Anonymous wrote:So, question for all of you. In talking about moving immersion to the west Pike, are you all thinking that more Spanish speakers will apply and therefore the schools will have that optimal 50-50 balance of Spanish and English speakers? If so, that will bring in some more Spanish speakers, but the overwhelming majority of them will just have to find another neighborhood school (which their would be none on the western pike.

Or, are you thinking that the Spanish speakers will all flock to those immersion schools and get in, making them majority Spanish? Not only will that hurt the instructional model as much as too many English speakers do now, but I guarantee that a large chunk of the UMC English speakers will avoid immersion if it is overwhelmingly poor people (as they avoid high poverty schools now).

If the former, some of those current Carlin Springs kids would go to Ashlawn, but most are closer to Randolph or zoned to Abingdon. You all talk about Ashlawn reaching below 50, but the area right below 50 is predominately nice UMC homes. Those are white folks people, not the low income housing further south. Those kids are closer to Randolph and would probably NOT go to Ashlawn.

The Barcroft Apartments people would certainly go to Randolph, so how is that any improvement for Randolph - make it 99% low income? Or Barrett, which is already like Barcroft?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.

Many U.S.-born English-speaking children do not know how to read or write English when they enter kindergarten. Why would anyone expect otherwise from Spanish-speaking kindergartners?

Also, have you looked at a map to see how close Ashlawn is? Once Reed opens there will be 300-400 excess seats in NW. Move the boundaries a bit and most of those seats can be made available to South Arlington just across 50. It’s a road, not an ocean, people cross it everyday, often multiple times.

And Carlin Springs is not a walkable neighborhood school anyway and the only neighborhood actually in the walk zone, Glen Carlin, avoids the school. The kids you're concern trolling about already ride to bus to their neighborhood school. If they didn't want Immersion at Carlin Springs, they could choose to ride the bus slightly south or slightly north to their newly assigned schools. These families also prefer to have their children bused to school because they feel it's safer and it also means the parent doesn't have to accompany them on a 20 minute walk to school. And there's every reason to believe the Immersion program would capture the majority of the Spanish-speaking population, who would choose to stay if it became Immersion. 71% of the current students self-identify as Hispanic. This is where you put Immersion. Make it an easier choice for them, and desegregate one of the most highly segregated schools through choice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, say that Carlin Springs became the new Claremont. Is it presumed that all those Carlin Springs kids will stay there and be part of the immersion program? Won't that fill up the school so that there won't be room for the balance of english speakers??? Same thing with Barcorft. And, where will all those neighborhood kids go? Barrett is already high FRL and full. Randolph is almost full and very high FRL. So, where will they go?

I think it's assumed that many of the Spanish-speaking kids would stay. I think it's also assumed that the other kids who are ESL or first generation (the kids whose families are Asian or Middle Eastern or African) would go to whatever was the assigned neighborhood school. Not sure if this is an accurate assumption, but I think it is the assumption. I believe there is some concern for students whose families speak Spanish, but who have never written or read in Spanish, that they might be behind or not have adequate vocabulary to keep up with kids who've been in Immersion for years. And those parents wouldn't want to split up older and younger siblings between two elementary schools. That's a fair concern, but every family has an oldest child. This could be their path, and families whose oldest have missed out on the Immersion program could opt for the neighborhood school.

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.

Anonymous wrote:
Do you live in S Arlington? I lived in Fairlington, and my DC went to ATS. if ATS was further north, it would not have been a viable option for us. Immersion wasn't something our family was interested, so I'm not sure what that other strong option would have been. ATS is centrally located and should stay centrally located.
Jeez. Maybe you could have sent Jr to Abingdon?

You are missing the point. The concern is that ATS will become even more of a North Arlington thing if it moves further north. We would have sent DC to Abingdon if he didn't get a seat at ATS in K. Most of our friends in the 'hood were opting out of Abingdon to Claremont.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.

The highest concentrations of Spanish at home speakers is the western pike. I don't know what "many" or significant means to describe speakers of other languages, but their number is certainly dwarfed by Spanish speakers, especially on the western pike.

