FCPS Boundary Review - New Maps

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My other take away is the concern over FLES. FLES is a waste of time and money. The students don’t learn anything in the class.Tank the program and save money. Add more language immersion programs if you really want to introduce more kids to a language early on. There are wait lists for Spanish, French, and German so there is demand. But FLES is not nearly enough to introduce kids to a language.

Agreed. My kid was in one of those in her old FCPS ES and she didn't learn much of anything. It was a specials class she did once a week. You can't learn a foreign language in a 40-minute lesson every seven days. We moved to a different ES without the foreign language option and didn't miss it at all. That many special ed kids having to move or facing disruptions is a much more serious issue, IMHO.

That is a somewhat useless program. "Nice to have," I guess.

I think McElveen pushed this program the last time he was on the School Board.

I was a DOD teacher overseas. Elementary kids had the Host Nation teacher twice a week. Culture/Language. If the kids lived on the economy (in the local country setting) they learned the language from their host nation playmates. The kids who lived in military housing--never learned it unless Mom happened to be a native speaker.
It made good sense to have this program there since the kids were livng in the country--but they still did not learn the language. It makes no sense here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what I think: they will hardly change the maps we have already seen other than fixing whatever obvious mistakes were pointed out. This is why they don't care that there is a round of meetings in September. They were just telling us the original maps were very rough drafts because they were tired of hearing from people freaking out about them. They do. not. care. about our input despite what they are saying.

I figured they’d front load the meetings with the pyramids that have minimal recommended changes. So it’s surprising to see West Springfield HS with one of the early slots when Thru has already announced they’re going to explore different options for addressing capacity, since the HVES split feeder was challenged. What is the point of addressing that community without options to discuss beforehand?

It’s obvious that they recognized the tight timeline for meeting with every pyramid, coupled with scheduling challenges with reserving meeting space. They’ve been chewing on data crunching all summer. It took months to filter and publish feedback. Does anyone think there will be any meaningful changes from the first set of meetings before the new drafts are released less than two weeks later. It’s a check mark next to the 8130 Policy to alleviate some school board members “concern” with the process.

West Springfield doesn't have any meetings scheduled yet.

That early spot on September 16 is for West Potomac NOT West Springfield

FCPS appears to be avoiding meeting with the West Springfield pyramid. In spite of WSHS having some fairly significant changes proposed, FCPS has not held a single meeting with the community, not even the school board rep holding small community meetings.

The only pyramids with scheduled meetings are Justice, West Potomac and Oakton.

Do any of those pyramids have anything more than minor tweeks?

There was a proposal earlier this year to move part of Hollin Meadows/Sandburg/West Potomac to Riverside/Whitman/Mount Vernon to “fix” the current situation where Whitman MS lies outside its attendance area. The parents have complained and Mateo Dunne has told them he supports them.

A big focus of Thru’s proposals was to eliminate attendance islands and situations where schools lie outside their attendance areas, but they’ve gotten a lot of pushback. Ricardy Anderson has objected to the Thru proposal to redistrict Bailey’s Upper ES (which currently lies within the Sleepy Hollow ES boundary) and the Timber Lane families have objected to getting moved from McLean to Falls Church to eliminate an attendance island.

If they toss out the proposal to change the Whitman boundaries, their rationale for these other changes also goes out the window. They’ve been told repeatedly that most parents view eliminating attendance islands and split feeders as a low priority.

I'm in the MV pyramid. We have been advocating for years for a new building to house Whitman inside the MV/Whitman attendance area. We don't want to see this change either because it is not going to fix the issue that 95% of our students will still have to travel outside of our area to go to middle school. And if they move Whitman's boundaries to put it in bounds, we'll never get a building where most of our students live. MV is already the "dumping ground" of FCPS and this "fix" just proves that we are still the dumping ground.

