Anonymous wrote:James Lander. Can someone please, please, please run against him when his term us up? It has to be a Dem. A republican can't win here. I will canvas for you. He does not grasp the issues here. He is stuck on his personal view that race & income are irrelevant to achievement. Of course everyone has the potential. But We have APS stats on this. SOLs, SATs. It's fine to disagree about whether to use boundary changes to fix them. But please, spare us your uninformed view that the disparity doesn't exist here.It's embarrassing for a "world class" school system to hear that from the podium. He said he reads the forums. I hope he reads this.

Anonymous wrote:James Lander. Can someone please, please, please run against him when his term us up? It has to be a Dem. A republican can't win here. I will canvas for you. He does not grasp the issues here. He is stuck on his personal view that race & income are irrelevant to achievement. Of course everyone has the potential. But We have APS stats on this. SOLs, SATs. It's fine to disagree about whether to use boundary changes to fix them. But please, spare us your uninformed view that the disparity doesn't exist here.It's embarrassing for a "world class" school system to hear that from the podium. He said he reads the forums. I hope he reads this.

Anonymous wrote:Orange is the color of Arlington Forest Club (swim team)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I watched the replay of the SB meeting from last night and found it interesting. Here's the link (the portion on HS boundaries starts around 30:00 and goes to at least 140:00 with the public comments and SB discussion):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=L-8H47Op3Og

Some highlights:
-The man quoted in the ArlNow article starts around the 85:00 mark & calls the process "ass-backwards."
-Lots of AF parents spoke against the transfer to Wakefield, but a couple spoke in favor.
-A student from the Student Advisory Board cautioned parents to use social media responsibly (drawing laughs from the audience) and said the students were reading comments made by parents and found many of them "embarrassing."
-One commentor from Nottingham/Yorktown expressed concern that too many PUs were being moved to both schools and W-L would be under capacity if any of the options were chosen (the SB later showed interest in this concern, asking to see scenarios where fewer PUs would be moved).
-SB question about rate of growth, and whether Wakefield was growing faster than Yorktown & how that should inform this process.
-Dr. Viola-Sanchez does NOT want to move Arlington Mill away from W-L. And she also made a comment about how the next high school "could be in this building [I assume she means the Ed Center/Buck Property?] and would provide relief to W-L"--another argument for moving fewer PUs from W-L right now.

Ok I watched it. Wow, 4 hours!! Thanks for the link! Here some more personal impressions...

All the North Arlington Forest people had their own T-Shirts for this event - all wearing orange. Not sure why they chose to do that. "Orange is the new black?!"

They kept saying how their civic association (Arlington Forest have one and the same) passed this resolution to stay with W-L, and how all their kids walk to W-L together all the time. And how walking is the most important thing in High School (I'm exaggerating.)

Fascinatingly, another Arlington Forest resident spoke later, saying that the Southern half of the Arlington Forest households got very short notice on this civic meeting, and thus the vote supposedly from the "whole" civic association is really more a vote from the planning units "at risk" of moving, and he said that the Southern Arlington Forest households that he knows of, welcome their Northern counterparts to Wakefield, and would be happy to see their kids continue together after Kenmore. Then he said; that whatever may have been said about "walking", the busses from AF to WL are FULL.

He and someone else mentioned, that, by the way, there is already a bus from AF going to Wakefield now. (Transfers??)

Loved the young man from the student advisory board, cautioning parents to use social media responsibly, "because everyone will see your comments and we all have friends at the other high schools!" Yes, he said many comments were an embarrassment.

Also there was a young woman who had transferred to Wakefield from W-L. She lives in Arlington Forest. She said she saw 3 fights at W-L last year, but none at Wakefield. (Huh.) She praised the teachers she has had at Wakefield, encouraging her to move to more advanced classes, and the students "always helping each other."

A parent from Nottingham/Yorktown said the board is moving too many students to Yorktown and Wakefield. She asked that every school gets the same number.
One parent from an "at risk" unit to be moved from WL to Yorktown said:" I'd rather stay where we are, but if you have to move us, move us fast". He was pointing out overcrowding issues, also that diversity should drive this decision more than the other factors.

Several people spoke up to say that diversity should be weighted more than some of the other issues.

The board members later were wondering about this. Kaninen mentioned that a lawyer had advised the board, that they couldn't include racial make up (of all the planning units?) into their considerations (for diversity), so the free and reduced lunch was all they had to work with.

Landers then said that he feels economic diversity should not be weighted more - "because it doesn't matter".
He gave as an example; that when parents and their students come to him with problems (they do??), he doesn't ask them, how much money they are making; that would be irrelevant and offensive.

Several school board members later asked (each other and the woman who seems to be doing all their work!), if they shouldn't move fewer planning units.
Violand-Sanchez said : Yes, especially, since since we will have 1300 students right in this building! (Education Center?!)

There was also talk about the IB program. Sanchez stressed how important this was in other countries (that the high school diploma is not accepted in many places), and she said the IB program should be accessible for every student in APS.

