Anonymous wrote:Has anyone looked at the Sept 30 enrollment numbers as compared to the capacity? Is Gunston over 100% this year?

Anonymous wrote:^Re above post. Also it appears the FCPS boundary changes are equity focused and directed by school board members who want to see a more even demographic distribution among schools, especially high schools. There are no plans for that in APS.

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Anonymous wrote:All this constant redrawing makes planning for future fairly difficult in my view. Currently we are districted for Taylor but very close to the border to Glebe, ASFS (kind of) and to a much much lesser extent Discovery. Kids not at that age yet but would be very much ok with either Taylor or Glebe (at least based on current ratings) but very much hoping it won't be either ASFS or Discovery.

Middle School too far away to even think about seriously but currently 5m walk from Hamm so would hope that whatever they have planned now (semms like they want to move kids who are for Hamm elsewhere) wouldn't affect our case but who knows.

HS none seem particularly great (Washington Liberty doesn't) but who knows how good/bad the HS schools in area will be in the next 15-20 years. Some suggestions I have seen seems to state that Taylor and Hamm for ES/MS is good to go but then Private for HS.

Welcome to Arlington. Our planning unit was in nearly every boundary change proposal from elem through HS. It's never ending and they can never get it right so it's always back to the drawing board. They're all in college or private now because we got tired of it.

This. The annual drama from Planning (close this, move that) sucks all the oxygen from real and more pressing educational priorities.

Yep; like fundamental education.

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Anonymous wrote:All this constant redrawing makes planning for future fairly difficult in my view. Currently we are districted for Taylor but very close to the border to Glebe, ASFS (kind of) and to a much much lesser extent Discovery. Kids not at that age yet but would be very much ok with either Taylor or Glebe (at least based on current ratings) but very much hoping it won't be either ASFS or Discovery.

Middle School too far away to even think about seriously but currently 5m walk from Hamm so would hope that whatever they have planned now (semms like they want to move kids who are for Hamm elsewhere) wouldn't affect our case but who knows.

HS none seem particularly great (Washington Liberty doesn't) but who knows how good/bad the HS schools in area will be in the next 15-20 years. Some suggestions I have seen seems to state that Taylor and Hamm for ES/MS is good to go but then Private for HS.

Welcome to Arlington. Our planning unit was in nearly every boundary change proposal from elem through HS. It's never ending and they can never get it right so it's always back to the drawing board. They're all in college or private now because we got tired of it.

This. The annual drama from Planning (close this, move that) sucks all the oxygen from real and more pressing educational priorities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this constant redrawing makes planning for future fairly difficult in my view. Currently we are districted for Taylor but very close to the border to Glebe, ASFS (kind of) and to a much much lesser extent Discovery. Kids not at that age yet but would be very much ok with either Taylor or Glebe (at least based on current ratings) but very much hoping it won't be either ASFS or Discovery.

Middle School too far away to even think about seriously but currently 5m walk from Hamm so would hope that whatever they have planned now (semms like they want to move kids who are for Hamm elsewhere) wouldn't affect our case but who knows.

HS none seem particularly great (Washington Liberty doesn't) but who knows how good/bad the HS schools in area will be in the next 15-20 years. Some suggestions I have seen seems to state that Taylor and Hamm for ES/MS is good to go but then Private for HS.

I haven’t heard anything bad about Washington-Liberty, and postings on this forum seem generally positive. College acceptance outcomes are good and AP/IB academic standards are high. The facilities are nice. Students transfer in for IB from the other high schools. Athletics teams are somewhat easier to make the cut (vs the other Arlington high schools.)

The biggest problem with WL is they are expanding it to 3000 students.

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Anonymous wrote:All this constant redrawing makes planning for future fairly difficult in my view. Currently we are districted for Taylor but very close to the border to Glebe, ASFS (kind of) and to a much much lesser extent Discovery. Kids not at that age yet but would be very much ok with either Taylor or Glebe (at least based on current ratings) but very much hoping it won't be either ASFS or Discovery.

Middle School too far away to even think about seriously but currently 5m walk from Hamm so would hope that whatever they have planned now (semms like they want to move kids who are for Hamm elsewhere) wouldn't affect our case but who knows.

