Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in barcroft and send my kid to a choice school along with every single family on my street. Families go choice for 3 reasons, in this order:

Low performing neighborhood school
Year round schedule is a close second
Would choice out regardless of location bc of attraction to program, such as immersion.

If the school had a regular schedule, that would help a lot. More UMC in the school wound then maybe make a dent in reason number 1. Done.

I don't think every family would order these priorities the same way, but I do agree with your premise. And good point that if you address reason #2 you may in effect address reason #1 as well. But I get the sense APS is committed to keeping one school year-round. I know they think it helps families, but only to the extent ALL your kids are in elementary school. If you have different aged kids on different timelines, it makes planning vacations, after school care, etc a nightmare.

Why would they be committed to keeping only ONE school on this schedule of it's a neighborhood school? It's only "helping" those families who happen to live in the boundary. If it's such a benefit, it should be an option program and then kids from anywhere in the County can attend. And give the residents who DON'T want a different calendar a guaranteed neighborhood school with transportation, not a transfer, just like all the other tax payers.

Anonymous wrote:I live in barcroft and send my kid to a choice school along with every single family on my street. Families go choice for 3 reasons, in this order:

Low performing neighborhood school
Year round schedule is a close second
Would choice out regardless of location bc of attraction to program, such as immersion.

If the school had a regular schedule, that would help a lot. More UMC in the school wound then maybe make a dent in reason number 1. Done.

I don't think every family would order these priorities the same way, but I do agree with your premise. And good point that if you address reason #2 you may in effect address reason #1 as well. But I get the sense APS is committed to keeping one school year-round. I know they think it helps families, but only to the extent ALL your kids are in elementary school. If you have different aged kids on different timelines, it makes planning vacations, after school care, etc a nightmare.

I live in Alcova Heights and while we'd like Barcroft to get better, we'd still apply to every choice program just because schools with self-selecting populations have better schools. If we couldn't worm our way into a more affluent school, that's what we'd do. If there was a way to improve Barcroft drastically before my kiddos go, that would be great. At this point, I just want it to be good enough to be a decent fall back.

I live in barcroft and send my kid to a choice school along with every single family on my street. Families go choice for 3 reasons, in this order:

Low performing neighborhood school
Year round schedule is a close second
Would choice out regardless of location bc of attraction to program, such as immersion.

If the school had a regular schedule, that would help a lot. More UMC in the school wound then maybe make a dent in reason number 1. Done.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think one of the sad things in these conversations that no matter that options are being offered we are really just talking about diluting the effect of lower income/ESOL/at risk kids scores on the overall scoring of the school. None of these suggestions have been made on how to improve education for these kids. If the kids at Randolph were suddenly moved to Tuckahoe and the kids from Tuckahoe were moved to Randolph the scores would just flip. The former Randolph kids wouldn't start magically performing better.

Is there any realistic situation or idea to better address the educational needs of these kids. I am not saying I have any real ideas, just wondering if anyone else does.

You are not correct.

Majority poor schools impact every student’s perfornance.
So, the 6 middle class kids sitting in a room of 20 very poor children? Their scores go down. I know people don’t want to hear that, but it’s reflected on the SOLS at Randolph.
If you flip that script and have 6 poor children in a room of 20? All kids do better.
So switching schools doesn’t help, but integrating actually does.
The very best think for the extremely immigrant families? Put them in majority middle class schools.,
But nobody wants that. Not the uneducated poor families. Not the highly educated wealthy families.

Oh you’re middle class and are ok with it? Cool. Move to Fairfax.

So the only answer to solving the problem is to mix up schools. I am fine with that, but even if you look high performing schools there is still an achievement gap. It helps, but it doesn't solve the problem. For what it is worth, I am a S. Arlington parent with a kid in a choice school, school has a good economic mix IMO, but disadvantage kids still lag behind (by a lot). So not as simple as mixing things up.

I just feel that there should be some other option out there that really truly helps these kids, but maybe I am wrong.

There is. Carlin Springs has it. It's called community schools and from as near as I can tell, it's basically a suite of wraparound social services that use the school as the delivery site. Not sure why Randolph doesn't get the same. Costs too much I guess.

