MS Boundaries & Spanish Immersion Move FAQ

APS is pausing the Middle School Boundary Process and the Proposal to Relocate the Spanish Immersion Program until Fall 2024. The decision to pause this process is rooted in a strategic approach to optimize the planning and implementation of this significant undertaking. By aligning it with the concurrent high school boundary adjustments, staff will create an opportunity for a more coordinated and streamlined boundary process that considers the broader educational landscape.

This approach also ensures that the boundary process is well-framed to support the launch of the robust secondary Academic Programming Pathways. Delaying the implementation of this process until Fall 2026 allows staff to implement the changes for students entering both grades 6 and 9 by promoting continuity and providing a clear pathway for students as they transition between middle and high schools.

Staff will share additional information at the School Board Work Session on Sept. 26, 2023 at 10:45 a.m. (View Presentation)

For additional information or questions, please email engage@apsva.us or call and text 571-200-2770.

To balance capacity enrollment across neighborhood middle schools and ensure that every student has access to a safe and similar learning environment, the recommendation is to move the Middle School Dual-Language Immersion Program from Gunston to Kenmore and adjust middle school boundaries effective for the 2025-26 school year.

Over the next 5 years, capacity utilization is expected to range from a high of 112% at Gunston to a low of 65% at Williamsburg. For this full boundary process, it is a priority to bring capacity utilization rates across the six middle schools to similar levels, ensuring that resources are used efficiently, and all middle school students have similar learning environments. This is discussed in detail and with the relevant data in the Pre-CIP Report and in Appendix H: Draft Fall 2023 Middle School Boundary Recommendation Report.

We understand that this is a challenging process and are focused on providing the community with resources and time for feedback and discussion.

The Boundary Policy will be revised by the school board during SY 2023-24.  With the pause on the middle school boundary process, any changes will be in place before a boundary proposal is developed for consideration in Fall 2024.

The draft recommendation was made with the goal of providing the community with several opportunities for direct feedback to staff, which were held this summer and fall.

• Monday, July 31, 6-8pm General Information, Pre-CIP Report (Virtual)
• Tuesday, Aug 22, 6-8pm General Information, Pre-CIP Report (In person at Kenmore)

In light of new academic priorities, the boundary process has been paused for one year, until Fall 2024.

APS invited community members to review planning unit data that will be used in the Middle School Boundary Process. Information on providing feedback on this process was available on the Engage website under the “Middle School Boundary Planning Unit Data Review Process” tab.

The boundary process has a different timeline than votes for the CIP Direction and the CIP. The CIP will be approved in June 2024.  The following December 2024, the School Board will vote on middle school boundary adjustments and program move, effective for the 2026-27 school year.

A boundary proposal will be developed for consideration Fall 2024 and will:

• be based on the planning unit review just completed
• incorporate updated enrollment and projections
• consider alignment and cohort sizes by planning unit

You can find maps of the recommended boundary changes in the Pre-CIP Report Appendix H: Draft Fall 2023 Middle School Boundary Recommendation Report. A street-level map of the proposed middle school boundary changes and MS Immersion Program move is also available online.

APS does not have a policy to prioritize one transition over the other.

APS is seeking solutions that achieve the optimum mix of cost, location, scope, timing, implementation feasibility and minimal impact.  APS will examine planning unit alignment from elementary to middle and middle to high school.  We aren’t able to maintain a pyramid system that moves entire school communities as they progress to a higher level in every case.

The aim is to minimize separation of small groups of students from their classmates when moving between school levels. For boundary processes since 2016 a rule of keeping at least 25 students together at the school level has been applied. This is likely to change in 2024 as the SB updates the boundary policy and adds a PIP (policy implementation procedures). During the fall boundary process, the consultants will address alignment in a different format and we expect this will be an improvement.

APS is committed to option programs and the DLI program. The Immersion visioning process was the start of a long-term plan for the program. Academics is working on recommendations for Academic Programs.

Planning recommendations aim to limit the number of changes that impact a student to once per school level. The school community and administration of Escuela Key stayed together when they moved from the Courthouse to the former ATS building, while many neighborhood schools experienced significant changes in the same transition. The Gunston Immersion cohort would move to Kenmore together, helping mitigate the impact of the move.

Please remember, APS is a system of neighborhood and options schools and proposals must consider what is best for the system as a whole.

