South Arlington elementary school boundary adjustments 2019

[Anonymous]

And food star condos are very small. Same with trafalgar flats. A lot of people are worried that even with the lower prices, trafalgar flats may not sell and may switch to apartments. That has happened before in arlington. The location is absolutely horrible. I cannot imagine anyone investing their money on a condo on that part of the Pike that will never get better. And, at night there is absolutely street crime on those very streets on a regular basis. Just read the crime reports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As someone else pointed out, Alcova is 4 planning units. Two are multi-family buildings, two predominately the increasingly expensive SFHs. I would think the Civic association would try to work as a monolith and have the whole area be zoned to the same school. However, I could see a scenario where the smallest PUs with the multi-family buildings go to Fleet, but keep the SFHs at Barcroft. You'd keep UMC families in Barcroft and reduce the number of ELL and FARMs at Barcroft too. It would look better than all of Alcova fighting to go to Fleet, which is a virtual unknown, except that it will include the other majority SFH civic associations.

It’ll be fun watching that property values of the units zoned Fleet rocket upward. The walking map supports Gilliam Place at Barcroft.

[Anonymous]

The SB is already perfectly happy to carve out Gillian Place for Barcroft while having the planning units full of nice homes go to Fleet. The SB wants more higher performing schools in South Arlington. Fleet would have been even with the old Henry boundary, but easier to have just a couple very low performing schools (Barcroft, Randolph and Carlin Springs) and concentrate resources there. They don't care about property values.

[Anonymous]

Even with the walk zones, Gilliam Place is much closer to Fleet than Barcroft. It is just right outside the walk zone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even with the walk zones, Gilliam Place is much closer to Fleet than Barcroft. It is just right outside the walk zone.

Bingo
OUTSIDE the walkzone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The SB is already perfectly happy to carve out Gillian Place for Barcroft while having the planning units full of nice homes go to Fleet. The SB wants more higher performing schools in South Arlington. Fleet would have been even with the old Henry boundary, but easier to have just a couple very low performing schools (Barcroft, Randolph and Carlin Springs) and concentrate resources there. They don't care about property values.

I'm not worried about that. I'm worried that they don't care about segregation or "tracking" if it's done by school rather than classroom either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As someone else pointed out, Alcova is 4 planning units. Two are multi-family buildings, two predominately the increasingly expensive SFHs. I would think the Civic association would try to work as a monolith and have the whole area be zoned to the same school. However, I could see a scenario where the smallest PUs with the multi-family buildings go to Fleet, but keep the SFHs at Barcroft. You'd keep UMC families in Barcroft and reduce the number of ELL and FARMs at Barcroft too. It would look better than all of Alcova fighting to go to Fleet, which is a virtual unknown, except that it will include the other majority SFH civic associations.

Fleet is hardlyl going to be an unknown. The vast majority of it will be the existing Patrick henry community. The multi-unit housing on the northern side of Alcova, which is disconnected from the rest of the neighborhood by the fire station, is not just low-income ELL kids. There are native English-speaking middle class families there, too. And the condominiums and SFHs in that section also house middle class white families. So, severing just part of Alcova isn't going to significantly lower the FRL % at Barcroft - any you've removed will be replaced by Gilliam Place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As someone else pointed out, Alcova is 4 planning units. Two are multi-family buildings, two predominately the increasingly expensive SFHs. I would think the Civic association would try to work as a monolith and have the whole area be zoned to the same school. However, I could see a scenario where the smallest PUs with the multi-family buildings go to Fleet, but keep the SFHs at Barcroft. You'd keep UMC families in Barcroft and reduce the number of ELL and FARMs at Barcroft too. It would look better than all of Alcova fighting to go to Fleet, which is a virtual unknown, except that it will include the other majority SFH civic associations.

It’ll be fun watching that property values of the units zoned Fleet rocket upward. The walking map supports Gilliam Place at Barcroft.

