What can an average parent do to contest boundary review?

[Anonymous]

I have been periodically reading the incredible thread on the boundary review. It would be helpful if it was broken out now by region because it is really hard to digest.

I have looked at the slides after the meetings and they do not all agree with one another and also are difficult to make sense of.

If there are issues with the realignments what say does the average parent have in the process? Do we have a representative? Do we write the board? Do we start a class action?

The process seems to actually be making some schools worse. How can you redistrict and put schools over capacity? That seems insane.

Reading the other thread I know that there are some parents that really understand this and the politics. Please help and educate me.

[Anonymous]

The best thing you can do is write to your school board reps, all 4. Also your board of supervisor supervisor and frankly your political party (if you have one).

The school board members will not be up for election for a couple of years - the driving force behind them trying to rush these changes through now. However, there are statewide elections this year and congressional elections next year. It is worth reaching out to anyone who will be on your ballot this year and next to remind them that this is the issue you care about and your support hinges on them publicly opposing these changes. They will say it is not their decision, but public opposition to the changes matters.

[Anonymous]

You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

[Anonymous]

There will be community engagement meetings coming up to react to the proposals, both in-person and virtual. Attend and ENGAGE in as many as you can, also rally your neighbors to do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like QSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like QSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

WSHS not Qshs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like WSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

The crazy thing with their 60-105% window is that WSHS will trip that threshold, which means proposals to move WSHS kids to South County and/or Lewis likely will get rolled out in early May. On the other hand, Herndon will be over 60%, even though it now has hundreds of empty seats, and Langley will be under 105%, which suggests they'll leave those boundaries alone.

Thru can just say they were following the guidelines, but the 60% threshold doesn't appear in the Capital Improvement Programs as the relevant standard for "significant under-capacity" (they lump everything under 85% in the same bucket), so people are entitled to know its source. Politically, I would not want to be a School Board member defending any proposal to reassign kids who live within 3 miles of West Springfield to another school, while kids who travel over 10 miles to Langley are not redistricted even though Herndon has capacity. If WSHS parents were pleading for relief, you could justify it, but that is clearly not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like WSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

The crazy thing with their 60-105% window is that WSHS will trip that threshold, which means proposals to move WSHS kids to South County and/or Lewis likely will get rolled out in early May. On the other hand, Herndon will be over 60%, even though it now has hundreds of empty seats, and Langley will be under 105%, which suggests they'll leave those boundaries alone.

Thru can just say they were following the guidelines, but the 60% threshold doesn't appear in the Capital Improvement Programs as the relevant standard for "significant under-capacity" (they lump everything under 85% in the same bucket), so people are entitled to know its source. Politically, I would not want to be a School Board member defending any proposal to reassign kids who live within 3 miles of West Springfield to another school, while kids who travel over 10 miles to Langley are not redistricted even though Herndon has capacity. If WSHS parents were pleading for relief, you could justify it, but that is clearly not the case.

You are correct.

The new 60% capacity to 105% capacity that FCPS just created aout of the blue basically puts a target on WSHS only, and protects every other high school in FCPS.

Is anyone else over 105% capacity? Chantilly maybe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like WSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

The crazy thing with their 60-105% window is that WSHS will trip that threshold, which means proposals to move WSHS kids to South County and/or Lewis likely will get rolled out in early May. On the other hand, Herndon will be over 60%, even though it now has hundreds of empty seats, and Langley will be under 105%, which suggests they'll leave those boundaries alone.

Thru can just say they were following the guidelines, but the 60% threshold doesn't appear in the Capital Improvement Programs as the relevant standard for "significant under-capacity" (they lump everything under 85% in the same bucket), so people are entitled to know its source. Politically, I would not want to be a School Board member defending any proposal to reassign kids who live within 3 miles of West Springfield to another school, while kids who travel over 10 miles to Langley are not redistricted even though Herndon has capacity. If WSHS parents were pleading for relief, you could justify it, but that is clearly not the case.

You are correct.

The new 60% capacity to 105% capacity that FCPS just created aout of the blue basically puts a target on WSHS only, and protects every other high school in FCPS.

Is anyone else over 105% capacity? Chantilly maybe?

It looks like they are using 2024-25 numbers, including seats added by modulars, so far.

High schools over 105% in 2024-25 by that standard are Centreville, Chantilly, Edison, Falls Church, McLean, and West Springfield.

