Reply to APS middle school boundary process

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It looks to me like Arlington has all crap middle schools now, whether you live in north or south. Look at the ratings. I'll be selling and moving to Fairfax by the time my kids are in middle school. [/quote]

Williamsburg will get an 8 after all the poors move to Stratford.  Wouldn't that make you happy?[/quote]

Why do you think APS is suddenly pursuing rapid resegregation? This is precisely what the people who pull the purse strings want. [/quote]

Despite what you keep posting, they are not pursuing "rapid resegregation".  They have a severe overcrowding problem, and the smallest county in the nation doesn't have any extra space.  There were very few viable options for a new middle school -- it was always going to be reconverting Stratford back to a regular middle school.  It was where it was. Once that was decided, then you get into all the proximity discussions they're having now.  The racial imbalance has to do with broader zoning issues that a middle school boundary process cannot fix. [/quote]

+1. The School Board is misguided at times, but they're basically trying to navigate the mess the County has left them. Watch Gutshall and the Board continue to concentrate AH in 2-3 areas of S Arlington. [/quote]

Again, I'm not saying the County didn't create/institutionalize this mess, beginning all the way back at the end of slavery and all through Jim Crow and into the present day. But the School Board is undoing school boundaries that were created by previous School Boards with the specific intention of desegregating the schools, as if we're not still living under residential segregation. The residential segregation has not changed, so why should the school board not continue to pursue efforts to desegregate the schools? Even against community objections? We're on the wrong side of history on this one. [/quote]

Just because some people in the community object doesn't mean others in the community don't agree with the board's decision. The current objectors are not the only people whose voices matter. Yes, people want more diversity in Williamsburg. But does that mean that the right decision is to keep the Williamsburg island and Hall's Hill there, even though the residents of those areas said they want to go to the schools closer by with their ES classmates? Who does that benefit? People all over the county has spoken out in favor of proximity, even those for whom it means going to lower-performing schools. Why do you not respect them enough to let them decide what's best for their kids? Who are you to declare that you know better and they're just too ignorant to make good choices for their kids?[/quote]

I'm not actually referencing the Halls Hill neighborhood, nor the Williamsburg Island. Halls Hill and Rosslyn are not very diverse any longer, and I don't think this is a reasonable way to achieve diversity at Williamsburg, because it doesn't actually do this anyway. It makes sense for this area to be zoned to Stratford from both a diversity and proximity standpoint. Because these areas are no longer very diverse. I'm not suggesting this community should be ignored. What concerns me is the overall trend, because we are running out of easy fixes that won't meaningfully impact instruction and academic experience. There's always going to be a next time and a next time. And in each successive change, the disparity and segregation increases instead of being lessened. And we sit idly by and say there's nothing we can do. That's not true. We're choosing not to.

And while many communities say they want to remain at their neighborhood schools, you also need to recognize what many mean when they say that. For Buckingham, Swanson IS and has been their neighborhood middle school; they do not feel that they're being bused by force and they are not asking to be moved to a more proximate school. For the families around Kenmore, W-L is their neighborhood HS and they want to remain there even though Wakefield is geographically closer.

I want to see a plan that does have a mechanism in place for achieving, or at least attempting to achieve, diversity before the plan is adopted. For instance, APS should name the program it would place at Williamsburg with a promise to provide transportation. I also want to see a plan that leaves south Arlington schools that already HAVE programs in place with the capacity to continue to allow for transfers in to those programs.

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