FCPS About to Propose Major Boundary Changes?

[Anonymous]

Do the AAP centers make boundary lines for schools more difficult than they need to? There are 25 high schools not including TJ with the possibility of creating a 26th high school. There are 26 middle schools so that there could be 1 middle school for each high school. There are 139 elementary schools with the possibility of several more being built in the near future so that there could be 5-6 elementary schools per middle and high school. The only split feeders that would be needed would be at the elementary school level and it seems they would only need to have one split between two middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The list contains so many new AAP centers! It may be time to go all LLIV

The last thing FCPS needs are more AAP centers.

More AAP Centers will reduce transportation costs.

Quite the opposite! Busing kids to an AAP center costs much more than just keeping them at their base school.

It seemed like many of the proposals called for AAP centers that would only draw from students at their base schools or additional centers that might pull from multiple schools, but would be closer to many students' homes than the existing centers. This would reduce current transportation costs.

Why not just keep the kids at their base schools and be done with centers for good? That would certainly reduce transportation costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The list contains so many new AAP centers! It may be time to go all LLIV

The last thing FCPS needs are more AAP centers.

More AAP Centers will reduce transportation costs.

Quite the opposite! Busing kids to an AAP center costs much more than just keeping them at their base school.

It seemed like many of the proposals called for AAP centers that would only draw from students at their base schools or additional centers that might pull from multiple schools, but would be closer to many students' homes than the existing centers. This would reduce current transportation costs.

Why not just keep the kids at their base schools and be done with centers for good? That would certainly reduce transportation costs.

That works in elementary schools where there are enough level IV and Level II students to fill at least one class. It does not work in elementary schools that do not have enough students. Pooling students in one school works for those elementary schools. Different elementary schools have different populations. Fairfax is too large and too diverse where a one size fits all policy works well for all students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The list contains so many new AAP centers! It may be time to go all LLIV

The last thing FCPS needs are more AAP centers.

More AAP Centers will reduce transportation costs.

Quite the opposite! Busing kids to an AAP center costs much more than just keeping them at their base school.

It seemed like many of the proposals called for AAP centers that would only draw from students at their base schools or additional centers that might pull from multiple schools, but would be closer to many students' homes than the existing centers. This would reduce current transportation costs.

Why not just keep the kids at their base schools and be done with centers for good? That would certainly reduce transportation costs.

That works in elementary schools where there are enough level IV and Level II students to fill at least one class. It does not work in elementary schools that do not have enough students. Pooling students in one school works for those elementary schools. Different elementary schools have different populations. Fairfax is too large and too diverse where a one size fits all policy works well for all students.

Level III not Level II.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The list contains so many new AAP centers! It may be time to go all LLIV

The last thing FCPS needs are more AAP centers.

More AAP Centers will reduce transportation costs.

Quite the opposite! Busing kids to an AAP center costs much more than just keeping them at their base school.

It seemed like many of the proposals called for AAP centers that would only draw from students at their base schools or additional centers that might pull from multiple schools, but would be closer to many students' homes than the existing centers. This would reduce current transportation costs.

It's interesting because many of them are just creating LLIV in new schools, yet they call them "centers."

Actually, many of those schools already have LLIV. I think the intent in calling them centers was to make clear the AAP students at those schools would no longer have an option to attend a different, existing center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do the AAP centers make boundary lines for schools more difficult than they need to? There are 25 high schools not including TJ with the possibility of creating a 26th high school. There are 26 middle schools so that there could be 1 middle school for each high school. There are 139 elementary schools with the possibility of several more being built in the near future so that there could be 5-6 elementary schools per middle and high school. The only split feeders that would be needed would be at the elementary school level and it seems they would only need to have one split between two middle schools.

There were split feeders long before the AAP program grew to its current size. Part of it stems from the fact that the middle and high schools aren't necessarily close to one another, so they end up with different boundaries that don't completely overlap. It seems to be worse in western Fairfax - Carson and Franklin, in particular, send kids to a lot of different HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do the AAP centers make boundary lines for schools more difficult than they need to? There are 25 high schools not including TJ with the possibility of creating a 26th high school. There are 26 middle schools so that there could be 1 middle school for each high school. There are 139 elementary schools with the possibility of several more being built in the near future so that there could be 5-6 elementary schools per middle and high school. The only split feeders that would be needed would be at the elementary school level and it seems they would only need to have one split between two middle schools.

