FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just realize that the School Board has the authority to make these changes and you would not be able to stop them. At best you could try to vote them out at the next election.

Actually, it is a fairly drawn out process that requires specific procedures to be met over a multi year time frame.

They cannot just wave their magic school board wand and decree that starting next year, all high schools will be redrawn to create some mythical, unachievable equity goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Yeah, some of us have already experienced the death spiral. So that really doesn't move me.

If you have school age children, then you knew the achievement levels of Lewis before you purchased a house there.

Not everyone is a transient. Some of us have been here a long time.

You wouldn't have school age kids then. Your kids would be adults or college aged.

Some moved here before having kids in their late 30s to mid-40s.

Then they would have known their school rankings before purchasing their home.

Anyone who has school age children in K12 would have not have purchsed their home when Lewis was not one of the lower performing schools in FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just realize that the School Board has the authority to make these changes and you would not be able to stop them. At best you could try to vote them out at the next election.

Actually, it is a fairly drawn out process that requires specific procedures to be met over a multi year time frame.

They cannot just wave their magic school board wand and decree that starting next year, all high schools will be redrawn to create some mythical, unachievable equity goal.

Probably a year and a half.

They could just go after a couple of more obvious boundaries. Then the political risk would be lower. You might change the balance from 12-0 all the way to 8-4, but that would be about it. And even that might be a stretch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just realize that the School Board has the authority to make these changes and you would not be able to stop them. At best you could try to vote them out at the next election.

Actually, it is a fairly drawn out process that requires specific procedures to be met over a multi year time frame.

They cannot just wave their magic school board wand and decree that starting next year, all high schools will be redrawn to create some mythical, unachievable equity goal.

Probably a year and a half.

They could just go after a couple of more obvious boundaries. Then the political risk would be lower. You might change the balance from 12-0 all the way to 8-4, but that would be about it. And even that might be a stretch.

It is still a multi step, multi year process to rezone even one school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, some of us have already experienced the death spiral. So that really doesn't move me.

If you have school age children, then you knew the achievement levels of Lewis before you purchased a house there.

Not everyone is a transient. Some of us have been here a long time.

You wouldn't have school age kids then. Your kids would be adults or college aged.

Some moved here before having kids in their late 30s to mid-40s.

Then they would have known their school rankings before purchasing their home.

Anyone who has school age children in K12 would have not have purchsed their home when Lewis was not one of the lower performing schools in FCPS.

Lewis is just one school in a system with many more schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just realize that the School Board has the authority to make these changes and you would not be able to stop them. At best you could try to vote them out at the next election.

Actually, it is a fairly drawn out process that requires specific procedures to be met over a multi year time frame.

They cannot just wave their magic school board wand and decree that starting next year, all high schools will be redrawn to create some mythical, unachievable equity goal.

Probably a year and a half.

They could just go after a couple of more obvious boundaries. Then the political risk would be lower. You might change the balance from 12-0 all the way to 8-4, but that would be about it. And even that might be a stretch.

It is still a multi step, multi year process to rezone even one school.

I believe if they started the process in the fall they could make the final decision in the spring (with all the process in between) and it would be effective the following fall (and phased in). Now, the FCPS board hasn't been that efficient in years. So that won't be happening. Actually, I don't expect the FCPS School Board will ever make a tough boundary decision again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just realize that the School Board has the authority to make these changes and you would not be able to stop them. At best you could try to vote them out at the next election.

Actually, it is a fairly drawn out process that requires specific procedures to be met over a multi year time frame.

They cannot just wave their magic school board wand and decree that starting next year, all high schools will be redrawn to create some mythical, unachievable equity goal.

Probably a year and a half.

They could just go after a couple of more obvious boundaries. Then the political risk would be lower. You might change the balance from 12-0 all the way to 8-4, but that would be about it. And even that might be a stretch.

It is still a multi step, multi year process to rezone even one school.

I believe if they started the process in the fall they could make the final decision in the spring (with all the process in between) and it would be effective the following fall (and phased in). Now, the FCPS board hasn't been that efficient in years. So that won't be happening. Actually, I don't expect the FCPS School Board will ever make a tough boundary decision again.

No way.

People are going to fight like hellcats as soon as they hear a whisper that their school might get rezoned, especially if it involves a longer commute out of their neighborhood to a school that is one of tge lowest performing in the county.

The first step before rezoning is even discussed, is to close the loopholes that families are using to transfer out of Lewis.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Also, the Springfield district folks were fools in the past school board election when they voted Schultz out of office over national issues.

