APS Elementary Location Working Group 4/12

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole process is still so backwards, they need to be considering up front where they could move option programs that need to be moved. Key needs to be moved from where it is because they need two neighborhood schools over there. For this reason it can't go to ASFS. The other schools in its geographic area are Barrett, Discovery, Glebe, Henry, Jamestown, Long Branch and Taylor. Henry is off the table completely, and moving an option site to Glebe would be foolish given its walkability. Of the remaining options, the only schools near any kind of Spanish-speaking population are Barrett and Long Branch; ATS should also be brought into the analysis due to its proximity to the immersion zone and to Spanish-speaking populations. APS will save itself a lot of headache if it's open about this and then focuses on which of those three schools would make the best site for the immersion program given the needs of the program and the considerations and priorities. If you think more broadly about all of the needs and considerations around the county, I think there's a very clear leading contender among those three (but am curious to see if other people would come up with a different result).

If the staff went ahead and made the Key decision first, a lot of the other decisions become obvious (or at least the scope of options is reduced considerably).

Do they need two neighborhood schools in that area? I thought I saw a post on an earlier spread that did the math and showed that two schools in that area would make it hard to fill one. Does anyone know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole process is still so backwards, they need to be considering up front where they could move option programs that need to be moved. Key needs to be moved from where it is because they need two neighborhood schools over there. For this reason it can't go to ASFS. The other schools in its geographic area are Barrett, Discovery, Glebe, Henry, Jamestown, Long Branch and Taylor. Henry is off the table completely, and moving an option site to Glebe would be foolish given its walkability. Of the remaining options, the only schools near any kind of Spanish-speaking population are Barrett and Long Branch; ATS should also be brought into the analysis due to its proximity to the immersion zone and to Spanish-speaking populations. APS will save itself a lot of headache if it's open about this and then focuses on which of those three schools would make the best site for the immersion program given the needs of the program and the considerations and priorities. If you think more broadly about all of the needs and considerations around the county, I think there's a very clear leading contender among those three (but am curious to see if other people would come up with a different result).

If the staff went ahead and made the Key decision first, a lot of the other decisions become obvious (or at least the scope of options is reduced considerably).

Do they need two neighborhood schools in that area? I thought I saw a post on an earlier spread that did the math and showed that two schools in that area would make it hard to fill one. Does anyone know?

Ugh. Thread, not spread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so assuming they make Key a neighborhood school and move the immersion school, where are the possible relocation sites? Projected at over 800 students for next year, ASFS is a nonstarter. I’m asking with genuine curiosity because I haven’t seen anything realistic or geographically appropriate suggested. No matter how much folks resent choice schools, they play an important role in alleviating crowding in other schools and you need to house them somewhere. That “somewhere” will always be in somebody’s neighborhood.

Since it’s full lottery now, that projection isn’t valid anymore. If I understand correctly, that projection was assuming they would have to take anyone who registered from Key zone, which is no longer the case. A lottery option school can control its total population.

Key currently has just under 740 kids. 4 classes of 5th grade kids will graduate removing about 100 kids from the school taking it down to 640, however you need to add in about 150 kids for the incoming Kinder taking it up to 790; give or take a few kids.
The lottery yielded enough applicants to fill a 6 class Kindergarten.

So year 800 is still an accurate projection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


umm- there is an engage effort on this? This is not just rumor and fear mongering- changing elementary school locations is a real thing.

To the person asking what Key parents say- here are the reasons I have been given (and I am a Key parent)
1. ask the school board-- they actually mean this, they view it as not their problem.
2. Give neighborhood preference again, the whole problem is that they took away Key neighborhood preference, it was working fine. I think this answer is total BS and it actually really irritates me. It was working fine for THEM- b/c they had the choice of two schools. It was not working fine for the rest of Arlington.


I don't think anyone at Key wants to swap with ASFS, and I think there is very little incentive for this (doesn't mean it won't happen.) It doesn't create more seats in that corner of the county.