There were split feeders long before the AAP program grew to its current size. Part of it stems from the fact that the middle and high schools aren't necessarily close to one another, so they end up with different boundaries that don't completely overlap. It seems to be worse in western Fairfax - Carson and Franklin, in particular, send kids to a lot of different HS.

+1

I love that they call Franklin our "neighborhood" school. Franklin is a 25 minute drive from our house with no traffic, one hour at 7:00am on a school bus. To get there, our bus passes right by Lanier MS and Rocky Run MS. The planning of middle school locations in central and western Fairfax was done without community planning, the way it was done in Falls Church, McLean, and Vienna. I wish we could avoid split feeders, but it isn't going to happen. AAP has nothing to do with it.

[Anonymous]

Oakton used to go to Lanier

[Anonymous]

What roads does the bus use that it passes Lanier and then also passes Rachel Carson? Rachel Carson is north of Franklin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What roads does the bus use that it passes Lanier and then also passes Rachel Carson? Rachel Carson is north of Franklin.

PP didn't mention Carson - she referred to Lanier and Rocky Run.

If you look at the map, you can see that, if you're in the eastern part of the Franklin zone, you might travel past Lanier and Rocky Run.

http://www.fcps.edu/fts/planning/maps/boundary2014-15/middle.pdf

But, just to show how tricky this stuff can be, if you look at the map, you'll see an area shaded purple just west of the City of Fairfax that recently got moved from Lanier to Franklin (and from Fairfax to Oakton), largely at the request of parents in the area, because they previously had been the only areas that went to Carson MS for AAP, but then Fairfax HS.

FCPS would really have to start over from scratch, perhaps using the same concept of "planning units" that APS employs, to come up with more rational pyramids. And, while people tend to support that in principle, they typically want to stay in their own current schools.

[Anonymous]

I agree the schools aren't spaced out properly. What was FCPS thinking to plan Franklin and Rachel Carson to be so close to each other? For two years though I'd put up with a poorly placed school in order to keep my kids with their elementary and high school class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree the schools aren't spaced out properly. What was FCPS thinking to plan Franklin and Rachel Carson to be so close to each other? For two years though I'd put up with a poorly placed school in order to keep my kids with their elementary and high school class.

It was probably thinking it should build schools where there was land available at an affordable cost.

APS has a big challenge now because there are few places in the county where new schools can be built. Same in eastern Fairfax near Bailey's Crossroads.

[Anonymous]

Sandburg and Whitman are two other very strangely located middle schools that look to be within 1 mile of each other. Whitman, Robinson, South County, Lake Braddock, and Cooper all have boundaries even longer than Franklin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree the schools aren't spaced out properly. What was FCPS thinking to plan Franklin and Rachel Carson to be so close to each other? For two years though I'd put up with a poorly placed school in order to keep my kids with their elementary and high school class.

It was probably thinking it should build schools where there was land available at an affordable cost.

APS has a big challenge now because there are few places in the county where new schools can be built. Same in eastern Fairfax near Bailey's Crossroads.

It's just so short sighted. For the close in schools, maybe at the time the school system was small and the locations were all they could afford, but by the time Centreville Road was built, the County should have had more foresight and money to build Franklin and Carson further apart from each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sandburg and Whitman are two other very strangely located middle schools that look to be within 1 mile of each other. Whitman, Robinson, South County, Lake Braddock, and Cooper all have boundaries even longer than Franklin.

They are 1.5-2.0 miles by car, and part of the reason for their proximity is that Sandburg got an "upgrade" to a HS facility when FCPS closed Fort Hunt HS and merged it with Groveton to form West Potomac (Sandburg is the former Fort Hunt HS building). I guess it could be more centrally located for the district it serves, but it's a pretty good location, and Sandburg and Whitman each feed into a single HS (West Potomac and Mount Vernon).