Schultz was the one who helped and supported the Daventry parents with their split feeder elimination. She worked diligently with them, even though they were mostly not from her political party, because she treated them as her constituents even though they were from opposing political groups. She worked for her constituents on school issues, and would have been counted on to fight like a bobcat if the school board started pushing to rezone her neighborhoods out of the pyramid to use the kids as political pawns. She was awfully trumpy, but on school issues, particularly rezoning issues, Schultz put constituency over party. Fighting political rezoning was one of her issues.

Now they lost that kind of representation on the school board, followed by redistricting thanks to McKay and the board of supervisors, that split their representation from Springfield district to Providence, where the primary school board representation is on Lewis and not their zoned high school, West Springfield.

I think many in that part of West Springfield are going to end up regretting the day they voted on local offices because of national politics. They basically voted against their own interests, particularly with regards to school rezoning.

Fair enough, but, just to reiterate:

Not a single school board candidate ran on a redistricting platform. That they feel they somehow have a mandate to do this is very misplaced.

No school board candidate anywhere would get elected by running on a redistricting platform. It is a necessary evil that school boards loathe to do - everywhere. FCPS punting it down the road for so many decades, it is now needed. An overall comprehensive change makes the most sense. It will not be popular - they never are.

We should ask Terry McAuliffe how successful your line of thinking is: Parents and constituents don’t want redistricting? Well, I’m smarter than they are and I know better than they do, so I’m just going to do it anyway.

Also, you say redistricting is now needed. Your view is in the extreme minority in the county.

Let's assume that parents keep stuffing their kids into West Springfield (already over capacity). Should we expand WS again before using the available
Space at Lewis? That is not a reasonable thing to do and parents don't get everything they want.

Surely you have this all figured out. I bestow on you the title of FCPS emperor to do your will over the objection of any and all FCPS parents and constituents.

You sound exactly like McAuliffe.

It's just simple logic and fiscal responsibility. Would you have a cap on how big WS could become?

Since you aren't zoned for West Springfield, it doesn't really matter or affect you as to how big the school is.

It is weird to have a fixation on the size of a school you are not zoned for, which doesn't affect you in any way, and where parents of students actually attending the school are not complaining aboht the size or asking to be rezoned.

At some point, your obsession with that school sounds a lot like vengeance and wanting to stick it to people who made other choices with their housing purchases, as well as wanting to disrupt the lives of other people's kids for something that does not affect you one iota.

It impacts taxpayers and neighboring schools. Perhaps your selfish views don't see that. Utilization of existing capacity is supposed to be one of the reasons to change boundaries - specifically so you don't build space you don't need at taxpayer expense. This is why the West Potomac boondoggle was so blatantly wrong. There was plenty of room at Mt. Vernon.

Perhaps your selfish views can't expand to understand that FC residents settled into the neighborhoods that they did based on the schools they were districted to.

Citizens of Fairfax are of course free to make those personal decisions and have opinions about where they believe they should attend, but FCPS is very clear that they do not make any guarantees. Straight from their boundary website:
"Please note that school boundaries are reevaluated each year and may be adjusted by the School Board. FCPS provides no guarantee that any residential address will continually be served by the same elementary, middle, and/or high school(s) or AAP center(s)."

FCPS is tasked with educating the public at large and pyramids certainly don't exist in isolation. This isn't about WS vs. Lewis or Langley vs. Herndon. If certain policies are harming the ability to run a good system then that needs to be addressed. And again this entire 'holistic' review isn't only about boundaries but also program placement and availability which undeniably needs to be evaluated.

People are going to move where they want to live, usually based on schools and commute.

People in Fairfax County are wealthy enough that if you rezone kids to a low performing school in an attempt at social engineering, especially when no one is asking to be rezoned, that they will just pull their kids for private school and buy in other zones.

The other poster is right. There are so many things FCPS can do to fix Lewis, starting eith eliminating AB and the social justice academy.

Put in AP. Put in an audition based performing arts magnet. Put in a non traditional trades magnet and let kids transfer to Edison, Hayfield or Lake Braddock.

There are many things they can do that do not involve disrupting families and using kids as politicsl pawns.

Not really. For a public school, demographics is destiny. Lewis is 54% farms. That level dooms to to being an underperforming school. FCPS itself commissioned a study on the impact of poverty rate on school quality. According to FCPS's own study: "And, almost all schools with poverty levels of 45 percent or higher were unable to reach expected passrate levels in reading or math. Follow‐up statistical analyses found statistical evidence that two tipping points exist in FCPS. The reading data provided the most consistent findings as it indicated two tipping points occurring at 20 and 40‐45 percent school‐level poverty. Thus, FCPS schools with greater than 20 percent poverty are much less likely to meet performance expectations than those with less than 20 percent poverty. And, once poverty levels at a school reach 40 percent or more, FCPS schools are unlikely to meet expectations for school performance." ... "It is also important to note that this impact was for all students attending FCPS schools, meaning that both students living in poverty and those not from impoverished backgrounds at the same school demonstrate similar declines in their reading performance when attending schools above the 20 percent poverty tipping point."

https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/9DG4KP71B0DB/$file/fcps_tipping-point.pdf

So, basically the opposite of posts on this board that repeatedly assure us that kids who get redistricted from higher performing schools into the lower performing schools will do just fine.