I think you need to look at the moving of immersion schools not just as an exercise in "cracking" high poverty pockets but also of drawing well resourced middle and upper middle class families in. The idea is to make it appealing to low income speakers for reasonable not just of language and proximity, but also resources. That is how key began, before the surrounding neighborhood became super wealthy and lost most of its nearby Spanish speakers.

Would love to see a breakdown from APS on languages spoken at home. Aps is very fond of citing the "over 100-some languages" factoid but census figures make it pretty obvious that we're talking about mostly Spanish speakers with a smattering of others. Furthermore, native speakers of languages other than Spanish tend to, but of course not always, be of a higher SES strata than Spanish speakers - it's harder to get here from Asia, for example, and those that make the journey tend to have more resources.

My kids went to Drew and there were kids there from an enormous number of countries, including many in Africa and south Asia, and they spoke many languages other than English at home, although most of their parents spoke at least some English. Lots of kids whose parents drove taxis, worked in restaurants, worked in hotels--not exactly higher SES strata. I imagine thats the case at other south Arlington schools as well.

That's why I'd like to see actual statistics. What does an "Enormous" number of countries mean? Did each have a separate language? Who knows. Rather than being told, it's a challenge, we're wonderfully diverse, Yay, let's put a number on it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.

The highest concentrations of Spanish at home speakers is the western pike. I don't know what "many" or significant means to describe speakers of other languages, but their number is certainly dwarfed by Spanish speakers, especially on the western pike.

I think you need to look at the moving of immersion schools not just as an exercise in "cracking" high poverty pockets but also of drawing well resourced middle and upper middle class families in. The idea is to make it appealing to low income speakers for reasonable not just of language and proximity, but also resources. That is how key began, before the surrounding neighborhood became super wealthy and lost most of its nearby Spanish speakers.

Would love to see a breakdown from APS on languages spoken at home. Aps is very fond of citing the "over 100-some languages" factoid but census figures make it pretty obvious that we're talking about mostly Spanish speakers with a smattering of others. Furthermore, native speakers of languages other than Spanish tend to, but of course not always, be of a higher SES strata than Spanish speakers - it's harder to get here from Asia, for example, and those that make the journey tend to have more resources.

My kids went to Drew and there were kids there from an enormous number of countries, including many in Africa and south Asia, and they spoke many languages other than English at home, although most of their parents spoke at least some English. Lots of kids whose parents drove taxis, worked in restaurants, worked in hotels--not exactly higher SES strata. I imagine thats the case at other south Arlington schools as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.

Many U.S.-born English-speaking children do not know how to read or write English when they enter kindergarten. Why would anyone expect otherwise from Spanish-speaking kindergartners?

Also, have you looked at a map to see how close Ashlawn is? Once Reed opens there will be 300-400 excess seats in NW. Move the boundaries a bit and most of those seats can be made available to South Arlington just across 50. It’s a road, not an ocean, people cross it everyday, often multiple times.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.

The highest concentrations of Spanish at home speakers is the western pike. I don't know what "many" or significant means to describe speakers of other languages, but their number is certainly dwarfed by Spanish speakers, especially on the western pike.

I think you need to look at the moving of immersion schools not just as an exercise in "cracking" high poverty pockets but also of drawing well resourced middle and upper middle class families in. The idea is to make it appealing to low income speakers for reasonable not just of language and proximity, but also resources. That is how key began, before the surrounding neighborhood became super wealthy and lost most of its nearby Spanish speakers.

Would love to see a breakdown from APS on languages spoken at home. Aps is very fond of citing the "over 100-some languages" factoid but census figures make it pretty obvious that we're talking about mostly Spanish speakers with a smattering of others. Furthermore, native speakers of languages other than Spanish tend to, but of course not always, be of a higher SES strata than Spanish speakers - it's harder to get here from Asia, for example, and those that make the journey tend to have more resources.

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.

Anonymous wrote:Many Spanish speaking immigrant kids do not read or write Spanish. There is a significant number on non Spanish speaking kids on the west pike.

So, if immersion is moved to the west pike, you expect low income families to bus their kids all the way to Ashlawn??? Isn’t that just busing???? Take away all the neighborhood schools in the poorest section of town so then you have to bus kids to wealthy north Arlington!!! Isn’t that what the school board and activists have said will NOT happen? Talento will never go for that.

UMC families along the pike would love that option. But not sure Ashlawn can take that many kids.