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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society. [/quote]

ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.

Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school  has a lower FRM rate than ATS. [/quote]

Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?[/quote]

Who said race? This is FRL. [/quote]

There are white kids in the VPI classes.[/quote]

Right, but PP said minorities. Reading comprehension, people. No wonder our kids are struggling.[/quote]

Oh sorry, did that disadvantaged argument strike a nerve? You people smell of fear.  Like maybe your free country day  school might actually get redirected to people who really need it. Love it. [/quote]

Huh? My kids don’t even go to ATS. Just saying you can’t fill a school based on race.[/quote]

Well, that’s not true.  How do you think our schools became (and remain) so segregated?  It’s not an accident.  [/quote]

Housing policy (historically) and home prices (currently).

I’m not saying they aren’t segregated. I’m saying APS can’t make a policy that states certain schools must be x percent POC. Universities can’t even do that.

Should there be a greater mix demographically in our schools? I want there to be. Though realistically, how do they do that? Bus kids all over town? And what happens when even more families leave for private school? Take a look at Alexandria. It isn’t so pretty.[/quote]

The Ashlawn boundary is contiguous to Carlin Springs and Barrett.  Innovation has been “picked” to be the North Arlington future school for massive amounts of affordable housing, yet you have Science Focus about a mile up the road and one metro stop away.  Would you consider adjusting those boundaries too radical?  It wouldn’t require a “bus all over town.”  I don’t think most people are aware how blatantly segregated the boundaries are in some instances.  It cannot be reasonably explained away.[/quote]

Are you in favor of eliminating the wrap-around services some of these title I schools offer? Spread the poor kids out between different high-performing schools, dropping them at the door and saying “good luck”?

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know APS doesn’t have the resources to offer some of those services at EVERY school.[/quote]

APS and Title 1 aren’t funding those services. The county pays for most of the wraparound services, the stuff like free glasses and social workers. The funding follows the kids, so move them around and the $$ and services follow them. PTAs offer some of the other resources, like donations to holiday or food drives and scholarships to after school activities, so a wealthier PTA with fewer needy kids could provide more for each individual student. There’s a lot of research out there if you want to learn about the affects of poverty on schools, and about how it’s really detrimental for poor kids to be in majority low income schools and neighborhoods. It’s neither here nor there. APS will never do anything about it and often they make it worse when they “adjust” contiguous boundaries because it’s the last consideration on their list, when it should be first. It’s the thing that has the most bearing on education, with tons of evidence and research out there. I am not aware of the same level of research into how alignment affects student outcomes (hint: it doesn’t). [/quote]

Thank you.  And I just want to add that some CAF buildings already require buses to get the kids to elementary school, so those kids are getting bused anyway whether it’s to their current high-poverty school, or another nearby school.  There are schools within 1-3 miles of each other that aren’t high-poverty where these kids could go.  This isn’t something APS couldn’t fix if it actually cared.  [/quote]

Are the other nearby schools under enrolled? And if not, are you expecting some of their students to swap places into the high-poverty school? That’s a hard sell, and would lead to many families fleeing APS. Again, look at Alexandria.[/quote]

I have no idea why you keep repeating this statement.  Alexandria City High School is a 4400 student high school with similar demographics to Wakefield.  Wakefield is ranked over 5000 spots higher than ACHS.  We are talking about making the schools even LESS segregated, not more.  If we shuffle things around, there will be fewer high-poverty schools in Arlington. [/quote]

No. Take a look at Alexandria’s elementary and middle schools, not ACHS. A lot of Alexandria residents refuse to use the public schools, choosing private school starting at K, which is why their schools are so 💩 at ALL levels.

Which is my point: No one with means is swapping spaces into a high-poverty school. They’d rather flee APS. And as much as it sucks, we need some of those privileged families to stay. Or YES, we turn into Alexandria, where only disadvantaged families use the public schools at ANY level.

I’m not saying it’s right. [b]But do you really think people would willingly send their kids to a failing school?[/b] [/quote]

DP, and nope, we’re definitely not sending our kids to APS unless they get into ATS. We will move if they don’t get in. We’re in S Arlington.  I don’t care if this is an unpopular opinion, but I expect high test scores in the schools my kids attend. [/quote]

But the [b]idea some people are suggesting is to adjust the boundaries to create more mixed-income rather than high-poverty or significantly affluent schools.[/b]  Wouldn’t this help your neighborhood school?  Or are you only after the 22207 schools?  Why didn’t you just move there?  I’m not sure where you think you can go if you can’t afford that option unless you’re leaving the area.

It doesn’t have to be perfect but the boundaries could be improved.  That’s all anyone here has suggested so far.  This shouldn’t freak rationale people out.[/quote]

I’m the poster you’re responding to and yes, I wholeheartedly support this idea. My experience with this discussion (not necessarily this one but others) is that folks come out of the woodwork to vehemently argue against it for multiple reasons. It’s exhausting and made me apathetic that ANY positive change in APS will ever occur. If it does, great! [b]We might stay. [/b]But there doesn’t seem to be any will to fix this. Wouldn’t School Board candidates run on this platform? I could be wrong but I haven’t seen it yet.

This is the older thread I was thinking about (I didn’t read everything in it): https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1015344.page[/quote]

I mean, I keep asking you but you don’t respond: where are you going?   Where is your magical school with great test scores and truly mixed income?  [b] You keep threatening to leave S Arlington, like there is some other option that everyone else is missing.   I highly doubt that you’ve identified one and instead are just saying nonsense on a message board[/b].  [/quote]

Wow, I’m the poster you’re responding to here. First, what in the world? Why are you responding so aggressively and trying invalidate a personal, family decision we’ve made? Weird. Second, I don’t owe you a response on where we’re going, and that doesn’t invalidate my family choices or mean I’m saying nonsense on a chat board. Btw, there are plenty of options - look at Bethesda or Great Falls. Heck, look out of state in this day and age of remote work.

[b]People can choose to leave Arlington for all sorts of reasons[/b]. It’s not a threat, it’s just a fact of life. Just because a family makes a personal decision isn’t an attack on those staying in Arlington. Please stop responding as though it’s a personal attack on you - it’s not. [/quote]

Totally agree with you. And I have no personal interest in an anonymous poster on a message boards threats to leave Arlington.  Whether you meant it or not, [b]your threat to leave was tied to the idea that Arlington is failing to achieve mixed-income, very high level test score elementary schools. [/b]  My point was—and consistently has been—these do not exist in Great Falls or Bethesda or anywhere else within the DMV.  No one on here has pointed to anywhere doing this successfully.  I welcome being disproven but so far it’s crickets.   [/quote]

Ah, I think I see the disconnect. I have one selection criteria and that is test results. I was replying to a failed school comment.  I never said anything about mixed-income but looking back at the thread, I can see where it was misconstrued.

From my perspective that is test-results focused, ATS is the number one elementary school in Arlington agnostic of equity rankings / mixed-income. Perhaps I responded to the wrong thread, but I was not implying that mixed-income is part of my calculus. Incorporating it is a great nuanced look that builds kids into empathetic, aware adults. I’m all for it. It’s just not part of my decision making right now. And that’s ok bc we all operate from what we can do when we can do it (and what we can afford).

To bring it full circle, when I think of ATS and what OP wrote that created this thread, I did not have mixed-income in mind - just a great elementary school that is clearly performing well! Why can’t the rest of Arlington do this? [/quote]

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