I mean, we all know that would be the case, but always great to hear it straight from the SB.

They are about to turn a lot of folks into voucher advocates!

[Anonymous]

Look at this list:

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/virginia/districts/fairfax-county-public-schools-109481

And tell me with a straight face that people who are currently zoned for one of the top 6-8 schools are going to sit idly by and wait to be rezoned into one of the bottom 10, along with the accompanying property value loss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just realize that the School Board has the authority to make these changes and you would not be able to stop them. At best you could try to vote them out at the next election.

Actually, it is a fairly drawn out process that requires specific procedures to be met over a multi year time frame.

They cannot just wave their magic school board wand and decree that starting next year, all high schools will be redrawn to create some mythical, unachievable equity goal.

Probably a year and a half.

They could just go after a couple of more obvious boundaries. Then the political risk would be lower. You might change the balance from 12-0 all the way to 8-4, but that would be about it. And even that might be a stretch.

It is still a multi step, multi year process to rezone even one school.

I believe if they started the process in the fall they could make the final decision in the spring (with all the process in between) and it would be effective the following fall (and phased in). Now, the FCPS board hasn't been that efficient in years. So that won't be happening. Actually, I don't expect the FCPS School Board will ever make a tough boundary decision again.

The county board can kill it though the budgeting process if there is enough push back. County reps tend to care about re-election and future positions more than school board reps

[Anonymous]

I think the extreme political backlash would only happen if the School Board goes for massive changes across the county under the banner of equity.

If, for example, they only moved students from overcrowded WS to under utilized Lewis, I don't think you would get much political support outside of WS. There is a legitimate justification to make this change. The county board certainly would not get involved. And voters across the county wouldn't rally to elect a bunch of conservatives because of proper space and resource utilization.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the extreme political backlash would only happen if the School Board goes for massive changes across the county under the banner of equity.

If, for example, they only moved students from overcrowded WS to under utilized Lewis, I don't think you would get much political support outside of WS. There is a legitimate justification to make this change. The county board certainly would not get involved. And voters across the county wouldn't rally to elect a bunch of conservatives because of proper space and resource utilization.

There is no justification for this change.

Other people's kids are not your pawns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the extreme political backlash would only happen if the School Board goes for massive changes across the county under the banner of equity.

If, for example, they only moved students from overcrowded WS to under utilized Lewis, I don't think you would get much political support outside of WS. There is a legitimate justification to make this change. The county board certainly would not get involved. And voters across the county wouldn't rally to elect a bunch of conservatives because of proper space and resource utilization.

There is no justification for this change.

Other people's kids are not your pawns.

Stop being obtuse. There is plenty of justification as has already been discussed ad nauseam. Zones are not guaranteed, and everyone agrees the existing zones and associated policies are outdated. Your anger should be directed at the past school boards who failed to manage the situation properly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the extreme political backlash would only happen if the School Board goes for massive changes across the county under the banner of equity.

If, for example, they only moved students from overcrowded WS to under utilized Lewis, I don't think you would get much political support outside of WS. There is a legitimate justification to make this change. The county board certainly would not get involved. And voters across the county wouldn't rally to elect a bunch of conservatives because of proper space and resource utilization.

There is no justification for this change.

Other people's kids are not your pawns.

Stop being obtuse. There is plenty of justification as has already been discussed ad nauseam. Zones are not guaranteed, and everyone agrees the existing zones and associated policies are outdated. Your anger should be directed at the past school boards who failed to manage the situation properly.

Not really.

There is no justification or reason to rezone kids based on arguments presented by the pro rezoning crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the extreme political backlash would only happen if the School Board goes for massive changes across the county under the banner of equity.

If, for example, they only moved students from overcrowded WS to under utilized Lewis, I don't think you would get much political support outside of WS. There is a legitimate justification to make this change. The county board certainly would not get involved. And voters across the county wouldn't rally to elect a bunch of conservatives because of proper space and resource utilization.

There is no justification for this change.

Other people's kids are not your pawns.

Stop being obtuse. There is plenty of justification as has already been discussed ad nauseam. Zones are not guaranteed, and everyone agrees the existing zones and associated policies are outdated. Your anger should be directed at the past school boards who failed to manage the situation properly.

DP. What is this imaginary consensus of which you speak?