of these changes is going to reduce the number of farms kids at barcroft, Carlin springs and Randolph???? You don’t change the farms rate at barcroft by eliminating the space as a neighborhood School. All you are doing is shifting those same poor kids to other poor schools. The UMC in barcroft will largely leave if they can. Same thing with Carlin springs, do you really think those kids will go to ashlawn? Hell no. They will go to Randolph and Barrett and maybe some to Abingdon (and make Abingdon even less diverse).

And I think the SB is leaving Campbell well enough alone because it is already a neighborhood school when you look at who goes there. Sure, a handful of kids from north Arlington and a couple other areas in south Arlington will go there, but the overwhelming majority of the school is from local vpi and Carlin springs. I suspect Campbell will open up more vpi classrooms at Campbell if barcroft is changed to an option School.

I think the thought is to pull a large chunk of Carlin springs into ashlawn (with a similar sized chunk of ashlawn going to asfs). They could similarly pull a chunk of long branch into asfs and then based off of that have long branch’s boundary go deeper into south Arlington. By extending boundaries south, it should increase diversity at those schools, but I might be wrong there. Also putting immersion at Carlin springs would bring a lot of umc to that school— I imagine the farms rate would be close to that of key or Claremont.

The planning units immediately south of the current Long Branch border are the entire Fleet walking zone. They aren't going to Long Branch with Fleet right there. In fact Fleets going to suck up 1 or 2 more Long Branch PUs due to walking zones. Unless they start pulling from Arlington view and some of the farthest east PUs out of Oakridge I don't see how Long Branch even maintains its current amount of South Arlington Students let alone gets more.

So would Long Branch pull down students from Ft Myer and Rosslyn?

Not Rosslyn if Key and ASFS are both neighborhood. How is Oakridge getting relief? Some to new Drew and some to Hoffman-Boston? I hope they release the prospective maps sooner than fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How in earth does anything any of these changes is going to reduce the number of farms kids at barcroft, Carlin springs and Randolph???? You don’t change the farms rate at barcroft by eliminating the space as a neighborhood School. All you are doing is shifting those same poor kids to other poor schools. The UMC in barcroft will largely leave if they can. Same thing with Carlin springs, do you really think those kids will go to ashlawn? Hell no. They will go to Randolph and Barrett and maybe some to Abingdon (and make Abingdon even less diverse).

And I think the SB is leaving Campbell well enough alone because it is already a neighborhood school when you look at who goes there. Sure, a handful of kids from north Arlington and a couple other areas in south Arlington will go there, but the overwhelming majority of the school is from local vpi and Carlin springs. I suspect Campbell will open up more vpi classrooms at Campbell if barcroft is changed to an option School.

I think the thought is to pull a large chunk of Carlin springs into ashlawn (with a similar sized chunk of ashlawn going to asfs). They could similarly pull a chunk of long branch into asfs and then based off of that have long branch’s boundary go deeper into south Arlington. By extending boundaries south, it should increase diversity at those schools, but I might be wrong there. Also putting immersion at Carlin springs would bring a lot of umc to that school— I imagine the farms rate would be close to that of key or Claremont.

The planning units immediately south of the current Long Branch border are the entire Fleet walking zone. They aren't going to Long Branch with Fleet right there. In fact Fleets going to suck up 1 or 2 more Long Branch PUs due to walking zones. Unless they start pulling from Arlington view and some of the farthest east PUs out of Oakridge I don't see how Long Branch even maintains its current amount of South Arlington Students let alone gets more.

I think walkers are going to get moved. I don’t see how you do it otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Years ago, a SB member said Drew needed to have Montessori pulled out to attract more families to the school. He said a lot of highly invested parents transferred out and it made it hard for Drew to form a community. His thought was that if the school was all neighborhood, more invested parents would stay and the school would see academic improvements. It looks like we are about to put that theory to the test.