WP has two attendance islands that are impacted. I don't think there is any pushback because both are low income neighborhoods where families typically do not advocate for their children. One is an apartment complex that currently feeds into Groveton ES, Sandburg and WP. The children drive past Hybla Valley to get to Groveton. The proposal is to move those students to Hybla Valley, keep them at Sandburg and WP. The other is an attendance island surrounded by Mount Vernon neighborhoods that goes to Ft. Hunt, Sandburg and WP. It's an apartment complex and the students are almost walking distance to Mount Vernon Woods Elementary but they are bused almost 5 miles away, past 3 to 4 other elementary schools to Ft. Hunt. The proposal is to send them to MVW, Whitman and Mount Vernon.

FCPS and Fairfax County had an opportunity to use a public building for a middle school located in boundary and serving the Mount Vernon pyramid.
8333 Richmond Highway. Boundary locator is Woodley hills, Whitman, Mount Vernon. Can be seen on the Thru tool. Address of the original Mount Vernon HS, de-commissioned, then rented to Saudis, then Saudis ended up on public land zoned for a school next to Carson [Sully District].

Corbett Sanders [pre school board] chaired the task force. Storck, now BOS, was MV SB, MacKay franconia on BOS...https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/topics/sites/topics/files/assets/documents/pdf/mount-vernon-hs-task-force-report.pdf

So there were 2 Board of Supervisors plus 2 School Board members and Corbett Sanders on that.

[Anonymous]

At some point soon, the school board members are no longer going to be able to say “nothing’s been decided yet.” That’s the point at which their constituents will get really mad. The anger thus far has been deafening, and it only gets significantly worse from here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My other take away is the concern over FLES. FLES is a waste of time and money. The students don’t learn anything in the class.Tank the program and save money. Add more language immersion programs if you really want to introduce more kids to a language early on. There are wait lists for Spanish, French, and German so there is demand. But FLES is not nearly enough to introduce kids to a language.

Agreed. My kid was in one of those in her old FCPS ES and she didn't learn much of anything. It was a specials class she did once a week. You can't learn a foreign language in a 40-minute lesson every seven days. We moved to a different ES without the foreign language option and didn't miss it at all. That many special ed kids having to move or facing disruptions is a much more serious issue, IMHO.

That is a somewhat useless program. "Nice to have," I guess.

I think McElveen pushed this program the last time he was on the School Board.

I was a DOD teacher overseas. Elementary kids had the Host Nation teacher twice a week. Culture/Language. If the kids lived on the economy (in the local country setting) they learned the language from their host nation playmates. The kids who lived in military housing--never learned it unless Mom happened to be a native speaker.
It made good sense to have this program there since the kids were livng in the country--but they still did not learn the language. It makes no sense here.

In most foreign countries, kids have English instruction every day starting at an early age (in Germany, it was 2nd or 3rd grade). Every. day. That's the only way to learn. FLES is useless. They cover the same five things every year. My kids came away from ES knowing how to say five things in Spanish. They learned more from Spanish-speaking classmates than from the teacher.

[Anonymous]

FCPS needs to get rid of immersion and IB. They need to focus on actual proven pedagogy. Same languages at every HS, no language transfers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to get rid of immersion and IB. They need to focus on actual proven pedagogy. Same languages at every HS, no language transfers.

Hard disagree. We love our immersion program. Learning a second language is very helpful for brain development. I’m not going to bother stating research about this because I’m guessing you hate science as well so you can do it yourself if you want.

Why would you want the world to be so cookie cutter and factory like? Everyone must do the same thing at the same time. Go to China if you want that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to get rid of immersion and IB. They need to focus on actual proven pedagogy. Same languages at every HS, no language transfers.

Hard disagree. We love our immersion program. Learning a second language is very helpful for brain development. I’m not going to bother stating research about this because I’m guessing you hate science as well so you can do it yourself if you want.

Why would you want the world to be so cookie cutter and factory like? Everyone must do the same thing at the same time. Go to China if you want that.

I don't question that learning a second language is a good thing. However, these special program do require FCPS to spend additional funds on staff and it does skew our school boundaries.

Right now, funds are tight. This is a "nice to have" program. Not a necessary one. There are better places to spend our funds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to get rid of immersion and IB. They need to focus on actual proven pedagogy. Same languages at every HS, no language transfers.

