Arlington County plans to make significant changes to elementary school boundaries in Fall 2018. The changes will take effect Fall 2019, and may move current Douglas Park Henry families out of the new Fleet school. Arlington County will make decisions soon, so the time to make your voice heard is now!
Three Things You Can Do:
1. Weigh in on Walk Zones (Questionnaire). Deadline: March 19, 2018. Before it makes redistricting decisions, the County will determine which planning units are within the “Walk Zone” of each elementary school. For instance, if your planning unit is in Fleet’s Walk Zone, that helps your chances of being in the Fleet school boundaries. Note that planning units in the Walk Zone are not bus-eligible.
Look up your planning unit and fill out this Questionnaire (which has a map displaying the proposed Walk Zones. Please consider requesting that all current Henry planning units (listed below) be added to the Fleet Walk Zone. The planning units that must be written in may be at greatest risk for redistricting, so if you want those to be part of the Fleet community, PLEASE WRITE THEM IN. Current Henry planning units that are not in the proposed Fleet Walk Zone:
40610
46111
46110
46130 (must be manually entered)
46011 (must be manually entered)
46132 (must be manually entered)
46131 (must be manually entered)
46120 (must be manually entered)
If you already walk from a location that APS has noted as outside the proposed walk zone, please share that information. For example, even though all current Henry locations south of Columbia Pike are “outside the walk zone” many current Henry families in these planning units currently walk to school. You can also add your thoughts on how your current walk could be made more walkable with infrastructure improvements (crosswalk, traffic light, crossing guard, etc.)
If you are currently districted to Randolph or Hoffman Boston, fill out their questionnaires. If you currently walk to Randolph and have ideas for improving walkability, note them in the questionnaire. Your planning unit may also be considered walkable to Drew, Abingdon, Barcroft, or Claremont. You can find and fill out those questionnaires here. If you have strong feelings about where you would like to be districted, note those in the questionnaires, and see additional ideas below.
2. Email the County Board (countyboard@arlingtonva.us) and the School Board (school.board@apsva.us). Any email, no matter how brief, that conveys what is important to you on this important issue is HUGELY important and will be considered!
Some things you might tell the Board (borrowed from other neighbors who have weighed in!):
your child/children and family are invested in the Henry/Fleet community through friends, teachers, school activities, community activities
you believe that it is senseless to send your middle school student to Thomas Jefferson (where they are districted), but not send your elementary school student next door to Fleet;
you felt like you were promised that you would move to Fleet with all of Henry given previous representations by APS during and after the South Arlington Working Group; or
you moved to your home to go to Henry/Fleet.
3. Tell the County What to Consider in Redistricting (Questionnaire). Deadline: March 9. Before it makes redistricting decisions, the County is also accepting public input on what it should take into account when making those decisions. As is, the County places by far the greatest weight on proximity. Please consider filling out the survey to add considerations such as: keeping school communities and neighborhoods together, and keeping middle school and elementary school siblings on the same campus.
Read about Arlington County’s Elementary School Planning Initiative here.