• Immersion students are fortunate in that they move together, and if immersion students don’t want to move, they can go to their neighborhood school.
• In contrast, boundary changes for neighborhood schools move some groups of students away from their peers, they don’t have a choice for another neighborhood school.
• Relocating Key put a neighborhood school in the Courthouse area. The next elementary boundary process will fill Innovation E.S. In the boundary process, we saved room since immersion community raised concerns that many Escuela Key families would not follow the program to its new location. Fortunately, 92% of families remained with the program when it relocated.

Below is a link to immersion visioning web page, it’s listed under 2022-23 projects. Also provided is a link to the transfer report showing the home school of participating immersion option students.

Dual Language Immersion Visioning Process – Arlington Public Schools2022-23-Transfer-Report.pdf

APS provides a safe, healthy environment for students in our schools. The recommendation to move immersion would impact fewer students than a boundary-only change and provide more manageable enrollment across our middle schools, which helps maximize the use of facilities and contribute to a healthy learning environment. APS limits the number of changes that impact individual students to one per grade level. Processes also consider students’ continuity and in recent processes has accommodated the grandfathering of secondary students, so that they can complete the school level (middle or high). APS also considers grandfathering for each process.

The term grandfathering means allowing pre-existing conditions to continue within reason for a specified period of time. In context of recommended boundaries, grandfathering may allow some existing students to remain at their current school levels. When changing school boundaries, the School Board may offer grandfathering to students and/or concurrent siblings at a school.

Program moves and boundary moves may be treated differently. Grandfathering immersion students is a possibility that we will consider. We will also examine whether the immersion program needs to move as a whole or individual grades can move. There are tradeoffs for families and staff in both situations.

Currently, we are counting on community engagement throughout this process and have a number of ongoing ways to do so. Community Table Sessions were held July 31, Aug. 22 and Oct. 2. Stakeholders can email engage@apsva.us at any time. During the Dual Language Immersion Program Framework various stakeholders engaged in discussions and ultimately made recommendations to strengthen the DLI program (APS Dual Language Immersion Program Framework p3).

Staff were involved in the immersion visioning process. Principals are responsible for running schools, teachers are responsible for student learning. Staff will get involved in preparing for the transition if the SB votes to move the program.

This proposed move is a direct response to findings in the DLI Vision Framework completed in summer of 2022 by a task force of more than 30 participants from APS central office, schools, and community. While this implementation phase is informed by community input, APS will not stand up a new task force to revisit priorities.

The head of Immersion at Gunston participated in the Dual Language Immersion Visioning Process in 2022 alongside three Gunston teachers and two parents. According to the report, “feedback received during the DLI visioning process and previous World Languages Office program evaluations indicated that travel distance to the location of the current middle school program is a barrier to continuing with the DLI program beyond grade 5. Several members of the DLI community, including those who participated on the Task Force and the DLI Elementary Feeder Structure Committee expressed that a centralized location for the middle school program would increase program continuation rates through the secondary level by reducing travel distance.” (APS Dual Language Immersion Program Framework p26)

The Department of Human Resources will work closely with the affected staff and school communities to establish a process and timeline ahead of the 2025-2026 school year. This will be done in collaboration with the Office of School Support, the Office of Academics, and the Department of Planning & Evaluation. Options will be shared with staff based on the vote in December.

Families will be notified once the School Board votes on a program move along with boundary changes.

APS considers the interests of the entire school division. There are a number of enrollment management tools and considerations before a boundary process is recommended, such as transfers, class sizes, relocatable classrooms, construction, projections, and available funding.

APS also examined different middle school boundary scenarios, which includes maintaining the existing boundaries from 2022-23 (no change), boundary change and Immersion moves from Gunston to Kenmore (Draft Recommendation), and boundary changes only. You can find a more detailed comparison of these scenarios in the Pre-CIP Report Appendix H: Draft Fall 2023 Middle School Boundary Recommendation Report.

This recommendation to move the MS Immersion program is being made to balance enrollment levels across middle schools and help ensure that every student has access to a safe, healthy, and similar learning environment. Without any changes, Gunston is projected to be at 112% capacity by 2027-28. Changes to boundaries without moving the program would disrupt more families. The guidance from the DLI visioning came into play as we looked for the optimal site to move immersion into.

