Reply to Another choice school in N Arlington?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]well then even one more choice school. He school board is already committed to building 2 more elementary schools.[/quote]

No they haven't. The CIP up for SB approval on June 16 contains money to turn Reed into an ES and put additions on two existing ES. (The new ES that they are building in S. Arlington now is coming from the last round of CIP funds.) If you want to build another choice school, I am fine with it. I think we could use another immersion school in the County. But why put it at Reed, which is about as far west in the county as you can get? That isn't even close to where the worst overcrowding in Arlington is predicted.  Go look at the APS utilization spreadsheet for 2020/21-- for Reed to work as a 725 student choice school that year, you have to assume that the majority of students are coming from the ASF/Key, Long Branch, and overcrowded South Arlington districts-- that they will be willing to backtrack all the way to Westover every day for school. Otherwise you have not made a dent in the overcrowding. That is a huge assumption, with no data behind it. Our best proxy is the ATS experience-- and I think the low South Arlington enrollment at ATS shows that people just aren't willing to travel that far for a choice school in west Arlington.  Remember, Ashlawn and Glebe transfers alone make up 25% of the ATS student body-- which makes sense b/c most of these kids are in the ATS neighborhood. Build another choice school- but do it in a more sensible location that solves the problem of overcrowding- which is why we are building a new ES in the first place. APS is just picking Reed because it is the cheapest option and they already own the building, not because it is in any way an ideal geographic location to solve overcrowding or best serve our kids in either N or S Arlington.[/quote]

Everyone I know in south Arlington tries for ATS. They don't care how far it is. They just don't get the slots. Luck of the draw.[/quote]

Everyone in South Arlington isn't trying for ATS. The point of a double blind lottery is that the results, statistically speaking, should reflect the applicant pool. So the only way that you get 64% of ATS drawing from North Arlington schools is if roughly 64% of the applicant pool is coming from North Arlington. If you had a flood of people applying to ATS from South Arlington, then the student body would be closer to 50/50. I would really like to see the County issue a report on the number of kids who applied to ATS by school zone vs. the number who got accepted. If the applicant pool is already lopsided to North Arlington due to the ATS location (or whatever other reason), then there is absolutly no point to putting another choice school at the Reed site-- which is even more out of the way for anyone coming from the NE or S parts of the County. Even those of you supporting a choice school should be asking why they are putting it at Reed. For example, they could build it at the Buck site across from W-L, except that the County Board wants to store ART buses there instead.

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Let me rephrase. Almost All of the white middle class families are applying to ATS. I agree we need to see the specifics on applicants. Is the Buck site a lost cause?[/quote]

Yes, lost cause. Unless you want them to turn Reed into the Bus Storage facility, which would make even less sense than the Buck site. Schools aren't the only need in the county, and we're pretty much out of land that isn't right in the middle of where people are living. So take your pick; which thing that nobody wants is going to be located in your neighborhood? Still think a school is a terrible idea? We all have to accept that the ideal location, size, whatever, for schools, that ship has sailed. Reed is going to be a school because it's the only way APS can afford to do it and do it within the next 10 years. Is it going to be ideal? Nope, but at least it is better than the trailer farms that never go away and eat up more green space every year. Now, back to the really terrible problem looming: HS capacity. Why isn't everyone freaking out about this? Is it because HS seems so far away? Or you plan to go private anyway? Or you think your school isn't going to be as overcrowded as W-L so your kids won't be affected? Or you're cool with kids going to HS in shifts? I think we're making perfect the enemy of good with all this back and forth about one ES in north Arlington, all the while all three HS programs are about to explode. [/quote]

I hear what you are saying on the high school issue and think there is some good discussion about that going on the other thread too. But I still think this Reed solution is short-sighted as an ES solution and worthy of discussion. Do you really think ASF/Key parents who bought into that district so they could go to ASF are going to be willing to truck their kids to Westover to be in a new 725 student choice school (which would be the biggest elementary school in the county)? Look, my point is just that this could be a disaster if they spend all this money to renovate Reed and nobody wants to go to the school-- that is the downside to a choice school. And right now, even the N. Arl parents who apply to ATS do so because they like the smaller school enviornment. That's not what a 725 student school looks like. And I get that Arlington is short on land, but the real issue is that all these various County functions (transporation, parks and rec, schools, etc.) operate in such silos that nobody ever dumps it all on the table and looks at the best use of land holistically for all these various functions. And so we have space wasting (like the big plot of land for the aquatics center) or expensive real estate in the heart of Ballston dedicated to bus storage.[/quote]

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