I'm in the Key neighborhood boundaries with a preschooler and a baby, so I am definitely rooting for a neighborhood school at Key. It is frustrating to hear from some of the advocates to keep immersion at Key who are talking about how vital it is to keep the school in it's current location because of the poor Hispanic students who will be gravely endangered by a move - while conveniently ignoring the fact that those families no longer have a right to attend the school as it stands. Yes, they can apply and will probably get in, but the most disadvantaged are the ones least likely to jump through the hoops. As for rest of the (majority not Hispanic) neighborhood, they just DGAF. All of the explanations for why it needs to be immersion hinge on it being a neighborhood school... which it is not!

Samesies. As a future parent looking in, I'm of course biased in that I'd love my kids' future neighborhood school to be closer rather than farther away (as it seems most families do). It's hard for me to see why families in the current Key boundary would want to stay at ASFS rather than move to Key other than (1) status quo bias [and the not insignificant hassle to staff to relocate--fair enough], and (2) the science lab? I have not seen this science lab, but as a future ES parent, I'll take a school I don't have to drive to over some beakers any day.

I also find it sort of crazy that folks in parts of the county with schools super close together are freaking out as much as they are about losing one of their several neighborhood sites (and that the school board is worried about students in a "corner" of the county not having any options--looking at Tuckahoe, here) when everyone is Rosslyn is way farther away even from Key--to say nothing of how far they are from ASFS, Taylor, etc. Rosslyn appears to be the "corner" of the county with reason to complain about not having proximate neighborhood options. No real dog in the Rosslyn plight, except that the unfairness of the analysis is annoying to me; I live toward Court House.

I don't think there are very many ASFS parents that want the school to stay where it is and I think the majority of people want the community to stay together which would having a neighborhood school at key would pretty much guarantee. Most asfs parents zoned for the school have been largely absent from the discussion -- there's been a lot of engagement from the asfs parents who live in cherrydale, but that is a minority in the school (only 10-15 kids live in that walk zone currently attend the school, its really maybe 10 families total).

The way its been presented to us is that changing locations will result in the end of the science program (which I'm not 100% convinced of personally, but you had people like the science teacher saying that at last weeks school board meeting) and that it could potentially kill the immersion program. There are holes in both of those arguments (the science curriculum can be moved if we stop being married to the building, I'm not sure that there are a large number of native speakers around key and they removed the neighborhood preference so it shouldn't matter where its located). But you can see why most parents would be concerned and if its presented that way would want to maintain the status quo.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a good out of the box solution here. A neighborhood school at key makes sense because it seems like there needs to be a non-option school in that neighborhood given the number of kids that live there and APS current monetary issues. But we don't want that to come at the expense of the immersion program, and the other school sites (Long Branch and ASFS) would involve rezoning many many kids in order to make them contiguous with the existing key zone.

I wish the staff hadn't drawn it out so much. I appreciate them trying to make a good decision, but it seems like its just feeding hysteria at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so assuming they make Key a neighborhood school and move the immersion school, where are the possible relocation sites? Projected at over 800 students for next year, ASFS is a nonstarter. I’m asking with genuine curiosity because I haven’t seen anything realistic or geographically appropriate suggested. No matter how much folks resent choice schools, they play an important role in alleviating crowding in other schools and you need to house them somewhere. That “somewhere” will always be in somebody’s neighborhood.

Since it’s full lottery now, that projection isn’t valid anymore. If I understand correctly, that projection was assuming they would have to take anyone who registered from Key zone, which is no longer the case. A lottery option school can control its total population.

Key currently has just under 740 kids. 4 classes of 5th grade kids will graduate removing about 100 kids from the school taking it down to 640, however you need to add in about 150 kids for the incoming Kinder taking it up to 790; give or take a few kids.
The lottery yielded enough applicants to fill a 6 class Kindergarten.

So year 800 is still an accurate projection.