The proposals so far to address attendance islands and split feeders would get Edison and McLean below 105% by moving part of Edison to Annandale and part of McLean to Langley. Falls Church's renovation, which will create a sizable surplus, is almost finished. That leaves Centreville, Chantilly, and West Springfield. There is still a plan to expand Centreville to 3000 but that's a long way from happening (unlike the Falls Church expansion to 2500, which is almost finished).

[Anonymous]

Some of the shifts required to deal with overcrowded schools will influence those schools that are in the 90-105% catagory and might cause ripple effects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like WSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

The crazy thing with their 60-105% window is that WSHS will trip that threshold, which means proposals to move WSHS kids to South County and/or Lewis likely will get rolled out in early May. On the other hand, Herndon will be over 60%, even though it now has hundreds of empty seats, and Langley will be under 105%, which suggests they'll leave those boundaries alone.

Thru can just say they were following the guidelines, but the 60% threshold doesn't appear in the Capital Improvement Programs as the relevant standard for "significant under-capacity" (they lump everything under 85% in the same bucket), so people are entitled to know its source. Politically, I would not want to be a School Board member defending any proposal to reassign kids who live within 3 miles of West Springfield to another school, while kids who travel over 10 miles to Langley are not redistricted even though Herndon has capacity. If WSHS parents were pleading for relief, you could justify it, but that is clearly not the case.

You are correct.

The new 60% capacity to 105% capacity that FCPS just created aout of the blue basically puts a target on WSHS only, and protects every other high school in FCPS.

Is anyone else over 105% capacity? Chantilly maybe?

There are currently 6 schools which tip the 105% scale:
- West Springfield: not yet addressed.
- Chantilly: not yet addressed
- McLean: resolved with Spring Hill reassignment
- Falls Church: resolved with expansion (but not yet addressed)
- Centreville: resolved with expansion (but not yet addressed)
- Edison: resolved by reassigning Bren Mar Park

No high school cracked the Top 10 most under capacity list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like WSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

The crazy thing with their 60-105% window is that WSHS will trip that threshold, which means proposals to move WSHS kids to South County and/or Lewis likely will get rolled out in early May. On the other hand, Herndon will be over 60%, even though it now has hundreds of empty seats, and Langley will be under 105%, which suggests they'll leave those boundaries alone.

Thru can just say they were following the guidelines, but the 60% threshold doesn't appear in the Capital Improvement Programs as the relevant standard for "significant under-capacity" (they lump everything under 85% in the same bucket), so people are entitled to know its source. Politically, I would not want to be a School Board member defending any proposal to reassign kids who live within 3 miles of West Springfield to another school, while kids who travel over 10 miles to Langley are not redistricted even though Herndon has capacity. If WSHS parents were pleading for relief, you could justify it, but that is clearly not the case.

While wshs should not be moved absent compelling reason (and there is none here), that is an entirely different issue than Langley. While not moving Langley kids might jazz up two posters in this discussion thread, most residents aren’t that hyper focused on screwing over their neighbors solely based on a deep-seated inferiority complex.

[Anonymous]

If you guys don't want this thread locked as a duplicate of the big thread, you should keep to the subject of "What can an average parent do?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like WSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

The crazy thing with their 60-105% window is that WSHS will trip that threshold, which means proposals to move WSHS kids to South County and/or Lewis likely will get rolled out in early May. On the other hand, Herndon will be over 60%, even though it now has hundreds of empty seats, and Langley will be under 105%, which suggests they'll leave those boundaries alone.

Thru can just say they were following the guidelines, but the 60% threshold doesn't appear in the Capital Improvement Programs as the relevant standard for "significant under-capacity" (they lump everything under 85% in the same bucket), so people are entitled to know its source. Politically, I would not want to be a School Board member defending any proposal to reassign kids who live within 3 miles of West Springfield to another school, while kids who travel over 10 miles to Langley are not redistricted even though Herndon has capacity. If WSHS parents were pleading for relief, you could justify it, but that is clearly not the case.

While wshs should not be moved absent compelling reason (and there is none here), that is an entirely different issue than Langley. While not moving Langley kids might jazz up two posters in this discussion thread, most residents aren’t that hyper focused on screwing over their neighbors solely based on a deep-seated inferiority complex.

