Barcroft apartments is a huge complex. Roughly 2/3 go to Randolph and 1/3 to Barcroft. Until this year Barcroft students could opt into Randolph due to the Barcroft schedule, but not anymore.

Also most of Douglas Park goes to TJ.

Randolph is currently the only IB elementary school in the county.

I can understand trying to do alignment based on feeder patterns and on demographic diversity but no one “deserves” IB just because they had it in elementary or middle school. Each level of the IB program (primary years, middle and high school/diploma) is designed to work independently and is worthy and valuable on its own.

Anonymous wrote:It would make sense to try to align the TJ neighborhoods to WL so that kids can continue IB and for general alignment issues. But if they can't move all 3 neighborhoods (Alcova, AH, Penrose) due to numbers then its gonna be tough for whoever gets left behind.

But including Alcova, without Barcroft, doesn’t make sense since it goes Barcroft ES. That’s why Barcroft/Alcova are linked. Otherwise you leave the kids from Barcroft ES going to a different MS than their ES cohorts and then a different HS than their MS cohorts, too.

They could make this simple and just move back the planning units they moved in the last boundary process.

Anonymous wrote:It would make sense to try to align the TJ neighborhoods to WL so that kids can continue IB and for general alignment issues. But if they can't move all 3 neighborhoods (Alcova, AH, Penrose) due to numbers then its gonna be tough for whoever gets left behind.

TJs boundary extends all the way to Wakefield though so there will always be kids at TJ going to Wakefield for now.

It would make sense to try to align the TJ neighborhoods to WL so that kids can continue IB and for general alignment issues. But if they can't move all 3 neighborhoods (Alcova, AH, Penrose) due to numbers then its gonna be tough for whoever gets left behind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arlington Heights and Penrose to WL would improve middle school alignment, since both go to TJ, but those areas are among the most well-off in the Wakefield zone. If they were aligned with WL they would become de facto North Arlington neighborhoods.

I'm starting to think the previous suggestion to move immersion to WL is making more and more sense. Even better, moving MS immersion to Kenmore....then it can continue at that site in HS "when" they build a 4th high school.

Kenmore is closer to capacity than TJ. If they are moving MS Immersion, it should be to the school with more capacity. Both W-L and TJ are IB schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So is Barcroft/Alcova going to WL or Penrose/Arl. Heights? Those seem to be pretty much the only options.

Interesting. I didn't consider the neighborhoods linked in pairs. I just thought Alcova would be on the table because it would fall with alignment from TJ to WL. Alcova currently goes to TJ; but Barcroft goes to Kenmore. It would be even more isolating for the Alcova kids if Arl Hts and Penrose moved to WL without them. Alcova already breaks from Barcroft to go to TJ; then they'd lose all their new classmates and friends again heading to WHS.

All kids zoned to Kenmore go to W-L, except for Barcroft and S Arlington Forest, who go Wakefield, and then there’s a section of Bluemont that goes Ashlawn-Kenmore-Yorktown (that one makes no sense, except I guess they ran out of closer areas to rezone from W-L to Yorktown).

I think this makes a bit more sense because there’s an Arlington Mill PU in the Barcroft ES zone that goes to W-L. Alcova goes Barcroft-TJ-Wakefield. Would make more sense for them to also go Barcroft-TJ-WL. The Barcroft apartments aren’t actually in Barcroft, but both Barcroft and Alcova have CAFs in their neighborhoods. Only a very small portion of Barcroft is in the Wakefield walk zone, IIRC, and that’s the part with the CAFs. Arlington Mill and other PUs zoned to W-L are also in Wakefield’s walk zone, but due to a desire for SES diversity, they’re zoned to W-L. Let’s be real, walk zones are a crock and have been used as excuses to avoid integration. People aren’t actually clamoring to walk their kids, or even have their kids walk themselves, to school. They drive them for anything beyond .5 miles.

Anonymous wrote:Arlington Heights and Penrose to WL would improve middle school alignment, since both go to TJ, but those areas are among the most well-off in the Wakefield zone. If they were aligned with WL they would become de facto North Arlington neighborhoods.

