FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Wake up babe, new Mateo Dunne email just dropped. Not going to copy the whole thing here because it’s quite long, but specific situations are called out by name in the Mount Vernon district including the Whitman/Sandburg situation and the Halley attendance island. https://www.fcps.edu/aggregator/sources/19?utm_campaign+=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery#

This is what I found interesting:

"Over 100 students who live within walking distance of Mount Vernon Woods ES are assigned to attend Fort Hunt ES. They ride the bus every day past multiple elementary schools to arrive at Fort Hunt ES."

Removing those kids from Fort Hunt eliminates all of their FARMS students and sends them to a high FARMS school, so I don't see that happening.

I don't see how Whitman/Sandburg is solvable without creating more problems. If you give Sandburg to MVSH and Whitman to WPHS, the the walkable neighborhoods to Sandburg (in the Stratford Landing Boundary, across the street from Waynewood, both separated from MVHS by Ft Hunt) then you move more kids to MVHS than MVHS has capacity for. Moving Hollin Meadows to MVHS so Whitman is in the boundary Creates another island unless you move Stratford Landing as well, but then Sandburg outside of its boundaries

The only way to solve the Whitman/Sandburg issue is to build a new school building within the Mount Vernon boundaries. If you swap the schools, Sandburg will still be 100% bused for all the MVHS pyramid students. The building is too far of a walk for anyone who lives within the MVHS boundaries. When my kids were at Whitman, there was definitely a "disconnect" to the school and I think alot of it has to do with its location.

Whitman is where it is located because of a financial decision when Groveton HS and Fort Hunt HS merged to create West Potomac HS. The corresponding middle schools were merged and you had an empty school building. FCPS decided to move Whitman instead of renovate the building it was in (the original Mount Vernon HS on Rt. 1) and rent out the old building. That building is now owned by Fairfax County Government and NOT FCPS. I think that may have happened when Whitman moved back in the 1980s. Personally, I'd love to see Whitman move back to the original MVHS building but that's not going to happen.
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/publicworks/capital-projects/original-mount-vernon-high-school

One way to potentially fix Whitman/Sandburg is to turn MVHS into a secondary school and have both middle schools feed to West Potomac. That would fill MVHS empty seats and keep all their schools in bounds. It would also open up space at Whitman/Sandburg to fulfill Reid’s dream of more 6-8 middle schools.

This would create a less disruptive path to open seats. West Potomac could pick up Mount Eagle and/or Cameron from Edison. Annandale could pick up Bren Mar Park, which is already a part of its pyramid. And then should Lewis close, it could be split between South County and Edison, with Key and Twain feeding to Edison as Reid’s beloved 6-8 feeders.

I really don’t see much appetite for new secondary schools. They were kind of a 60s-70s thing. When South County later opened, originally as a secondary school, it was with the explicit understanding that a new middle school would eventually get built and, when that happened, South County became a high school.

Nor does anyone seem to be very keen on more 6-8 middle schools. Reid seems to talk about it mostly to placate Ricardy Anderson, who is miffed that the middle schools in her district (Mason) are 6-8 outliers. She’d be happier if other schools followed the same model because misery loves company (she has also been pushing for years to shrink the enrollment of 6-8 Glasgow).

I don't think the 6-8 talk is so much to placate Ricardy Anderson as it is to try and free up more room at the Elementary Schools to enable Universal Pre-K.

Where will we get universal prek funding once we get vouchers and all the umc and mc families flee the sinking ship?

Most of FCPS is upper middle class or wealthy. There is no need for universal PreK in this district.

FCPS is 34% FARMS. By your logic that means less than 16% of FCPS students are from LMC or MC families combined, with >50% UMC or wealthy.

Tell me you're out of touch without telling me you're out of touch.

If only 34% of FCPS is FARMS, then yes, most of FCPS is upper middle class (feds, military, contractors, etc) or wealthy.

I love how you just completely ignore where the majority of population actually exists: above the FARMS cutoffs, but below UMC. Thank you for continuing to make my point.

