Joshua Folb, APS Teacher
(This long form post is written by me, as a person. I am not representing any organization and was not asked to write it by an organization. Just me.)
In an annual tradition last week, APS staff received their employment notices for the coming year with school assignment and rate of pay. For staff who have been with APS a long time, it included the welcome surprise of receiving additional steps to replace the ones that were not given in the past 12 years. It was a nice mea culpa from an administration that did not inflict the pain. (For those who would like to debate the merits of this, I am around all summer to have coffee and discuss.) For myself and my favorite elementary teacher, it means that we can seriously look at purchasing a house in Arlington–as I finish my 22nd year in public education.
This would be our 3rd foray into the Arlington housing market as in the past we never seemed to have quite enough money to make the leap and stay within the 222’s. My friends and colleagues in education that own houses in Arlington either have a spouse that is outside of education, or they purchased their home “back in the day”, many before Metro ran through Ballston.
I say this as the conversation about Missing Middle housing circulates in the community. I am the missing middle. As the debate moves forward, when I hear people talking about the negatives of missing middle, I think they forget who they would be helping. I am also at the top of the missing middle; let’s not forget about the newer teachers, the assistants, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and others that are essential to the basic function of a school system. Missing middle isn’t about the “other”, it’s about those who work with your children and want a connection to the community they serve.
A lot of parallels in my mind are drawn between rezoning of lots for duplex, triplexes, etc. and the redrawing of attendance zones. There is a lot of “other”ing that goes on in that process too. The argument is single family homes shouldn’t mix with “other” housing. When attendance zones are proposed, I often get asked to weigh in by one group or another and I refuse. Here’s why through a story:
My wife was a teacher at an APS elementary school that was having its boundaries redrawn. As a PTA-teacher member she went to the meeting for the discussion with the school board member who was in attendance. Parent after parent decried the rezoning, when one parent said (I’m paraphrasing–I don’t remember the exact wording but the insult level is accurate) “our kids shouldn’t go to school with those kids. They aren’t like our kids” my wife stood up and grabbed the microphone. With zero care of losing her job, she excoriated the parents in attendance for denigrating a place they had never set foot in; our son went to the school they were insulting and would be rezoned to. She was being “other”ed live and in-person and it hurt. She handed the microphone back and walked out with parents pleading to her “that’s not what we meant.”
My personal experience of what mixed zoning might be like, came to me in Burbank, California a few years back. I was staying at an AirBnB in an apartment and as I was following the GPS directions, I was sure that I had just been suckered out of my money for the rental. I was half way down a tree lined street of single family homes when the GPS told me to stop at my destination. This six-plex had been so well designed that it looked like every house on block and there was plenty of parking on the street. It was long and narrow, with parking underneath for every unit. It had a yard out front and even a grill. This is what missing middle housing can look like.
There is a place for missing middle housing in Arlington and more importantly, it has the ability to help APS recruit and retain quality staff. Too often, colleagues I know want something bigger than an apartment so they move out to Fairfax or Prince William. Not long after that, they realize the pay is roughly the same out that way so they make the switch. We can continue to raise pay for our staff (and we should!) but the underlying struggles are still there. Missing middle isn’t just about the other, it really is about those who serve our children.
Thanks for reading to the end–and if anyone owns a single family home in the W-L attendance zone and wants to hook a teacher up, let me know. :)