Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.
So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that. UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids. |
Barrett used to be the designated school for families who opted out of Barcroft's calendar, then Randolph. Drew and Fleet would take some. |
The highest concentrations of Spanish at home speakers is the western pike. I don't know what "many" or significant means to describe speakers of other languages, but their number is certainly dwarfed by Spanish speakers, especially on the western pike. I think you need to look at the moving of immersion schools not just as an exercise in "cracking" high poverty pockets but also of drawing well resourced middle and upper middle class families in. The idea is to make it appealing to low income speakers for reasonable not just of language and proximity, but also resources. That is how key began, before the surrounding neighborhood became super wealthy and lost most of its nearby Spanish speakers. Would love to see a breakdown from APS on languages spoken at home. Aps is very fond of citing the "over 100-some languages" factoid but census figures make it pretty obvious that we're talking about mostly Spanish speakers with a smattering of others. Furthermore, native speakers of languages other than Spanish tend to, but of course not always, be of a higher SES strata than Spanish speakers - it's harder to get here from Asia, for example, and those that make the journey tend to have more resources. |
Many U.S.-born English-speaking children do not know how to read or write English when they enter kindergarten. Why would anyone expect otherwise from Spanish-speaking kindergartners? Also, have you looked at a map to see how close Ashlawn is? Once Reed opens there will be 300-400 excess seats in NW. Move the boundaries a bit and most of those seats can be made available to South Arlington just across 50. It’s a road, not an ocean, people cross it everyday, often multiple times. |
My kids went to Drew and there were kids there from an enormous number of countries, including many in Africa and south Asia, and they spoke many languages other than English at home, although most of their parents spoke at least some English. Lots of kids whose parents drove taxis, worked in restaurants, worked in hotels--not exactly higher SES strata. I imagine thats the case at other south Arlington schools as well. |
And Carlin Springs is not a walkable neighborhood school anyway and the only neighborhood actually in the walk zone, Glen Carlin, avoids the school. The kids you're concern trolling about already ride to bus to their neighborhood school. If they didn't want Immersion at Carlin Springs, they could choose to ride the bus slightly south or slightly north to their newly assigned schools. These families also prefer to have their children bused to school because they feel it's safer and it also means the parent doesn't have to accompany them on a 20 minute walk to school. And there's every reason to believe the Immersion program would capture the majority of the Spanish-speaking population, who would choose to stay if it became Immersion. 71% of the current students self-identify as Hispanic. This is where you put Immersion. Make it an easier choice for them, and desegregate one of the most highly segregated schools through choice. |
That's why I'd like to see actual statistics. What does an "Enormous" number of countries mean? Did each have a separate language? Who knows. Rather than being told, it's a challenge, we're wonderfully diverse, Yay, let's put a number on it. |
Found it. "99 different home languages are represented by current ELs. 66% speak Spanish, 6% Arabic, 6% speak Amharic, 3% Mongolian, 3% Bengali". I would guess that means the remaining 15% is comprised of over 90 languages each spoken by <3% of learners? I'm not sure I can name much more than a dozen languages. |
This is a bit odd, considering they're both ranked the same. We opted for Claremont, but specifically for cultural reasons and wanting our kids to read/write in Spanish. I've heard really good things about Abingdon, we certainly weren't trying to avoid the school. |
So this already happens. Look at the east side of the county. Only option schools at the elementary level. Middle and highschool they were shipped to Williamsburg and Yorktown to provide diversity. Some of this has been alleviated with the new middle school boundaries, but highschool and elementary school are likely still going to be extremely long bus rides in order to provide diversity at some other school. And its interesting because the rich planning units in the northeast (lyon village for example), always went to much closer highschools and middle schools, and they are in no danger now of being shipped off to god knows where in the next boundary change. The only part of the county that is well served by APS is the northwest. |
It will take a few years to transition a new student body into a relocated immersion program. Existing students continue in the program; so it will simply be a matter of new applications for each kindergarten year like it is now. It just might draw more people from different neighborhoods due based on its location and the change in admissions policies that no longer guarantee admission based on geography. |
Amen! |
So, question for all of you. In talking about moving immersion to the west Pike, are you all thinking that more Spanish speakers will apply and therefore the schools will have that optimal 50-50 balance of Spanish and English speakers? If so, that will bring in some more Spanish speakers, but the overwhelming majority of them will just have to find another neighborhood school (which their would be none on the western pike.
Or, are you thinking that the Spanish speakers will all flock to those immersion schools and get in, making them majority Spanish? Not only will that hurt the instructional model as much as too many English speakers do now, but I guarantee that a large chunk of the UMC English speakers will avoid immersion if it is overwhelmingly poor people (as they avoid high poverty schools now). If the former, some of those current Carlin Springs kids would go to Ashlawn, but most are closer to Randolph or zoned to Abingdon. You all talk about Ashlawn reaching below 50, but the area right below 50 is predominately nice UMC homes. Those are white folks people, not the low income housing further south. Those kids are closer to Randolph and would probably NOT go to Ashlawn. The Barcroft Apartments people would certainly go to Randolph, so how is that any improvement for Randolph - make it 99% low income? Or Barrett, which is already like Barcroft? |
Moving immersion to the western pike isn't a silver bullet that will totally "fix" a complicated situation decades in the making. The point is to do what's possible. Not what's perfect. There is no perfect. I'll be the first to admit: the CB decision to preserve Barcroft Apts has made it very difficult to balance the demographics of Randolph. I'd say put immersion there instead of Barcroft but then it'd get pointed out that Randolph has the biggest wall zone in the county. |
WHen you say the CB voted to "preserve" the barcroft apartments, what does that mean? They don't own it, it is privately owned. Does that mean the private owner can never sell it? |