Continuing to make your point: most every single income military, fed, contractor family is below UMC.

Nope, even a GS-13 can make $150K at the higher steps. That's UMC.

A family of 4 in FFX county making $150K hardly sounds UMC to me. This article suggests a family of 4 in VA needs to make $235K to "live comfortably". I'd wager that's actually a bit higher in FFX specifically. If your definition of UMC isn't one that allows a family to "live comfortably", then I think you have a skewed definition of UMC.

That is total bullshit. Maybe your level of "comfort" includes a $1.5M Modern Farmhouse, private school, and two big vacations every year, but mine doesn't. We live more than comfortably on a $190K salary in Fairfax County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So anyway, over under on how many centreville and Chantilly kids get moved to Westfield?

Isn't Chantilly considered a "neighborhood school?" So many families in the Greenbrier, Brookfield and Poplar Tree neighborhoods that are all walkers to the school. Would they really move kids who walk to school now miles away and have to move them by bus?

Those obviously are not the children they would move, PP. Duh.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Wake up babe, new Mateo Dunne email just dropped. Not going to copy the whole thing here because it’s quite long, but specific situations are called out by name in the Mount Vernon district including the Whitman/Sandburg situation and the Halley attendance island. https://www.fcps.edu/aggregator/sources/19?utm_campaign+=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery#

This is what I found interesting:

"Over 100 students who live within walking distance of Mount Vernon Woods ES are assigned to attend Fort Hunt ES. They ride the bus every day past multiple elementary schools to arrive at Fort Hunt ES."

Removing those kids from Fort Hunt eliminates all of their FARMS students and sends them to a high FARMS school, so I don't see that happening.

I don't see how Whitman/Sandburg is solvable without creating more problems. If you give Sandburg to MVSH and Whitman to WPHS, the the walkable neighborhoods to Sandburg (in the Stratford Landing Boundary, across the street from Waynewood, both separated from MVHS by Ft Hunt) then you move more kids to MVHS than MVHS has capacity for. Moving Hollin Meadows to MVHS so Whitman is in the boundary Creates another island unless you move Stratford Landing as well, but then Sandburg outside of its boundaries

The only way to solve the Whitman/Sandburg issue is to build a new school building within the Mount Vernon boundaries. If you swap the schools, Sandburg will still be 100% bused for all the MVHS pyramid students. The building is too far of a walk for anyone who lives within the MVHS boundaries. When my kids were at Whitman, there was definitely a "disconnect" to the school and I think alot of it has to do with its location.

Whitman is where it is located because of a financial decision when Groveton HS and Fort Hunt HS merged to create West Potomac HS. The corresponding middle schools were merged and you had an empty school building. FCPS decided to move Whitman instead of renovate the building it was in (the original Mount Vernon HS on Rt. 1) and rent out the old building. That building is now owned by Fairfax County Government and NOT FCPS. I think that may have happened when Whitman moved back in the 1980s. Personally, I'd love to see Whitman move back to the original MVHS building but that's not going to happen.
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/publicworks/capital-projects/original-mount-vernon-high-school

One way to potentially fix Whitman/Sandburg is to turn MVHS into a secondary school and have both middle schools feed to West Potomac. That would fill MVHS empty seats and keep all their schools in bounds. It would also open up space at Whitman/Sandburg to fulfill Reid’s dream of more 6-8 middle schools.

This would create a less disruptive path to open seats. West Potomac could pick up Mount Eagle and/or Cameron from Edison. Annandale could pick up Bren Mar Park, which is already a part of its pyramid. And then should Lewis close, it could be split between South County and Edison, with Key and Twain feeding to Edison as Reid’s beloved 6-8 feeders.

I really don’t see much appetite for new secondary schools. They were kind of a 60s-70s thing. When South County later opened, originally as a secondary school, it was with the explicit understanding that a new middle school would eventually get built and, when that happened, South County became a high school.