A lot will depend on the Drew farms rate when the boundaries are redrawn. Parents are going to look at that number very, very closely. And probably not much else. APS really need to do their very best to keep it at about 50%, which is the average for south Arlington as a whole.You can tell from other elementaries that once the farms rate goes much above 50%, the middle and upper middle class families take that as their cue to leave and then you end up with a carlin springs, Barcroft, or Randolph.

50% is too high. They can do much better than that. Doesn't mean they will; but they can. If you really want people excited about Drew, you need to stay well below 40%. People aren't going to want to send their kids to another Title I school, especially one with the academic performance history of Drew.

They really can't, not without some very crazy boundaries and a lot of buses. I think with that excellent principal and an fr/l rate around 50%, which seems probable given the likely attendance zone, there is no reason the school can't be a success.

PP here, I suggested the 50%. I live in Nauck. I'm not sure it's possible to even get to 50%, I just think it's a number that people have in their heads. I am glad of the principal; I hope her presence brings along the portion of Nauck north and east of glebe road. It's higher ses than my area and my guess is that most of those kids currently attend Hoffman Boston (kids in Nauck can choose hb or drew graded).

I think it unreasonable to expect 50% or less.
What about Randolph and Barcroft? They’ve been suffering for years.

There aren't any planning units that go to either Drew or Randolph, or Drew and Barcroft. The Drew walk zone and the Randolph walk zone are adjacent and separated by a major road (Walter Reed) that elementary children can't cross.

That’s not true.
Part of DP goes to Hoffman Boston. Nauck parents have been floating moving those units to Drew. They are all sfh’s and the higher end condos at the corner of Walter Reed and 4 mile.

No Nauck parents that I'm aware of have suggested that.
It's pretty clear that section is going to Randolph. It's in the walk zone and Walter Reed is a barrier to those kids walking to Drew anyway.
Plus, it's the staff recommendation. It was in the spreadsheet they accidentally posted and then hastily pulled from the server last week and was discussed here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
How in earth does anything any of these changes is going to reduce the number of farms kids at barcroft, Carlin springs and Randolph???? You don’t change the farms rate at barcroft by eliminating the space as a neighborhood School. All you are doing is shifting those same poor kids to other poor schools. The UMC in barcroft will largely leave if they can. Same thing with Carlin springs, do you really think those kids will go to ashlawn? Hell no. They will go to Randolph and Barrett and maybe some to Abingdon (and make Abingdon even less diverse).

And I think the SB is leaving Campbell well enough alone because it is already a neighborhood school when you look at who goes there. Sure, a handful of kids from north Arlington and a couple other areas in south Arlington will go there, but the overwhelming majority of the school is from local vpi and Carlin springs. I suspect Campbell will open up more vpi classrooms at Campbell if barcroft is changed to an option School.

I think the thought is to pull a large chunk of Carlin springs into ashlawn (with a similar sized chunk of ashlawn going to asfs). They could similarly pull a chunk of long branch into asfs and then based off of that have long branch’s boundary go deeper into south Arlington. By extending boundaries south, it should increase diversity at those schools, but I might be wrong there. Also putting immersion at Carlin springs would bring a lot of umc to that school— I imagine the farms rate would be close to that of key or Claremont.

The planning units immediately south of the current Long Branch border are the entire Fleet walking zone. They aren't going to Long Branch with Fleet right there. In fact Fleets going to suck up 1 or 2 more Long Branch PUs due to walking zones. Unless they start pulling from Arlington view and some of the farthest east PUs out of Oakridge I don't see how Long Branch even maintains its current amount of South Arlington Students let alone gets more.

So would Long Branch pull down students from Ft Myer and Rosslyn?

Ft Myer is already in the Long Branch boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens at Campbell. There is a huge VPI class and between that class and siblings there are few spaces left in the lottery.

There are actually 2 VPI classes (not 1) at Campbell that get priority
admission to K at Campbell. This is for traditionally 3 K classes. This
Fall they will add one K class for a total of 4. After spots filled by 2 VPI
classes and siblings the remaining spots were filled by lottery. I think they expected
to have about 40 “outside” K spots. They got 188 applications.

