Reply to APS boundary process this fall?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Voluntary transfers are not an adequate solution when a school like Williamsburg - at 80% capacity - is allowed to decide that it only wants to take 10 transfers. Swanson is still left overcrowded and Williamsburg only made a symbolic gesture in taking a few extra kids. Why does APS allow this? So the richest middle school in the county is also the least crowded by a long shot? We are a Glebe family and, due to the voluntary transfers, what would be about a 50/50 split between Hamm and Swanson ends up being probably a 80/20 split with several kids left disappointed and on the wait list for transferring to Hamm. Just let them all transfer or none of them - or better yet, switch the PUs to Hamm so that some kids aren’t left behind.[/quote]

What do you mean by richest?  You do understand that APS doesn’t give any extra money to the schools when it accepts transfers. They don’t get to hire any more teachers or any additional staff. Schools are told how much money they have and then the school makes a decision about transfers. If APS really wanted to use transfers to help it would have to give schools money based on number of students after transfers are factored in. Please learn how things work before spouting off about how schools don’t take 20% more students. [/quote]
I assume they meant richest as in that’s where the wealthiest people in the county live. Speaking of not spouting off when you don’t understand how things work,  if they accepted more student, they would hire more teachers. That’s been a complaint at Williamsburg, classes are quite large because they don’t have enough students for an additional team or more sections.[/quote]

That’s not terribly accurate. What is true is that Williamsburg is no longer zoned to neighborhoods with more affordable housing types.

And yes, the large class sizes have been a serious problem there. The building is also quite old and in need of a complete rebuild (along with TJ).[/quote]

And Swanson and Gunston.

Middle schools across the board except Hamm and Kenmore are in rough shape.[/quote]

Swanson could definitely use a renovation but as a designated historic building, the front lawn and the facade can’t be altered.

Hopefully the boundaries and building renovation/rebuild pipeline gets figured out soon. All the APS focus has been on option programs it seems. Montessori, Tech, etc., and not the neighborhood schools. [/quote]

Uh, the focus was never on options in recent decades, and then in the last four years it suddenly had to be. The Career Center had to be finalized to meet HS seat planning that was delayed from a decade before. That also meant addressing Montessori, which is in one of the worst buildings. Meanwhile, APS like many other school districts put long range Capital improvement planning on hold during pandemic. Now it has restarted. I agree the MS (where my kid is now) need to be addressed, but they will. [/quote]

The only reason APS got a new building was that the community wanted to kick HB out of its very old building to put a neighborhood middle school there. That wasn't the original plan. The new building was supposed to be for a new neighborhood middle school, but parents didn't like that plan and wanted the HB building/plot. So HB had to move. Then after HB got a new building on that plot that no one else wanted, the revisionist history is that APS focused on options as expense of neighborhood. But really it was the other way around. [/quote]

It's a little funny that APS has signaled their intention to move some of the people in the neighborhoods close to/north of Hamm to Williamsburg to make room for people in the R-B corridor at Hamm. We just keep going in circles. [/quote]

That is so DOA. They are moving Immersion to WMS. [/quote]Jeeze, Taylor parents are persistent.  That idea has only appeared here, touted by a few disgruntled Taylor parents, with absolutely no traction within APS admin.  There are about a million other better solves than that harebrained idea.[/quote]

DP. No skin in this game. What's wrong with moving Immersion to WMS? WMS is underenrolled. Last I heard Gunston was over. [/quote]

The popular middle school Immersion Program actually began at Williamsburg. It would be going back to where it all started. It only moved to Gunston because Williamsburg was overcrowded and Gunston under enrolled. Option programs can move to where there is room. That’s been APS policy for decades now. [/quote]

Link to the policy?  You made that up.  It's not an APS policy.[/quote]

I didn’t mean to mislead.  Option programs have moved to where there has been room over the decades. Policy or not, that has always happened since option programs were first created in the 70s through the last option program moves about 4 years ago. There certainly is no policy [i]against[/i] moving option programs.[/quote]
APS may very well move MS immersion, but they won't move it to WMS.  That looks like desegregation busing.  [/quote]

APS doesn’t really care about desegregation or segregation one way or the other as we’ve all seen. Especially now that it has been deprioritized via the new boundary policy. Case in point—remember when APS moved immersion out of Key to the old ATS site.

APS will choose Williamsburg, Swanson, Kenmore, or whatever school based on the current priorities which deprioritize demographics. Also, for legal reasons, race cannot be considered a factor. [/quote]That's contrary to the APS Policy on Boundaries. The recent revision in 2023 added demographics as an important factor.[/quote]

Can someone post a link to that part of the policy? I recall, as was debated at length on this forum, that demographics was moved off of the priority list. Walkability and keeping neighborhoods together was prioritized. [/quote]

Moving Immersion to WMS:

Improved demographic balance and WMS not 100% white

Keeps walkability for neighborhood schools around WMS and keeps neighborhoods together.

Seems like a home run for all the policy priorities. [/quote]
Busing isn't an appropriate solution to make WMS not 100% white.  Read a history book for goodness sakes.[/quote]

Take several seats, lady. This isn’t forced busing. It is relocating an OPTIONAL program to a location that has space so that every other schools doesn’t have to have a boundary change and so that the schools like Kenmore and Swanson and Jefferson don’t become less diverse as a result of a boundary shift N. FFS, Immersion Stans. Stop using Hispanic kids to suit your white agenda. [/quote]

DP. Gunston has space. It was overcrowded last year until APS verified addresses and found hundreds of kids didn’t actually live in Gunston’s boundaries. Once those kids were unenrolled, Gunston was no longer overcrowded.

More than 50% of kids in the elementary immersion program are Hispanic.  Assuming that percentage continues in MS and HS, isn’t busing the program to WMS using them to suit your agenda of keeping walkability for WMS?[/quote]

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