Nor does anyone seem to be very keen on more 6-8 middle schools. Reid seems to talk about it mostly to placate Ricardy Anderson, who is miffed that the middle schools in her district (Mason) are 6-8 outliers. She’d be happier if other schools followed the same model because misery loves company (she has also been pushing for years to shrink the enrollment of 6-8 Glasgow).

I don't think the 6-8 talk is so much to placate Ricardy Anderson as it is to try and free up more room at the Elementary Schools to enable Universal Pre-K.

Where will we get universal prek funding once we get vouchers and all the umc and mc families flee the sinking ship?

Most of FCPS is upper middle class or wealthy. There is no need for universal PreK in this district.

FCPS is 34% FARMS. By your logic that means less than 16% of FCPS students are from LMC or MC families combined, with >50% UMC or wealthy.

Tell me you're out of touch without telling me you're out of touch.

If only 34% of FCPS is FARMS, then yes, most of FCPS is upper middle class (feds, military, contractors, etc) or wealthy.

I love how you just completely ignore where the majority of population actually exists: above the FARMS cutoffs, but below UMC. Thank you for continuing to make my point.

Continuing to make your point: most every single income military, fed, contractor family is below UMC.

Nope, even a GS-13 can make $150K at the higher steps. That's UMC.

A family of 4 in FFX county making $150K hardly sounds UMC to me. This article suggests a family of 4 in VA needs to make $235K to "live comfortably". I'd wager that's actually a bit higher in FFX specifically. If your definition of UMC isn't one that allows a family to "live comfortably", then I think you have a skewed definition of UMC.

That is total bullshit. Maybe your level of "comfort" includes a $1.5M Modern Farmhouse, private school, and two big vacations every year, but mine doesn't. We live more than comfortably on a $190K salary in Fairfax County.

Modern farmhouses are running closer to 2-4 million now, and you aren't affording that + private school + vacations...even on dual military or GS 15 salaries. And yes, lots of people do like to take vacations with their families and not just have SACC and babysitters care for their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So anyway, over under on how many centreville and Chantilly kids get moved to Westfield?

Isn't Chantilly considered a "neighborhood school?" So many families in the Greenbrier, Brookfield and Poplar Tree neighborhoods that are all walkers to the school. Would they really move kids who walk to school now miles away and have to move them by bus?

The school board is looking to alleviate overcrowding, and there is a real issue at centreville and chantilly. Sure it might be fixed six or seven years in the future, assuming the taxpayers approve a massive expansion, but that over browsing is an issue today. If they are serious about addressing under capacity or over capacity issues, they must do something at these two schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So anyway, over under on how many centreville and Chantilly kids get moved to Westfield?

Isn't Chantilly considered a "neighborhood school?" So many families in the Greenbrier, Brookfield and Poplar Tree neighborhoods that are all walkers to the school. Would they really move kids who walk to school now miles away and have to move them by bus?

The school board is looking to alleviate overcrowding, and there is a real issue at centreville and chantilly. Sure it might be fixed six or seven years in the future, assuming the taxpayers approve a massive expansion, but that over browsing is an issue today. If they are serious about addressing under capacity or over capacity issues, they must do something at these two schools.

Where are you zoned? Some of the biggest advocates for “doing something” for Chantilly live elsewhere and have their own motives. They are fervently trying to game potential boundary changes so other kids get moved and their kids stay at their current schools.

If you are personally looking to move from Chantilly to Westfield, please let us know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So anyway, over under on how many centreville and Chantilly kids get moved to Westfield?

Isn't Chantilly considered a "neighborhood school?" So many families in the Greenbrier, Brookfield and Poplar Tree neighborhoods that are all walkers to the school. Would they really move kids who walk to school now miles away and have to move them by bus?

The school board is looking to alleviate overcrowding, and there is a real issue at centreville and chantilly. Sure it might be fixed six or seven years in the future, assuming the taxpayers approve a massive expansion, but that over browsing is an issue today. If they are serious about addressing under capacity or over capacity issues, they must do something at these two schools.

