Reply to Question about re zoning elementary schools in S. Arlington

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If that’s the question I am happy to live in S Arlington. The N Arlington folks thinking they deserve more are just a holes. [/quote]

But the SA folks who want to bus NA kids to SA to whiten up their neighborhood school and validate their real estate investment....those folks are just peachy.[/quote]

I'm UMC and not white. We just want schools that are high quality and serve all the students. Maybe that means carve outs for students not learning English, so they can be challenged. [/quote]

Totally agree with this, and it can be done in neighborhood schools without impacting anyone in NA.[/quote]

Agree as well. [/quote]

There are multiple reasons to have more balanced diversity within each school.  But setting that aside, there must be things schools can do to better serve the various student groups.  Systematic segregation within the school is just not politically correct, even though a segregated school system doesn't bother the SB or CB.

One of the biggest obstacles to closing achievement gaps is the language barrier.  APS has stated that once a student becomes proficient enough in English, they quickly catch-up with their higher-performing peers.  So, why do we have to insist on the same K-12 system for kids who need to acquire that proficiency?  Why not "track" them into a high intensity English acquisition program and forget about trying to hold them to the current expectations for each grade level until they are ready and able to start learning and truly achieving in their English-taught schools?  So what if you're 7 in 1st grade instead of 6.  Or 15 in 9th instead of 13.  Considering the segregation of our neighborhoods and schools, and APS' refusal to implement economically diverse boundaries, those 7 and 15 year olds will have plenty of peers so that they don't stand out like sore thumbs or don't have classmates of comparable maturity.  Or, just put them in a separate intensified training school/program until they are strongly on grade level and can shift over with everyone else.

Yes, I know, what a horrible person I must be for even suggesting such a thing.  But if it can better serve them, and allow schools to meet the needs of students who are not behind, as long as grades and test scores take precedence over social development and interaction (which is what APS has been saying by refusing to acknowledge the differences or to create demographically balanced schools), why not?[/quote]

Same poster here.  I'll add that there are classes that can be integrated within such a program, so the kids are still interacting with each other - art, music, PE, FLES.  So I guess it's about relaxing the push on the core subjects until the language has been sufficiently mastered.[/quote]

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