Reply to Overcrowding at Arlington Traditional School

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]ATS is only adding ONE kindergarten class next year - 24 kids. They are not adding a class at all grades. That would allow a bit of overflow from the rest of the county until the following year when Fleet opens and all elementary school are redistricted.

ATS is a luxury. There is no guarantee in any of our schools that you get protected from trailers!  If you don’t like it, go back to your home school.
[/quote]

Again, not an ATS parent, but I think the issue is: have they made it clear that this is for one year, with a promise to reassess next year and adjust appropriately? I know the idea would be a lot less upsetting to the option school parents if it were clear that they will be getting "bubble" classes only as long as the neighborhood schools are also overcrowded. That's fair and equitable. I think they're freaking out because there is at least one board member who's made statements to the effect that anyone who wants to be admitted to a lottery school should be (ATS could not, even with trailers, admit everybody who applies, that would be crazy and then the neighborhood schools would be left under-enrolled). At the same time, there are definitely people who are trying to use this to punish or undermine the option programs. This is a crazy way to go about that. If you don't want option schools, fight for that. Don't fight to make the kids enrolled there have a bad experience. Nobody should be fighting for this. It was terrible when that happened to McKinley, and Claremont and Key. It's terrible that we haven't acted faster for Henry and Oakridge (although, they have resisted the idea of boundary changes that could alleviate crowding instantly because, given the choice, they'd rather have their kids at their "good" but crowded school than at school with space and low test scores). [/quote]

NP here.  I am an ATS parent, and the PP (who is not) is exactly right.  ATS parents are concerned because [b]the SB is signalling that the fifth class per grade at ATS would be permanent. [/b] This would add six new classes to the school (over the course of six years) and would leave the school well over capacity, even with trailers.  I think most parents would be perfectly amenable to adding a fifth K class to make a bubble year, if there was a commitment to reevaluate the grade sizes in the coming years as new schools come on line.  The SB doesn't want to make this commitment because at least one of its members believes option schools should accept all who apply, and a vastly expanded ATS is a step in that direction.

I'm not opposed to expanding ATS per se.  I don't subscribe the the notion (as some of the parents do) that the program can't function well if it gets too large.  So I would have no objection to renovating ATS to significantly expand its capacity.  ATS was supposed to be renovated  several years ago, when the County and School Boards allocated capital funds to renovate Ashlawn, McKinley, and ATS.  They ran out of money during the McKinley renovation, and never got to ATS.  Now the ATS renovation/addition seems to be off the table.  That's a shame, because its a great candidate for an addition - a small building on a large lot.

There seems to be a misconception that ATS is somehow protected from capacity issues and is not doing its fair share.  But that's not true.  ATS is already the fourth most overcapacity elementary school in the county.  And the parents haven't been complaining about it because, while less than ideal (obviously), its been manageable.  My 2nd grade child is in a trailer this year, and it's perfectly fine.  But permanently adding six new classes and eight new trailers - with no prospect of an addition - will have the school doing more than its fair share.  That is, if the APS numbers projections are correct.

I can't say that I really understand the ATS/other option school as a luxury argument.  The option schools provide seats just like neighborhood schools, and they are not artificially protected from the capacity crunch.  But in any event, the SB isn't likely to do away with option schools generally, or ATS specifically.  ATS is the poster child for APS - diverse and high performing.  The SB likes to pretend that most of the county's elementary schools are like this, when in reality many of them are diverse, or high performing, but not both.  Schools like ATS mask this uncomfortable reality for the SB.  (Now that I write that, maybe that's not a good thing...)[/quote]

The school board has not said the five-class thing would be permanent. At the last board meeting, when asked this exact question by the a board member, the staff said that the question of whether to add a fifth class to any given kindergarten year would be made on a case-by-case basis based on overall enrollment numbers.

I do think you have to acknowledge that ATS (and other choice programs) have some unique features that protect it from the full force of overcrowding that other schools see. For instance, because APS can control ATS enrollment, your classes may be at 24 every year, but you're assured that you won't be over 24 if there are some last-minute registrations or students who move in mid-year. My kid's second grade class last year had 27-28 kids because classes were initially set at 25-26 students per class over the summer (which is at/just under the APS max for second grade, three more students enrolled at that point would have forced them to create another class), then there were a couple of last-minute enrollments at the end of summer that pushed the classes to 26-27 (it was too late for the to hire a new teacher to create another class), and then between new students moving in and some other changes, our class ended up with 28 for several months (we had the biggest classroom of all of the second grades, so we could better accommodate the extra students) before a child moved and we went back down to 27 for the rest of year. I would rather have been in a trailer with a guarantee of no more than 24 kids per class than dealing with that kind of crowding where everyone was tripping over each other (literally) and the teachers complaining to the administration that they didn't have enough time to teach because classroom management for so many kids took too much time.[/quote]

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