Reply to What do you expect from APS staff (option/neighborhood) on 4/30?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]--I'm a South Arlington parent. I'll answer for you. If I'm an UMC parent in the Henry, Oakridge, or Hoffman Boston walk zone, I want walkable neighborhood schools.

If I'm an UMC parent in any of the other zones, I want access to option programs (I am fine with a long bus ride, too, just want to be able to get into one).

If I'm a disadvantaged parent, I will send my kids to school wherever is closest and easiest to get to, don't mind too much if the kid has a short bus trip because then I don't have to walk them, but I want a school that is safe and welcoming, and I don't care so much about the program focus. Wherever we get in to VPI is where kid will go for Kindergarten.

If I am educated immigrant parent, I want access to option programs because we can't afford to live in-bounds to a "good" school, but we moved here just to give the kids a "good" education. So I want access to option programs. Or I'll report a fake address and send kids to the "good" school anyway.

Any questions?--

Another SA parent, PP;s statement above is truth. We are in the neighborhood of a low performing school and we choiced out when choicing out was an option. Now with the long waitlists at immersion and Campbell, that is not an option for SA parents who want out. Every single family on my block choiced out. Every single one. Families who move into the neighborhood often already have kids in private or in choice. One family down the street is moving before kids get into K, as are 4 other families I know of in the last couple years.  Something is really wrong with a school system when UMC of any ethnic group choice out of neighborhoods schools.

Don't force Barcroft to Randolph, families will literally leave the neighborhood or go private if they cannot get into a choice program. Only the lower income families on the edge of the neighborhood will be left. They get the scraps. Even if they all want immersion, there are not nearly enough seats to accommodate them.

Breaking up Barcroft will have very different consequences for UMC and poor families than doing the same to Nottingham. Very different considerations going on.[/quote]

In addition to not moving an option program to Barcroft, is there anything else you think could be done in this process to help things over there? I'm being very serious, I'm a NA parent so I won't pretend to understand the dynamics of SA, but I know my kids will be fine no matter what happens up by us and so to extent I can say anything people will listen to, I'd like to be able to help, or at the very least not hurt.[/quote]

Make sure demographics are a priority in all the upcoming boundary changes at every level....every time.  Keep lobbying the SB, especially as a north Arlington parent, for prioritizing socioeconomic diversity along with the community's supposed number one priority of walkability.

What it really takes is the UMC families rallying together and going to their neighborhood school and investing in it, rather than bashing it and avoiding it.  Not much you can do about that from up there.  But thank you for wanting to help.  Please stay in the game and join the rest of us who have been pushing for policies and boundaries that at least start moving the needle in the right direction.  Convince your neighbors that it is important to fight for the system as a whole and not just their individual neighborhoods and schools.  [/quote]

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