Also I think is the first year the lottery was open to the entire county. It should be interesting to see
how geographically diverse (or not) the incoming K class will be.

Actually there are 3 VPI classes at Campbell.

I think it’s 2 VPI and one Montessori. The principal mentioned that the Montessori class is being moved out this year. So that leaves two matriculating VPI classes into 4 K classes total. This is what we were told at info session by principal.

It's 3 VPIs and 1 Montessori that is moving to Hoffman-Boston at the end of this year. Just FYI, not trying to argue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens at Campbell. There is a huge VPI class and between that class and siblings there are few spaces left in the lottery.

There are actually 2 VPI classes (not 1) at Campbell that get priority
admission to K at Campbell. This is for traditionally 3 K classes. This
Fall they will add one K class for a total of 4. After spots filled by 2 VPI
classes and siblings the remaining spots were filled by lottery. I think they expected
to have about 40 “outside” K spots. They got 188 applications.

Also I think is the first year the lottery was open to the entire county. It should be interesting to see
how geographically diverse (or not) the incoming K class will be.

Actually there are 3 VPI classes at Campbell.

I think it’s 2 VPI and one Montessori. The principal mentioned that the Montessori class is being moved out this year. So that leaves two matriculating VPI classes into 4 K classes total. This is what we were told at info session by principal.

It's 3 VPIs and 1 Montessori that is moving to Hoffman-Boston at the end of this year. Just FYI, not trying to argue.

Ok. I believe you. Trying to do the math here. If there are 3 VPI classes feeding into
4 K classes and 40 “outside” lottery spots how many K students is that total?
My child was admitted and we are sending him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens at Campbell. There is a huge VPI class and between that class and siblings there are few spaces left in the lottery.

There are actually 2 VPI classes (not 1) at Campbell that get priority
admission to K at Campbell. This is for traditionally 3 K classes. This
Fall they will add one K class for a total of 4. After spots filled by 2 VPI
classes and siblings the remaining spots were filled by lottery. I think they expected
to have about 40 “outside” K spots. They got 188 applications.

Also I think is the first year the lottery was open to the entire county. It should be interesting to see
how geographically diverse (or not) the incoming K class will be.

Actually there are 3 VPI classes at Campbell.

I think it’s 2 VPI and one Montessori. The principal mentioned that the Montessori class is being moved out this year. So that leaves two matriculating VPI classes into 4 K classes total. This is what we were told at info session by principal.

It's 3 VPIs and 1 Montessori that is moving to Hoffman-Boston at the end of this year. Just FYI, not trying to argue.

Ok. I believe you. Trying to do the math here. If there are 3 VPI classes feeding into
4 K classes and 40 “outside” lottery spots how many K students is that total?
My child was admitted and we are sending him.

Not all the VPI students choose to continue to Kindergarten at Campbell. I think that might be what the Principal was getting at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens at Campbell. There is a huge VPI class and between that class and siblings there are few spaces left in the lottery.

There are actually 2 VPI classes (not 1) at Campbell that get priority
admission to K at Campbell. This is for traditionally 3 K classes. This
Fall they will add one K class for a total of 4. After spots filled by 2 VPI
classes and siblings the remaining spots were filled by lottery. I think they expected
to have about 40 “outside” K spots. They got 188 applications.

Also I think is the first year the lottery was open to the entire county. It should be interesting to see
how geographically diverse (or not) the incoming K class will be.

Actually there are 3 VPI classes at Campbell.

I think it’s 2 VPI and one Montessori. The principal mentioned that the Montessori class is being moved out this year. So that leaves two matriculating VPI classes into 4 K classes total. This is what we were told at info session by principal.

It's 3 VPIs and 1 Montessori that is moving to Hoffman-Boston at the end of this year. Just FYI, not trying to argue.

Ok. I believe you. Trying to do the math here. If there are 3 VPI classes feeding into
4 K classes and 40 “outside” lottery spots how many K students is that total?
My child was admitted and we are sending him.

