Reply to Holding APS Leadership, Staff and School Board Accountable for the Boundary Mess

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The reality is that there's only so much land in Arlington, the schools are where they are and the people are where they are. The affordable housing is built where it is, and the school board had no say in that. I wouldn't have been anywhere near as nice about "listening about the community staying together" if I had been drawing the maps. Minimizing the need for buses, proximity to home, and some safety concerns would have been it.  I live in gerrymandered North Arlington and my kid goes to a school miles in the wrong direction when I can walk to one school and drive past two others to get there. Can't wait for them to wipe it out, although my kid will be done by then.  I don't care if my kid goes to school with rich kids, poor kids, white kids, or brown kids.  They're all good schools. [/quote]

LOL, you are so out of touch I think you're just a sa parent making fun of clueless NA parents who can't understand how good they've got it[/quote]

So what exactly should they have done that would have been beneficial for all of SA and not just whichever little hamlet you're in? [/quote]

Since you asked, APS can't fix the housing policy decisions dictated to SA by NA elites that don't want AH in their neighborhoods, by I do things the school board and staff should not have bailed on the option school rezoning that was planned for this year as soon as some lawyered-up NA PTAs started whining. Option school locations are one of the only tools we have for balancing farms rates.[/quote]

Actually, if this process showed anything it is that the high rate of UMC families going to option schools make it next to impossible to draw boundaries knowing what FARS rates will be. Option schools make bringing down FARMS rates that much harder. If everyone had one option, the few UMC families in SA would be better dispersed into the neighborhood schools and not at Claremont, ATS And Montessori. [/quote]

I said this on another thread, but why do UMC families in SA have to go to their neighborhood schools when UMC families in NA get to go to choice schools without getting bashed? [/quote]

Because NA UMC families that attend choice schools (not mine) don't leave a non-functional elementary school in their wake when they switch. [/quote]

[b]They left them behind when they chose to spend their money living in north Arlington.[/b]

The point is, everyone keeps wringing their hands about how its impossible to overlay a boundary solution on an area that has housing segregation, and the answer is the one above -- MORE option schools. Getting people to voluntarily bus themselves together is probably the only way to get a better mix. All of the option schools have a better socioeconomic and demographic mix--or at least a different mix--of the neighborhood they are located in. The problem with Drew now is that Montessori is moving out. Making it an option school that people could move into would help. Caving to the civic association (few of whom have kids in the schools), and people playing the race card to shut down an honest discussion, is really going to screw that community. Choice and option schools -- Arlington's version of charter schools -- help desegregation. We're seeing right now what a difference an option program makes (in reverse, unfortunately) -- we should be getting more choice, not less. Eff the busing. If they put a second H-B Woodlawn in Crystal City the waitlists would be just as long and no one would give two shits about the busing. [/quote]

Nobody living in NA fooled themselves into thinking that they were somehow supporting a diverse and vibrant community when they decided to buy near Jamestown.  
[/quote]

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