Where are you zoned? Some of the biggest advocates for “doing something” for Chantilly live elsewhere and have their own motives. They are fervently trying to game potential boundary changes so other kids get moved and their kids stay at their current schools.

If you are personally looking to move from Chantilly to Westfield, please let us know.

Misdirection. They just passed Policy 8130 and overcrowding is one of the big four factors.

Your whataboutism goes against the policy that they just passed this summer. I didn’t write the policy, the school board did. Talk to them.

[Anonymous]

Question for people who seem to know more about this: would boundary changes affect the maps of the various FCPS regions? Or are they looking to keep the regions the same and make changes within existing regions to balance things?

We live close to the boundary between two regions. If rezoning is going to happen I wish we would get rezoned to a HS closer to our home. But I am realizing it’s in a different region so maybe that’s unlikely?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So anyway, over under on how many centreville and Chantilly kids get moved to Westfield?

Isn't Chantilly considered a "neighborhood school?" So many families in the Greenbrier, Brookfield and Poplar Tree neighborhoods that are all walkers to the school. Would they really move kids who walk to school now miles away and have to move them by bus?

The school board is looking to alleviate overcrowding, and there is a real issue at centreville and chantilly. Sure it might be fixed six or seven years in the future, assuming the taxpayers approve a massive expansion, but that over browsing is an issue today. If they are serious about addressing under capacity or over capacity issues, they must do something at these two schools.

Where are you zoned? Some of the biggest advocates for “doing something” for Chantilly live elsewhere and have their own motives. They are fervently trying to game potential boundary changes so other kids get moved and their kids stay at their current schools.

If you are personally looking to move from Chantilly to Westfield, please let us know.

Misdirection. They just passed Policy 8130 and overcrowding is one of the big four factors.

Your whataboutism goes against the policy that they just passed this summer. I didn’t write the policy, the school board did. Talk to them.

You didn’t answer the question. Where are YOU zoned?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for people who seem to know more about this: would boundary changes affect the maps of the various FCPS regions? Or are they looking to keep the regions the same and make changes within existing regions to balance things?

We live close to the boundary between two regions. If rezoning is going to happen I wish we would get rezoned to a HS closer to our home. But I am realizing it’s in a different region so maybe that’s unlikely?

No one knows what the consultant and school board are going to do, but everything is in play and dunne has said every pyramid will be affected.

Your best chance of moving to a HS closer to home is if the hs is lower performing than the one you are currently zoned for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for people who seem to know more about this: would boundary changes affect the maps of the various FCPS regions? Or are they looking to keep the regions the same and make changes within existing regions to balance things?

We live close to the boundary between two regions. If rezoning is going to happen I wish we would get rezoned to a HS closer to our home. But I am realizing it’s in a different region so maybe that’s unlikely?

I don’t think the regions really matter other than for internal administrative purposes. After all they stuck Marshall in Region 5. They aren’t moving anyone at Marshall to Westfield or vice versa, but they could move kids to schools in different regions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for people who seem to know more about this: would boundary changes affect the maps of the various FCPS regions? Or are they looking to keep the regions the same and make changes within existing regions to balance things?

We live close to the boundary between two regions. If rezoning is going to happen I wish we would get rezoned to a HS closer to our home. But I am realizing it’s in a different region so maybe that’s unlikely?

No one knows what will happen. On the closed thread someone wrote about Pimmitt Hills. That is Tysons and FCPS has the region meeting for that area further away than Dulles airport at Westfield.

That region meeting includes academy sites - Chantilly and Marshall. No one knows what the great ones plan for academy locations.
Dunne -Mount Vernon - pontificated about boudary changes yet retaining AP-IB out. There are academy courses caled Teach for Tomorrow that just got a .5 GPA bump. Thse are offered at Chantilly and Edison with nothng in the middle of the county.