That's the wrong analysis, we're looking at neighborhood seats, not option seats. Key no longer gives neighborhood preferences, which has given rise to the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so assuming they make Key a neighborhood school and move the immersion school, where are the possible relocation sites? Projected at over 800 students for next year, ASFS is a nonstarter. I’m asking with genuine curiosity because I haven’t seen anything realistic or geographically appropriate suggested. No matter how much folks resent choice schools, they play an important role in alleviating crowding in other schools and you need to house them somewhere. That “somewhere” will always be in somebody’s neighborhood.

Since it’s full lottery now, that projection isn’t valid anymore. If I understand correctly, that projection was assuming they would have to take anyone who registered from Key zone, which is no longer the case. A lottery option school can control its total population.

Key currently has just under 740 kids. 4 classes of 5th grade kids will graduate removing about 100 kids from the school taking it down to 640, however you need to add in about 150 kids for the incoming Kinder taking it up to 790; give or take a few kids.
The lottery yielded enough applicants to fill a 6 class Kindergarten.

So year 800 is still an accurate projection.

That's assuming you need to have to have that many kids period though -- you could only have 4 kindergarten classes instead (or take the number of native speakers applicants and add in the same number of non-native speakers). I've heard they've had a very hard time getting that many native speakers, so assuming you try to keep the 50/50 split, you might only have 3 kindergarten classes. Before they had to take whomeever wanted to attend from the neighborhood (which was roughly 40% of the school, most of whom were not native speakers according to APS last spring). So you can easily shrink it a class if you keep it at its current location since there aren't as many native spanish speakers applying. You move it, maybe there are more speakers that need to be accommodated and it needs to say the size it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so assuming they make Key a neighborhood school and move the immersion school, where are the possible relocation sites? Projected at over 800 students for next year, ASFS is a nonstarter. I’m asking with genuine curiosity because I haven’t seen anything realistic or geographically appropriate suggested. No matter how much folks resent choice schools, they play an important role in alleviating crowding in other schools and you need to house them somewhere. That “somewhere” will always be in somebody’s neighborhood.

Since it’s full lottery now, that projection isn’t valid anymore. If I understand correctly, that projection was assuming they would have to take anyone who registered from Key zone, which is no longer the case. A lottery option school can control its total population.

Key currently has just under 740 kids. 4 classes of 5th grade kids will graduate removing about 100 kids from the school taking it down to 640, however you need to add in about 150 kids for the incoming Kinder taking it up to 790; give or take a few kids.
The lottery yielded enough applicants to fill a 6 class Kindergarten.

So year 800 is still an accurate projection.

That's assuming you need to have to have that many kids period though -- you could only have 4 kindergarten classes instead (or take the number of native speakers applicants and add in the same number of non-native speakers). I've heard they've had a very hard time getting that many native speakers, so assuming you try to keep the 50/50 split, you might only have 3 kindergarten classes. Before they had to take whomeever wanted to attend from the neighborhood (which was roughly 40% of the school, most of whom were not native speakers according to APS last spring). So you can easily shrink it a class if you keep it at its current location since there aren't as many native spanish speakers applying. You move it, maybe there are more speakers that need to be accommodated and it needs to say the size it is.

66 native Spanish speakers applied so even if APS decided not to fill all 72 seats and only match the 66 we would still need more than 5 classes (66x2 = 132/24 = 5.5 classes required). The lottery isn't going to shrink the program the way some feared (I admit I was skeptical myself). The only way to shrink the program will be to restrict the class size going forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so assuming they make Key a neighborhood school and move the immersion school, where are the possible relocation sites? Projected at over 800 students for next year, ASFS is a nonstarter. I’m asking with genuine curiosity because I haven’t seen anything realistic or geographically appropriate suggested. No matter how much folks resent choice schools, they play an important role in alleviating crowding in other schools and you need to house them somewhere. That “somewhere” will always be in somebody’s neighborhood.

Since it’s full lottery now, that projection isn’t valid anymore. If I understand correctly, that projection was assuming they would have to take anyone who registered from Key zone, which is no longer the case. A lottery option school can control its total population.

