APS Releases Demographic Data Analysis for the Recent High School Boundary Change

After the School Board approved changes for the high school boundaries in December 2016, a number of questions were received from members of the community who asked for more details on the impact that the changes will have on future demographics at the three comprehensive high schools. As a result, the School Board asked staff to produce a report that estimates the future demographics that will result by the start of the 2020-21 school year at the three high schools, the final year of the boundary transition. The staff report has been completed and posted online, and the following provides a brief summary from the report.

Some Caveats about the Data Analysis:

• APS cannot estimate the ethnicity of future students who may select another high school program (H-B Woodlawn, Arlington Tech, Arlington Community High School or Langston High School Continuation Program), students who will take advantage of the waiver that was part of the December 2016 Boundary decision, or students who request a transfer to another neighborhood high school.
• Analysis will be difficult to compare with existing membership reports that show students currently attending neighborhood schools and alternative programs since the future choices are not known for the cohort that will be in high school in Fall 2020.
• APS membership reports do not include Arlington high school students who currently attend Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, and staff cannot predict which students will be accepted in future years.
• The data reflects the Limited English Proficient (LEP) identification of students at this time; however, by the Fall of 2020, many of those students will have attained English language proficiency and, therefore, will no longer be identified as LEP.

Student Ethnicity:
Comparisons of current and future classes of high school students also recognizes that diversity in APS is decreasing based on review of the demographics of our current elementary and middle school cohorts. This means that the cohort of students in Grades 5, 6, 7 and 8 is less diverse than the cohort of students currently enrolled in Grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. Overall, as the population of Arlington high school students increase, the following changes are seen throughout the county:

• Hispanic student enrollment decreases by 6 percentage points
• Black student enrollment decreases by 1 percentage point
• White student enrollment increases by 8 percentage points
• “Other” population enrollment increases by 1 percentage point
• Asian student enrollment remains constant at 9%

Looking at neighborhood high schools, estimates show the following changes:

• Decreases in the proportions (percentage points) of the following student groups:
  • Wakefield – Black (-1), Hispanic (-6)
  • Washington-Lee – Asian (-1), Black (-2), Hispanic (-6)
  • Yorktown – Asian (-2), Black (-1), Hispanic (-3)
• Increase in proportions (percentage points) of the following student groups:
  • Wakefield – Asian (+1), White (+7)
  • Washington-Lee – Multi (+1), White (+8)
  • Yorktown – Multi (+1), White (+5)
• For Wakefield, there is no change in the proportion (percentage points) of students in the other reporting groups.

 Students with Disabilities (SWD)
The proportions of students remain constant at each high school, before and after the boundary changes.

Limited English Proficient (LEP) Students
As noted above, many of the current LEP students may reach proficiency before they get to high school.  The proportions of students who are LEP today is estimated to

• remain constant at Washington-Lee
• increase by 1 percent at Wakefield and
• decrease by 1 percent at Yorktown

The full report is available on the APS Boundaries web page.