Really yawning achievement gaps are a problem, but at some point, a public elementary school can only do so much. UMC families have been spending more and more on their children's enrichment nationally over the last several decades. A lot of high schoolers don't even have summer jobs anymore; they've better things to do than guard a pool or wait tables ... although the test scores offer some objective yardstick, I guess, the gap is more a case of the well to do pulling up and away in performance using private resources like preschool, test prep and tutors as it is poor children falling behind. Most of all, its pre kindergarten enrichment. Unless you get into a means tested preschool program, you'd better have a lot of dough. Private preschool is another mortgage, but it works. Kids who go to preschool are prepared to succeed in kindergarten and their advantage compounds as they get older.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think one of the sad things in these conversations that no matter that options are being offered we are really just talking about diluting the effect of lower income/ESOL/at risk kids scores on the overall scoring of the school. None of these suggestions have been made on how to improve education for these kids. If the kids at Randolph were suddenly moved to Tuckahoe and the kids from Tuckahoe were moved to Randolph the scores would just flip. The former Randolph kids wouldn't start magically performing better.

Is there any realistic situation or idea to better address the educational needs of these kids. I am not saying I have any real ideas, just wondering if anyone else does.

You are not correct.

Majority poor schools impact every student’s perfornance.
So, the 6 middle class kids sitting in a room of 20 very poor children? Their scores go down. I know people don’t want to hear that, but it’s reflected on the SOLS at Randolph.
If you flip that script and have 6 poor children in a room of 20? All kids do better.
So switching schools doesn’t help, but integrating actually does.
The very best think for the extremely immigrant families? Put them in majority middle class schools.,
But nobody wants that. Not the uneducated poor families. Not the highly educated wealthy families.

Oh you’re middle class and are ok with it? Cool. Move to Fairfax.

So the only answer to solving the problem is to mix up schools. I am fine with that, but even if you look high performing schools there is still an achievement gap. It helps, but it doesn't solve the problem. For what it is worth, I am a S. Arlington parent with a kid in a choice school, school has a good economic mix IMO, but disadvantage kids still lag behind (by a lot). So not as simple as mixing things up.

I just feel that there should be some other option out there that really truly helps these kids, but maybe I am wrong.

Birth control

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think one of the sad things in these conversations that no matter that options are being offered we are really just talking about diluting the effect of lower income/ESOL/at risk kids scores on the overall scoring of the school. None of these suggestions have been made on how to improve education for these kids. If the kids at Randolph were suddenly moved to Tuckahoe and the kids from Tuckahoe were moved to Randolph the scores would just flip. The former Randolph kids wouldn't start magically performing better.

Is there any realistic situation or idea to better address the educational needs of these kids. I am not saying I have any real ideas, just wondering if anyone else does.

You are not correct.

Majority poor schools impact every student’s perfornance.
So, the 6 middle class kids sitting in a room of 20 very poor children? Their scores go down. I know people don’t want to hear that, but it’s reflected on the SOLS at Randolph.
If you flip that script and have 6 poor children in a room of 20? All kids do better.
So switching schools doesn’t help, but integrating actually does.
The very best think for the extremely immigrant families? Put them in majority middle class schools.,
But nobody wants that. Not the uneducated poor families. Not the highly educated wealthy families.

Oh you’re middle class and are ok with it? Cool. Move to Fairfax.

So the only answer to solving the problem is to mix up schools. I am fine with that, but even if you look high performing schools there is still an achievement gap. It helps, but it doesn't solve the problem. For what it is worth, I am a S. Arlington parent with a kid in a choice school, school has a good economic mix IMO, but disadvantage kids still lag behind (by a lot). So not as simple as mixing things up.

I just feel that there should be some other option out there that really truly helps these kids, but maybe I am wrong.

Anonymous wrote:I think one of the sad things in these conversations that no matter that options are being offered we are really just talking about diluting the effect of lower income/ESOL/at risk kids scores on the overall scoring of the school. None of these suggestions have been made on how to improve education for these kids. If the kids at Randolph were suddenly moved to Tuckahoe and the kids from Tuckahoe were moved to Randolph the scores would just flip. The former Randolph kids wouldn't start magically performing better.

Is there any realistic situation or idea to better address the educational needs of these kids. I am not saying I have any real ideas, just wondering if anyone else does.

You are not correct.

Majority poor schools impact every student’s perfornance.
So, the 6 middle class kids sitting in a room of 20 very poor children? Their scores go down. I know people don’t want to hear that, but it’s reflected on the SOLS at Randolph.
If you flip that script and have 6 poor children in a room of 20? All kids do better.
So switching schools doesn’t help, but integrating actually does.
The very best think for the extremely immigrant families? Put them in majority middle class schools.,
But nobody wants that. Not the uneducated poor families. Not the highly educated wealthy families.

Oh you’re middle class and are ok with it? Cool. Move to Fairfax.

