Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People prefer to have their kids as close to home as possible because it makes life easier, especially since there are no aftercare opportunities available in most neighborhoods other than APS extended day. When you move kids to more distant schools in a congested county, you are adding a significant round trip commute to the day in the race for a 6pm pickup. To the person who will helpfully point out that school is not childcare and kids can ride the bus, you are essentially telling people to just hire a part time nanny or quit their job if they can't handle the logistics, which is a "let them eat cake" kind of solution.

I've often wondered about this notion that sending kids to a slightly further afield school makes it hard for working parents to get to extended day pick up by 6 p.m. Aren't most parents picking up from extended day coming from work rather than home? If that's the case, the "further afield" school may be no less convenient to get to than the closest neighborhood school. Note that I'm not talking about a county wide busing program here where kids from far south Arlington are sent to schools in the furthest reaches of north Arlington. I'm talking about kids riding a bus to a school 2.5 miles away rather than one 1.5 miles away. I grant that the drive from school to home, after extended day, would be a little bit longer. But should that marginal inconvenience really be an important factor in redrawing boundaries? I think not. Full disclosure, though, I am an option school parent. So perhaps I automatically discount small inconveniences in school transportation.

Moving kids one mile further away by car isn't going to do a heck of a lot for socioeconomic diversity in our schools. If you want to make a meaningful difference, you're looking at differentials of more like 4+ miles in many cases, which can easily be 25+ minutes by car in rush hour, and over an hour if you take mass transit.

You're an option school parent because the additional distance isn't a meaningful burden for you for whatever reason. Many people don't even apply for option schools because the burden is more than they can manage.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People prefer to have their kids as close to home as possible because it makes life easier, especially since there are no aftercare opportunities available in most neighborhoods other than APS extended day. When you move kids to more distant schools in a congested county, you are adding a significant round trip commute to the day in the race for a 6pm pickup. To the person who will helpfully point out that school is not childcare and kids can ride the bus, you are essentially telling people to just hire a part time nanny or quit their job if they can't handle the logistics, which is a "let them eat cake" kind of solution.

I've often wondered about this notion that sending kids to a slightly further afield school makes it hard for working parents to get to extended day pick up by 6 p.m. Aren't most parents picking up from extended day coming from work rather than home? If that's the case, the "further afield" school may be no less convenient to get to than the closest neighborhood school. Note that I'm not talking about a county wide busing program here where kids from far south Arlington are sent to schools in the furthest reaches of north Arlington. I'm talking about kids riding a bus to a school 2.5 miles away rather than one 1.5 miles away. I grant that the drive from school to home, after extended day, would be a little bit longer. But should that marginal inconvenience really be an important factor in redrawing boundaries? I think not. Full disclosure, though, I am an option school parent. So perhaps I automatically discount small inconveniences in school transportation.

Anonymous wrote:People prefer to have their kids as close to home as possible because it makes life easier, especially since there are no aftercare opportunities available in most neighborhoods other than APS extended day. When you move kids to more distant schools in a congested county, you are adding a significant round trip commute to the day in the race for a 6pm pickup. To the person who will helpfully point out that school is not childcare and kids can ride the bus, you are essentially telling people to just hire a part time nanny or quit their job if they can't handle the logistics, which is a "let them eat cake" kind of solution.

Anonymous wrote:People prefer to have their kids as close to home as possible because it makes life easier, especially since there are no aftercare opportunities available in most neighborhoods other than APS extended day. When you move kids to more distant schools in a congested county, you are adding a significant round trip commute to the day in the race for a 6pm pickup. To the person who will helpfully point out that school is not childcare and kids can ride the bus, you are essentially telling people to just hire a part time nanny or quit their job if they can't handle the logistics, which is a "let them eat cake" kind of solution.

Anonymous wrote:People prefer to have their kids as close to home as possible because it makes life easier, especially since there are no aftercare opportunities available in most neighborhoods other than APS extended day. When you move kids to more distant schools in a congested county, you are adding a significant round trip commute to the day in the race for a 6pm pickup. To the person who will helpfully point out that school is not childcare and kids can ride the bus, you are essentially telling people to just hire a part time nanny or quit their job if they can't handle the logistics, which is a "let them eat cake" kind of solution.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh, you all. Find the middle ground. I agree that we should have public schools people want to go to. I agree in theory that option schools could be a tool to help with that. But it's also 100% clear that option schools in Arlington now just serve to give people an out from an "undesirable" neighborhood school.

It was eye-opening last year to see Drew's FARM rate go up 20% (or whatever) when they showed actual attendance vs. boundaries.

Plus the busing costs a ton. Plus when you have schools with super high opt out rates its impossible to predict attendance with high confidence. These are real problems, and large ones.

