Reply to APS/SA boundary redrawing

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Please stop blaming Henry for the concentration of poverty in S Arlington. This is exactly what N Arlington wants.  Fleet is not going to take N Arlington PUs and the PUs south of the Pike are not all expensive homes. Some are apartments, some are condos, some are duplexes, and many of the single family homes are rentals.  Yes there are some MC homes with kids but let’s not pretend it’s all lily white and UMC SFHs with kids. The area is very diverse economically and it has its share of FARMS and homelessness. Henry did not pull the ladder up. It just wants to keep its school.

It’s the entire counties job to balance diversity that is where the blame lies. A handful of MC kids will not balance a 90% plus poverty rate at Drew. [/quote]

I tried to point some of this out earlier also, as someone who actually lives in that neighborhood. It’s strange that we are suddenly THE thing that is going to take Drew out of high FARMs. I don’t get it, to be honest.[/quote]

But here's the thing: if you do t go to Drew some other neighborhood has to. In this case, it's Columbia Forest. You can run the numbers yourself: both the pu at Henry south of the pike and Columbia Forest have about 200 students. The farms rate for those Henry units south of the pike is about 50% so yes, diverse. Also about half white/Asian.

What about Columbia Forest planning units? It's over 80% disadvantaged. The math here is difficult because in many units, aps says there are more disadvantaged students than there are total students. Likewise, APS figures show Columbia Forest has more black and Hispanic students than total students so it's safe to say it's more racially segregated than the Henry PUs as well.

Basically, when Henry said no, we won't go to Drew aps found a poorer, more minority neighborhood to go to Drew instead, one that definitely worsens Drew's farms rate by its inclusion. And does the students in Columbia Forest no favor either- busing them past two closer schools to attend what will likely be the poorest school in the system.

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The problem and the reason for all of this to begin with is that schools like Abingdon are over crowded. Abingdon's boundaries are HUGE and cover a large area, in the past that worked because lost of parents picked immersion and other choice schools so it balanced out. Now that Claremont is not guaranteed admissions and has a wait list more kids are going to default to Abingdon. They needed to break up the Abingdon school zone and moving Columbia Forest was the best way to do it.

With Barcroft Park located where it is and Randolph being a school for only walkers that whole area is going to cut off and island someone.

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A good argument for moving immersion from claremont to a school that isn't in the middle of a large neighborhood of SFH.[/quote]

Yes! Honestly I hate choice schools in general because they tend to make low income schools even lower because the families that choice to leave are more likely to be upper income. However if you are going to have them it would make more sense to have them located central, away from neighborhood and near another school that can be used as a neighborhood school. (Like Carlin Springs and Campbell) but that is not going to happen.

but turning Claremont into a neighborhood school would solve a lot of the Abingdon crowding issues. 
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I think this ship has sailed, unfortunately. Immersion should've moved to Carlin Springs and Claremont should've been a neighborhood school. But they can't move both Immersion programs, so this is where we are. I would like to see the data, however, that more Abingdon families are going to crowd the neighborhood school because they aren't guaranteed at Claremont. ASFS/Key argued the same thing, and it didn't come to pass. Is there anything other than guesses that this has or will happen? Not everybody wants Immersion, especially if it's not close by.[/quote]

I think the difference was the guaranteed admissions agreement Claremont had with Abingdon.

Abingdon definitely has more K kids this year than in years past but I am not sure of the numbers. Claremont also has sibling preference so some more kids from the Abingdon school district got in because of that this year but that will also change. [b]The majority of Claremont are kids that live in the Abingdon district. (it is something like 80%)[/b] The new policy does not give Abingdon preference so that percentage is going to go down. [/quote]

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Transfer-Report-2017-18.pdf

231 out of 702 = 32.9%. A large portion, but not a majority. [/quote]

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