I think one of the sad things in these conversations that no matter that options are being offered we are really just talking about diluting the effect of lower income/ESOL/at risk kids scores on the overall scoring of the school. None of these suggestions have been made on how to improve education for these kids. If the kids at Randolph were suddenly moved to Tuckahoe and the kids from Tuckahoe were moved to Randolph the scores would just flip. The former Randolph kids wouldn't start magically performing better.

Is there any realistic situation or idea to better address the educational needs of these kids. I am not saying I have any real ideas, just wondering if anyone else does.

Anonymous wrote:I enjoy the Barcroft commenters. Their rosy outlook is a nice change of pace.
How many apts are zoned to that school compared to sfh’s? They might build enough momentum.

Thanks! Look, this year's fr/l rate is 59%, down from the all-time high of 65% in 2014. I have no idea what will happen with boundaries, but assuming Barcroft is left largely intact, the MC kids are there to have a 50-50 balance. But you have to get their parents to choose the neighborhood school. If their kids enroll, there is no reason the school can't balance on its own, without any gimmicks. But I personally think that the calendar has to change if it's going be attractive to the majority of MC families. Even if current MC families like it (and many of them do), there are just too many who don't like it or can't make it work because of family schedules. If it's a matter of providing year-round care for disadvantaged kids, there are schools that would benefit more than Barcroft, and I don't hear anyone talking about expanding the year-round calendar to other schools like Carlin Springs and Randolph. I think this calendar is going to go away at some point as all these gimmicks outside of defined option programs are being phased out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:.

The thing is: if you thought you were staying at Henry, would you still be advocating for this? Or would you be mad that parents who didn't buy into Henry are taking away your "good" neighborhood school? If you're waiting for the Henry parents, or even Oakridge parents, who are in effective walk zones to agree to a limited choice model in south Arlington, you're going to be waiting for a long time. And if you're waiting for north Arlington to get on board, well, they gave their two cents last year when the K-12 vision had a similar proposal of limited choice mixed in with neighborhood schools with the county divided E/W. You would not even believe the things that were said if I told you. Maybe in another generation. Or maybe not.

Agree. There is no getting around the fact that 47 percent of south Arlington elementary students receive free or reduced lunch, and that's including option schools. There's zero incentive for parents at a school under 47 to push for more diversity - Claremont, Henry and Oakridge are the only ones and in fact probably going to come out of the redistricting with even lower free/reduced meal percentages.

I can see how FARMs numbers might go down at Claremont & Henry, with them becoming county-wide choice schools with no n'hood or boundary preference. But wouldn't some of the Oakridge students end up at Drew, and vice versa?

Nobody is going from Drew to Oakridge. 2/3 of the school is Montessori and leaving for the Henry building. That will leave behind the regular graded program which is not enough to fill the school without a lot of new students from outside the current boundary. Oakridge is overcrowded. The most likely parts of Oakridge to be rezoned Drew are arna valley and long branch creek, though both are actually in the current Oakridge walkzone. They're not exactly poor but they're no aurora highlands.

Anonymous wrote:I think a PP may have a point - I suspect the year-round school does not appeal to many parents. I know that when I was looking at houses, I didn't want to be zoned for Barcroft because of it. I didn't have the confidence that the school holiday camps would be there when I needed them, vs. the normal 10-week summer schedule at other schools.

I probably would have considered Barcroft if not for that. I had heard good things from a friend who taught there.

Honestly, we're at an option school because of it, just like a lot of parents in our neighborhood. When we and many of our neighbors moved here, you could go to Barrett without applying for a transfer and get a bus. That's what a number of parents who didn't want year-round did and what most of us expected to do. As soon as that went away, the option schools became the alternative for parents looking for a traditional calendar. The families who are already in option schools aren't coming back if they change the calendar, but new families with younger kids who aren't even in school yet might consider it. Judging by the number of strollers I've seen out and about during the last few days of nice weather, this may be a significant number.

I enjoy the Barcroft commenters. Their rosy outlook is a nice change of pace.
How many apts are zoned to that school compared to sfh’s? They might build enough momentum.

I think a PP may have a point - I suspect the year-round school does not appeal to many parents. I know that when I was looking at houses, I didn't want to be zoned for Barcroft because of it. I didn't have the confidence that the school holiday camps would be there when I needed them, vs. the normal 10-week summer schedule at other schools.

I probably would have considered Barcroft if not for that. I had heard good things from a friend who taught there.

Yet another delusional Barcroft parent.
I’m sorry your neighborhood school got tanked.
Please join us in reality.
You will never get close to 50-50 at that school.
Neither will Randolph.
Your schools could team ( possibly with Drew as well) up and have a fighting chance of having a school with a good mix.