the Key/ASFS building switch...

[Anonymous]

Key is about 32 percent white and 55 percent Hispanic. Barely any Asians. I suspect it will get much whiter post swap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Also if your main justification for keeping the program at the current location is that you walk, how is that not actually saying it needs to be a neighborhood school so your neighbors can do the same? You don’t need to move with it, you know.”

I don’t walk, so I’m guessing we’re not neighbors, thank the sweet baby Jesus. I’m thinking about the health of the program, not my personal convenience. I’ll go with it wherever it goes, even if that means to your shitty school, which we will turn into a warm, loving, fun, loud place, as we do.

Key parent to ASFS parent: ‘hold my beer’

I wonder if this Key-hole is actually some troll, no Key parent I know acts like this.

Have you ever actually held a beer in your life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Also if your main justification for keeping the program at the current location is that you walk, how is that not actually saying it needs to be a neighborhood school so your neighbors can do the same? You don’t need to move with it, you know.”

I don’t walk, so I’m guessing we’re not neighbors, thank the sweet baby Jesus. I’m thinking about the health of the program, not my personal convenience. I’ll go with it wherever it goes, even if that means to your shitty school, which we will turn into a warm, loving, fun, loud place, as we do.

Key parent to ASFS parent: ‘hold my beer’

I wonder if this Key-hole is actually some troll, no Key parent I know acts like this.

Have you ever actually held a beer in your life?

No, the ASFS parents only drink organic spring water.

[Anonymous]

Swap in 2020. The rest of us can't take a whole additional year of these temper tantrums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swap in 2020. The rest of us can't take a whole additional year of these temper tantrums.

Sure you can. You’re here, reading and refreshing every five minutes.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I only skimmed it, but my initial reaction is that if you support the swap, I don't think there's much in there that's a surprise. If you are against the swap, I don't think there's anything in there that will convince you otherwise.

There should be for those who are listening to the Key folks who are trying to use their (small) Latino/ED families who currently walk to Key as justification for not moving. The convenience they seek is for THEM, the wealthy non-Latino families who want to be close to their current school and/or Metro. Moving Immersion to ASFS will not make it any less inaccessible for the majority of Latino/ED families who live in Arlington, because those families don't live along the Orange Line anyway. And yes, not swapping would result in yet another very wealthy, very white neighborhood school at ASFS. By swapping, they can get two somewhat diverse schools: one that is ethnically/linguistically/economically diverse by design, and one that is diverse because it pulls from a neighborhood that is itself more diverse than most of North Arlington (with the exception of Buckingham).

Blah, blah, blah. This benefits the rich Lyon Vilage people who want a walkable non immersion school. Live right, vote left.

Which solution provides the greatest diversity?

I don't think there is a good way to answer this. Your question assumes there was an alternative- and there really wasn't.
If you were to draw a boundary around ASFS that includes its walk zone, and maintains contiguity, it would be mostly planning units currently zoned to Ashlawn and Taylor, and would have virtually no FARMS. Not any worse than Jamestown/Tuckahoe, etc- but not diverse at all.
But is was never clear if you did this where the higher FARMS units in eastern Rosslyn were going. If you sent them all to Taylor- you would have needed to draw a long snaky boundary for Taylor to come up and grab them- which would add some diversity to Taylor but take it away from ASFS. You are also putting them in a fairly inaccessible transportation situation a good ways from home. It's nearly 4 miles by car from River Place apartments to Taylor for example.

So what's the best solution in general?

NP - but I think it’s Immersion to Carlin Springs to break up the poverty and open up neighborhood seats at both ASFS and Key. If someone was really concerned about high poverty native Spanish speakers I don’t see why they wouldn’t support this.

I support moving immersion to a high poverty school like carlin springs. I do find it a bit ironic that before that happens, we are moving an option school from a high poverty area (montesorri in Nauck) to a wealthier one, the result of which will be to create a high poverty school at Drew and make Fleet less diverse than Henry was. Just saying.

Nauck wanted a neighborhood school. They may be poor, but they still want their own place

The Nauck Civic assn might want Drew to be a neighborhood only school, but it far from clear residents with school aged children do, especially since it's going to be 70% farms when it opens. Plus, something like half of the neighborhood has chosen to go to Hoffman Boston instead of Drew, for years. So I think it's a little more complicated than you describe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swap in 2020. The rest of us can't take a whole additional year of these temper tantrums.

Seriously! I don’t even understand while aps felt the need to publish the memos that prompted this thread! Let’s just accept this and move on, I’m really sick of neighborhoods being pitted against one another. Though I guess in this case it’s different people in the same neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swap in 2020. The rest of us can't take a whole additional year of these temper tantrums.