[Anonymous]

Are any materials available for review that discuss any actual plan or options or specific schools under consideration?
Or are we still in speculation mode

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Wake up babe, new Mateo Dunne email just dropped. Not going to copy the whole thing here because it’s quite long, but specific situations are called out by name in the Mount Vernon district including the Whitman/Sandburg situation and the Halley attendance island. https://www.fcps.edu/aggregator/sources/19?utm_campaign+=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery#

This is what I found interesting:

"Over 100 students who live within walking distance of Mount Vernon Woods ES are assigned to attend Fort Hunt ES. They ride the bus every day past multiple elementary schools to arrive at Fort Hunt ES."

Removing those kids from Fort Hunt eliminates all of their FARMS students and sends them to a high FARMS school, so I don't see that happening.

I don't see how Whitman/Sandburg is solvable without creating more problems. If you give Sandburg to MVSH and Whitman to WPHS, the the walkable neighborhoods to Sandburg (in the Stratford Landing Boundary, across the street from Waynewood, both separated from MVHS by Ft Hunt) then you move more kids to MVHS than MVHS has capacity for. Moving Hollin Meadows to MVHS so Whitman is in the boundary Creates another island unless you move Stratford Landing as well, but then Sandburg outside of its boundaries

The only way to solve the Whitman/Sandburg issue is to build a new school building within the Mount Vernon boundaries. If you swap the schools, Sandburg will still be 100% bused for all the MVHS pyramid students. The building is too far of a walk for anyone who lives within the MVHS boundaries. When my kids were at Whitman, there was definitely a "disconnect" to the school and I think alot of it has to do with its location.

Whitman is where it is located because of a financial decision when Groveton HS and Fort Hunt HS merged to create West Potomac HS. The corresponding middle schools were merged and you had an empty school building. FCPS decided to move Whitman instead of renovate the building it was in (the original Mount Vernon HS on Rt. 1) and rent out the old building. That building is now owned by Fairfax County Government and NOT FCPS. I think that may have happened when Whitman moved back in the 1980s. Personally, I'd love to see Whitman move back to the original MVHS building but that's not going to happen.
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/publicworks/capital-projects/original-mount-vernon-high-school

One way to potentially fix Whitman/Sandburg is to turn MVHS into a secondary school and have both middle schools feed to West Potomac. That would fill MVHS empty seats and keep all their schools in bounds. It would also open up space at Whitman/Sandburg to fulfill Reid’s dream of more 6-8 middle schools.

This would create a less disruptive path to open seats. West Potomac could pick up Mount Eagle and/or Cameron from Edison. Annandale could pick up Bren Mar Park, which is already a part of its pyramid. And then should Lewis close, it could be split between South County and Edison, with Key and Twain feeding to Edison as Reid’s beloved 6-8 feeders.

I really don’t see much appetite for new secondary schools. They were kind of a 60s-70s thing. When South County later opened, originally as a secondary school, it was with the explicit understanding that a new middle school would eventually get built and, when that happened, South County became a high school.

Nor does anyone seem to be very keen on more 6-8 middle schools. Reid seems to talk about it mostly to placate Ricardy Anderson, who is miffed that the middle schools in her district (Mason) are 6-8 outliers. She’d be happier if other schools followed the same model because misery loves company (she has also been pushing for years to shrink the enrollment of 6-8 Glasgow).

I don't think the 6-8 talk is so much to placate Ricardy Anderson as it is to try and free up more room at the Elementary Schools to enable Universal Pre-K.

Where will we get universal prek funding once we get vouchers and all the umc and mc families flee the sinking ship?

Most of FCPS is upper middle class or wealthy. There is no need for universal PreK in this district.

FCPS is 34% FARMS. By your logic that means less than 16% of FCPS students are from LMC or MC families combined, with >50% UMC or wealthy.

Tell me you're out of touch without telling me you're out of touch.

If only 34% of FCPS is FARMS, then yes, most of FCPS is upper middle class (feds, military, contractors, etc) or wealthy.