Do the math?

[Anonymous]

Well I did do the math. Thanks so much.

24 kids per K class x 4= 96
3 VPI classes x 18 kids each= 54
That leaves 42 spaces. Let’s say 2 siblings got sibling preference.
That leaves 40 “outside” spaces.


I do think that’s a lot of VPI kids to fill an option school’s K spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well I did do the math. Thanks so much.

24 kids per K class x 4= 96
3 VPI classes x 18 kids each= 54
That leaves 42 spaces. Let’s say 2 siblings got sibling preference.
That leaves 40 “outside” spaces.


I do think that’s a lot of VPI kids to fill an option school’s K spots.

There may not be 18 kids per class, that's the max. They could have fewer, and many could be younger siblings, so they aren't eating up "sibling" spots since they are already in the VPI pool. I don't think it's unreasonable to reserve a significant portion of seats for diadvantaged students at the option schools. In particular if it helps them stay true to their educational models.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Campbell is a Title 1 school with 59% free
and reduced lunch. It also has an innovative
Expeditionary Learning curriculum, an outdoor ed
program and kids/teachers/parents seem happy there.

It’s hard to know what to think as a parent at a high performing Arlington school who would potentially like to send their child to a diverse school with an EL program and finds many things attractive about Campbell.

Thoughts?
How significant are the title 1 status and high free and reduced lunch numbers in judging potential quality of school?

Less important at self-selecting option schools where parent involvement is high. More so at neighborhood schools where it is t.

I don't think those measures indicate school quality, but they certainly indicate school focus. To attract MC families to these schools, admins need to convince them that their children, who probably all attended preschool and are starting school at or above grade level, are going to be given enough attention and challenge, and not written off with comments like, "they'll be fine". Yes, the disadvantaged kids plain need more help but everyone wants their kid to get a lot of attention. This task is made harder by the absence of tracking. I've heard buzzy phrases like individualized learning in place of tracking but TBH I need to read more to know if its real or just marketing.

Tracking needs to happen in south Arlington if they want middle class buy in.

No, they will not track. WILL NOT. Except (indirectly) through boundaries that reinforce residential segregation. That's why the most realistic thing is for them to turn the schools with the least amount of UMC buy-in to option schools. That way they ensure a large enough cohort of kids who've had preschool preparation, either through private preschool or VPI, at those schools, so that parents don't have to worry as much about their DC being ignored if they are at or above grade level at Kindergarten.

Unfortunately, the schools without middle class buy-in outnumber the option schools. Randolph and probably Barcroft and possibly Drew will be left holding the bag. But even apart from that, the immersion schools need relocation simply for the ratio of native to non native speakers. Key's native Spanish applicants were outnumbered 3 to 1 by non speakers in that spreadsheet aps posted and yanked. Hardly immersive.

[Anonymous]

"There may not be 18 kids per class, that's the max. They could have fewer, and many could be younger siblings, so they aren't eating up "sibling" spots since they are already in the VPI pool. I don't think it's unreasonable to reserve a significant portion of seats for diadvantaged students at the option schools. In particular if it helps them stay true to their educational models."

VPI is in high demand, the classrooms at Campbell are full. It is not unreasonable to reserve a portion of seats for disadvantaged kids. It IS unreasonable to reserve the majority of seats, for disadvantaged kids and non-disadvantaged kids. If the majority of seats are not available via lottery (for what ever reason), then it is not an option school. If we were talking about ATS, people on this website accuse the county of offering a private school to the few on the county's dime. Yet, somehow that doesn't happen with Campbell?

In the end, the SB will require lots of trailers at Campbell to get the school as close to 725 as possible. Unless the school merely fills those new seats with more VPI students, Campbell will eventually lose its Title I status and enough kids will get it for it to be a true option school.

Oh, and statements about having diversity as part of the curriculum, please, that is done to make the best out of the situation at Campbell. If you don't embrace your diversity, what do you do, reject it?