Key currently has just under 740 kids. 4 classes of 5th grade kids will graduate removing about 100 kids from the school taking it down to 640, however you need to add in about 150 kids for the incoming Kinder taking it up to 790; give or take a few kids.
The lottery yielded enough applicants to fill a 6 class Kindergarten.

So year 800 is still an accurate projection.

That's assuming you need to have to have that many kids period though -- you could only have 4 kindergarten classes instead (or take the number of native speakers applicants and add in the same number of non-native speakers). I've heard they've had a very hard time getting that many native speakers, so assuming you try to keep the 50/50 split, you might only have 3 kindergarten classes. Before they had to take whomeever wanted to attend from the neighborhood (which was roughly 40% of the school, most of whom were not native speakers according to APS last spring). So you can easily shrink it a class if you keep it at its current location since there aren't as many native spanish speakers applying. You move it, maybe there are more speakers that need to be accommodated and it needs to say the size it is.

66 native Spanish speakers applied so even if APS decided not to fill all 72 seats and only match the 66 we would still need more than 5 classes (66x2 = 132/24 = 5.5 classes required). The lottery isn't going to shrink the program the way some feared (I admit I was skeptical myself). The only way to shrink the program will be to restrict the class size going forward.

Where did you get that info?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole process is still so backwards, they need to be considering up front where they could move option programs that need to be moved. Key needs to be moved from where it is because they need two neighborhood schools over there. For this reason it can't go to ASFS. The other schools in its geographic area are Barrett, Discovery, Glebe, Henry, Jamestown, Long Branch and Taylor. Henry is off the table completely, and moving an option site to Glebe would be foolish given its walkability. Of the remaining options, the only schools near any kind of Spanish-speaking population are Barrett and Long Branch; ATS should also be brought into the analysis due to its proximity to the immersion zone and to Spanish-speaking populations. APS will save itself a lot of headache if it's open about this and then focuses on which of those three schools would make the best site for the immersion program given the needs of the program and the considerations and priorities. If you think more broadly about all of the needs and considerations around the county, I think there's a very clear leading contender among those three (but am curious to see if other people would come up with a different result).

If the staff went ahead and made the Key decision first, a lot of the other decisions become obvious (or at least the scope of options is reduced considerably).

Do they need two neighborhood schools in that area? I thought I saw a post on an earlier spread that did the math and showed that two schools in that area would make it hard to fill one. Does anyone know?

I just ran some numbers based on the location review maps. First I looked at all of the planning units that are fully or significantly within the one-mile zone of each site, excluding any overlap and excluding the units in the Glebe walk zone. Based on those planning units, I came up with a total number of students across both maps of approximately 1,777. This is 147% of the total building capacity of Key and ASFS together (553 at ASFS and 653 at Key), and 112% of the maximum preferred capacity of both schools together (841 at ASFS and 749 at Key). If you exclude the planning units that also fall meaningfully within the Taylor or Long Branch maps, the result still isn't good. I still count approximately 1,225 students across both school zones, which is 102% of the combined building capacity and 77% of the maximum preferred capacity of both buildings.

Keep in mind, none of this accounts for the known approved and pending new residential development in the area that will come on line in the next few years. There is simply no tenable way to keep one an option program at one of those sites. And I don't live in the area so there's no benefit to me of moving immersion out of there. It's the math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so assuming they make Key a neighborhood school and move the immersion school, where are the possible relocation sites? Projected at over 800 students for next year, ASFS is a nonstarter. I’m asking with genuine curiosity because I haven’t seen anything realistic or geographically appropriate suggested. No matter how much folks resent choice schools, they play an important role in alleviating crowding in other schools and you need to house them somewhere. That “somewhere” will always be in somebody’s neighborhood.

Since it’s full lottery now, that projection isn’t valid anymore. If I understand correctly, that projection was assuming they would have to take anyone who registered from Key zone, which is no longer the case. A lottery option school can control its total population.

Key currently has just under 740 kids. 4 classes of 5th grade kids will graduate removing about 100 kids from the school taking it down to 640, however you need to add in about 150 kids for the incoming Kinder taking it up to 790; give or take a few kids.
The lottery yielded enough applicants to fill a 6 class Kindergarten.