I love how you just completely ignore where the majority of population actually exists: above the FARMS cutoffs, but below UMC. Thank you for continuing to make my point.

Continuing to make your point: most every single income military, fed, contractor family is below UMC.

Nope, even a GS-13 can make $150K at the higher steps. That's UMC.

A family of 4 in FFX county making $150K hardly sounds UMC to me. This article suggests a family of 4 in VA needs to make $235K to "live comfortably". I'd wager that's actually a bit higher in FFX specifically. If your definition of UMC isn't one that allows a family to "live comfortably", then I think you have a skewed definition of UMC.

That is total bullshit. Maybe your level of "comfort" includes a $1.5M Modern Farmhouse, private school, and two big vacations every year, but mine doesn't. We live more than comfortably on a $190K salary in Fairfax County.

Are we now saying that the majority of "middle class" can't even enjoy vacations with their families? Definitions of middle.class are definitely changing....

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake up babe, new Mateo Dunne email just dropped. Not going to copy the whole thing here because it’s quite long, but specific situations are called out by name in the Mount Vernon district including the Whitman/Sandburg situation and the Halley attendance island. https://www.fcps.edu/aggregator/sources/19?utm_campaign+=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery#

This is what I found interesting:

"Over 100 students who live within walking distance of Mount Vernon Woods ES are assigned to attend Fort Hunt ES. They ride the bus every day past multiple elementary schools to arrive at Fort Hunt ES."

Removing those kids from Fort Hunt eliminates all of their FARMS students and sends them to a high FARMS school, so I don't see that happening.

I don't see how Whitman/Sandburg is solvable without creating more problems. If you give Sandburg to MVSH and Whitman to WPHS, the the walkable neighborhoods to Sandburg (in the Stratford Landing Boundary, across the street from Waynewood, both separated from MVHS by Ft Hunt) then you move more kids to MVHS than MVHS has capacity for. Moving Hollin Meadows to MVHS so Whitman is in the boundary Creates another island unless you move Stratford Landing as well, but then Sandburg outside of its boundaries

The only way to solve the Whitman/Sandburg issue is to build a new school building within the Mount Vernon boundaries. If you swap the schools, Sandburg will still be 100% bused for all the MVHS pyramid students. The building is too far of a walk for anyone who lives within the MVHS boundaries. When my kids were at Whitman, there was definitely a "disconnect" to the school and I think alot of it has to do with its location.

Whitman is where it is located because of a financial decision when Groveton HS and Fort Hunt HS merged to create West Potomac HS. The corresponding middle schools were merged and you had an empty school building. FCPS decided to move Whitman instead of renovate the building it was in (the original Mount Vernon HS on Rt. 1) and rent out the old building. That building is now owned by Fairfax County Government and NOT FCPS. I think that may have happened when Whitman moved back in the 1980s. Personally, I'd love to see Whitman move back to the original MVHS building but that's not going to happen.
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/publicworks/capital-projects/original-mount-vernon-high-school

One way to potentially fix Whitman/Sandburg is to turn MVHS into a secondary school and have both middle schools feed to West Potomac. That would fill MVHS empty seats and keep all their schools in bounds. It would also open up space at Whitman/Sandburg to fulfill Reid’s dream of more 6-8 middle schools.

This would create a less disruptive path to open seats. West Potomac could pick up Mount Eagle and/or Cameron from Edison. Annandale could pick up Bren Mar Park, which is already a part of its pyramid. And then should Lewis close, it could be split between South County and Edison, with Key and Twain feeding to Edison as Reid’s beloved 6-8 feeders.

I really don’t see much appetite for new secondary schools. They were kind of a 60s-70s thing. When South County later opened, originally as a secondary school, it was with the explicit understanding that a new middle school would eventually get built and, when that happened, South County became a high school.

Nor does anyone seem to be very keen on more 6-8 middle schools. Reid seems to talk about it mostly to placate Ricardy Anderson, who is miffed that the middle schools in her district (Mason) are 6-8 outliers. She’d be happier if other schools followed the same model because misery loves company (she has also been pushing for years to shrink the enrollment of 6-8 Glasgow).

