Reply to APS middle school boundary process

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "APS middle school boundary process"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Good start, but I see 40pgs of people suggesting that we should all want diversity [b]at any cost[/b]. I certainly hope all those families from Wburg and Stratford are offering to send their kids to S Arl middle schools even without the immersion program. [/quote]

No, [b]just at the cost of busing some kids[/b]. Which we already do for families near ATS and ASFS (and I would argue walkable ESs are more important than walkable MS because parents need to be able to get to ES much more frequently and because the older you are, the more important it is that you get out of your bubble)[/quote]

This is not an insignificant cost, on multiple levels.  First, the actual economic costs of more buses, more drivers, more bus storage.  All of which are in short supply already.  Second is the cost to the kids and families of breaking apart neighborhood schools.  I've posted multiple times that my family is less than a 10min walk on safe, surface streets to Swanson. Common sense says that busing my kids to Kenmore, while bringing buses of kids past our house to Swanson makes no sense. Third are the costs to our children in terms of lost sleep. There are already studies about the insufficient sleep our kids are getting, why put even more kids on buses than absolutely necessary?  It also will have a cost on commutes and traffic, since lots of parents will start driving their kids rather than having them catch a pre-dawn bus, and all that traffic was the outcry against a 4th HS at Kenmore.

There are lots of costs, making those options particularly bad.
[/quote]

There aren't any proposals, at least not yet, that [i]increase[/i] busing. That's pure hyperbole, as was the outcry against a 4th HS.

You don't want to be rezoned to Kenmore, we get it. You're not willing to give up some convenience for a "lesser" school. You paid good money for your "better" school, and why shouldn't you get to keep it?

But you realize, if they do build a HS at Kenmore at some future point, the likely boundary would look an awful lot like the proposed diversity/proximity blended Kenmore MS option boundary, except maybe extended further N to pull in more kids? They can't draw the boundary further S, because then you're on Wakefield's property. So if being zoned to a diverse school in S Arlington makes you break out in a sweat, I suggest you think long and hard. One day, all the kids in your PU could be zoned to a HS on the Kenmore property. If that's a deal-breaker, you should probably just move now. Or join the anti-4th HS chorus and deal with shift schedules, mega schools bursting at the seams, and option schools that won't be in your neighborhood either.

[/quote]

I largely agree with this.  There is not an overall increase in bus ridership.  Dominion Hills and Madison Manor are in denial about how close Kenmore is.  Yes- if this proposal goes through, or something like it, parts of Dominion Hills will have a longer walk to Kenmore as compared to their shorter walk to Swanson. Yes- parts of Madison Manor will be bused to Kenmore instead of a longish walk to Swanson.  
But the proposal as a whole has less busing then is currently occurring- look at the statistics APS has put out about this.  So it is simply false to say that we are breaking up neighborhood schools and busing across town- what have you.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics