Anonymous wrote:I still don't see how moving Key to ATS is going to bring in lots of Spanish speakers. It will still not close to where all the Spanish speakers are located. I suspect more will be near the Key location now than all the way up into north arlington. It won't be any closer than Claremont and those kids are not going there either.

Have you ever looked at a map of Arlington? ATS is south of Key and as PP mentioned is very close to Barrett. Are you thinking of Nottingham?

Anonymous wrote:I still don't see how moving Key to ATS is going to bring in lots of Spanish speakers. It will still not close to where all the Spanish speakers are located. I suspect more will be near the Key location now than all the way up into north arlington. It won't be any closer than Claremont and those kids are not going there either.

There are about the same number of Spanish speakers in Buckingham by ATS as there are by Key. That doesn't mean they will decide to go to immersion, but can it really get worse than 35 Spanish speaking applicants at the current location?

Page 5 of this presentation has a map of K-5 Spanish speakers by planning unit. https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Presentation-to-Key-Staff-Nov_7_2019.pdf

Also, based on the APS FAQs, 119/268 Spanish speakers are from outside the ASFS/Key zone right now, even with many kids having entered during the neighborhood school era.

Anonymous wrote:I still don't see how moving Key to ATS is going to bring in lots of Spanish speakers. It will still not close to where all the Spanish speakers are located. I suspect more will be near the Key location now than all the way up into north arlington. It won't be any closer than Claremont and those kids are not going there either.

There are a lot of Spanish-speaking families around Barrett.

My kid has a concert tonight so I won't be able to go or watch, will have to check this thread for updates!

I still don't see how moving Key to ATS is going to bring in lots of Spanish speakers. It will still not close to where all the Spanish speakers are located. I suspect more will be near the Key location now than all the way up into north arlington. It won't be any closer than Claremont and those kids are not going there either.

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Anonymous wrote:Anyone got a guess as to how many speakers there will be tonight? Not many showed at last SB meeting.

Madison Manor & Dominion Hills Unleashed. One night only 1/30. APS should sell tickets - I hope we haven't heard the last from McKrazy & Data Dudes.

Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!

Is tonight’s meeting going to be steamed online? I was hoping to attend but can’t make it.

Looks like it will be online here: https://www.apsva.us/school-board-meetings/watch-school-board-meetings/

I'm curious to see what happens. I haven't seen much campaigning going on this week.

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Anonymous wrote:Anyone got a guess as to how many speakers there will be tonight? Not many showed at last SB meeting.

Madison Manor & Dominion Hills Unleashed. One night only 1/30. APS should sell tickets - I hope we haven't heard the last from McKrazy & Data Dudes.

Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!

A great fundraiser for CCPTA!

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Anonymous wrote:Anyone got a guess as to how many speakers there will be tonight? Not many showed at last SB meeting.

Madison Manor & Dominion Hills Unleashed. One night only 1/30. APS should sell tickets - I hope we haven't heard the last from McKrazy & Data Dudes.

Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!

Is tonight’s meeting going to be steamed online? I was hoping to attend but can’t make it.

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Anonymous wrote:Anyone got a guess as to how many speakers there will be tonight? Not many showed at last SB meeting.

Madison Manor & Dominion Hills Unleashed. One night only 1/30. APS should sell tickets - I hope we haven't heard the last from McKrazy & Data Dudes.

Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!

Anonymous wrote:Anyone got a guess as to how many speakers there will be tonight? Not many showed at last SB meeting.

Madison Manor & Dominion Hills Unleashed. One night only 1/30. APS should sell tickets - I hope we haven't heard the last from McKrazy & Data Dudes.

Anyone got a guess as to how many speakers there will be tonight? Not many showed at last SB meeting.

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Dominion Hills and Madison Manor are just going to have to deal with riding a bus to Tuckahoe or Ashlawn. They really aren't that special.

+1. I live a couple blocks from ATS but we didn't get a lottery slot so guess what, my kids ride the bus a mile + west to Ashlawn.

So now you know how the families whose houses face McKinley feel.

Just ask the kids near Key who didn't get in. I'm sure they can tell you all about it.

Everyone who applied to Key this year got in, that is part of the issue. They are getting few Spanish speakers and this year they didn't even have enough English speakers from the waitlist to fill the spaces in Kindergarten.

They didn't even have enough English speakers? Wow. The Key lobby certainly isn't disclosing that.

So are the K classes undersubscribed?

The school is still over 100% capacity. I think the takeaway is that there is clearly NOT demand for a 3rd immersion program like they keep talking about making, from English or Spanish speakers. Also, they can cry all they want about how the lottery has cut down their Spanish speaker numbers, but it's not true. They only got 35 K applicants for Spanish spots because the location and program are not attractive to native Spanish speakers in Arlington today in the year 2020. It's not really clear whether the numbers will go up at the ATS location, but I think it's pretty obvious they will stay down if the program doesn't move.

