Who said there isn't a North-South divide?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The neighborhood around Nottingham has an enormous walk zone. A whole lot more people from that neighborhood will apply to ATS than currently do if it’s a choice between walking to ATS or being bused to Tuckahoe or Discovery. More applications from that area means that even with a random lottery, that neighborhood will get a larger percentage of the ATS seats than they do (Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Discovery currently send proportionally fewer students to ATS than most other APS schools), which would leave fewer seats for South Arlington families.

That's blatantly false and easily disproved looking at the transfer report.
Nottingham has 18 transfers to ATS, Tuckahoe 19, and Discovery 23. Drew has 13, Randolph has 13 Patrick Henry has 17

I'm not sure what your proportionality argument is? Nottingham has 525 students, Tuckahoe 526, Discovery 600. Drew has 570, Randolph 417, Patrick Henry 617.

Here are the transfer rates to ATS last year as a % of enrolled students for Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Discovery:

Nottingham: 3.43%
Tuckahoe: 3.61%
Discovery: 3.83%

By contrast, the average transfer rates for the elementary schools right around ATS last year was 7.37%. If we assume that same rate would apply to the neighborhoods immediately around Nottingham if ATS moved there, that would result in a total of 122 students transferring to ATS, more than double the 60 that did last year.

[Anonymous]

Is there a reason that elementary option schools don't have slots set aside for each neighborhood school like HB Woodlawn does? Genuine question--this was something brought up in an earlier post, and I hadn't thought about it before. Perhaps it wouldn't be appropriate for the immersion schools, but for the others--why not? Has the SB ever addressed this?

[Anonymous]

Honestly they should allot it by ses not neighborhood. That would probably stop a lot of the umc flight plaguing sa

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly they should allot it by ses not neighborhood. That would probably stop a lot of the umc flight plaguing sa

They already effectively do that via VPI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The neighborhood around Nottingham has an enormous walk zone. A whole lot more people from that neighborhood will apply to ATS than currently do if it’s a choice between walking to ATS or being bused to Tuckahoe or Discovery. More applications from that area means that even with a random lottery, that neighborhood will get a larger percentage of the ATS seats than they do (Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Discovery currently send proportionally fewer students to ATS than most other APS schools), which would leave fewer seats for South Arlington families.

That's blatantly false and easily disproved looking at the transfer report.
Nottingham has 18 transfers to ATS, Tuckahoe 19, and Discovery 23. Drew has 13, Randolph has 13 Patrick Henry has 17

I'm not sure what your proportionality argument is? Nottingham has 525 students, Tuckahoe 526, Discovery 600. Drew has 570, Randolph 417, Patrick Henry 617.

Here are the transfer rates to ATS last year as a % of enrolled students for Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Discovery:

Nottingham: 3.43%
Tuckahoe: 3.61%
Discovery: 3.83%

By contrast, the average transfer rates for the elementary schools right around ATS last year was 7.37%. If we assume that same rate would apply to the neighborhoods immediately around Nottingham if ATS moved there, that would result in a total of 122 students transferring to ATS, more than double the 60 that did last year.

well okay- by that logic then the transfer rates from McKinley and Ashlawn would fall- which would still result in the same number of seats available for the rest of the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in South Arlington, zoned for Drew. My family and all of my gentrifying neighbors so far have choiced out, several to ATS. IMO we should all be forced into our neighborhood schools. Otherwise we're just improving the demographics of the choice schools on the backs of the South Arlington neighborhood schools.

Two thoughts, since I also live in Nauck.

1. You can't "force" people to attend any school. If you eliminate option schools, families who don't want to send their kid to a school that's had a farms rate above 60 percent for years and years will simply move away, not just go, oh well, my house cost 600k but I guess I'm good with a school that won't challenge my kid.

2. The CB has, through its AH policies, ensured that Randolph, Barcroft, and Carlin Sorings current zones will be largely poor and ELL for the foreseeable future. There's simply not enough SFH and newer Apts and condos to balance out developments like Barcroft apartments. As has been said, even if everyone in Douglas park went to Randolph, it'd still be 60% farms. And by eliminating option schools, those poor kids also lose the option to attend a school with a better SES mix.

The only way to meaningfully improve the poorest schools is by moving immersion or drawing crazy boundaries. Or bulldozing low income developments. Of these three, moving option schools is the most feasible. "Forcing" UMC kids to attend these schools wouldn't make a dent, even if it could be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The neighborhood around Nottingham has an enormous walk zone. A whole lot more people from that neighborhood will apply to ATS than currently do if it’s a choice between walking to ATS or being bused to Tuckahoe or Discovery. More applications from that area means that even with a random lottery, that neighborhood will get a larger percentage of the ATS seats than they do (Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Discovery currently send proportionally fewer students to ATS than most other APS schools), which would leave fewer seats for South Arlington families.

