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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
Boundaries assessment update 2023
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Anonymous
I'm new to the area zoned to Carson and I don't understand why if Franklin has AAP, students are allowed to go to Carson? I got so confused by seeing listings that said things like "X elementary, Franklin or Carson MS, Chantilly HS". We ended up buying a house that is Carson/Oakton and I also don't understand why we are zoned to a HS 30 minutes away when Chantilly and South Lakes are both 10 minutes away. |
Anonymous
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They need to focus on where the growth in the county is occurring or planned, and think pro-actively about the needs of the schools expected to serve those areas - not just blindly adhere to an out-of-date renovation queue developed over 15 years ago. And kids should be attending schools near where they live, not bussed across the county just because some school somewhere has extra seats.
At least that’s what they used to do when FCPS was still considered a great system. |
Anonymous
Well Oakton is a better school than South Lakes so no need to complain. |
Anonymous
Have you any idea of how complicated, complex, and disturbing this would be to the whole county? This would involve a massive fruitbasket turnover and would result in what would likely be some very poor decisions. There are many reasons that students are assigned where they are and some boundaries look odd: 1. Keeping neighborhoods together. In some instances there are close schools on either side of neighborhoods. 2. Traffic patterns. 3. Community connections. 4. Most important: sizes of schools. Do you really think this is just a matter of drawing circles around schools. If you do, I suggest you take a gander at Oakton and Madison. You might also consider Langley and McLean. Those are the obvious, because they are high schools, so let'[s consider middle schools: look at Carson and Franklin--just over a mile apart. And, you seem to think this will resolve the issue of balancing the economic disparities in some schools. Please tell me how you are going to do that when there are very large sections of Fairfax County with far more disadvantaged students than others? I think all on this thread would appreciate how you would do this. Why don't you begin for us by taking three high schools and showing us how you would do this? |
Anonymous
1. Because Chantilly is overcrowded and has been for years. 2. If all of your neighborhood (which I assume must be Franklin Farm) were assigned to South Lakes, then South Lakes would be overcrowded. |
Anonymous
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Simple answer is LLIV at all elementary schools (almost there already) remove AAP in middle schools.[/quote]
LLIV in all middle schools should exist. Just eliminate the centers.[/quote] I’ve never understood why they allowed Carson to become such an AAP center behemoth when other middle schools like Franklin could have AAP. [/quote] Franklin has had a LLIV AAP program for about 10 years.[/quote] I'm new to the area zoned to Carson and I don't understand why if Franklin has AAP, students are allowed to go to Carson? I got so confused by seeing listings that said things like "X elementary, Franklin or Carson MS, Chantilly HS". We ended up buying a house that is Carson/Oakton and I also don't understand why we are zoned to a HS 30 minutes away when Chantilly and South Lakes are both 10 minutes away.[/quote] If you qualify for Level IV services you can attend an AAP center or in some cases your zoned middle school may also offer “Local Level IV” services (or “LLIV”). So if you are at a school like Franklin you basically have an option whether to attend Franklin, which has LLIV, or Carson, which is a designated AAP center. Because Carson is a center, and historically sent many kids to TJHSST, many Level IV students in the Franklin district continue to attend Carson, which then has a much higher enrollment than some of the other middle schools in western Fairfax. As for being zoned for Oakton when Chantilly and South Lakes are closer, it’s a function of where FCPS previously built high schools. There are four high schools in central Fairfax that are quite close to each other - Madison, Oakton, Fairfax, and Woodson. Conversely, there are some parts of western Fairfax where the high schools aren’t as close to each other. A further wrinkle is that, by law, all students students living in the City of Fairfax must attend Fairfax HS. Put that all together and the boundaries for Madison, Woodson, Fairfax, and especially Oakton are funky and stretch well to the west to include areas closer to other schools. You may be closer to Chantilly but Chantilly’s boundaries are more compact than most schools and it already has a huge enrollment (@2900 kids) on a relatively small campus. That may not be a satisfactory explanation to you but I think it is accurate. |
Anonymous
+1 I will add, though, that Franklin could easily have a center because there is a very large cohort of AAP students from a community that is assigned to Franklin, but goes to Carson for AAP. I wonder, though, if the new TJ rules will encourage some to go to Franklin instead. |
Anonymous