So year 800 is still an accurate projection.

That's assuming you need to have to have that many kids period though -- you could only have 4 kindergarten classes instead (or take the number of native speakers applicants and add in the same number of non-native speakers). I've heard they've had a very hard time getting that many native speakers, so assuming you try to keep the 50/50 split, you might only have 3 kindergarten classes. Before they had to take whomeever wanted to attend from the neighborhood (which was roughly 40% of the school, most of whom were not native speakers according to APS last spring). So you can easily shrink it a class if you keep it at its current location since there aren't as many native spanish speakers applying. You move it, maybe there are more speakers that need to be accommodated and it needs to say the size it is.

66 native Spanish speakers applied so even if APS decided not to fill all 72 seats and only match the 66 we would still need more than 5 classes (66x2 = 132/24 = 5.5 classes required). The lottery isn't going to shrink the program the way some feared (I admit I was skeptical myself). The only way to shrink the program will be to restrict the class size going forward.

Restricting the program size based on the available seats is how all of the option programs work. Every single other option program has a waitlist because there aren't enough seats for all of the applicants. The only reason Key has been an exception in recent history is because APS had no other place to put those kids, it was tapped out on seats.

[Anonymous]

"I don't think there are very many ASFS parents that want the school to stay where it is and I think the majority of people want the community to stay together which would having a neighborhood school at key would pretty much guarantee. Most asfs parents zoned for the school have been largely absent from the discussion -- there's been a lot of engagement from the asfs parents who live in cherrydale, but that is a minority in the school (only 10-15 kids live in that walk zone currently attend the school, its really maybe 10 families total). "

I actually think a majority of ASFS parents want the school to stay where it is. Obviously those who are in the "walk zone" (which is not just the Cherrydale folks but the Quincy folks as well) who want ASFS to stay a neighborhood school but don't forget about the Lyons Village folks who live across from Kirkwood. Even though they are in Lyons Village they could (and probably would) argue that they should follow ASFS if it went to Key. Problem is, they are currently zoned for Taylor and if the schools are swapped, there are no guarantees that they wouldn't be sent to Taylor vs. the "new" ASFS at the Key building. They also have a good chance of staying at ASFS if there is no swap but Key moves out, i.e., if Key and ASFS both become neighborhood schools, then they are primed to argue that they should stay at ASFS since they are physically closer. If the schools stay put, i.e., the status quo, they are primed to argue that they are right across from ASFS and that should be their "neighborhood" school. It's really only those (vocal) Lyons Village families that live right next to Key that are advocating that ASFS and Key swap.


I suspect that's why many of the ASFS parents have been quiet. They are smart and hedging their bets-- if they come out advocating for a swap and it doesn't happen, they've just shot themselves in the foot when it comes time to redraw the boundaries. A lot of them can (and probably will) remain at ASFS regardless of what happens so why choose sides now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I completely agree with the person right above. I live in the Key neighborhood and my kids go to ASFS. Up until now, its been very us versus them, where the guys who live around asfs are pushing to keep the school where it is and the rest of us are pushing to keep the community together since keeping it where it is will result in the majority of the school being sent to much further away schools. If we lose a walkable school, a lot of people who have a single car or no car will no longer be able to live in the neighborhood anymore. It'll force families out and will really change the character of our neighborhood. As a long time resident of the Courthouse/Clarendon area, I find this sad.
I'd really like it if we could come up with some sort of a compromise. Maybe get all the civic association reps for the r-b corridor and the ptas from longbranch, asfs, key, taylor, and ats together and see if there is a good solution that works for everyone. Instead it feels like you have to be super loud to just not get screwed over in this county, which I don't have the time and energy to do at this point.

Agree completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, to reiterate, this isn't about creating more seats. It never was. Only construction creates new seats. It's about using the seats we have most efficiently.

