The base commander and parents at Fort Myer are opposing proposed changes in school boundaries that would transfer 36 military students from Long Branch Elementary to Hoffman-Boston Elementary in Arlington County.
The School Board in February approved boundary changes that would move about 80 students to different schools, and the board is scheduled to vote on further changes Dec. 18.
“Changing a military child’s school is a very traumatic event … most children move very frequently, and as a result attend six to nine different schools during their K-12 years,” Col. Laura J. Richardson wrote in a letter last month to the County School Board. “This degree of change for any child is significant, even more so with the ongoing war, and thus school becomes a true safe haven for them.”
Students who would be affected by the change are dropped off at the fort’s Child Development Center in the morning and bused by Arlington County to Long Branch, according to Wally Hays, who represented Long Branch on a schools committee last year. The students are bused back to the base in the afternoon.
“Where we work, we start pretty early — our child care hours are designed to facilitate those longer working hours,” Richardson said. The center opens at 5:30 a.m. and closes at 6:30 p.m. to accommodate military families who work long hours.
Because the students rely on the county for transportation and laws do not guarantee transportation will be provided or funded, students essentially have to go where transportation goes, Hays explained.
In August, the county signed a covenant pledging greater cooperation with Fort Myer. Hays said Fort Myer was not consulted prior to the superintendent’s decision.
Richardson stressed that she still valued the covenant, but said she was surprised that the schools did not inform her before making the proposal.
“We were not asked for or coordinated with prior to [the plan] being published,” she said. “Parents affected actually informed me … in a way, I was a little disappointed.”
Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Robert Smith said he did not consult Fort Myer representatives before proposing the boundary changes, which he said are designed to relieve crowding problems.
“We were making a proposal, and we also had a built-in [provision] for people to respond to the proposals,” he said. “When we make proposals, everything is up for consideration, up for discussion … no one likes to move, and I understand that.”