By distance; but Alcova gets bussed to Barcroft because of George Mason - and the fact that with steep hills in both neighborhoods, it takes 30 minutes to walk from the easternmost part of Alcova to Barcroft school with kids in coats and heavy backpacks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB is already perfectly happy to carve out Gillian Place for Barcroft while having the planning units full of nice homes go to Fleet. The SB wants more higher performing schools in South Arlington. Fleet would have been even with the old Henry boundary, but easier to have just a couple very low performing schools (Barcroft, Randolph and Carlin Springs) and concentrate resources there. They don't care about property values.

I'm not worried about that. I'm worried that they don't care about segregation or "tracking" if it's done by school rather than classroom either.

Of course APS does tracking...
You have to be able to afford it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The SB is already perfectly happy to carve out Gillian Place for Barcroft while having the planning units full of nice homes go to Fleet. The SB wants more higher performing schools in South Arlington. Fleet would have been even with the old Henry boundary, but easier to have just a couple very low performing schools (Barcroft, Randolph and Carlin Springs) and concentrate resources there. They don't care about property values.

The sad truth is that the reason may be their constituents. Believe it or not, but there are some neighborhoods with retirees who are fighting against any changes, improvements, etc. They flat out say that they want to keep property values low. Because they have the time, they are heavily engaged in civic associations and working and planning groups, and they call up politicians and so on. They have a vision of what they think is right, and little concern for families and kids they don’t know and whether schools have trailers, and lunch at 10am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

This. I also like the sound of the calendar. It's a lot more like the private school I went to, that followed a particular schooling style - can't remember the name. We had shorter summers, but longer fall and spring breaks. We had seminars, much like the intercessions. For me, it's the test scores - a school like this should be doing great, but the test scores give me pause. I think the high level of English learners is part of it, though when you look at their scores, I think they are doing a good job getting caught up, but it seems like the rest of the students suffer.

There's no tracking. The most able students are running on 3 cylinders instead of being challenged every day.

And that would make me send my special little snowflakes to a choice school, or if I had to, one of the parochial ones.

Or move to north Arlington if you've got the dough. Plenty of commentary in this thread from people who went north and found their kids were ahead in the south but behind in the north.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB is already perfectly happy to carve out Gillian Place for Barcroft while having the planning units full of nice homes go to Fleet. The SB wants more higher performing schools in South Arlington. Fleet would have been even with the old Henry boundary, but easier to have just a couple very low performing schools (Barcroft, Randolph and Carlin Springs) and concentrate resources there. They don't care about property values.

I'm not worried about that. I'm worried that they don't care about segregation or "tracking" if it's done by school rather than classroom either.

They don't.

[Anonymous]

Combine these threads. Move ATS to Barcroft.

[Anonymous]

enough already

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As someone else pointed out, Alcova is 4 planning units. Two are multi-family buildings, two predominately the increasingly expensive SFHs. I would think the Civic association would try to work as a monolith and have the whole area be zoned to the same school. However, I could see a scenario where the smallest PUs with the multi-family buildings go to Fleet, but keep the SFHs at Barcroft. You'd keep UMC families in Barcroft and reduce the number of ELL and FARMs at Barcroft too. It would look better than all of Alcova fighting to go to Fleet, which is a virtual unknown, except that it will include the other majority SFH civic associations.

Fleet is hardlyl going to be an unknown. The vast majority of it will be the existing Patrick henry community. The multi-unit housing on the northern side of Alcova, which is disconnected from the rest of the neighborhood by the fire station, is not just low-income ELL kids. There are native English-speaking middle class families there, too. And the condominiums and SFHs in that section also house middle class white families. So, severing just part of Alcova isn't going to significantly lower the FRL % at Barcroft - any you've removed will be replaced by Gilliam Place.

Well, you could move all of Alcova, or three out of 4 planning units. According to the current number of kids by planning unit, 50% of the kids in Alcova live in 3 units and the other 50% in 37050 (the one where Gilliam Place will be). If what people think is true, that it will end up being mostly families, not seniors, then that will add a lot of kids to either school.