The recommendation to move the Middle School Immersion Program to Kenmore:

• Keeps more students together across all schools in the upcoming boundary process
• Provides needed neighborhood middle school seats in the Crystal City/Rout 1 corridor without constructing an addition or a new building
• Brings a Countywide immersion program closer to more resident Spanish-speaking program participants, helping encourage their participation which supports the program’s dual language model.
• Helps address the imbalance of neighborhood middle school seats across the County

Enrollment projections show that the majority of middle schools, Kenmore included, are not certain to have enough open capacity to accommodate the Spanish Immersion Program without adjusting boundaries. Therefore, moving the program to another school without adjusting boundaries is not sufficient to address enrollment imbalance and improve capacity utilization across middle schools. You can find a comparison of potential middle school boundary scenarios in the Pre-CIP Report Appendix H: Draft Fall 2023 Middle School Boundary Recommendation Report.

Having one middle school and one high school program maintains a larger cohort of students at each building, concentrating staff and thus promoting increased mentorship and professional learning opportunities. This is a consideration in APS’s ability to recruit, hire, and retain highly qualified staff. A minimum of 4 classes was seen as critical to:

• support program integrity and goals, including reciprocal exchange of learning
• a level of staffing that provides increased mentorship, support and professional learning opportunities

According to the DLI Framework  p. 25 Table 14, the minimum size for a middle school program would be approximately 100 students at grade 6 (or four classes).  The ideal size is approximately 150 students (or six classes).

Neighborhood transfers to Williamsburg have been offered in recent years, and we can continue to make the offer. Voluntary transfers are not as reliable as boundary changes, so they are limited to minimize the potential variance from actual transfers versus seats offered. This is necessary to align staffing with enrollment.  We are not able to offer bus transportation to MS neighborhood transfers which may also limit uptake on offers.

Only 12 of 338, or 3.5% of MS immersion students last year lived in the Williamsburg boundary.  This means at least 326 students would be eligible for out-of-boundary buses, unlike Kenmore with 89 students in-boundary which means 249 would require out-of-boundary buses.

Furthermore, 243 of the 338 students, or 72% of immersion students live in boundary for the three MS’s in South Arlington.  This means Williamsburg’s location is specifically less convenient for the majority of immersion students and Williamsburg is the least accessible school via public transit.

Breakdown of Gunston immersion students by home school (SY 2022-23)
Dorothy Hamm:  59
Gunston: 61
Jefferson: 93
Kenmore: 89
Swanson: 24
Williamsburg: 12

Montessori has not been considered in tandem to Immersion in the recommended program move with boundary adjustments. APS is preparing to evaluate the Montessori program and will recommend if satellite PreK or Middle School Montessori should join with MPSA when it relocates into the repurposed ACC building. The full evaluation report is scheduled to be complete in 2025-26, and the June 2025 Pre-CIP Report, will incorporate the recommendations.

Hamm is considered in the Pre-CIP Report Appendix I: Middle School Immersion Program Transportation Report (p. A-117 or pdf p. 159), which provided valuable input for the recommendation. Moving the program to Dorothy Hamm would negatively impact transportation choices and APS Transportation services, in part because Dorothy Hamm is further away from the majority of immersion students who reside in the Jefferson, Kenmore and Gunston boundaries. Jefferson was considered due to its central location, and it was studied in the 2023 Pre-CIP Report, Appendix I: Middle School Immersion Transportation Report (p. A-117).

Jefferson was considered due to its central location, and it was studied in the 2023 Pre-CIP Report, Appendix I: Middle School Immersion Transportation Report (p. A-117). Jefferson was not selected since it is an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IB MYP) and adding a second program at Jefferson would add an unnecessary layer of complexity. In the fall the Office of Academics will share more information regarding Academic Programs in secondary schools.

Illustration I displays the number of immersion students per planning unit for SY22-23. The data is from an EXCEL workbook listing all the planning units along with the aggregated sum of students enrolled in the immersion program grades 6-9 for SY22-23. The number of students in any given planning unit can consist of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or 11.

Middle School Immersion Student Count by planning unit

You can find a visual representation of immersion students’ locations in the Pre-CIP Report Appendix I p. A-133 or PDF p. 175.