That's blatantly false and easily disproved looking at the transfer report.
Nottingham has 18 transfers to ATS, Tuckahoe 19, and Discovery 23. Drew has 13, Randolph has 13 Patrick Henry has 17

I'm not sure what your proportionality argument is? Nottingham has 525 students, Tuckahoe 526, Discovery 600. Drew has 570, Randolph 417, Patrick Henry 617.

Here are the transfer rates to ATS last year as a % of enrolled students for Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Discovery:

Nottingham: 3.43%
Tuckahoe: 3.61%
Discovery: 3.83%

By contrast, the average transfer rates for the elementary schools right around ATS last year was 7.37%. If we assume that same rate would apply to the neighborhoods immediately around Nottingham if ATS moved there, that would result in a total of 122 students transferring to ATS, more than double the 60 that did last year.

well okay- by that logic then the transfer rates from McKinley and Ashlawn would fall- which would still result in the same number of seats available for the rest of the county.

You'd probably see a drop for Ashlawn, but not really for McKinley. McKinley is less than half a mile further from Nottingham than ATS (some parts of the current zone are closer to Nottingham than to ATS), and can actually be a shorter drive to Nottingham than ATS during rush hour because you're not so tied to high-traffic roads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry, but moving key does benefit south Arlington. Not sure why you would think otherwise.
Immersion would give a leg up to the esl kids in south arlington because they would learn math in spanish. That’s the whole point of immersion. It would bring very affluent north Arlington kids to a south Arlington elementary school because a lot of the kids at key aren’t from its immediate area.
You can’t have it both ways— say you do t want segregated schools but then say that hosting option schools is unfair (especially in the case of immersion that would pull traditionally low performing kids out of the neighborhood school)

Moving Key to ATS doesn't move it south, it moves it west. And moves ATS north, making it less accessible for people in the south. Kind of the opposite of what you say the south needs.

Dp- You haven’t listened to South Arlington posters at all. Not at all.

Then explain it, because clearly I haven't grasped it from reading all of these threads. How will it be better for South Arlington families when lots more Nottingham-area families flock to ATS because it's walking distance and edge out more of the SA families?

There's no geographic preference, so I don't think S Arlington families would be "edged out." They may not apply to that program if they lived very far into South Arlington, but there would be a different strong option for families that would be closer. I don't really care where or if ATS were to move. The main issue should be getting immersion closer to Spanish-speakers, and either Carlin Springs or Barcroft or even ATS would do that (it's closer to Buckingham than Key). I only think the Nottingham stuff came up because of the Reed school and too many seats/overlapping walk zones once it's built. I don't think anyone would be talking about an option school anywhere in that quadrant if it weren't for that one issue.

The neighborhood around Nottingham has an enormous walk zone. A whole lot more people from that neighborhood will apply to ATS than currently do if it’s a choice between walking to ATS or being bused to Tuckahoe or Discovery. More applications from that area means that even with a random lottery, that neighborhood will get a larger percentage of the ATS seats than they do (Nottingham, Tuckahoe and Discovery currently send proportionally fewer students to ATS than most other APS schools), which would leave fewer seats for South Arlington families.

Meh, can't have it all I guess. It's not ideal, but as long as VPI still got guaranteed spots, I could live with it better than moving Immersion or something there. Right now the majority of students at ATS are from North Arlington, and there are more kids from the PUs closest to the current location. And if I remember correctly, those PUs had similar or higher densities of students than the ones around Nottingham, so I don't think it would be that drastic a change. Again, I don't think Nottingham should become an option school per se, but I understand why it was included as a possibility and I think it is neither the best, nor worst, idea presented.

Again, the only reason Nottingham or Tuckahoe were ever in this mix is because of the overlapping walk zones with Reed, and the boundaries that will have to be drawn if they don't move an option school to that quadrant. I guess we'll see what these boundaries look like and whether or not they are preferable to moving option schools around.

And again, what I’m saying is that we could address the excess seats while also potentially helping South Arlington if we went with the staff’s second scenario from round two, put immersion at Barcroft and Carlin Springs, keep ATS where it is, and use up the excess NW seats by sending the Ashlawn boundaries across 50. The only goal achieved by making Nottingham an option site would be making the staff’s job of drawing boundaries easier. It does nothing else to APS, and would create new challenges to replace the old ones (e.g., where are you going to put excess students in the region, which NW would have after Reed if you made one of the other schools option, when Tuckahoe can only take four trailers and McKinley has to load up on six to manage the rest even though it’ll put them at something like 150% of their cafeteria capacity and they’ll have no playground because no one else can take trailers?).

That anyone in the community thought that was a good idea continues to baffle me. The entire NW would get flucked, and no one but the staff would benefit from it.

