How would you change the FCPS boundary maps?

[Anonymous]

AAP centers need to stay. There should be an option for parents to send their kid to a center so that they are in class with kids on their level or close to their level academically.

[Anonymous]

You need AAP. In class differentiation doesn't work for the kids who are really struggling and the kids who are advanced. We have programs in place to try and help the kids who are really struggling, IEPs/504 and associated services. They are not always the best and god knows that they could use additional help in the form of teachers aides and resources but they are there. AAP serves the kids who are advanced. Teachers are not going to split their time evenly so kids who are ahead are given challenging work. The kids who are ahead will be sent to work in their groups solo and might see the Teacher every few weeks for group work. We already see this with LA. Kids in the higher reading groups do not get that much time working with the Teacher because the Teacher is spending time with the kids who are struggling. And that makes sense, the Teachers priority is helping the kids who are not able to or barely able to complete the assigned work.

AAP gives kids who are ahead or advanced a more challenging curriculum that helps those kids stay engaged.

I agree with getting rid of busing for AAP and the Centers but every school needs to have an AAP option for kids who are ahead. I don't care if the kids are gifted, tested well, are ahead or whatever the label is, they should have a chance to be challenged in school. But it can be done at the neighborhood school. There is no reason to be busing kids to different schools. Or if the parents are so desperate to leave their base school, their parents can handle transportation the way the parents in the language immersion programs do.

In class differentiation works just fine. I've been a teacher and we never had GT classes or AAP where I taught. (There were some pull outs for the highly gifted, but they weren't really needed.) Yes, struggling readers may have received more time and direct instruction, but they did not receive less attention. Advanced students are able to work independently for longer periods of time. For example, in reading instruction, a teacher might give advanced students a good chunk of silent reading while he/she works with another reading group. Then, bring the advanced kids together to discuss and evaluate what they have read. The lesson would likely also include some advanced skills. (That is just one example of what might happen. There are many ways to meet their educational needs.) And, frequently, there might be one kid who is an outlier--in both directions. Teachers can help there, too.

If you think all AAP kids are on the same level, you are seriously misinformed.

And, you must not be aware that there are quite a few kids in AAP who have IEPs.

If you must have a special program, go back to the GT program which only pulled the highly gifted. AAP is unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AAP centers need to stay. There should be an option for parents to send their kid to a center so that they are in class with kids on their level or close to their level academically.

a) I think people are saying go head keep centers but then it's parents responsibility to drive kid to center...like you would to any magnet/specialized program
b) If kids stay in local schools, then there will be an AAP class where kids can be amongst other kids at "their level."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I take from this thread is that DCUM thinks that diversity is not at all important and we should be carving up school districts on property values alone.

Quite the contrary. A lot of districts are gerrymandered to be rich and white and FCPS is unwilling to change those boundaries because they're afraid people will move away and they'll lose tax money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The schools along Rte 50 inside the beltway's attendance boundaries are a clusterf_ck - I'm talking Graham Rd, Pine Spring, Beech Tree. And then there's Timberlane - a random school half zoned to McLean - in the middle of all that, and Shrevewood which is very overcrowded. Such a mess.

Yup, and the Stenwood parents continue to fight allowing kids who are closer to Stenwood than Shrevewood attend. It's absurd.

Stenwood is going to have its boundaries substantially changed when Frisch's Dunn Loring project is finished. Part of Shrevewood will finally move to Stenwood, and much of Stenwood (and part of Freedom Hill) will end up at Dunn Loring.

There’s a zone part of Freedom Hill that seems out of the way-near Pimmit.

Yes, and those kids really should be swapped with the ones behind Marshall High School, which is closer to Freedom Hill than Lemon Road, but god forbid a McLean school get any more brown kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ people with kids in school don't want them separated from their current school communities. ”

+1 make what changes you want but schedule them to phase in so kids can stay with their friends and the HS they thought they would go to

but...but...but.....Equity!

What is it about what's actually proposed -not what you are thinking may be proposed- that is being done in the name of equity, and that you object to?

I don't hear them proposing busing? Or dividing up boundaries like they have in the past (Woodson Island, anyone?) But, rather, a division of boundaries that are open to reasonable differing opinions as to what is appropriate? You may not like that there are equity considerations as a factor or decisions made to that division line.

Or do you think that equity shouldn't be a concern at all? And if so, how do you propose to ensure different schools that use our tax dollars -and are PUBLICLY funded- can provide an equivalent in terms of educational experience for their children?

Our tax dollars shouldn't be used to "ensure" the same educational outcomes for all public school students. The only way that will ever happen is that if all the outcomes are equally poor.

Equal opportunities, yes. But we already spend more tax dollars on the schools with more lower-income kids.

If you want a special leg up at school, then go private.