The 2023 Pre-CIP Report, Appendix I: Middle School Immersion Transportation Report (p. A-117 or PDF p. 159) is an overall analysis and comparison of transportation implications of moving the program to different schools. The impact on bus ride time for Gunston students was not evaluated. The Department of Planning & Evaluation is collaborating with the Department of Facilities & Operations to refine the draft proposal and explore transportation issues ahead of the Sept. 26 School Board work session.

Using data from Sept. 30, 2022, Gunston had 61 students enrolled in the immersion program. Jefferson had the most students with 93 and Kenmore had 89.

Schools will not all be under capacity. Without any changes, projected capacity utilization for 2027-28 ranges from 65% at Williamsburg to 112% at Gunston (p. A-108 or pdf p. 150).  Moving students out of Gunston will have ripple effects in the other middle schools.  Williamsburg is bounded by the walk zones to Hamm and Swanson.

This recommendation was made to address Gunston enrollment and to balance enrollment levels across middle schools to help ensure that every student has access to a safe, healthy, and similar learning environment.  Please remember, the recommendation is not a boundary proposal but a concept of the principle of balanced enrollment.

Utilization impacts experience for students to have access to courses of choice, sports teams, drama performances and the like.  None of the scenarios achieve parity but some approach a more even utilization thereby offering a more comparable middle school experience.  That is not a quantifiable financial benefit.

Transportation Services will help evaluate the tradeoff with transportation.  In addition, as the boundary policy is revised this year, the board may consider how to prioritize the boundary considerations.

The Kenmore campus presents transportation challenges for students enrolled at Kenmore. P&E is collaborating with Facilities and Operations to develop the proposals and that work is exploring the transportation challenges due to the anticipated additional buses that may be required. APS is identifying strategies to reduce transportation demand.

APS has hired a new Transportation Director and other transportation staff. Once the SB votes on the change, transportation will begin planning for the change.

Any change in transportation costs will be factored into the FY 26 Superintendent’s Budget Proposal. Once the SB votes on the change, transportation will begin planning for the change and will address stops in the summer of 2025.

A school’s building design capacity is the maximum number of students a building can accommodate based on the original educational specifications of the building.

Capacity utilization rate measures the extent that school buildings are occupied by taking student enrollment divided by capacity. Utilization rates indicate when enrollment exceeds building design capacity or when space may be available. This information helps guide placement of students, programs, or relocatable classrooms.

The capacity imbalance was the precipitating factor which initiated the boundary process.  APS examined the scenario of making only boundary changes in the Pre-CIP Report in Table 3 of Appendix H: Draft Fall 2023 Middle School Boundary Recommendation Report (p. A-111 or PDF p. 153). A boundary change only scenario is projected to affect over 1,000 more neighborhood students than if the immersion program is also moved. Therefore, the recommendation is for both the boundary process and the immersion program move.

The capacity challenge at Gunston was coupled with the planned development in Crystal City which meant moving the immersion program would keep that large cohort of students together, give Gunston immediate relief and allow for anticipated growth.

APS will pause for a year while plans for the Academic Programming Pathways are further developed before proposing any boundary change in Fall 2024.

Yes, in the Pre-CIP Report Appendix F: Results of APS Initiatives Addressing Enrollment and Building Utilization, an analysis of elementary school, middle school, and high school boundary changes and moves dating back to 2017 is discussed. The report details the boundary policy, rationale for the boundary changes, successes and failures in meeting objectives, and operational adjustments for each boundary change.

APS does consider students’ continuity and in recent boundary processes has accommodated the grandfathering of secondary students, so that they can complete the school level (middle or high). In past processes, APS has also offered grandfathering without transportation for concurrent siblings when possible.

As long as the APS system has capacity and projections suggest we will continue to have capacity, we will use less costly measures than construction.

We will continue to manage enrollment at Wakefield via the Enrollment Management Plan year over year. Some of the tools we are using include relocatable classrooms, neighborhood transfers, and the Home Address Confirmation Process (HACP).

Also, with the new ACC building scheduled to open in 2026, it is more appropriate to do the boundary process in preparation for that school year when we can consider future academic priorities and avoid multiple boundary changes.

Planning units are the geographic building blocks APS uses to establish school attendance zones. The searchable boundary locator is used to determine your child’s neighborhood school and also identifies your planning unit number.

