Just moved, what is with county school districts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lifelong Virginian here. How do other states do school districts if not by County? What would the districts be here? Like Fairfax City and Lorton and Burke would each be their own district?

In Virginia, school districts are automatically by county ONLY where no incorporated city exists. Fairfax City could have its own schools, for example, but has chosen (so far) to contract with Fairfax County for schools. Falls Church City, which is in Arlington County curiously, does have its own schools. In Virginia, a town does not usually have its own school district. Vienna, Herndon, and Clifton are the 3 incorporated towns in Fairfax County. Most of Fairfax County is neither in an incorporated town nor in an incorporated city. As examples, neither Reston, McLean, nor Great Falls are incorporated as either a town or a city.

As PP mentioned NE is setup differently. First, many more incorporated towns, mostly for historical reasons. Second, towns often do run their own (often very small) school districts. This can lead to greater inequality in school funding when compared with Fairfax County. In Fairfax County, rich areas like Great Falls or McLean effectively subsidize the county schools operating in less affluent areas (e.g., near Mt Vernon). If McLean were an incorporated city, with its own schools, then their property taxes would not subsidize schools in other areas.

[Anonymous]

In much of California, school district boundaries do not align with town/city boundaries. For example, the Cupertino HS district serves parts of Sunnyvale but does not serve all of Cupertino. In some areas, the elementary school districts are separate from the HS districts, and have different boundaries. Nearby, there is a San Jose unified School District, where unified seems to mean the entire city of San Jose and also means all grades. LA has the LA Unified School District also. It is a very confusing setup. When house buying, due diligence is very important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lifelong Virginian here. How do other states do school districts if not by County? What would the districts be here? Like Fairfax City and Lorton and Burke would each be their own district?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

I’d love to live somewhere that rich town = rich school. In Loudoun, all the money goes toward the rapid growth out west and the east (where the density and and the higher property values are) is basically ignored.

[Anonymous]

Op - just know that academics no longer matter in the DC region’s public schools. Test scores are plummeting, and not just because of Covid. Teachers are fleeing in droves. Schools keep lowering standards, and are dropping in every national (and especially international) ranking.

If you want to send your child to school to learn academic topics here, choose a private school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op - just know that academics no longer matter in the DC region’s public schools. Test scores are plummeting, and not just because of Covid. Teachers are fleeing in droves. Schools keep lowering standards, and are dropping in every national (and especially international) ranking.

If you want to send your child to school to learn academic topics here, choose a private school.

Hmmm. That’s strange because when the top graduates of public high schools here get to college, they do just as well as their private HS classmates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The county school districts goes back to when most of the south was pretty sparsely populated. Fairfax County didn’t start growing until the 1960s. Places that were rural or small townish in the 80s or even the 90s are now suburbs and exurbs, or even mid-size cities of their own, but they still retain the public service/school structure of a time when they had a much lower population. I grew up in the Midwest where all the cities and suburbs had their own city schools and governments, and you only had county-wide or regional schools in sparsely populated areas.

Funny thing is, there are now lots of Rust Gelt small towns/counties that are now sparsely populated and it would make sense just to convert those school districts into one, county wide school district

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county school districts goes back to when most of the south was pretty sparsely populated. Fairfax County didn’t start growing until the 1960s. Places that were rural or small townish in the 80s or even the 90s are now suburbs and exurbs, or even mid-size cities of their own, but they still retain the public service/school structure of a time when they had a much lower population. I grew up in the Midwest where all the cities and suburbs had their own city schools and governments, and you only had county-wide or regional schools in sparsely populated areas.

Funny thing is, there are now lots of Rust Gelt small towns/counties that are now sparsely populated and it would make sense just to convert those school districts into one, county wide school district

I think some places have somewhat changed their districts “up north” to combine 2 or more small cities, but there’s issues with that too. Each of those cities runs their own government with their own mayor and city council and police and fire and their own city library (that may or may not participate with the larger county library system), etc. So they usually just figure, why not keep their own school district even if it’s shrinking in size. Where I grew up they shut down an entire elementary school due to lack of enrollment and the building being in poor physical shape, and the students were easily absorbed into the city’s 3 other elementary schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op - just know that academics no longer matter in the DC region’s public schools. Test scores are plummeting, and not just because of Covid. Teachers are fleeing in droves. Schools keep lowering standards, and are dropping in every national (and especially international) ranking.

If you want to send your child to school to learn academic topics here, choose a private school.

My eldest is in a top college and doing great after an FCPS education and the younger ones are on track also. The state standards have actually gotten harder over time. Test scores did go down during the pandemic, but have come back up. There is a teacher shortage--both at public and private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Ignore these crazy people. Yes, the schools here are set up by county, it's bizarre, but there is a lot of variance within each county. All the school systems here are great.

Which schools do your kids currently attend? That would help the OP a lot.

[Anonymous]

I am a Northeasterner who, at first, found the county-wide school district odd. But there are some benefits:
#1 is lower taxes. The property taxes in most of those nice towns in NJ, NY, CT and MA are astronomical. It's also silly to have so many small districts and small police and fire departments that are all only 1-2 miles from one another.
2) We supposedly, get better services for kids with differing needs. But I am sure there are many who will dispute this.
3) Kids are not trapped at one school if, for some reason, that school isn't working out for them. Not saying it's an easy process but it can be done.
4) If you are in a wealthy town, you are not subsidizing low-income families with meals and extra supports, which may appeal to some.

All that said, we are in MCPS, which is something like the 17th largest district in the country and it feels huge and like a big money drain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op - just know that academics no longer matter in the DC region’s public schools. Test scores are plummeting, and not just because of Covid. Teachers are fleeing in droves. Schools keep lowering standards, and are dropping in every national (and especially international) ranking.

If you want to send your child to school to learn academic topics here, choose a private school.

Hmmm. That’s strange because when the top graduates of public high schools here get to college, they do just as well as their private HS classmates.

Hmmm. That’s strange that you didn’t supply a cite as proof of your claim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I grew up in the Midwest where all the cities and suburbs had their own city schools and governments, and you only had county-wide or regional schools in sparsely populated areas.

Things can be very messy in the Midwest, like in the Chicago burbs where a lot of the high school districts are organized by township, which don't necessarily match the boundaries of incorporated municipalities, and random small K-8 districts based on where some one-room schoolhouse was located a hundred years ago. Illinois once had something like 12,000 school districts, they've chopped it down to about 850 now which is still the third-most behind TX and CA.

[Anonymous]

go to us news best high schools and select the best one, then go on great schools and select the best elementary school for that area you can afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:go to us news best high schools and select the best one, then go on great schools and select the best elementary school for that area you can afford.

then search by elementary school on redfin