HS none seem particularly great (Washington Liberty doesn't) but who knows how good/bad the HS schools in area will be in the next 15-20 years. Some suggestions I have seen seems to state that Taylor and Hamm for ES/MS is good to go but then Private for HS.

I haven’t heard anything bad about Washington-Liberty, and postings on this forum seem generally positive. College acceptance outcomes are good and AP/IB academic standards are high. The facilities are nice. Students transfer in for IB from the other high schools. Athletics teams are somewhat easier to make the cut (vs the other Arlington high schools.)

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Anonymous wrote:Elementary and middle, I’ve found some info on the middle school proposals but nothing on elementary, nor on the grandfathering policy.

In the past I think they've let 5th graders stay put for their last year.

But that makes no sense because the kids would move as a group together.

In most boundary changes, there are only 50-70 kids moving period— equates out to about ten kids per grade. As a fifth grader that is very tough socially, especially since the middle school boundaries aren’t necessarily aligned. You could end up essentially switching friend groups twice in a two year period. That sucks.

I find it completely baffling that APS splits elementary schools between middle schools, AND splits middle schools between high schools. That is really rough on the kids and seems like poor planning on APS' side.

Not to be snark, but are you new to the area or school system? This is age old...you could have read about it here on DCUM a decade ago. It's a function of fixed infrastructure, i.e., school buildings and roads, and wildly swinging demographics that shifted dramatically in both directions this century already. This ain't Loudoun where the frontier of civilization keeps expanding and you just plop down a new building when needed.

I'm not new to the area but I've only been in the school system about 5 years. That said, every other school system a family member is in, and the ones I grew up in, all fed multiple ES' to one MS, multiple MS' to one HS. Lots of places besides Louden can figure this out.

FWIW, my now-rising 9th grader went to an elementary school that split between two middle schools. A majority of DC’s friends went to one middle school; DC went to another. It wound up working well; even though DC is shy, they made plenty of new friends in middle school and even kept in touch with close friends who went to the other middle school. I know everyone is different, but I sometimes think parents make bigger deals out of these types of things than kids do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this constant redrawing makes planning for future fairly difficult in my view. Currently we are districted for Taylor but very close to the border to Glebe, ASFS (kind of) and to a much much lesser extent Discovery. Kids not at that age yet but would be very much ok with either Taylor or Glebe (at least based on current ratings) but very much hoping it won't be either ASFS or Discovery.

Middle School too far away to even think about seriously but currently 5m walk from Hamm so would hope that whatever they have planned now (semms like they want to move kids who are for Hamm elsewhere) wouldn't affect our case but who knows.

HS none seem particularly great (Washington Liberty doesn't) but who knows how good/bad the HS schools in area will be in the next 15-20 years. Some suggestions I have seen seems to state that Taylor and Hamm for ES/MS is good to go but then Private for HS.

Welcome to Arlington. Our planning unit was in nearly every boundary change proposal from elem through HS. It's never ending and they can never get it right so it's always back to the drawing board. They're all in college or private now because we got tired of it.

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Anonymous wrote:Elementary and middle, I’ve found some info on the middle school proposals but nothing on elementary, nor on the grandfathering policy.

In the past I think they've let 5th graders stay put for their last year.

But that makes no sense because the kids would move as a group together.

In most boundary changes, there are only 50-70 kids moving period— equates out to about ten kids per grade. As a fifth grader that is very tough socially, especially since the middle school boundaries aren’t necessarily aligned. You could end up essentially switching friend groups twice in a two year period. That sucks.

I find it completely baffling that APS splits elementary schools between middle schools, AND splits middle schools between high schools. That is really rough on the kids and seems like poor planning on APS' side.

Not to be snark, but are you new to the area or school system? This is age old...you could have read about it here on DCUM a decade ago. It's a function of fixed infrastructure, i.e., school buildings and roads, and wildly swinging demographics that shifted dramatically in both directions this century already. This ain't Loudoun where the frontier of civilization keeps expanding and you just plop down a new building when needed.

I'm not new to the area but I've only been in the school system about 5 years. That said, every other school system a family member is in, and the ones I grew up in, all fed multiple ES' to one MS, multiple MS' to one HS. Lots of places besides Louden can figure this out.

It’s the density here. They could only align better if they valued other factors less.