For the Planning Unit (PU) data review process, please review data in Table 1 and Table 2 at https://www.apsva.us/engage/2023-ms-boundaries/#data and consider the following guide questions:​

• Is the information for your PU accurate to the best of your knowledge?​
• Are there any existing or planned housing developments that may belong in a different PU?​
• Are there any other items, such as future housing developments, in a specific PU that APS should consider?​
• Do the counts of students look too low or high? If yes, explain why.  ​
• Have students in your PU already been affected by a recent boundary change?​
• Will a small group of student be separated from their classmates between school levels?​
• What else related to the PUs would you like staff to knowPlease email responses to engage@apsva.us by September 1.

The review of individual Planning Unit data will end on September 1, 2023. This will then be used in drafting the boundary proposal Fall 2024.

Community engagement will always be open and welcome throughout the entire process. The community can email engage@apsva.us at any time with comments and suggestions. All of these messages are read and responded to by APS staff in a timely manner and will be shared with APS leadership.

This process has been completed.

The following changes are the result of the Planning Unit Data Review in 2023:

• 2 duplicate records for single family homes were identified and noted.  These records will not be used in a boundary adjustment analysis.
• Toll Brother’s The Grove at Dominion Hills is now included in three phases in planning unit 14030.  The three phases combined will yield about 4.6 middle school students (grades 6 to 8).  These records will be used in a boundary adjustment analysis.
• Arlington County staff confirmed yesterday that as of September 19, no Expanded Housing Options (EHO) housing is under construction.  No EHO housing will be used in the boundary adjustment analysis.

Updated Planning Unit Data Review and Housing Unit Forecast Tables are attached below:

Table-1-Planning-Unit-Data-Review-Table-September-2023-Update
Table-2-Housing-Unit-Forecast-September-2023-Update

10/5  Arlington County staff confirmed that as of September 19, no EHO housing is under construction.  No EHO housing will be used in the boundary adjustment analysis.

8/17  Thank you for your question regarding Missing Middle, now known as Expanded Housing Options (EHO).  The County Board adopted new zoning regulations allowing EHO development in March 2023 and the change took effect July 1, 2023.  Since July 1st, about twenty (20) EHO applications have been filed.  These applications are currently being reviewed by the county’s Zoning Division for compliance with the zoning regulations. An application will not be approved unless it meets all zoning requirements.  After an EHO permit is approved, the applicant will also need other permits demonstrating compliance with other County codes, such as building and stormwater permits, before construction can begin.  As of this date, no EHO applications have been approved.  At this time, it is premature for APS to incorporate EHO housing into the housing forecast assumptions—trends need to be established for EHO housing.  APS will consult with the county’s Community Planning, Housing, and Development (CPHD) staff in late September to see if any building permits have been issued for EHO housing—if so, these building permits will be incorporated into Table 2 (Housing Unit Forecast) and housing forecast assumptions. Please note that you can learn more about the EHO process at https://www.arlingtonva.us/Government/Programs/Building/Permits/EHO. Table 2 can be found on the Engage website under the “Middle School Boundary Planning Unit Data Review Process” tab.

10/5  Toll Brother’s The Grove at Dominion Hills is now included in three phases in planning unit 14030.  The three phases combined will yield about 4.6 middle school students (grades 6 to 8).  These records will be used in a boundary adjustment analysis.

8/17  Thank you for your question on Toll Brother’s “The Grove at Dominion Hills.”  APS has been aware of this project and had been waiting for building permits to be issued by the developer.  Permits for this project had not been included in the housing forecast because the first issuances occurred after the county’s Community Planning, Housing, and Development (CPHD) had processed construction permits for use in the APS projections, consistent with the timing for sharing data included in a data sharing agreement between the county government and APS.  “The Grove” has nine (9) under construction permits which were issued between September 20, 2022 and February 16, 2023.  Based on county average days from construction start to completion, it is estimated that these units will be completed in the 2023-24 school year—although there is no guarantee that all nine units will be sold by the developer in that time frame and the housing will be inhabited by households.  APS will assume that the remainder of “The Grove” lots will be phased and completed in time for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.  Table 2 (Housing Unit Forecast) will be updated with these assumptions in the upcoming months. Table 2 can be found on the Engage website under the “Middle School Boundary Planning Unit Data Review Process” tab.