I don't think the 6-8 talk is so much to placate Ricardy Anderson as it is to try and free up more room at the Elementary Schools to enable Universal Pre-K.

Where will we get universal prek funding once we get vouchers and all the umc and mc families flee the sinking ship?

Most of FCPS is upper middle class or wealthy. There is no need for universal PreK in this district.

FCPS is 34% FARMS. By your logic that means less than 16% of FCPS students are from LMC or MC families combined, with >50% UMC or wealthy.

Tell me you're out of touch without telling me you're out of touch.

If only 34% of FCPS is FARMS, then yes, most of FCPS is upper middle class (feds, military, contractors, etc) or wealthy.

I love how you just completely ignore where the majority of population actually exists: above the FARMS cutoffs, but below UMC. Thank you for continuing to make my point.

Continuing to make your point: most every single income military, fed, contractor family is below UMC.

Nope, even a GS-13 can make $150K at the higher steps. That's UMC.

A family of 4 in FFX county making $150K hardly sounds UMC to me. This article suggests a family of 4 in VA needs to make $235K to "live comfortably". I'd wager that's actually a bit higher in FFX specifically. If your definition of UMC isn't one that allows a family to "live comfortably", then I think you have a skewed definition of UMC.

That is total bullshit. Maybe your level of "comfort" includes a $1.5M Modern Farmhouse, private school, and two big vacations every year, but mine doesn't. We live more than comfortably on a $190K salary in Fairfax County.

Modern farmhouses are running closer to 2-4 million now, and you aren't affording that + private school + vacations...even on dual military or GS 15 salaries. And yes, lots of people do like to take vacations with their families and not just have SACC and babysitters care for their kids.

You sound really out of touch. I know plenty of people who are a one GS family that live in a nice house (not a "modern farmhouse", LOL) and take nice vacations. These families are middle to upper middle class families. I think what you and a lot of DCUM posters view as "upper middle class" isn't actually upper middle class, it's flat out wealthy.

We make $200K, live in a 4000sq ft million dollar house, and want for nothing. We have no delusions that we are not wealthy. We know we are.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Wake up babe, new Mateo Dunne email just dropped. Not going to copy the whole thing here because it’s quite long, but specific situations are called out by name in the Mount Vernon district including the Whitman/Sandburg situation and the Halley attendance island. https://www.fcps.edu/aggregator/sources/19?utm_campaign+=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery#

This is what I found interesting:

"Over 100 students who live within walking distance of Mount Vernon Woods ES are assigned to attend Fort Hunt ES. They ride the bus every day past multiple elementary schools to arrive at Fort Hunt ES."

Removing those kids from Fort Hunt eliminates all of their FARMS students and sends them to a high FARMS school, so I don't see that happening.

I don't see how Whitman/Sandburg is solvable without creating more problems. If you give Sandburg to MVSH and Whitman to WPHS, the the walkable neighborhoods to Sandburg (in the Stratford Landing Boundary, across the street from Waynewood, both separated from MVHS by Ft Hunt) then you move more kids to MVHS than MVHS has capacity for. Moving Hollin Meadows to MVHS so Whitman is in the boundary Creates another island unless you move Stratford Landing as well, but then Sandburg outside of its boundaries

The only way to solve the Whitman/Sandburg issue is to build a new school building within the Mount Vernon boundaries. If you swap the schools, Sandburg will still be 100% bused for all the MVHS pyramid students. The building is too far of a walk for anyone who lives within the MVHS boundaries. When my kids were at Whitman, there was definitely a "disconnect" to the school and I think alot of it has to do with its location.