I think if we dumped option schools we probably could get all schools to under 50% FARMs. And that would be a really good thing for everyone. You might have to draw some weird boundaries, but at least you could, because you could predict where the kids actually were.

More importantly, it would make everyone invested in solving this. Will some people go private? Yes. And that's fine. But it won't be everyone.

And before you complain about others being "entitled" to the school they "paid for" think about how you are coming across as being "entitled" to anything other than a neighborhood school. Guess what? You aren't entitled to your option school any more than anyone else is entitled to go to their closest school.

Not without really “creative” boundaries. Drew’s actual fr/l rate hasn’t been publicized, but there was never a 20 point swing from the attendance zone vs. actually enrolled, it was 9 (66% vs. 57%).

The only school that moved down significantly and to 50/50 was Barcroft, and only with Alcova Heights included and with Gilliam Place going to Fleet; Randolph was about a 5% difference, Carlin Springs would be less. Barcroft is the outlier here.

The option schools aren’t making it any hard to draw economically balanced boundaries. Our County Board made it impossible. APS can’t draw anything approaching a neighborhood boundary and wind up with all schools in South Arlington at 50%. And it doesn’t matter because this isn’t what’s happening anyway. They aren’t going to do squat about segregation, so plan accordingly.

I had to go look it up, but yes. The very first proposal for Drew was 83% poverty (https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/School-Level-Data-Table-for-Existing-and-Proposed-Boundaries-Final.pdf). They got that by taking the estimated number of poor students/how many they thought would enroll based on existing opt-out rates. There was such an uproar after that they changed how they approached it. The second proposal for Drew was 60% poverty (https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/School-Level-Data-Table-Revised-October-2018.pdf). They got that by taking the estimated number of poor students/how many actually live in the attendance zone. In other words, the non-opt-out demographics of Drew were 23% better.

APS has not yet released the 2019 FARMs numbers so who knows what it actually is today.

You can't have it both ways. If APS really want to solve the FARMs rate at Drew they would have made it a full Option school. BUT the community strongly didn't want that so they made it neighborhood school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is “not an APS parent” even chiming in?

Because I find the discussion interesting.

I stated that I am not in APS because I think it's polite.

I won't be giving any opinions on what your boundaries should look like or what neighborhood needs to get screwed over to teach them a lesson, what schools are walkable or any of that. Not my business. Boundaries and new schools are a big topic across NOVA and common themes are popping up. The dynamics bear watching.

Your comments on racial and SES diversity in Arlington are ignorant and uniformed.

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Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

I’m totally for that but you’ll get people who I g about costs and not walking. Which is BS; really they just want a “high performing” (read: uniformly wealthy) schools to keep property values up. That’s essentially what all civic activity in Arlington ultimately is, property value maintenance. Just like racial covenants that most NA neighborhoods had were.

Bullsh1t. So you believe it when poor people want proximity but you don’t when rich people do?

Most parents just want a neighborhood school that is close to their home. Easy to get there and easy to make nearby friends.

Enough with your false cries of racism. You will lose your supporters.

Hit a nerve I see.

Yes. So tired of you crying wolf. Just stop. It’s ignorant and disrespectful. It’s a fast way for you to lose supporters.

I think I offended you when I pointed out your picturesque neighborhood has a racist past that is at the heart of current debates on school boundaries. People cried localism back in the early 1970s, too; that’s why the kids in green valley got busted out instead of the kids in your neighborhood being bused in.

And you would be wrong about.

I’m offended at your attack on other people based on your own ignorance and biases.

What does that even mean?

^^^^^^ Willful ignorance and unfounded accusations is what got us Trump

Using vague generalities and bringing Trump into this? I think you’re offended because I called into question your liberal bona fides and caused you to think for the first time probably, that the history of Arlington housing means that wanting a “walkable school” is not a politically neutral position. It’s the baggage of history and it’s not your “fault” but it’s there just the same.

There are multiple people posting.

Your ignorance and accusations are offensive - they aren’t going to win you any friends. In fact, you will drive away supporters.

And VA is full of racist assholes. You need all of the friends you can get.

Just another phony liberal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

I’m totally for that but you’ll get people who I g about costs and not walking. Which is BS; really they just want a “high performing” (read: uniformly wealthy) schools to keep property values up. That’s essentially what all civic activity in Arlington ultimately is, property value maintenance. Just like racial covenants that most NA neighborhoods had were.

Bullsh1t. So you believe it when poor people want proximity but you don’t when rich people do?

Most parents just want a neighborhood school that is close to their home. Easy to get there and easy to make nearby friends.