THIS! Finally someone gets it!! THank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

"I don't think there are very many ASFS parents that want the school to stay where it is and I think the majority of people want the community to stay together which would having a neighborhood school at key would pretty much guarantee. Most asfs parents zoned for the school have been largely absent from the discussion -- there's been a lot of engagement from the asfs parents who live in cherrydale, but that is a minority in the school (only 10-15 kids live in that walk zone currently attend the school, its really maybe 10 families total). "

I actually think a majority of ASFS parents want the school to stay where it is. Obviously those who are in the "walk zone" (which is not just the Cherrydale folks but the Quincy folks as well) who want ASFS to stay a neighborhood school but don't forget about the Lyons Village folks who live across from Kirkwood. Even though they are in Lyons Village they could (and probably would) argue that they should follow ASFS if it went to Key. Problem is, they are currently zoned for Taylor and if the schools are swapped, there are no guarantees that they wouldn't be sent to Taylor vs. the "new" ASFS at the Key building. They also have a good chance of staying at ASFS if there is no swap but Key moves out, i.e., if Key and ASFS both become neighborhood schools, then they are primed to argue that they should stay at ASFS since they are physically closer. If the schools stay put, i.e., the status quo, they are primed to argue that they are right across from ASFS and that should be their "neighborhood" school. It's really only those (vocal) Lyons Village families that live right next to Key that are advocating that ASFS and Key swap.


I suspect that's why many of the ASFS parents have been quiet. They are smart and hedging their bets-- if they come out advocating for a swap and it doesn't happen, they've just shot themselves in the foot when it comes time to redraw the boundaries. A lot of them can (and probably will) remain at ASFS regardless of what happens so why choose sides now?


All of Lyon's Village is in the Key walk zone. It would be hard to argue against going to a neighborhood school at Key since they would have to give you a bus to ASFS whereas historically you don't need a bus to Key. I can see arguing for the status quo if you like going to Taylor, but I'm not sure you would be part of a status quo ASFS boundary since they might put the people north of Wilson to Taylor and south of Wilson go to ASFS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

"I don't think there are very many ASFS parents that want the school to stay where it is and I think the majority of people want the community to stay together which would having a neighborhood school at key would pretty much guarantee. Most asfs parents zoned for the school have been largely absent from the discussion -- there's been a lot of engagement from the asfs parents who live in cherrydale, but that is a minority in the school (only 10-15 kids live in that walk zone currently attend the school, its really maybe 10 families total). "

I actually think a majority of ASFS parents want the school to stay where it is. Obviously those who are in the "walk zone" (which is not just the Cherrydale folks but the Quincy folks as well) who want ASFS to stay a neighborhood school but don't forget about the Lyons Village folks who live across from Kirkwood. Even though they are in Lyons Village they could (and probably would) argue that they should follow ASFS if it went to Key. Problem is, they are currently zoned for Taylor and if the schools are swapped, there are no guarantees that they wouldn't be sent to Taylor vs. the "new" ASFS at the Key building. They also have a good chance of staying at ASFS if there is no swap but Key moves out, i.e., if Key and ASFS both become neighborhood schools, then they are primed to argue that they should stay at ASFS since they are physically closer. If the schools stay put, i.e., the status quo, they are primed to argue that they are right across from ASFS and that should be their "neighborhood" school. It's really only those (vocal) Lyons Village families that live right next to Key that are advocating that ASFS and Key swap.


I suspect that's why many of the ASFS parents have been quiet. They are smart and hedging their bets-- if they come out advocating for a swap and it doesn't happen, they've just shot themselves in the foot when it comes time to redraw the boundaries. A lot of them can (and probably will) remain at ASFS regardless of what happens so why choose sides now?


All of Lyon's Village is in the Key walk zone. It would be hard to argue against going to a neighborhood school at Key since they would have to give you a bus to ASFS whereas historically you don't need a bus to Key. I can see arguing for the status quo if you like going to Taylor, but I'm not sure you would be part of a status quo ASFS boundary since they might put the people north of Wilson to Taylor and south of Wilson go to ASFS.

Do you mean south of Wilson going to long branch, now that Fleet opens up seats there?