APS: Elementary Walk Zone surveys out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's get back to the actual walk zone surveys: I have some questions.

I noted that some roads are red in one section and blue (nothing) in another; for example Glebe: It is marked red up north and blue=nothing further south - does anyone know why?
Also I noticed other things like cemeteries being a planning unit. Are these mistakes?

It may be because the speed limit is a lot higher further north. It may also be blue if there are crossing guards or other safety measures.

Don’t get me started on the units with no people. The demographers apparently don’t want blank space on their maps.

Thanks! Isn't the speed on Glebe 35 mph the whole way? I think so!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the "half mile walk shed" - and why is it a squiggly pink line - can't make sense of it?

Those are areas 1/2 mile form school. They may or may not be considered within the walkzone b/c of major road crossings.

It's drawn like a toddler had a crayon...? It extend very long one way, squiggles the other way? Like, it's skipping houses, finding it very odd. Also only some schools have it!!! Why? Every school has a 1/2 mile zone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the "half mile walk shed" - and why is it a squiggly pink line - can't make sense of it?

Those are areas 1/2 mile form school. They may or may not be considered within the walkzone b/c of major road crossings.

It's drawn like a toddler had a crayon...? It extend very long one way, squiggles the other way? Like, it's skipping houses, finding it very odd. Also only some schools have it!!! Why? Every school has a 1/2 mile zone.

APS explained this at the meeting last Tuesday. They looked at the actual boundary lines of the school property and took multiple points that were 1/2 mile from the school property line. The lines look squiggly because they are measured from the school property line, not from the actual school building. Some schools are on huge properties which you can't necessarily tell from the maps.

[Anonymous]

Reed as a neighborhood school. Keep ATS where it is.

Switch Key & ASFS.
No changes for other schools.

**any schools that end up under-capacity will accept transfers.

Isn't this a simple resolution?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reed as a neighborhood school. Keep ATS where it is.

Switch Key & ASFS.
No changes for other schools.

**any schools that end up under-capacity will accept transfers.

Isn't this a simple resolution?

Smartest response so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reed as a neighborhood school. Keep ATS where it is.

Switch Key & ASFS.
No changes for other schools.

**any schools that end up under-capacity will accept transfers.

Isn't this a simple resolution?

Smartest response so far.

And make Tuckahoe a second Montessori or ATS program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reed as a neighborhood school. Keep ATS where it is.

Switch Key & ASFS.
No changes for other schools.

**any schools that end up under-capacity will accept transfers.

Isn't this a simple resolution?

Smartest response so far.

And make Tuckahoe a second Montessori or ATS program.

That's not what PP is saying and you can see how Tuckahoe people go on the offensive if you suggest anything other than leaving them alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reed as a neighborhood school. Keep ATS where it is.

Switch Key & ASFS.
No changes for other schools.

**any schools that end up under-capacity will accept transfers.

Isn't this a simple resolution?

I am cool with this one. Perhaps they could promise transportation as part of the incentive to transfer to Tuckahoe if it winds up severely under capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the APS walk zone map-- this shows the kids who actually live in the 1 mile walk zone for each building, not where kids are actually zoned today. The elementary walk zone project is trying to determine the maximum number of kids who can realistically walk to each building.

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/WZ_Buffer_StuCount_PP.jpg

ATS is actually in a pretty "unwalkable" location unless they add a crossing guard to Wilson and/or George Mason. However, APS really needs more neighborhood seats around the ASF/Key locations. There is no way that you could put the immersion program in the Tuckahoe and Nottingham buildings and attract a sufficient # of native Spanish speakers. But you could move the Key program to the ATS building and then move the ATS program to the Tuckahoe or Nottingham building.

Bottom line is that once Reed opens, they will have too many seats in those overlapping Tuckahoe-Nottingham-Discovery zones--- and they still haven't done anything to solve the neighborhood seat shortages in the Taylor-ASF-Key area. That's the main problem this effort needs to solve.

Why they didn't do this analysis before they built Discovery is beyond my comprehension...

And that's why I think they should make Tuckahoe a NEW option rather than shuffling two existing programs. That's ridiculous: expensive, disruptive, detrimental to the diversity of ATS, that was pretty hard won to begin with since that idiotic lawsuit. Swap Key and ASFS and make a new option at Tuckahoe that grandfathers current Tuckahoe students and then pulls new students in by choice. Make this the least disruptive process for current students. FFS, with all the recent and future boundary changes, they should try to preserve some stability for the current students.

That does nothing to increase seats in the eastern part of the county, unfortunately. There doesn't appear to be much of an appetite for a new choice school. All of the communication has been to maintain the current number and just decide where to put them. Choice schools simply can't be the priority when there are not enough seats for kids to begin with. Any changes would only impact current K and 1st graders, incoming students would go in knowing the score.

But the shortage in the eastern part is going to be caused, in part, because Key lost its neighborhood guarantee, right? That has yet to materialize, since the change hasn't happened yet. Are kids in the current Key zone not going to get into Immersion and instead go to the neighborhood school? It's unclear. Are there are enough students in this area to warrant two neighborhood schools within a mile of each other? I'm not sure. I seem to remember there not being all that many within the hypothetical ASFS effective walk zone. I think boundary changes around the new schools that are already in the works will provide cascading relief for the east. Fleet will provide relief for Long Branch. Glebe will get relief from Reed. Jamestown is under capacity and could take some of Taylor PU's to balance enrollment between those two adjacent schools.