Enough with your false cries of racism. You will lose your supporters.

Hit a nerve I see.

Yes. So tired of you crying wolf. Just stop. It’s ignorant and disrespectful. It’s a fast way for you to lose supporters.

I think I offended you when I pointed out your picturesque neighborhood has a racist past that is at the heart of current debates on school boundaries. People cried localism back in the early 1970s, too; that’s why the kids in green valley got busted out instead of the kids in your neighborhood being bused in.

And you would be wrong about.

I’m offended at your attack on other people based on your own ignorance and biases.

What does that even mean?

^^^^^^ Willful ignorance and unfounded accusations is what got us Trump

Using vague generalities and bringing Trump into this? I think you’re offended because I called into question your liberal bona fides and caused you to think for the first time probably, that the history of Arlington housing means that wanting a “walkable school” is not a politically neutral position. It’s the baggage of history and it’s not your “fault” but it’s there just the same.

There are multiple people posting.

Your ignorance and accusations are offensive - they aren’t going to win you any friends. In fact, you will drive away supporters.

And VA is full of racist assholes. You need all of the friends you can get.

Just another phony liberal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

I’m totally for that but you’ll get people who I g about costs and not walking. Which is BS; really they just want a “high performing” (read: uniformly wealthy) schools to keep property values up. That’s essentially what all civic activity in Arlington ultimately is, property value maintenance. Just like racial covenants that most NA neighborhoods had were.

Bullsh1t. So you believe it when poor people want proximity but you don’t when rich people do?

Most parents just want a neighborhood school that is close to their home. Easy to get there and easy to make nearby friends.

Enough with your false cries of racism. You will lose your supporters.

Hit a nerve I see.

Yes. So tired of you crying wolf. Just stop. It’s ignorant and disrespectful. It’s a fast way for you to lose supporters.

I think I offended you when I pointed out your picturesque neighborhood has a racist past that is at the heart of current debates on school boundaries. People cried localism back in the early 1970s, too; that’s why the kids in green valley got busted out instead of the kids in your neighborhood being bused in.

And you would be wrong about.

I’m offended at your attack on other people based on your own ignorance and biases.

What does that even mean?

^^^^^^ Willful ignorance and unfounded accusations is what got us Trump

Using vague generalities and bringing Trump into this? I think you’re offended because I called into question your liberal bona fides and caused you to think for the first time probably, that the history of Arlington housing means that wanting a “walkable school” is not a politically neutral position. It’s the baggage of history and it’s not your “fault” but it’s there just the same.

There are multiple people posting.

Your ignorance and accusations are offensive - they aren’t going to win you any friends. In fact, you will drive away supporters.

And VA is full of racist assholes. You need all of the friends you can get.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we take option schools away, the UMC white families will not just automatically see the light, enroll in Barcroft and Randolph and magically balance the FARMS rates. They will move to private or move out of the neighborhood altogether to a zone with a "better" school.

People who think Arlington is the only place with this problem and that it's caused by option schools are terribly naive. This issue has existed for decades nationwide. No one has solved it. Busing was unfortunately a sad failure that led to white flight and arguably even weaker public schools due to the loss of those families from the system.

Yeah no one has solved this problem. You can't have diverse neighborhood schools without diverse neighborhoods.

Then let go of neighborhood schools and implement a select-choice districtwide system.

I’m totally for that but you’ll get people who I g about costs and not walking. Which is BS; really they just want a “high performing” (read: uniformly wealthy) schools to keep property values up. That’s essentially what all civic activity in Arlington ultimately is, property value maintenance. Just like racial covenants that most NA neighborhoods had were.

Bullsh1t. So you believe it when poor people want proximity but you don’t when rich people do?

Most parents just want a neighborhood school that is close to their home. Easy to get there and easy to make nearby friends.

Enough with your false cries of racism. You will lose your supporters.

Hit a nerve I see.

Yes. So tired of you crying wolf. Just stop. It’s ignorant and disrespectful. It’s a fast way for you to lose supporters.

I think I offended you when I pointed out your picturesque neighborhood has a racist past that is at the heart of current debates on school boundaries. People cried localism back in the early 1970s, too; that’s why the kids in green valley got busted out instead of the kids in your neighborhood being bused in.

And you would be wrong about.

I’m offended at your attack on other people based on your own ignorance and biases.

What does that even mean?

^^^^^^ Willful ignorance and unfounded accusations is what got us Trump

Using vague generalities and bringing Trump into this? I think you’re offended because I called into question your liberal bona fides and caused you to think for the first time probably, that the history of Arlington housing means that wanting a “walkable school” is not a politically neutral position. It’s the baggage of history and it’s not your “fault” but it’s there just the same.