How would that improve middle school alignment? Or rather would improve middle school alignment for TJ. All of Kenmore goes to WL except for Barcroft to Wakefield and Bluemont that goes to Yorktown.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arlington Heights and Penrose to WL would improve middle school alignment, since both go to TJ, but those areas are among the most well-off in the Wakefield zone. If they were aligned with WL they would become de facto North Arlington neighborhoods.

I'm starting to think the previous suggestion to move immersion to WL is making more and more sense. Even better, moving MS immersion to Kenmore....then it can continue at that site in HS "when" they build a 4th high school.

I should have added: it would also avoid the neighborhood squabbles and avoid making Wakefield higher FRL% again. Plus, the size of the program is currently about the # of people they're looking to move out of Wakefield.

I mean out of Gunston.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arlington Heights and Penrose to WL would improve middle school alignment, since both go to TJ, but those areas are among the most well-off in the Wakefield zone. If they were aligned with WL they would become de facto North Arlington neighborhoods.

I'm starting to think the previous suggestion to move immersion to WL is making more and more sense. Even better, moving MS immersion to Kenmore....then it can continue at that site in HS "when" they build a 4th high school.

I should have added: it would also avoid the neighborhood squabbles and avoid making Wakefield higher FRL% again. Plus, the size of the program is currently about the # of people they're looking to move out of Wakefield.

Anonymous wrote:Arlington Heights and Penrose to WL would improve middle school alignment, since both go to TJ, but those areas are among the most well-off in the Wakefield zone. If they were aligned with WL they would become de facto North Arlington neighborhoods.

I'm starting to think the previous suggestion to move immersion to WL is making more and more sense. Even better, moving MS immersion to Kenmore....then it can continue at that site in HS "when" they build a 4th high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So is Barcroft/Alcova going to WL or Penrose/Arl. Heights? Those seem to be pretty much the only options.

It will probably be Penrose and Arlington View—the two neighborhoods that were rezoned from WL to WF in 2017 (not sure the exact year).

Disagree. I think it will be Barcroft-Alcova, given stability, ES and MS feeder patterns, and also diversity, since you’d be moving more white and high SES students out of Wakefield if the former were moved again. Moving those Penrose/AV PUs back doesn’t align with the factors considered. But it may be a numbers game. How many do they need to move and how many kids live in specific PUs may be the deciding factor.

Barcroft/Alcova doesn't align at the MS level. Alcova goes to TJ while Barcroft goes to Kenmore. If stability is a real factor in their proposals, Barcroft shouldn't even be under consideration. Besides, there are probably too many kids in the Barcroft neighborhood, especially if Barcroft Apartments is considered part of that, to move to WL.

Barcroft apartmets go to Randolph

All of them? I thought there were some on the northside of Columbia Pike, in the Barcroft neighborhood....perhaps called something else?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So is Barcroft/Alcova going to WL or Penrose/Arl. Heights? Those seem to be pretty much the only options.

It will probably be Penrose and Arlington View—the two neighborhoods that were rezoned from WL to WF in 2017 (not sure the exact year).

Disagree. I think it will be Barcroft-Alcova, given stability, ES and MS feeder patterns, and also diversity, since you’d be moving more white and high SES students out of Wakefield if the former were moved again. Moving those Penrose/AV PUs back doesn’t align with the factors considered. But it may be a numbers game. How many do they need to move and how many kids live in specific PUs may be the deciding factor.

Barcroft/Alcova doesn't align at the MS level. Alcova goes to TJ while Barcroft goes to Kenmore. If stability is a real factor in their proposals, Barcroft shouldn't even be under consideration. Besides, there are probably too many kids in the Barcroft neighborhood, especially if Barcroft Apartments is considered part of that, to move to WL.

Barcroft apartmets go to Randolph

Isn't most of Barcroft in the Wakefield walkzone?

Arlington Heights and Penrose to WL would improve middle school alignment, since both go to TJ, but those areas are among the most well-off in the Wakefield zone. If they were aligned with WL they would become de facto North Arlington neighborhoods.