Publicly funded schools, with tax money that we all pay into, should provide equivalent educational opportunities. Nowhere did I say "outcomes." That is what YOU think.

Moreover, equivalent education benefits everyone. You want a generation of under-educated kids running around and growing to be under-educated adults? How does that help society? No, thanks. I'll say it again, use of government funds (taxes) should be used to provide equivalent education. It cannot be any other way, legally or morally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AAP centers need to stay. There should be an option for parents to send their kid to a center so that they are in class with kids on their level or close to their level academically.

That's fine, but get your kid there on his own so that the rest of us can have on time busses that aren't insanely overcrowded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure that the two big reasons Shrevewood is getting screwed is because the white Timber Lane parents are worried that they will be zoned out of McLean into Marshall and the Stenwood parents don't want little brown kids in their school.

Actually, the Timber Lane families on the other side of Rte 50 are worried that they'll be rezoned to Jackson/Falls Church because that's where a lot of the neighboring kids go. There's an entire neighborhood of families that would either move or send their kids to privates - I've seen all the shiny new houses in Greenway Downs. Those people aren't staying if they get rezoned out of McLean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP centers need to stay. There should be an option for parents to send their kid to a center so that they are in class with kids on their level or close to their level academically.

a) I think people are saying go head keep centers but then it's parents responsibility to drive kid to center...like you would to any magnet/specialized program
b) If kids stay in local schools, then there will be an AAP class where kids can be amongst other kids at "their level."

a) several posters have said to get rid of centers
b) There aren't enough kids in local schools that objectively meet the standard for AAP to form classes with the same rigor as center schools. Thats why we pool them at centers now. What they've proposed is that the kids with relatively higher scores are grouped locally. That isn't going to be the same level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I take from this thread is that DCUM thinks that diversity is not at all important and we should be carving up school districts on property values alone.

OP here. It is not that diversity is bad. The issue is that forcing diversity to exist when it is not necessarily present is pointless. You can say that some parts of Northern Virginia have more white people and other parts have more Hispanic people, etc. and that is true. But the thing is that this is not necessarily a forced decision. I know for a fact that when my immigrant parents moved to Northern Virginia they purposely chose a house in an area with a lot of people from their same country. This isn't to say that there was nobody else living in that area, but there were definitely many people from my parent's country. If you told my parents that in the interest of equity I would be bussed to Great Falls Elementary School or Cooper Middle School or Langley High School they would not be pleased at all. The same thing would happen if you reversed the situation.

Does this say something about the mindset of the people living in this area or more broadly the world? Sure. But the fact is that when you choose to live somewhere there is a certain amount of discrimination inherent in the process. You discriminate based on the quality of schools, based on the cost of the house itself plus maintenance, based on your interaction with the sellers, based on the distance to your workplace, etc. Besides we have neighborhood schools for a reason; you should not have kids going past one middle school to go to another one further away. Same with high school and elementary school. Mind you, I think AAP centers should be done away with since I don't see any indication that those students are necessarily smarter than their peers in any significant way. I also don't think school districts should be drawn based on property values alone. But forcing Edison High School to become richer or Mclean High School to become poorer makes no sense.

Nobody is seriously talking about bussing kids from Graham Road to Langley, but there are boundary adjustments that make proactive impacts on diversity while proving to be minimal logistically.

Does the board think that Timber Lane should be moved away from McLean? It is roughly a 5 minute difference in commute between McLean and Marshall. These are the boundary changes that we are talking about, not 1960s bussing.

No one is talking about this other than DCUM. Anyway, the whole point that part of Timber Lane is zoned to McLean is to add diversity to McLean. But of course now it's primarily wealthy white families that live in that neighborhood (Greenway Downs) so it's just sending more white kids to McLean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ people with kids in school don't want them separated from their current school communities. ”

+1 make what changes you want but schedule them to phase in so kids can stay with their friends and the HS they thought they would go to

but...but...but.....Equity!

What is it about what's actually proposed -not what you are thinking may be proposed- that is being done in the name of equity, and that you object to?

I don't hear them proposing busing? Or dividing up boundaries like they have in the past (Woodson Island, anyone?) But, rather, a division of boundaries that are open to reasonable differing opinions as to what is appropriate? You may not like that there are equity considerations as a factor or decisions made to that division line.

Or do you think that equity shouldn't be a concern at all? And if so, how do you propose to ensure different schools that use our tax dollars -and are PUBLICLY funded- can provide an equivalent in terms of educational experience for their children?

Our tax dollars shouldn't be used to "ensure" the same educational outcomes for all public school students. The only way that will ever happen is that if all the outcomes are equally poor.

Equal opportunities, yes. But we already spend more tax dollars on the schools with more lower-income kids.

If you want a special leg up at school, then go private.