Murphy was asked at one point to clarify here that the IB programs at Randolph, TJ and WL are not linked, and are independent, and don't feed from one to the other, and there is no preferred access granted to the next level. I think that Sanchez seemed to want to say they should be, they all operate under the same framework. But I'm not sure if she was referring to IB in general at that point.

Reid asked -the woman doing all their work- if she could please see whether she could get any data that PROJECTS free and reduced lunch numbers 4 years and more ahead, not just the status quo.

Also, if she could get any data that projects the growth of the population farther than what they have now - too see if all high schools should get an equal number of students with this move or not, because faster population growth in certain parts, and - should that be taken into consideration with THIS move. Landers said, WL is growing the fastest.
Sanchez said, she remembers seeing this data, and wants it back.

Towards the end there was a presentation about Arlington Tech and several women (including one teen from the first class there) were speaking.
It was very positive, with students and parents comments from the current class read to the audience. They emphasized foundations for engineering and project based learning. The student said it is not "read these 20 pages and know all that's in there", and it's more figuring out yourself, what you need to know to do something.

(In my eyes, unfortunately-) Landers later asked the young woman, if she could repair his car now, and what grade she was in! (Duh!)
When he heard she was a Freshman, he still went on about how she could do something for his car. (Sigh!)

There was more, but that's it for now. Again, just my impressions of the "highlights"....I encourage people to watch it, at least parts of it, again, thanks for the link.

Anonymous wrote:Orange is the color of Arlington Forest Club (swim team)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow thanks for your notes. I'm gonna try and watch this weekend. From what you've said, Landers gotta go.

Why? Watching him at this meeting and a few others he at least seems to say out loud what he is thinking. Some others seem more reserved but it is not clear what their intentions are. Some if his statements may not sound great like fixing the car, but his other points were valid. Sanchez seems very supportive of FARMS kids. That is fine but there are more than just FARMS kids represented in the entire system. I agree with the point that landers made about diversity. We are a mixed family yet that is not reflected in the farms data and we would contribute to a diverse student body at our neighborhood schools.

Good for you. Are you also poor? I'm guessing not, because most people here are relatively affluent. There is piles of data backing up that concentrating poverty isn't good for student performance. It sounds like he thinks it's insulting to weigh that in decision making. It doesn't matter? That's what he thinks??? I don't have time for people who won't join us here on planet earth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow thanks for your notes. I'm gonna try and watch this weekend. From what you've said, Landers gotta go.

Why? Watching him at this meeting and a few others he at least seems to say out loud what he is thinking. Some others seem more reserved but it is not clear what their intentions are. Some if his statements may not sound great like fixing the car, but his other points were valid. Sanchez seems very supportive of FARMS kids. That is fine but there are more than just FARMS kids represented in the entire system. I agree with the point that landers made about diversity. We are a mixed family yet that is not reflected in the farms data and we would contribute to a diverse student body at our neighborhood schools.

Anonymous wrote:Wow thanks for your notes. I'm gonna try and watch this weekend. From what you've said, Landers gotta go.

Anonymous wrote:I watched the replay of the SB meeting from last night and found it interesting. Here's the link (the portion on HS boundaries starts around 30:00 and goes to at least 140:00 with the public comments and SB discussion):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=L-8H47Op3Og

Some highlights:
-The man quoted in the ArlNow article starts around the 85:00 mark & calls the process "ass-backwards."
-Lots of AF parents spoke against the transfer to Wakefield, but a couple spoke in favor.
-A student from the Student Advisory Board cautioned parents to use social media responsibly (drawing laughs from the audience) and said the students were reading comments made by parents and found many of them "embarrassing."
-One commentor from Nottingham/Yorktown expressed concern that too many PUs were being moved to both schools and W-L would be under capacity if any of the options were chosen (the SB later showed interest in this concern, asking to see scenarios where fewer PUs would be moved).
-SB question about rate of growth, and whether Wakefield was growing faster than Yorktown & how that should inform this process.
-Dr. Viola-Sanchez does NOT want to move Arlington Mill away from W-L. And she also made a comment about how the next high school "could be in this building [I assume she means the Ed Center/Buck Property?] and would provide relief to W-L"--another argument for moving fewer PUs from W-L right now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here--I should add that the SB asked for quite a bit more data. I wouldn't be surprised if they make changes to the options.

Thanks to the poster who summarized the SB Meeting. I'd add that after watching it myself, it seemed that 2 board members (Landers and Goldstein if I remember correctly) seemed interested in rezoning so that there would not be a 50/50 split between students moved to Yorktown and students moved to Wakefield. I wouldn't be surprised if the board ultimately decides to send more kids to YHS than WHS.

I was also struck by Sanchez's comments that seemed imply the additional 1300 seat HS will be placed at the Ed Center. This means 3600 students at the W-L campus. If this troubles you as much as it does me, make your feelings known to the SB ASAP.

This.

Anonymous wrote:People would rather be at a 4000 student w-l, than an underenrolled Wakefield. That's what I'm taking away from this.