ARLINGTON, Va. — The Arlington School Board is set to vote on a measure that could move roughly 2,400 elementary school students to new schools.
The measure, which will be considered Thursday night, involves four different school buildings in Arlington County: the Key Immersion School, McKinley Elementary, Arlington Traditional School [ATS], and a new, yet-to-be-opened elementary school at the Reed building.
Arlington Public Schools [APS] Interim Superintendent Cintia Johnson has recommended moving the principal, staff, and majority of students from McKinley to the new Reed school. Under the same proposal, ATS students would also move to McKinley while Key Immersion students would transfer to ATS.
According to APS, the Key school building would ultimately be re-purposed into a neighborhood school.
All changes would go into effect for the 2021-2022 school year.
School district administrators said the proposal would relieve overcrowding in some school buildings across Arlington. APS said while there are more available seats in one part of the county, another part of the county has more students than seats.
"The phased approach in this process allows APS to plan for all transitions," Lisa Stengle, Executive Director, APS Planning and Evaluation, said. "Ultimately, we want to continue to make sure that each student has a great education, regardless of moving to a new location or being reassigned in a boundary process to a different neighborhood school."
APS has also argued the proposal would place Immersion students in a centrally-located area while created more neighborhood seats for young students in around the Rosslyn section of Arlington County.
If the school board votes to approve the proposal Thursday, almost a quarter of all neighborhood elementary school students in APS would be reassigned to another school in 2021.
Some parents aren't thrilled with the proposed changes.
Steven Krieger, who is running for the Arlington School Board, has a third-grader who attends Key. He said he has several issues with APS’ plan.
"Our concern is that our entire school is not going to move to the ATS building," he said.
On top of that, Krieger believes the changes will not address the county’s overcrowding issue.
He said he believes some families at Key will not be able to afford to move their kids to the ATS building.
"So, if those students don’t move, they’re still going to be going to Key and it won’t solve the capacity issue," he said.
Krieger, and two other parents with students at Key and ATS, sent members of the Arlington School Board a cease and desist letter Monday to block Thursday’s vote.
The letter contends that APS is also violating the boundary process by not providing enough information on the financial impact of the potential school moves.
APS spokesperson Frank Bellavia sent WUSA9 the following statement regarding that claim:
"Since the beginning of this process, we have been steadfast in saying that this is not a boundary process. These school moves will open up neighborhood seats where these are needed and will lay the foundation for staff to create boundaries that alleviate crowding at schools across the county, keep together as many students as possible and help us manage transportation services and costs."
Krieger called APS’ reasoning “intellectually dishonest”.
"After the school moves, they are going to have to do boundaries,” he said. “So, this school move proposal should be part of the boundary process and if it’s a part of the boundary process they have to follow their boundary policy, which they are not doing."
Krieger added that community members have already created boundary scenarios for APS to consider as alternatives to the school move proposal.