The average WSHS parent should make every argument available to try and ward off an unwelcome and unrequested boundary change. If doing so calls into question the validity of this process, Langley will only benefit and not get "screwed over."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to educate yourself... it is a lot.

This means a dedicated chunk of time going down the rabbit hole of board docs, fcps dashboards and school board videos, going back to last summer at a minimum when policy 8130 was revised, through the October work session with Thru to ger the recent background, back to the boundary history from 2018/2019 that defined FCPS long term goals of county wide rezoning for equity and One Fairfax.

Go to the county site and research One Fairfax. The website might have been changed to blunt trump's ire, but when I checked a month or so ago it hadn't been updated yet.

The first few pages of the most recent boundary thread has lots of good links to background items.

Talk to your neighbors to see if there is a neighborhood based facebook group on this topic. Usually, they are centered on elementary schools, because even though the main catalyst for rezoning is to change high school boundaries, it will be done by changing elementary school zones and feeder patterns.

The fb groups tend to have a lot of grear info specific to your school zone. Many of them started last summer. Ours did. The page managers are usually very good about quickly disseminating the important, school specific info.

Join FairFacts on FB. They were started by a bunch of pi$$ed off Langley parents, have some crazy posters who post a lot, but the mods are good about sharing very comprehensive information about the process, as well as expensive FOIA information.

Then, once you are informed and engaged on an elementary school neighborhood level, stat tuned in because a lot of balls are going to drop in May when FCPS has the 3rd map release for capacity rezoning recommendations.

The complaints you are seeing now are for the relatively simple and mostly non controversial fixing of split feeders and attendance islands.

Once FCPS moves on to rezoning for capacity issues, all he** will break out because most of the overcapacity high schools are high performing AP schools located next to undercapacity, low performing IB schools. People paid a premium to purchase homes specifically zoned for these high schools, and often to specifically avoid IB schools. Some of the over capacity high schools, like WSHS, have a very tiny geographical footprint, where nearly all neighborhoods are within 3 miles of the school and most are under 2 miles from the high school, so rezoning means the school board is picking winners and losers by rezoning.

This is why networking with your elementary zone is important, because when the maps are released next month, the fight will be on the elementary school neighborhood level, not the high school level.

The crazy thing with their 60-105% window is that WSHS will trip that threshold, which means proposals to move WSHS kids to South County and/or Lewis likely will get rolled out in early May. On the other hand, Herndon will be over 60%, even though it now has hundreds of empty seats, and Langley will be under 105%, which suggests they'll leave those boundaries alone.

Thru can just say they were following the guidelines, but the 60% threshold doesn't appear in the Capital Improvement Programs as the relevant standard for "significant under-capacity" (they lump everything under 85% in the same bucket), so people are entitled to know its source. Politically, I would not want to be a School Board member defending any proposal to reassign kids who live within 3 miles of West Springfield to another school, while kids who travel over 10 miles to Langley are not redistricted even though Herndon has capacity. If WSHS parents were pleading for relief, you could justify it, but that is clearly not the case.

You are correct.

The new 60% capacity to 105% capacity that FCPS just created aout of the blue basically puts a target on WSHS only, and protects every other high school in FCPS.

Is anyone else over 105% capacity? Chantilly maybe?

There are currently 6 schools which tip the 105% scale:
- West Springfield: not yet addressed.
- Chantilly: not yet addressed
- McLean: resolved with Spring Hill reassignment
- Falls Church: resolved with expansion (but not yet addressed)
- Centreville: resolved with expansion (but not yet addressed)
- Edison: resolved by reassigning Bren Mar Park

No high school cracked the Top 10 most under capacity list.

The problem is that the rules change and numbers can be manipulated. For example, the reason given for the 2008 South Lakes Boundary study was that all high schools should not exceed 2000. (I doubt anyone expected that would ever happen, but that was the reason given. Ironically, the SB had just expanded Westfield to 3000 shortly before they took students from Fox Mill and Floris and sent them to South Lakes. Some of these neighborhoods had just been sent from Oakton to Westfield a short time before.
In order to add students to Oakton because of the loss of Fox Mill to South Lakes, Kathy Smith ponied up students from Chantilly that did not want to move. That is why there is a split feeder at Navy.

If the SB has a mindset on something, there is little parents can do. My suggestion would be to lean on the Board of Supervisors since this is not good for the community as a whole. It is disruptive and antagonistic in many cases and pits neighborhood against neighborhood.