Significant Decline in 2024-25 FARMS Rates

[Anonymous]

FCPS updated individual school profiles last week to include 2024-25 data. One thing that I noted was significant declines in the reported FARMS rates at many FCPS schools this past school year.

Does anyone know why this is the case? Were eligibility requirements tightened or did some families stop applying for free/reduced meals because they didn't want to provide identifying information to FCPS given the current immigration crackdown?

[Anonymous]

It’s definitely the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s definitely the latter.

Wrong the application date for this year’s free reduced lunch program was well before Trump got elected. Hence such decision making on to apply where made without knowledge of Trump getting re elected.

[Anonymous]

For what it’s worth I thought the rates spiked at some schools in the 2023-24 school year. Overall it seems like there’s been more variation over the past few years than in prior years where they generally just seemed to climb slowly up.

[Anonymous]

I think it is due to recovery from job loss during COVID.

Also, I expect "English learner" will be declining to some extent next year. Fewer immigrants arriving, it will slowly decline, but it will decline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For what it’s worth I thought the rates spiked at some schools in the 2023-24 school year. Overall it seems like there’s been more variation over the past few years than in prior years where they generally just seemed to climb slowly up.

I think so too. I think they went up across the board, but especially at ES, during Covid. Now they seem to be slowly decreasing.

Is there any way to view the FARMS rates before 2022-2023? I feel like my kids’ ES used to be close to where it is now in terms of FARMS. I don’t think we’ve decreased below pre-COVID levels.

[Anonymous]

FARMs rates and overall student population rates will continue to decline for a few reasons such as overall population decline, less immigration into the US, a desire to be further from DC, etc. The school board and its contractor have a lot of data points to put together as part of the boundary review. Hope they have the ability to appropriately connect the dots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FARMs rates and overall student population rates will continue to decline for a few reasons such as overall population decline, less immigration into the US, a desire to be further from DC, etc. The school board and its contractor have a lot of data points to put together as part of the boundary review. Hope they have the ability to appropriately connect the dots.

'

Since the FARMS rate is a percentage, overall population decline isn't necessarily correlated with a decline in the FARMS rate. Less immigration could be a factor, as could more affordable housing options for lower-income families outside Fairfax.

Even so, I think there's something else going on here impacting the reporting that hasn't been explained yet.

The boundary consultant isn't focusing on FARMS rates, or at least they haven't been doing so to date. Maybe that will change between now and the fall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FARMs rates and overall student population rates will continue to decline for a few reasons such as overall population decline, less immigration into the US, a desire to be further from DC, etc. The school board and its contractor have a lot of data points to put together as part of the boundary review. Hope they have the ability to appropriately connect the dots.

'

Since the FARMS rate is a percentage, overall population decline isn't necessarily correlated with a decline in the FARMS rate. Less immigration could be a factor, as could more affordable housing options for lower-income families outside Fairfax.

Even so, I think there's something else going on here impacting the reporting that hasn't been explained yet.

The boundary consultant isn't focusing on FARMS rates, or at least they haven't been doing so to date. Maybe that will change between now and the fall.

I'm a teacher and agree with this. Did they increase the income levels to qualify or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS updated individual school profiles last week to include 2024-25 data. One thing that I noted was significant declines in the reported FARMS rates at many FCPS schools this past school year.

Does anyone know why this is the case? Were eligibility requirements tightened or did some families stop applying for free/reduced meals because they didn't want to provide identifying information to FCPS given the current immigration crackdown?

Really????? A lot of kids stopped coming to school, OP. How stupid are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS updated individual school profiles last week to include 2024-25 data. One thing that I noted was significant declines in the reported FARMS rates at many FCPS schools this past school year.

Does anyone know why this is the case? Were eligibility requirements tightened or did some families stop applying for free/reduced meals because they didn't want to provide identifying information to FCPS given the current immigration crackdown?

Really????? A lot of kids stopped coming to school, OP. How stupid are you?

There wasn’t that much fluctuation in the enrollment last year compared to the prior year, you dope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FARMs rates and overall student population rates will continue to decline for a few reasons such as overall population decline, less immigration into the US, a desire to be further from DC, etc. The school board and its contractor have a lot of data points to put together as part of the boundary review. Hope they have the ability to appropriately connect the dots.

'

Since the FARMS rate is a percentage, overall population decline isn't necessarily correlated with a decline in the FARMS rate. Less immigration could be a factor, as could more affordable housing options for lower-income families outside Fairfax.

Even so, I think there's something else going on here impacting the reporting that hasn't been explained yet.

The boundary consultant isn't focusing on FARMS rates, or at least they haven't been doing so to date. Maybe that will change between now and the fall.

I'm a teacher and agree with this. Did they increase the income levels to qualify or something?

Income levels is not set by FCPS, not even by the state, it is federal.

[Anonymous]

FARMS forms are due in the fall, which means folks were filling these out in September/October 2024. That's actually plenty of time for folks to decide not to fill out the forms if they are concerned about the political climate, given the degree of anti-immigrant rhetoric that pervaded the 2024 elections.

I work with this population, and I can tell you that a lot of people were concerned even before the election, because they felt that their asylum or refugee cases would be impacted by utilizing public resources.

So it wasn't just a matter of trusting or not trusting the authorities, it was not wanting to file for any sort of public benefit (even for US citizen children) if it might harm their immigration proceedings.

[Anonymous]

If you’re using the previous year’s tax/income information, it could be that it took this long to recover from the Covid job losses, especially at the lower ends of the income spectrum. If a parent in the restaurant industry had their hours reduced, it may have taken until the beginning of this school year for them to get back to normal. If forms were due in fall of 2024, they would have been using their 2023 taxes/income and maybe that was the first year their income was back to normal after Covid. I don’t think my kid’s ES FARMS rate is lower than it was pre-COVID, although it was lower this past school year.