Publicly funded schools, with tax money that we all pay into, should provide equivalent educational opportunities. Nowhere did I say "outcomes." That is what YOU think.

Moreover, equivalent education benefits everyone. You want a generation of under-educated kids running around and growing to be under-educated adults? How does that help society? No, thanks. I'll say it again, use of government funds (taxes) should be used to provide equivalent education. It cannot be any other way, legally or morally.

DP but it is clear that FCPS is after equal outcomes not equal opportunity.

Most of the disparity in FCPS students have to do with parent income levels and ability. Throwing money at a school isn't going to raise their scores. Having parents who are capable of providing support at home is what will bring up scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure that the two big reasons Shrevewood is getting screwed is because the white Timber Lane parents are worried that they will be zoned out of McLean into Marshall and the Stenwood parents don't want little brown kids in their school.

Actually, the Timber Lane families on the other side of Rte 50 are worried that they'll be rezoned to Jackson/Falls Church because that's where a lot of the neighboring kids go. There's an entire neighborhood of families that would either move or send their kids to privates - I've seen all the shiny new houses in Greenway Downs. Those people aren't staying if they get rezoned out of McLean.

FWIW, Greenway Downs, like everything south of Lee Highway, is already zoned to Jackson. It's the Timber Lane families north of 29 that get fed to Longfellow/McLean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure that the two big reasons Shrevewood is getting screwed is because the white Timber Lane parents are worried that they will be zoned out of McLean into Marshall and the Stenwood parents don't want little brown kids in their school.

Actually, the Timber Lane families on the other side of Rte 50 are worried that they'll be rezoned to Jackson/Falls Church because that's where a lot of the neighboring kids go. There's an entire neighborhood of families that would either move or send their kids to privates - I've seen all the shiny new houses in Greenway Downs. Those people aren't staying if they get rezoned out of McLean.

The Timber Lane area is entirely north of Route 50. It includes an area north of Route 29 zoned to McLean, and an area south of Route 29 zoned to Falls Church. The majority of Timber Lane students go to McLean and it's technically part of the McLean pyramid. Both the McLean and the Falls Church areas include low-income apartments. Greenway Downs, including the "shiny new houses" in that neighborhood, are south of Route 29 and already zoned to Jackson/Falls Church. Maybe you're referring to a different neighborhood than Greenway Downs.

The Timber Lane part of McLean has been zoned there since the mid-80s and adds diversity to the school. However, if FCPS expands Falls Church during its upcoming renovation, and does nothing to add permanent seats to McLean over the next decade, while other areas in Tysons, McLean, and West Falls Church that are zoned for McLean and closer to the school continue to add housing units, it's not impossible that the Timber Lane portion of McLean could be moved to Falls Church at some point, but no such plans are imminent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The schools along Rte 50 inside the beltway's attendance boundaries are a clusterf_ck - I'm talking Graham Rd, Pine Spring, Beech Tree. And then there's Timberlane - a random school half zoned to McLean - in the middle of all that, and Shrevewood which is very overcrowded. Such a mess.

Yup, and the Stenwood parents continue to fight allowing kids who are closer to Stenwood than Shrevewood attend. It's absurd.

Stenwood is going to have its boundaries substantially changed when Frisch's Dunn Loring project is finished. Part of Shrevewood will finally move to Stenwood, and much of Stenwood (and part of Freedom Hill) will end up at Dunn Loring.

There’s a zone part of Freedom Hill that seems out of the way-near Pimmit.

Yes, and those kids really should be swapped with the ones behind Marshall High School, which is closer to Freedom Hill than Lemon Road, but god forbid a McLean school get any more brown kids.

The kids who live behind Marshall already go to Freedom Hill. There's an area on the same side of Route 7 slightly further east who go to Lemon Road.

Regardless of whether they go to Freedom Hill or Lemon Road, do you want to create a new attendance island that sends kids who live on the same side of Route 7, within walking distance of Marshall, to McLean instead?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure that the two big reasons Shrevewood is getting screwed is because the white Timber Lane parents are worried that they will be zoned out of McLean into Marshall and the Stenwood parents don't want little brown kids in their school.

Actually, the Timber Lane families on the other side of Rte 50 are worried that they'll be rezoned to Jackson/Falls Church because that's where a lot of the neighboring kids go. There's an entire neighborhood of families that would either move or send their kids to privates - I've seen all the shiny new houses in Greenway Downs. Those people aren't staying if they get rezoned out of McLean.

FWIW, Greenway Downs, like everything south of Lee Highway, is already zoned to Jackson. It's the Timber Lane families north of 29 that get fed to Longfellow/McLean.

Sorry, I meant 29, not 50. No, Greenway Downs families that go to Timber Lane feed to McLean. I know several.