Reply to New APS Elem Boundaries (ASFS)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you are walking distance to Key, you will be walking distance to your middle and high schools. So if you have to take a bus to elementary school, so what? [/quote]

Elementary school is the only time you need to explicitly pick your kid up from school -- they cannot walk by themselves.  I don't own a car because my condo does not have a parking spot associated with it, right now my kids and I commute via metro.  This is how my neighborhood was planned -- its supposed to be "carless".  Look at the last county board meeting where they passed the parking restrictions.  My area is supposed to be car free and walkable.  Cherrydale is not supposed to be, new housing there can have as much parking as they want, and its all single family houses anyways.  how am I supposed to pick my kid up from extended day if we get zoned to taylor?  Actually come to rosslyn around rush hour and tell me that it makes sense to bus kids to taylor.  All you are doing is changing the demographics of the neighborhood.

I will likely move if we get rezoned to Taylor, but don't try to convince yourself that what you're doing is not pandering.  You're pandering to the people who live in that neighborhood who want to have a walkable school (when they all own cars and have plenty of parking in their neighborhood) when they are within 1.5 miles of 3 schools!  3!  Glebe, Taylor, and the current ASFS building are all within a mile of most of that neighborhood.  That neighborhood doesn't need another neighborhood school.  Rosslyn is 3 miles from Taylor.  3 miles!  In a 26 square mile county, that is really far.  The key building is within a mile of my house.  We would totally walk.  But wait, the arlington way is that only rich kids who live in multimillion dollar houses should be able to walk, not people who live in apartments or condos.  You're a transient anyways right?

And sorry but when I bought my condo in Rosslyn\Courthouse, I had a walkable neighborhood school.  Key was my neighborhood school.  There is plenty of parking in cherrydale. [b] Everyone I know who lives in that neighborhood that goes to asfs actually drives the quarter mile walk.[/b]  Those jerks totally monopolized the discussion last spring when we should have been arguing to keep key a neighborhood school.  They kept spouting their "walk zone" and "keep the team" and so no one even understood the ramifications for my neighborhood. [/quote]

It would help your cause more if you didn't exaggerate.

I live in Cherrydale and my kids are past elementary age (attended ASFS) so whatever happens with ASFS's boundaries does not matter to me but we were part of that community for many years.

Elementary students, can in fact, walk back and forth to school on their own and by third grade many do. In fact, I know a family in my neighborhood that lets their kindergartner walk back and forth to ASFS alone.  Extended day is another story.

Almost everyone I know in Cherrydale whose kids attend(ed) ASFS do walk to ASFS.  Families that use extended day and drive to work are the only exception I know of, and what they do makes sense - what are they supposed to do, drive from their job in Tyson's to their house in Cherrydale, park and then walk to ASFS by the 6pm pick up time.   Almost everyone I know/knew who lives in Courthouse/Rosslyn and sends their kids to ASFS, drives them to and from rather than putting them on a bus.

While Cherrydale is mostly single family homes, there are two relatively large apartment complexes as well as three townhouse complexes (in Cherrydale) within a couple blocks of my house. And yes, children do live in them.

Elementary students in Cherrydale attend Glebe and Taylor but those are not "neighborhood schools" for Cherrydale any more than ASFS is a "neighborhood school" for Courthouse/Rosslyn.  And the ASFS building was Cherrydale's neighborhood school for many years.

I'm sorry that you are losing Key as your neighborhood school that you could walk to with your children.  Unfortunately, APS tends to do that - just look at ATS, ASFS, Stratford before it became HB.  Personally, I think the solution is to get rid of the choice schools, period.  But I also think it's unrealistic to live in Arlington for the long run with kids and not own a car.

[/quote]
I know 6 families in that neighborhood.  Only one walks, the ones more than a block away all drive.  I'm not saying more wouldn't walk if more of the area became zoned for the school.  I'm just saying that of the current people I know from that neighborhood, most drive to school and all own a car.  
Fifth grade is the only age where you can walk independently according to recent emails home from the school.[/quote]

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