Reply to APS: Elementary Walk Zone surveys out

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]ATS to Barcroft. Barcroft loses almost as many kids to choice school transfers as it has in the neighborhood. Alcova to Fleet. Divide Bacroft between Randolph and Barrett. Recapture the choice kids you are losing to those schools anyway!  Also, encourages S Arl students (and disadvantaged families) to take advantage of ATS.[/quote]

No room at Randolph for all the low income kids at Barcroft - they're not going to enter the lottery for ATS. And would prob give Randolph a farms rate higher than carlin springs. [/quote]

Can't send half of Barcroft to Barrett either - you will upset the balance that exists at Barrett and keeps UMC families at the school. Don't want to undo 15 years of community buy-in and send Barrett parents scrambling for option schools as they did in the past before visionary former principal convinced Arlington Forest families that their kids would turn out fine. Barrett is one of the few high-FARMS schools that UMC families are happy with. It has a huge number of walkers and fairly balanced ethnic/racial/SES demographics. Not something to upset by playing the "where should we move ATS" game.[/quote]

Tell me more about Barrett. It's got nearly identical farms rate as Barcroft (60%). Does it really have buy in from SFH, Morris than Barcroft? What's different there, apart from the calendar?[/quote]

I’m not the previous poster, but Barrett is not diverse.  It’s all Hispanic, plus a minority of Arlington Forest families.
And yes, that a good question to ask, because there is a lot of lamenting about Barcroft, but Barrett is no better in its demographics.
PTA participation and parent participation is limited, and I don’t see SES (or ethnic) diversity.

[/quote]

I'd really like to see what percentage of students in each elementary school boundary go to an option school. By planning unit would be even better. We all know what it would show: north Arlington students option at lower rates than south, and are attracted by perceived prestige and less crowded schools. South Arlington students option to avoid going to a segregated school whose resources are organized around serving a disadvantaged majority. But showing these patterns of demand for option schools would underscore that every school should get some sort of distinctive identity like an option school. No, we can't replace the biggest option school advantage - self selected, motivated and engaged parents- but giving Barrett, Barcroft, Carlin Springs and Randolph a focus or identity would help. The UMC has basically decided that those schools are organized around immigrant ELL and social services and they're not wrong. Giving those schools an additional identity that speaks to their aspirations would help. Why send you kid to a school specializing in what he/she has no need for? Something - more immersion programs, cultural exchange, a common denominator between two very different populations. That's where the key immersion came from. Can we not do that again? Are we just bereft of ideas?[/quote]

I think APS should solicit reasons for each transfer request.  Many people won't volunteer it's because of dissatisfaction with the neighborhood school; but if APS listed a range of reasons on the transfer application form to include "low performing neighborhood school" and asked the applicants to rank their reasons, it would be a start.  Applications can be given an ID # so that responses are not linked to names to make people a little more comfortable being honest.[/quote]

A separate confidential survey unlinked to the application would be great but anything that allowed the very low UMC demand for some neighborhood schools in south Arlington would suffice. The point is to measure and show this lack of demand in order to draw attention to it as a problem. APS apparently no longer sees segregated schools as a problem, so a different tactic would be, how to increase broad demand for neighborhood schools like Randolph to balance demand for choice schools, which my guess, cost a sh*t ton more in transport costs than neighborhood schools.[/quote]

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