I think moving Immersion to Carlin Springs is a no-brainer. It's not a walkable school, it's on a major road and can handle lots of buses. It's centrally located between N/S, and it's close to a very densely populated Spanish-speaking community, and it is closer in capacity/size to the current Immersion school populations.

The issues I see with making Barcroft the other Immersion school are: it's in the middle of a neighborhood on a small street with a very narrow turning radius for buses and a very small parking lot/bus loop plus parking issues throughout the neighborhood due to the National Guard and Foreign Service centers using the neighborhood streets for their overflow parking lots; its capacity (without trailers) is significantly less than the current Immersion programs at either Claremont or Key, and even with trailers is too small. I don't like the idea of shrinking the programs, or of making a deliberate plan to cram too many kids into a smaller building. Barcroft's size could better accommodate a smaller program, but not the buses without some sort of infrastructure project.

Someone upthread asked what it would take for me to send my kids to Barcroft. I'd prefer a calendar that jives with the rest of the county, and improving test scores, in particular for our demographic. And a the fr/l rate not to go any higher due to a boundary change. I don't expect miracles. I'm willing to take a chance on a higher than average fr/l school as long as it's doing well for all the students it serves, even those who aren't the neediest of the bunch.

[Anonymous]

Did anyone go to last night’s planning meeting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry, but moving key does benefit south Arlington. Not sure why you would think otherwise.
Immersion would give a leg up to the esl kids in south arlington because they would learn math in spanish. That’s the whole point of immersion. It would bring very affluent north Arlington kids to a south Arlington elementary school because a lot of the kids at key aren’t from its immediate area.
You can’t have it both ways— say you do t want segregated schools but then say that hosting option schools is unfair (especially in the case of immersion that would pull traditionally low performing kids out of the neighborhood school)

Moving Key to ATS doesn't move it south, it moves it west. And moves ATS north, making it less accessible for people in the south. Kind of the opposite of what you say the south needs.

Dp- You haven’t listened to South Arlington posters at all. Not at all.

Then explain it, because clearly I haven't grasped it from reading all of these threads. How will it be better for South Arlington families when lots more Nottingham-area families flock to ATS because it's walking distance and edge out more of the SA families?

There's no geographic preference, so I don't think S Arlington families would be "edged out." They may not apply to that program if they lived very far into South Arlington, but there would be a different strong option for families that would be closer. I don't really care where or if ATS were to move. The main issue should be getting immersion closer to Spanish-speakers, and either Carlin Springs or Barcroft or even ATS would do that (it's closer to Buckingham than Key). I only think the Nottingham stuff came up because of the Reed school and too many seats/overlapping walk zones once it's built. I don't think anyone would be talking about an option school anywhere in that quadrant if it weren't for that one issue.

Do you live in S Arlington? I lived in Fairlington, and my DC went to ATS. if ATS was further north, it would not have been a viable option for us. Immersion wasn't something our family was interested, so I'm not sure what that other strong option would have been. ATS is centrally located and should stay centrally located.

Jeez. Maybe you could have sent Jr to Abingdon?

You are missing the point. The concern is that ATS will become even more of a North Arlington thing if it moves further north. We would have sent DC to Abingdon if he didn't get a seat at ATS in K. Most of our friends in the 'hood were opting out of Abingdon to Claremont.

[Anonymous]

So, say that Carlin Springs became the new Claremont. Is it presumed that all those Carlin Springs kids will stay there and be part of the immersion program? Won't that fill up the school so that there won't be room for the balance of english speakers??? Same thing with Barcorft. And, where will all those neighborhood kids go? Barrett is already high FRL and full. Randolph is almost full and very high FRL. So, where will they go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, say that Carlin Springs became the new Claremont. Is it presumed that all those Carlin Springs kids will stay there and be part of the immersion program? Won't that fill up the school so that there won't be room for the balance of english speakers??? Same thing with Barcorft. And, where will all those neighborhood kids go? Barrett is already high FRL and full. Randolph is almost full and very high FRL. So, where will they go?

If Claremont immersion moves to Carlin Springs, there will be a neighborhood school at the Claremont site that needs to be filled. NW will have excess seats so Ashlawn could take displaced Carlin Springs/Barcroft students. Montessori moving our of Drew means Drew will have neighborhood seats to be filled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, say that Carlin Springs became the new Claremont. Is it presumed that all those Carlin Springs kids will stay there and be part of the immersion program? Won't that fill up the school so that there won't be room for the balance of english speakers??? Same thing with Barcorft. And, where will all those neighborhood kids go? Barrett is already high FRL and full. Randolph is almost full and very high FRL. So, where will they go?