Seriously! I don’t even understand while aps felt the need to publish the memos that prompted this thread! Let’s just accept this and move on, I’m really sick of neighborhoods being pitted against one another. Though I guess in this case it’s different people in the same neighborhood.

oh I'm really glad they published it. It laid out a rational coherent explanation for why they are planning the swap. It had a lot of information to counter the disinformation that I'm sure they knew was coming. It provides a counter to the 'lyon village is rich and has to much sway with the staff' rhetoric we are hearing. It showed transparency. I actually can't imagine how it would be better if they hadn't published it.

[Anonymous]

Any of these elementaries will be perfectly fine. The bigger question for families in Arlington is why the elite college acceptance rates for Arlington high schools are so unimpressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any of these elementaries will be perfectly fine. The bigger question for families in Arlington is why the elite college acceptance rates for Arlington high schools are so unimpressive.

Yes. True for all NoVA schools except TJ.

[Anonymous]

Hey, here’s hoping they leave some of the good science infrastructure stuff apparently in the asfs building behind.

Per the Planning & Evaluation Memo dated Aug 25: "The building swap to ASF assumes continued use of existing relocatable classrooms onsite for immersion students, including the anticipated Fall of 2019 students in the Key Immersion. It is also
assumed that the two science classrooms will be converted back for regular classroom use". So I would say no, we as taxpayers will get to pay to move that to the Key building

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey, here’s hoping they leave some of the good science infrastructure stuff apparently in the asfs building behind.

Per the Planning & Evaluation Memo dated Aug 25: "The building swap to ASF assumes continued use of existing relocatable classrooms onsite for immersion students, including the anticipated Fall of 2019 students in the Key Immersion. It is also
assumed that the two science classrooms will be converted back for regular classroom use". So I would say no, we as taxpayers will get to pay to move that to the Key building


a lot of time and money went into making that science lab, to just undo all that work and recreate it somewhere else is going to cost a pretty penny.

[Anonymous]

The way I see this the Board is hiding behind the Superintendent while also wasting tax dollars with their entire elementary boundary process this spring- if this is what they wanted to do lead with that and don't waste staff, the communities, or their time pretending they want to hear what the public thinks.

This move also doesn't solve the long term issue that there will be over 1500 students along the orange line corridor and only one neighborhood school to attend. the reality is both buildings should be neighborhood. The staff is also not considering the housing developments planned in the next few years, at least one of which will be for affordable housing in VA Square which presumably would increase FARM numbers. Also as another poster said the Key walk zone will be expanded once moved and you can bet that their FARM rate will go way down once they make that move since it will be the Rosslyn folks who are likely moved so using that as rationale for the move is misleading.

Last, I also am bothered that they will most likely be shrinking the Immersion program (see quote below from the APS memo) which is the opposite of what we should be doing, especially given that APS believes its a valuable program which is why they have never said they want to cut it (and given the seat crunch we are in one would hope that evaluation has been done just from an "exploring all options" perspective).

"The number of kindergarten classes in the Immersion program may need to be reduced in the future. If APS continues with six classes at each grade, and all students continued in the program through grade 5, enrollment would eventually exceed 850 students.
It may make sense to reduce the number of incoming kindergarten classes in years when boundaries are adjusted".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The way I see this the Board is hiding behind the Superintendent while also wasting tax dollars with their entire elementary boundary process this spring- if this is what they wanted to do lead with that and don't waste staff, the communities, or their time pretending they want to hear what the public thinks.

This move also doesn't solve the long term issue that there will be over 1500 students along the orange line corridor and only one neighborhood school to attend. the reality is both buildings should be neighborhood. The staff is also not considering the housing developments planned in the next few years, at least one of which will be for affordable housing in VA Square which presumably would increase FARM numbers. Also as another poster said the Key walk zone will be expanded once moved and you can bet that their FARM rate will go way down once they make that move since it will be the Rosslyn folks who are likely moved so using that as rationale for the move is misleading.

Last, I also am bothered that they will most likely be shrinking the Immersion program (see quote below from the APS memo) which is the opposite of what we should be doing, especially given that APS believes its a valuable program which is why they have never said they want to cut it (and given the seat crunch we are in one would hope that evaluation has been done just from an "exploring all options" perspective).

"The number of kindergarten classes in the Immersion program may need to be reduced in the future. If APS continues with six classes at each grade, and all students continued in the program through grade 5, enrollment would eventually exceed 850 students.
It may make sense to reduce the number of incoming kindergarten classes in years when boundaries are adjusted".

Maybe APS Staff does think we need two neighborhood schools there, but didn't have the enrollment #s to justify that. By January, they will have more #s and maybe can make the case to make ASFS a neighborhood school too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:why would anyone ever want to be a superintendent?

Because you get permanent employment no matter how incompetent you are