IB elementary is the stupidest thing I've heard of in a long time. Make Reed a neighborhood school and redraw all the boundaries.

There are some actual good ideas in this proposal. I especially like having an immersion option in both "sections" of the County, two IB options in MS, etc. I'm not sure what the numbers are for high school students in immersion, IB, etc - but could one smaller property house all the choice kids in high school? I'd prefer creating a 4th comprehensive HS at Kenmore, but if that's not doable just throwing this idea out there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really interested to see how this impacts the south arl school boundaries now that Randolph isn't a neighborhood school. I'm still not seeing how they balance demographics.
Does anyone know what the FRL/m rate is below 50? I think the entire county is around 30%
What is the number we are trying to balance in South Arlington?

I'm assuming that Randolph will go to Drew with Drew as a neighborhood school. Those schools are really close together. I think it probably was thinking of demographics that caused them to rejigger the schools that feed to Claremont and the schools that feed to Key.

I believe Barcroft is the closest school. Perhaps they'll split the current boundary. Also there is a weird island in the Randolph boundary that goes to Hoffman Boston. I think it's been almost 20 years since they've looked that these boundaries.

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Anonymous wrote:So, I looked the power point. My kid is at Nottingham, slated to go Williamsburg. They are not in an immersion program right now. Do they now go to Kenmore, or is Williamsburg still their middle school? That is, will Williamsburg still have a non-immersion instructional program like Gunston, or will it be exclusively for immersion kids?

My understanding is that it will still be a neighborhood school (non-immersion), but that 1/2 of the immersion MS program will be co-located there.

Exactly. It would function the same way Gunston does now where immersion is a school-within-the-school.

Similarly, Swanson would add IB and function the same way TJ does -- neighborhood school with an IB program that those outside the neighborhood can opt into

Anonymous wrote:So, I looked the power point. My kid is at Nottingham, slated to go Williamsburg. They are not in an immersion program right now. Do they now go to Kenmore, or is Williamsburg still their middle school? That is, will Williamsburg still have a non-immersion instructional program like Gunston, or will it be exclusively for immersion kids?

My understanding is that it will still be a neighborhood school (non-immersion), but that 1/2 of the immersion MS program will be co-located there.

Anonymous wrote:They aren't remotely concerned with balancing demographics.

Of course they are. Obviously, that's part of the reason for turning Randolph into a choice program. Duh.

So, I looked the power point. My kid is at Nottingham, slated to go Williamsburg. They are not in an immersion program right now. Do they now go to Kenmore, or is Williamsburg still their middle school? That is, will Williamsburg still have a non-immersion instructional program like Gunston, or will it be exclusively for immersion kids?

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Anonymous wrote:Are we sure they are dissolving Campbell? Is it possible they just didn't address it? It's just staying put?

I watched the meeting and my take on it was that they just didn't think of it, not that they made a specific recommendation to get rid of it. They came up with this idea of certain streams that can be followed through from ES-MS-HS and were focused on explaining how that plays out.

And you'd be correct. It's been added back in as potential countywide option: https://www.apsva.us/post/policy-update-presented-enrollment-transfers-school-board-work-session/

I think this is all really smart. If you listen to the meeting there is a lot of talk about the policy versus the PIP (policy implementation plan). The board publishes the policy and staff figure out how to implement it. The reason we were in such a mess with the choice schools recently is that things that were supposed to temporary (i.e. specific school preferences for Claremont based on where immersions students were coming from at the time Claremont was established) stayed in effect because staff did not have the power to change them and board action is slow and requires a lot of public input. The board will dictate the overall policy and the staff can work on transition plans (i.e. I imagine families with kids already at Randolph would be given permission to stay if they want, but who knows). Having the implementation in the PIP allows the staff to make changes as needed more efficiently (as long as the policy is being followed). This is all just guessing--I have no inside knowledge, but it seems like the system will have some initial flexibility to get to this long term goal.

Anonymous wrote:Really interested to see how this impacts the south arl school boundaries now that Randolph isn't a neighborhood school. I'm still not seeing how they balance demographics.
Does anyone know what the FRL/m rate is below 50? I think the entire county is around 30%
What is the number we are trying to balance in South Arlington?

I'm assuming that Randolph will go to Drew with Drew as a neighborhood school. Those schools are really close together. I think it probably was thinking of demographics that caused them to rejigger the schools that feed to Claremont and the schools that feed to Key.

They aren't remotely concerned with balancing demographics.

Really interested to see how this impacts the south arl school boundaries now that Randolph isn't a neighborhood school. I'm still not seeing how they balance demographics.
Does anyone know what the FRL/m rate is below 50? I think the entire county is around 30%
What is the number we are trying to balance in South Arlington?

Anonymous wrote:Are we sure they are dissolving Campbell? Is it possible they just didn't address it? It's just staying put?

I watched the meeting and my take on it was that they just didn't think of it, not that they made a specific recommendation to get rid of it. They came up with this idea of certain streams that can be followed through from ES-MS-HS and were focused on explaining how that plays out.

Are we sure they are dissolving Campbell? Is it possible they just didn't address it? It's just staying put?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When is this all slated to happen?

Yes. When? I am wondering if my kids will be out of elementary or if it could affect them. Thanks.

Effective for the 2019 school year, I think.

But I can't believe they just forgot about Campbell, a school that does have a very unique focus that can't just be rolled into a neighborhood school, yet somehow ATS, which is not unique at all (except for its capped enrollment), gets preserved. Hmm . . . wonder why that is?

The Reed part can't be that early because it won't be built until 2021 or something, right?

Right. So maybe it's in phases. I think phase one would be that 2019 year, to coincide with the new ES in south Arlington, and the new MS, and the shuffling of those boundaries. If they're making Randolph a choice school and eliminating Campbell (which is stupid, BTW), and moving around the MS Montessori and Immersion classes, they have to account for that in the boundary decisions that would be effective in 2019, right?

But Reed won't be built yet, so I guess that part of the puzzle would be in a second phase? Won't that be around the time that the new HS seats come online?

Yes, I think the first phase would need to be part of the ES and MS boundary adjustments that come with the new Henry ES and Stratford MS. Another piece is the idea of making Monstessori a PreK-8 school in one building. If that happens, would make sense to do that at the same time they move the program and are adjusting MS boundaries.