Whitman is where it is located because of a financial decision when Groveton HS and Fort Hunt HS merged to create West Potomac HS. The corresponding middle schools were merged and you had an empty school building. FCPS decided to move Whitman instead of renovate the building it was in (the original Mount Vernon HS on Rt. 1) and rent out the old building. That building is now owned by Fairfax County Government and NOT FCPS. I think that may have happened when Whitman moved back in the 1980s. Personally, I'd love to see Whitman move back to the original MVHS building but that's not going to happen.
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/publicworks/capital-projects/original-mount-vernon-high-school

One way to potentially fix Whitman/Sandburg is to turn MVHS into a secondary school and have both middle schools feed to West Potomac. That would fill MVHS empty seats and keep all their schools in bounds. It would also open up space at Whitman/Sandburg to fulfill Reid’s dream of more 6-8 middle schools.

This would create a less disruptive path to open seats. West Potomac could pick up Mount Eagle and/or Cameron from Edison. Annandale could pick up Bren Mar Park, which is already a part of its pyramid. And then should Lewis close, it could be split between South County and Edison, with Key and Twain feeding to Edison as Reid’s beloved 6-8 feeders.

I really don’t see much appetite for new secondary schools. They were kind of a 60s-70s thing. When South County later opened, originally as a secondary school, it was with the explicit understanding that a new middle school would eventually get built and, when that happened, South County became a high school.

Nor does anyone seem to be very keen on more 6-8 middle schools. Reid seems to talk about it mostly to placate Ricardy Anderson, who is miffed that the middle schools in her district (Mason) are 6-8 outliers. She’d be happier if other schools followed the same model because misery loves company (she has also been pushing for years to shrink the enrollment of 6-8 Glasgow).

I don't think the 6-8 talk is so much to placate Ricardy Anderson as it is to try and free up more room at the Elementary Schools to enable Universal Pre-K.

Where will we get universal prek funding once we get vouchers and all the umc and mc families flee the sinking ship?

Most of FCPS is upper middle class or wealthy. There is no need for universal PreK in this district.

FCPS is 34% FARMS. By your logic that means less than 16% of FCPS students are from LMC or MC families combined, with >50% UMC or wealthy.

Tell me you're out of touch without telling me you're out of touch.

If only 34% of FCPS is FARMS, then yes, most of FCPS is upper middle class (feds, military, contractors, etc) or wealthy.

I love how you just completely ignore where the majority of population actually exists: above the FARMS cutoffs, but below UMC. Thank you for continuing to make my point.

Continuing to make your point: most every single income military, fed, contractor family is below UMC.

Nope, even a GS-13 can make $150K at the higher steps. That's UMC.

A family of 4 in FFX county making $150K hardly sounds UMC to me. This article suggests a family of 4 in VA needs to make $235K to "live comfortably". I'd wager that's actually a bit higher in FFX specifically. If your definition of UMC isn't one that allows a family to "live comfortably", then I think you have a skewed definition of UMC.

That is total bullshit. Maybe your level of "comfort" includes a $1.5M Modern Farmhouse, private school, and two big vacations every year, but mine doesn't. We live more than comfortably on a $190K salary in Fairfax County.

Modern farmhouses are running closer to 2-4 million now, and you aren't affording that + private school + vacations...even on dual military or GS 15 salaries. And yes, lots of people do like to take vacations with their families and not just have SACC and babysitters care for their kids.

You sound really out of touch. I know plenty of people who are a one GS family that live in a nice house (not a "modern farmhouse", LOL) and take nice vacations. These families are middle to upper middle class families. I think what you and a lot of DCUM posters view as "upper middle class" isn't actually upper middle class, it's flat out wealthy.

We make $200K, live in a 4000sq ft million dollar house, and want for nothing. We have no delusions that we are not wealthy. We know we are.

Not DP....and I'm not saying your experience isn't valid, but almost everyone I know is dual income. Unsure how a one GS family, with the max of the GS scale running around 200k would afford all of that with current interest rates. If you bought a house a decade ago, sure. Even 5 years ago. Did you buy the house when it was valued at a million or prior? Current interest rates would have that way out of the debt ratio recommended....unless you are saying most are living in debt.