I think it's assumed that many of the Spanish-speaking kids would stay. I think it's also assumed that the other kids who are ESL or first generation (the kids whose families are Asian or Middle Eastern or African) would go to whatever was the assigned neighborhood school. Not sure if this is an accurate assumption, but I think it is the assumption. I believe there is some concern for students whose families speak Spanish, but who have never written or read in Spanish, that they might be behind or not have adequate vocabulary to keep up with kids who've been in Immersion for years. And those parents wouldn't want to split up older and younger siblings between two elementary schools. That's a fair concern, but every family has an oldest child. This could be their path, and families whose oldest have missed out on the Immersion program could opt for the neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry, but moving key does benefit south Arlington. Not sure why you would think otherwise.
Immersion would give a leg up to the esl kids in south arlington because they would learn math in spanish. That’s the whole point of immersion. It would bring very affluent north Arlington kids to a south Arlington elementary school because a lot of the kids at key aren’t from its immediate area.
You can’t have it both ways— say you do t want segregated schools but then say that hosting option schools is unfair (especially in the case of immersion that would pull traditionally low performing kids out of the neighborhood school)

Moving Key to ATS doesn't move it south, it moves it west. And moves ATS north, making it less accessible for people in the south. Kind of the opposite of what you say the south needs.

Dp- You haven’t listened to South Arlington posters at all. Not at all.

Then explain it, because clearly I haven't grasped it from reading all of these threads. How will it be better for South Arlington families when lots more Nottingham-area families flock to ATS because it's walking distance and edge out more of the SA families?

There's no geographic preference, so I don't think S Arlington families would be "edged out." They may not apply to that program if they lived very far into South Arlington, but there would be a different strong option for families that would be closer. I don't really care where or if ATS were to move. The main issue should be getting immersion closer to Spanish-speakers, and either Carlin Springs or Barcroft or even ATS would do that (it's closer to Buckingham than Key). I only think the Nottingham stuff came up because of the Reed school and too many seats/overlapping walk zones once it's built. I don't think anyone would be talking about an option school anywhere in that quadrant if it weren't for that one issue.

Do you live in S Arlington? I lived in Fairlington, and my DC went to ATS. if ATS was further north, it would not have been a viable option for us. Immersion wasn't something our family was interested, so I'm not sure what that other strong option would have been. ATS is centrally located and should stay centrally located.

Jeez. Maybe you could have sent Jr to Abingdon?

You are missing the point. The concern is that ATS will become even more of a North Arlington thing if it moves further north. We would have sent DC to Abingdon if he didn't get a seat at ATS in K. Most of our friends in the 'hood were opting out of Abingdon to Claremont.

No YOU’RE missing the point. Send your kids to Abingdon. You are the problem. Sheesh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry, but moving key does benefit south Arlington. Not sure why you would think otherwise.
Immersion would give a leg up to the esl kids in south arlington because they would learn math in spanish. That’s the whole point of immersion. It would bring very affluent north Arlington kids to a south Arlington elementary school because a lot of the kids at key aren’t from its immediate area.
You can’t have it both ways— say you do t want segregated schools but then say that hosting option schools is unfair (especially in the case of immersion that would pull traditionally low performing kids out of the neighborhood school)

Moving Key to ATS doesn't move it south, it moves it west. And moves ATS north, making it less accessible for people in the south. Kind of the opposite of what you say the south needs.

Dp- You haven’t listened to South Arlington posters at all. Not at all.

Then explain it, because clearly I haven't grasped it from reading all of these threads. How will it be better for South Arlington families when lots more Nottingham-area families flock to ATS because it's walking distance and edge out more of the SA families?

There's no geographic preference, so I don't think S Arlington families would be "edged out." They may not apply to that program if they lived very far into South Arlington, but there would be a different strong option for families that would be closer. I don't really care where or if ATS were to move. The main issue should be getting immersion closer to Spanish-speakers, and either Carlin Springs or Barcroft or even ATS would do that (it's closer to Buckingham than Key). I only think the Nottingham stuff came up because of the Reed school and too many seats/overlapping walk zones once it's built. I don't think anyone would be talking about an option school anywhere in that quadrant if it weren't for that one issue.

Do you live in S Arlington? I lived in Fairlington, and my DC went to ATS. if ATS was further north, it would not have been a viable option for us. Immersion wasn't something our family was interested, so I'm not sure what that other strong option would have been. ATS is centrally located and should stay centrally located.

Jeez. Maybe you could have sent Jr to Abingdon?

You are missing the point. The concern is that ATS will become even more of a North Arlington thing if it moves further north. We would have sent DC to Abingdon if he didn't get a seat at ATS in K. Most of our friends in the 'hood were opting out of Abingdon to Claremont.

No YOU’RE missing the point. Send your kids to Abingdon. You are the problem. Sheesh.

Lol, why? People can move or send their kid to whatever school they please. Where did you choose to send yours?