Reply to Another choice school in N Arlington?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And to save you all some time, here is a link to the map. http://www.apsva.us/cms/lib2/VA01000586/Centricity/Domain/168/ES%202016%20Offical%20Map%2001222015.pdf

I am guessing the Taylor parent above would be going to the Science Focus building (and therefore not crossing Lee Highway) if it had not been taken out of commission as a neighborhood school years ago and turned into a "choice" school program.  The locations of these programs does not make a lot of sense now.[/quote]

Taylor parent here.  Yep, ASFS is 4 blocks away.[/quote]

Right, but ASFS is now a neighborhood school, in essence, for the Key Boundary. So whether it's a choice school or neighborhood school, it would not be the school you are zoned for, right? Again, it stinks to be on the edge of the boundary, where you'd need a bus (or have an unsafe walk) to school. But at least if ASFS is a choice school, there's a chance you might be able to attend. If it were a neighborhood school, it still wouldn't be your neighborhood school, right?

We need to invest more in making it safer for all kids to get to all schools (by foot and bike if they want), because we can't possibly build enough schools for everyone to be within a couple blocks of their elementary school. Not even a neighborhood-schools-only model can accomplish that.[/quote]

I'm not the Taylor parent, but[b] if ASFS were still a true neighborhood school, then someone living within 4 blocks of it would be zoned for it[/b]. I agree that you always have people who live on a boundary and will need to bus, but the point of neighborhood schools is that anyone who truly lived within walking distance would be zoned to that building. ASFS is not a neighborhood school-- it is an alternative to people who don't want immersion at Key, because again, the choice model doesn't really work in an overcrowded school system.[/quote]

Not necessarily. They can't just build a school and then make the boundaries concentric circles around them, because that's not how our neighborhoods are built and there are sometimes considerations that are of equal or greater importance than whether someone who lives blocks away can walk to their elementary school. And at least a few schools have overlapping walk zones (what APS considers walk zones, so not necessarily a walk that you might want to make with your Kindergarten student daily). Maybe your house is inside both of those "walk zones" even though it's closer to one school than the other. Or maybe you're in the walk zone for one, but just outside for the other but your planning unit was rezoned to a new school when it was built 50 years ago, and now your community is so invested in the school where you're zoned, they would lose their minds if someone tried suggesting rezoning. Somebody will always be unhappy and just on the edge of the boundary. That may not be your ideal, but if it's not your kids sitting on a bus, somebody else's kid will. By the way, my elementary kid LOVES riding the bus. He would be really sad to be a walker (he asks me about whether I "got" to ride the bus when I was little and he says he's sorry for me when I tell him I did not). [/quote]

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