Politics & Government

School Boundary Changes: 'We Expect We Cannot Make Everyone Happy,' Raphael Says

Arlington School Board will hold two public hearings on the matter in April about the plan to shuffle 900 Arlington students among eight schools.

Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Pat Murphy on Thursday formally presented a plan to adjust elementary school attendance zone boundaries in North Arlington.

The recommendation — "Variation B" to the hundreds of parents who have been following the process — shuffles 900 students among seven existing elementary schools and a new one planned for the Williamsburg community.

[More: 900 Students Move in Arlington Superintendent's School Boundary Recommendation]

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The school system has held about 40 meetings since September 2011 on the matter, from well-attended town halls to neighborhood meetings at Starbucks. Murphy said the feedback he'd received has been "thoughtful, informed, insightful and, ultimately, the dialogue was respectful."

The presentation was somewhat anticlimactic after the recent town halls Murphy and school staff have held in Williamsburg, which have filled a middle school's auditorium.

Find out what's happening in Arlingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Arlington School Board will hold public hearings on the recommendation on April 3 and April 23, with a work session sandwiched in between on the 11th.

Planners have divided North Arlington into a series of planning units, neighborhood groups that could be shifted here and there as they put together the puzzle of what new attendance zones would look like.

In Murphy's recommendation, 18 of the 20 affected planning units will continue to receive transportation services from the school. The other two are considered entirely walkable.

The school system's More Seats for More Students webpage has received 52,000 page views during the planning process, said Lionel White, the school system's director of facilities planning.

"This is a tremendous opportunity," school board member Abby Raphael said. "One of the primary reasons we're doing this now is that we're creating a community at that (new) school."

Raphael said she had purposefully distanced herself from the boundary change process so far, so that school staff and the community could better work together.

"This is something where we expect we cannot make everyone happy," she said.

School board member Noah Simon said he's been meeting with parents regularly. He said he's meeting a group of them Friday and has upcoming community meetings at Tuckahoe and Jamestown elementary schools to discuss the proposed changes.

School board member James Lander said it was important to make sure the impact of the change isn't felt at just one school, but felt "all around the county."

School board member Sally Baird recounted the last time boundaries were changed, in 2007. That process, she said, was "contentious and really divisive for the community."

"The conversation needed to involve the whole community," she said. "Because what we saw was every school was 'batten down the hatches, don't mess with us.' "

The school board is slated to take final action on the boundary changes.

Once boundaries are set, the school system will begin working with the community to name the new elementary school, which will be located on the Williamsburg Middle School campus.

Read more:

  • School Boundary Changes: Arlington Superintendent Gets Feedback
  • School Boundary Changes: Latest Recommendations Released
  • Proposed School Boundary Changes Get Heated Reaction from North Arlington


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