It's all a never ending guessing game. Have to take one year at a time.

Another piece of advice is to always double check the schools that the agents have listed on the sales materials against the actual APS boundary map. When we were looking two years ago, we found a number of houses advertised with the wrong schools in the MRIS listing. I don't think the agents were doing anything shady-- I think it more likely that they just went by what the sellers told them and if the seller hasn't had a kid in APS for a while they might not have known that the school boundaries had changed.

Also, keep in mind that the boundaries for both middle and high school are likely to change within the next 2-5 years so unless you are within a few blocks of a particular secondary school building, the assigned school may shift.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The GIS map on the APS a website is great -- tells you current year and upcoming redistricting. We relied upon that during our n. Arl house hunt and confirmed with the county when we were serious.

Confirmed not because OMG one school is better than another, but because we just wanted to know for sure.

Op here- yeah, I'm not super worried. I don't feel we can really go wrong. Just want to what is going where. I suppose my biggest issue it that I never know where I am when I drive around. I never know which neighborhood I'm in. I grew up in a very cookie cutter suburban area. I really love that Arlington isn't like that. I'll just download a neighbor map next time before I head out. Thanks.

One suggestion. Park your car and get on a Capital Bikeshare bike -- bicycle around the area. You'll see much more and get a much better view.

Fabulous suggestion! Thanks!

Pls don't trust 14:11's very extensive list as it is wildly inaccurate in many ways. Use the boundary locators on the APS website. As PPs have mentioned, school boundaries are determined via Planning Units, not via neighborhoods so a given neighborhood may have planning units that go to two different schools.

Planning units were developed based on census data that is now quite out of date. The boundaries of the units themselves should probably at some point be revised but considering the fights that occurred during the redistricting process a year or two ago, that would likely result in a blood bath.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The GIS map on the APS a website is great -- tells you current year and upcoming redistricting. We relied upon that during our n. Arl house hunt and confirmed with the county when we were serious.

Confirmed not because OMG one school is better than another, but because we just wanted to know for sure.

Op here- yeah, I'm not super worried. I don't feel we can really go wrong. Just want to what is going where. I suppose my biggest issue it that I never know where I am when I drive around. I never know which neighborhood I'm in. I grew up in a very cookie cutter suburban area. I really love that Arlington isn't like that. I'll just download a neighbor map next time before I head out. Thanks.

One suggestion. Park your car and get on a Capital Bikeshare bike -- bicycle around the area. You'll see much more and get a much better view.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Tuckahoe families moving to McKinley aren't convinced that switch will happen. It is postponed until the completion of McK's addition, but there is a chance that the population prediction may be off again and they will stay at Tuckahoe. For reference, some of the Glebe houses in Tara-Leeway will be moving to McKinley, too.

Where are you hearing this? I'm one of the Tara-Leeway homes slated now for McKinley; I didn't realize there was a chance we'd be redistrcted back to Tuckahoe...again.

Just some Tuckahoe families. They don't trust that this chapter is closed.

Anonymous wrote:The Tuckahoe families moving to McKinley aren't convinced that switch will happen. It is postponed until the completion of McK's addition, but there is a chance that the population prediction may be off again and they will stay at Tuckahoe. For reference, some of the Glebe houses in Tara-Leeway will be moving to McKinley, too.

Where are you hearing this? I'm one of the Tara-Leeway homes slated now for McKinley; I didn't realize there was a chance we'd be redistrcted back to Tuckahoe...again.

The Tuckahoe families moving to McKinley aren't convinced that switch will happen. It is postponed until the completion of McK's addition, but there is a chance that the population prediction may be off again and they will stay at Tuckahoe. For reference, some of the Glebe houses in Tara-Leeway will be moving to McKinley, too.

I posted the thing about Discovery - I had in my spreadsheet that some Taylor kids would go to Discovery. For some reason I thought that had changed and Discovery would pull some kids from Tuckahoe. I haven't really been keeping up since it doesn't affect us. (we would be slated for Discovery but we're at ATS.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:14:17 here - Longbranch is located in North Arlington, but kids attend from both North and South Arlington.
You'll notice that some of the elementary schools split-feed into more than one middle school and/or high school. So you'll have Planning Unit 1, 2, 3 and 4 going to Glebe. But planning units 1 and 2 will go to Williamsburg and Yorktown and planning units 3 and 4 will go to Swanson and Washington-Lee.

The new Elementary (Discovery) will pull kids from Nottingham, Jameston and Tuckahoe (not Taylor) and it will have Key as its immersion option.

Discovery actually does not pull from Tuckahoe. Some Tuckahoe students will go to Nottingham next year and McKinley the year after.

And there are a few kids from Taylor going to Discovery.

Anonymous wrote:14:17 here - Longbranch is located in North Arlington, but kids attend from both North and South Arlington.
You'll notice that some of the elementary schools split-feed into more than one middle school and/or high school. So you'll have Planning Unit 1, 2, 3 and 4 going to Glebe. But planning units 1 and 2 will go to Williamsburg and Yorktown and planning units 3 and 4 will go to Swanson and Washington-Lee.

The new Elementary (Discovery) will pull kids from Nottingham, Jameston and Tuckahoe (not Taylor) and it will have Key as its immersion option.

Discovery actually does not pull from Tuckahoe. Some Tuckahoe students will go to Nottingham next year and McKinley the year after.