I think there may not be an appetite among staff for a new option school, but if I were a neighborhood about to lose my zoned school that's in walking distance from my house, I think I would rather become a stakeholder in a new school on that same site rather than be bused out to a different school so that other kids could be bused in. But that's just me and maybe it's not a perspective shared by current Tuckahoe families. Maybe they don't care one way or the other, or maybe they are sure that none of this is going to happen.

Yes, but look at the link above. If the "walkable" kids in the overlapping Tuckahoe-Nottingham area go to Nottingham, then Tuckahoe is only left with 78 walkable kids-- that isn't enough walkers to fill a grade-level. And if you give those kids priority admissions to a new choice school at Tuckahoe, then you would need to change that policy for all the choice schools. APS isn't going to change their entire choice school admissions policy for 78 kids, especially when they just revised it last year.

I am aware of the policy, but I think we have to be less rigid in our decisions, when it makes sense. They could make an exception just in the case of opening a new option school within a building that was very recently a full neighborhood school. This would mean currently enrolled students (and their concurrently enrolled younger siblings) would get priority in a lottery. It's how they opened all the other option programs. The problem was that they never went back and revised the policy for decades, even after the programs had taken off and had waitlists and were leaving certain areas completely shut out of the lottery. It would be a (very temporary) thing. If you live near Tuckahoe but haven't entered school yet, you're probably not tied to the neighborhood school community and could make the transition to Nottingham or McKinley or Reed without feeling like you "lost" something. Because it never belonged to you. And if you felt really strongly about attending that school, you'd still have the chance (in theory, as part of the lottery).

I don't know, this is complicated. Like I said, maybe Tuckahoe parents don't really care about it if they're moved to other nearby schools. I'm just thinking how I would feel and what I'd want to do is be proactive and figure out a way that opens seats at my school without displacing the current students. And open transfers are maybe not enough?

DP, but why is this needed? What is so unique about the Tuckahoe community that it would need this kind of accommodation while all of the other students whose planning units change schools will have to change right away?

I think the PPP was one of the families who wants to take over Tuckahoe and turn it into their favorite choice school or use Tuckahoe as a pawn to move another choice program so that the PPP can get another building so they can get their own neighborhood school (like AtS or Key.) Tuckahoe families don’t want their neighborhood school turned choice. And I am not a Tuckahoe family.

That’s not the question I was asking. I’m talking about the admission preference part that would go against APS policy. Regardless of whether you think a Tuckahoe should be a choice school or not, if it were to be made a choice school, why should Tuckahoe get a preference that other neighborhoods don’t? What is so different about Tuckahoe that it would warrant a policy exception?

[Anonymous]

Choice schools are at the root of so many APS issues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reed as a neighborhood school. Keep ATS where it is.

Switch Key & ASFS.
No changes for other schools.

**any schools that end up under-capacity will accept transfers.

Isn't this a simple resolution?

I am cool with this one. Perhaps they could promise transportation as part of the incentive to transfer to Tuckahoe if it winds up severely under capacity.

That would make more sense than making it a choice school. (I'm not a Tuckahoe parent)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Choice schools are at the root of so many APS issues

Nope. Option schools are just more choices for the very fortunate that can afford
to live in Arlington.

The real root cause is the expectations of Arlington parents. That and the myopic
view of some that their interests are more important than those of others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choice schools are at the root of so many APS issues

Nope. Option schools are just more choices for the very fortunate that can afford
to live in Arlington.

The real root cause is the expectations of Arlington parents. That and the myopic
view of some that their interests are more important than those of others.

The root issue is not choice schools, it's limited resources. APS, badly, badly fumbled growth projections a decade ago and the result is that now there is competition for those resources. Of course expectations are high. Arlington County has been in the top fifty or so counties nationally in terms of educational attainment and income for at least 60 years. High expectations are not a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choice schools are at the root of so many APS issues

Nope. Option schools are just more choices for the very fortunate that can afford to live in Arlington.

The real root cause is the expectations of Arlington parents. That and the myopic view of some that their interests are more important than those of others.

The root issue is not choice schools, it's limited resources. APS, badly, badly fumbled growth projections a decade ago and the result is that now there is competition for those resources. Of course expectations are high. Arlington County has been in the top fifty or so counties nationally in terms of educational attainment and income for at least 60 years. High expectations are not a problem.

Nope. Nobody said high expectations. The issue is not high expectations.

The issue is the expectation that others will bear the brunt of negative consequences caused by doing what is best for all of APS.

And the expectation that if parents advocate loudly enough, they can force APS to ensure their preferred outcome, regardless of the impact to others elsewhere.

Nope on the limited resources. Every school system faces this and APS has far more resources than most. Bad past choices, sure.

Yup on poor forecasting in the past. 100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choice schools are at the root of so many APS issues

Nope. Option schools are just more choices for the very fortunate that can afford to live in Arlington.

The real root cause is the expectations of Arlington parents. That and the myopic view of some that their interests are more important than those of others.

The root issue is not choice schools, it's limited resources. APS, badly, badly fumbled growth projections a decade ago and the result is that now there is competition for those resources. Of course expectations are high. Arlington County has been in the top fifty or so counties nationally in terms of educational attainment and income for at least 60 years. High expectations are not a problem.

Nope. Nobody said high expectations. The issue is not high expectations.

The issue is the expectation that others will bear the brunt of negative consequences caused by doing what is best for all of APS.

And the expectation that if parents advocate loudly enough, they can force APS to ensure their preferred outcome, regardless of the impact to others elsewhere.

Nope on the limited resources. Every school system faces this and APS has far more resources than most. Bad past choices, sure.

Yup on poor forecasting in the past. 100%.

What you're describing is in no way unique to APS. It's called politics.