That approach has resulted in lopsided investment. Areas that are growing are generally booming with wealth as families move into new expensive construction. Look at West Springfield's growth or Madison where SFH tear-down development is significant. On the contrary, an area like Mt. Vernon sees very little growth currently. Is it appropriate that FCPS follows the whims of where developers see the most profit? I think not, as developers will focus on wealthy areas. FCPS should counter-balance disparate growth with strategic programming and magnet placement to make all pyramids attractive. The public can accuse FCPS of social engineering, but clearly allowing the natural state of things to continue means the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. |
Anonymous
The choice to attend Carson vs. Franklin for AAP kids seems to be based on what their friends are doing... at least from what I have seen. If their friends from Navy AAP are zoned for Carson and headed there for MS, they want to stay with those friends. This is one of the issues with AAP being kept so separate from Gen Ed at Navy. The kids in AAP end up mostly only being friends with other AAP kids and don't want to separate from them for MS. If AAP and Gen Ed interacted more, kids would have friends headed to both Carson and Franklin and might be more likely to opt for Franklin. |
Anonymous
You really think developers are going to build where there is no profit? Seriously? Question: Where do you think FCPS and Fairfax.gov gets the funds to educate students? What do you think would happen if devleopers are no longer able to choose where to build? Do you think they would build? |
Anonymous
If patching means expanding schools when they were renovated, or building additions outside the renovation as was done at South Lakes, West Potomac, Madison and now Justice, I think we are so far down that route that it is only equitable to “patch” at Chantilly and McLean (2 of the 3 most overcrowded high schools - there are already plans to expand Centreville, the 3d) as well. I like the idea of having three IB schools surrounded by AP schools - Marshall, South Lakes, and Lewis. Alternatively, turn Lewis back into AP and keep Edison as the third IB school. I think the western high school is a fiction and I’d stop lying about it. If I’m wrong, I’d give FCPS a sunshine date - no later than 6/30/24 - by which to find the property and publicize the plans. Stringing people along for well over a decade about a new high school is indefensible and part of the reason why FCPS Facilities totally lost any credibility with the public when Jeff Platenberg was in charge. |
Anonymous
Interesting. I'm PP who mentioned the large cohort from a Franklin assigned zone that goes to Carson for AAP. I was not thinking of Navy when I posted that. I was thinking of Oak Hill. This supports my argument even more. Put an AAP center at Franklin. With Oak Hill and Navy, there are certainly enough to support a rigorous program. |
Anonymous
Where did I say anything about balancing economic disparities? Taking three high schools in isolation is more of the same tweaking, we need an overall county plan. I am well aware of how close some schools are to each other in many parts of the county and this adds complexity. The reason we need to do an overhaul is that problems are never really solved and everyone just kicks the can down the road. After decades of kicking the can, yes it will be a massive undertaking- but necessary or it will just get worse. Start by setting overall goals, for example: Reduce overcrowding Reduce the number of buses needed Reduce the number of split feeders - especially the ones where very few students are sent to a different school Keep communities together… While I would love a school size limitation, it won’t happen. The School Board set a goal of 2,000 students as the preferred size of a high school, and then just ignored it. Add in your goals and we can start a list |
Anonymous
Developers build where the Board of Supervisors and other governmental actors incentivize them to build. Right now, in Fairfax, that means Tysons, Herndon (near the new Silver Line stations), Reston (ditto), and the Embark/Route 1 area, not in the Mount Vernon area. Previously with the development along Route 28 and near Dulles people were incentivized to move to areas like Chantilly. Virtually all of the new planned growth is multi-family housing, including buildings that in some cases are planned as 100% affordable housing projects. Those buildings are going to generate more kids - they include a lot of 2BR and even 3BR units and aren’t just studios and 1BR units - and the county already has an analysis of the potential student yields. FCPS is just so conservative in its enrollment projections that only a fraction of these units are included in its short-term forecasts. It’s short-sighted and counter-productive for the BOS to encourage this development but not plan to have the schools and other infrastructure to support it. Unless of course your agenda is just to turn these new areas into low-income slums as soon as possible. |
Anonymous
Then start with three schools at the edge of the county and go from there. You will quickly see why it would not work. Have you ever been through a boundary study? I've been through three--different levels. There are so many factors to consider for just one school. I am blessed to live where the schools are all close, but that does not apply to everyone. To me, that should be the first consideration--but, because of the locations of schools, that quickly gets discarded. And, one thing I learned from boundary studies: almost everyone wants their school to stay the same. Even those whose kids are in schools that might be considered "less desirable." |