Reply to Can we spreadload FRL% across APS? Arlington / Education Newbie here

Forum Index » VA Public Schools other than FCPS

Reply to "Can we spreadload FRL% across APS? Arlington / Education Newbie here"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When a group of S Arlington parents tried to raise this issue about 7-8 years ago they were shouted down by affordable housing advocates, school board members and S Arlington residents. Not N Arlington families.  [/quote]

They weren't just shouted down.  They were called racist NIMBYs.[/quote]

The only SB member who has really tried to make headway on this issue is RG. And he was not treated kindly by the chair at the time. People like to vaguely blame N. Arlington, but the entities listed above really do the work of maintaining the status quo.[/quote]

RG helped to make some awful decisions with regards to zoning at that time. He is refusing to budge on the 15 kids per grade who should go to W&L with all of their neighbors and middle school but are zoned for Yorktown based on a crappy 2017 zoning decision. These kids will lose their community of friends they start high school. It's an island of zoning (Ashlawn- Kenmore).

Some neighbors have been trying to work with him unsuccessfully.

https://www.insidenova.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-arlington-school-boundary-efforts-do-not-put-needs-of-students-first/article_371911ae-47ab-11ec-9877-f7d76a1cc327.html[/quote]

He's right not to give in to them and the SB would be right not to cave to them.  Maybe it was stupid to move them a few years ago; but they shouldn't be moving them back in this process.

First of all, They are right to wait and see how enrollment plays out over the next year or so after the pandemic wave and look at all the high school boundaries together as a whole in another year or two.  If they move that planning unit now, they won't be able to move it again in another year or so if that's what is needed.

Second of all, there are others in that planning unit who are perfectly happy to be at Yorktown.  You won't hear them say so publicly at a SB meeting or via letters in the news or social media.  People in Arlington long ago learned not to speak up against the complainers.

Third, this isn't about social isolation for the kids.  This is about the parents wanting to be at WL.  It's the parents telling their kids they're going to be socially isolated and miserable and propping them up in front of SB members. Are there kids who have a hard time?  Sure.  There are kids who have a hard time no matter how many classmates they move to middle school or to high school with.  The severity of overcrowding at another school outweighs pacifying a handful of kids or their parents.  [/quote]

If they cave to this petition, they’ll just be setting themselves up for all the other split neighborhoods/feeder schools with few kids in individual planning units to demand the same, and there are A LOT of them, and not enough space to cave to them all. That’s why they split them in the first place. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics