APS News Release

Elementary School Planning Initiative to Begin

  • Review Will Look at Elementary Walk Zones & Locations of Neighborhood/Option Schools
  • Final Goal Will be to Adjust All Elementary Boundaries

To prepare for the opening of the new Alice W. Fleet Elementary School and Drew Elementary as a full neighborhood school in 2019, and a new elementary school at the Reed site in 2021, Arlington Public Schools is putting in place plans to develop new elementary school boundaries between now and next November. The School Board held a Work Session Jan. 23 on elementary boundaries to discuss the scope and timeline of this work. At this session, staff proposed a two-phased approach.

  • Phase 1: Review of Elementary School Locations and School Walk Zones (For School Board action Spring 2018) Staff will review the location of each elementary neighborhood and option school—and their walk zones—to consider revising the placement of the elementary option schools (Arlington Traditional, Campbell, Claremont, Key and Primary Montessori) to more strategically serve students in neighborhoods where they live, based on current enrollment data. This could result in changing the locations of some option and neighborhood schools, while maintaining the same number of elementary neighborhood and option schools.
  • Phase 2: Elementary School Boundary Process (For School Board action November 2018) After the School Board makes a decision in Spring 2018 about whether or not to move the location of any elementary option or neighborhood school(s), staff will make preparations over the summer for a boundary process in Fall 2018. The fall process will focus on engaging the community in the process to revise all neighborhood elementary school attendance zones through boundary adjustments.

For the staff presentation from the Jan. 23 Work Session, including project timeline, community engagement, and related documents, visit aps2016.apsva.us/elementary-school-boundary-change/. The work session can be viewed at aps2016.apsva.us/school-board-meetings/school-board-work-sessions-meetings/.