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Dominion Hills and Madison Manor are just going to have to deal with riding a bus to Tuckahoe or Ashlawn. They really aren't that special.

+1. I live a couple blocks from ATS but we didn't get a lottery slot so guess what, my kids ride the bus a mile + west to Ashlawn.

So now you know how the families whose houses face McKinley feel.

Just ask the kids near Key who didn't get in. I'm sure they can tell you all about it.

Everyone who applied to Key this year got in, that is part of the issue. They are getting few Spanish speakers and this year they didn't even have enough English speakers from the waitlist to fill the spaces in Kindergarten.

They didn't even have enough English speakers? Wow. The Key lobby certainly isn't disclosing that.

So are the K classes undersubscribed?

There are 125 kids in K as if Dec https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/U-MEM_281DEV_MEMBERSHIP-SUMMARY-ALL.pdf

There were 144 spots available in the lottery https://www.apsva.us/school-options/school-transfer-data-2/pre-k-elementary-options-transfers-application-data-school-year-2019-20/

All of the English speakers were offered a spot over the summer when Spanish speakers failed to materialize.

Conspiracy theory, but could it be that Key wants to stay where they are to stay undersubscribed? I’d love to have my kids in a grade that was 87% of capacity.

What are the benefits of being in a grade that is undercapacity? I thought classroom size was pretty standard across the county?

School and grade size are different from classroom size. You can have a small grade with each of 3 classes at maximum classroom capacity. A school that is under capacity overall will have less chaos, less strain on resources, and reasonable times for things like lunch. Kids could actually eat at lunchtime instead of 10:30.

A school that is under capacity also still has one principal overseeing fewer teachers, which makes it harder for stuff to slip through the cracks.

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Dominion Hills and Madison Manor are just going to have to deal with riding a bus to Tuckahoe or Ashlawn. They really aren't that special.

+1. I live a couple blocks from ATS but we didn't get a lottery slot so guess what, my kids ride the bus a mile + west to Ashlawn.

So now you know how the families whose houses face McKinley feel.

Just ask the kids near Key who didn't get in. I'm sure they can tell you all about it.

Everyone who applied to Key this year got in, that is part of the issue. They are getting few Spanish speakers and this year they didn't even have enough English speakers from the waitlist to fill the spaces in Kindergarten.

They didn't even have enough English speakers? Wow. The Key lobby certainly isn't disclosing that.

So are the K classes undersubscribed?

There are 125 kids in K as if Dec https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/U-MEM_281DEV_MEMBERSHIP-SUMMARY-ALL.pdf

There were 144 spots available in the lottery https://www.apsva.us/school-options/school-transfer-data-2/pre-k-elementary-options-transfers-application-data-school-year-2019-20/

All of the English speakers were offered a spot over the summer when Spanish speakers failed to materialize.

Conspiracy theory, but could it be that Key wants to stay where they are to stay undersubscribed? I’d love to have my kids in a grade that was 87% of capacity.

What are the benefits of being in a grade that is undercapacity? I thought classroom size was pretty standard across the county?

School and grade size are different from classroom size. You can have a small grade with each of 3 classes at maximum classroom capacity. A school that is under capacity overall will have less chaos, less strain on resources, and reasonable times for things like lunch. Kids could actually eat at lunchtime instead of 10:30.

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Anonymous wrote:Why does everyone act like riding the bus is horrible? It's amazing. We love it. We are about to become walkers and I'm bummed. Unless you are truly a close walker, it seems plenty of those families drive, which does not seem terribly appealing.

Great community feel at the bus stop. Great way to get to know other neighbors. As your kid gets older, great bit of independence for them as they go to the bus stop alone. My kids love riding with their friends. I'm able to get them out the door about 15 minutes prior to school being officially open for drop off, which is great. Because of this, I'm able to avoid AM extended day.

Spoken by someone who grew up not riding the bus.

I hated my bus rides it was lord of the flies with pleather.

Well, I had to ride a bus for MS and HS and it was fine. It was better than in ES when I had to rely on my mother to get to school, because I was always late (was too far for her to let me walk alone but not far enough to qualify for a bus, but younger siblings were always causing delays in the morning with a tantrum or blowout diaper or something like that).

Anyway, my kids’ bus has a driver and an attendant, who handles behavior. My kids don’t mind riding the bus at all and have never complained about issues. Like other PP said, we enjoy going to the stop to see them off and socialize with our neighbors. And we have some fun bus stop traditions. We make it fun, maybe our attitude toward the situation is reflected in their attitudes. My kids have never, ever complained about riding a bus or wanting to be driven by us. But they also are only 1.5 miles from the school, so not on an hour-long bus ride across the county.