Hard disagree. We love our immersion program. Learning a second language is very helpful for brain development. I’m not going to bother stating research about this because I’m guessing you hate science as well so you can do it yourself if you want.

Why would you want the world to be so cookie cutter and factory like? Everyone must do the same thing at the same time. Go to China if you want that.

I don't question that learning a second language is a good thing. However, these special program do require FCPS to spend additional funds on staff and it does skew our school boundaries.

Right now, funds are tight. This is a "nice to have" program. Not a necessary one. There are better places to spend our funds.

How much more are the teachers paid? I am guessing that it is not that much more and a pretty small cost. My kid went through JI at Fox Mill and we loved it. It was a good way to challenge him and help him develop some basic language skills in a challenging language. There are 6 teachers that might be paid a bit more because they speak Japanese. Yes, parents can choose to participate, they have to drive their kids to the school. The number of kids is minimal, even across the county. The schools that are over crowded have changed the way students are selected so they are not getting a lot of kids from outside the boundaries.

If anything, immersion should be expanded because it is beneficial to kids and learning a second language is highly useful. Having it at more schools would decrease the need for parents to lottery into the program. There are wait lists at many of the schools for a reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what I think: they will hardly change the maps we have already seen other than fixing whatever obvious mistakes were pointed out. This is why they don't care that there is a round of meetings in September. They were just telling us the original maps were very rough drafts because they were tired of hearing from people freaking out about them. They do. not. care. about our input despite what they are saying.

I figured they’d front load the meetings with the pyramids that have minimal recommended changes. So it’s surprising to see West Springfield HS with one of the early slots when Thru has already announced they’re going to explore different options for addressing capacity, since the HVES split feeder was challenged. What is the point of addressing that community without options to discuss beforehand?

It’s obvious that they recognized the tight timeline for meeting with every pyramid, coupled with scheduling challenges with reserving meeting space. They’ve been chewing on data crunching all summer. It took months to filter and publish feedback. Does anyone think there will be any meaningful changes from the first set of meetings before the new drafts are released less than two weeks later. It’s a check mark next to the 8130 Policy to alleviate some school board members “concern” with the process.

West Springfield doesn't have any meetings scheduled yet.

That early spot on September 16 is for West Potomac NOT West Springfield

FCPS appears to be avoiding meeting with the West Springfield pyramid. In spite of WSHS having some fairly significant changes proposed, FCPS has not held a single meeting with the community, not even the school board rep holding small community meetings.

The only pyramids with scheduled meetings are Justice, West Potomac and Oakton.

Do any of those pyramids have anything more than minor tweeks?

There was a proposal earlier this year to move part of Hollin Meadows/Sandburg/West Potomac to Riverside/Whitman/Mount Vernon to “fix” the current situation where Whitman MS lies outside its attendance area. The parents have complained and Mateo Dunne has told them he supports them.

A big focus of Thru’s proposals was to eliminate attendance islands and situations where schools lie outside their attendance areas, but they’ve gotten a lot of pushback. Ricardy Anderson has objected to the Thru proposal to redistrict Bailey’s Upper ES (which currently lies within the Sleepy Hollow ES boundary) and the Timber Lane families have objected to getting moved from McLean to Falls Church to eliminate an attendance island.

If they toss out the proposal to change the Whitman boundaries, their rationale for these other changes also goes out the window. They’ve been told repeatedly that most parents view eliminating attendance islands and split feeders as a low priority.

I'm in the MV pyramid. We have been advocating for years for a new building to house Whitman inside the MV/Whitman attendance area. We don't want to see this change either because it is not going to fix the issue that 95% of our students will still have to travel outside of our area to go to middle school. And if they move Whitman's boundaries to put it in bounds, we'll never get a building where most of our students live. MV is already the "dumping ground" of FCPS and this "fix" just proves that we are still the dumping ground.

WP has two attendance islands that are impacted. I don't think there is any pushback because both are low income neighborhoods where families typically do not advocate for their children. One is an apartment complex that currently feeds into Groveton ES, Sandburg and WP. The children drive past Hybla Valley to get to Groveton. The proposal is to move those students to Hybla Valley, keep them at Sandburg and WP. The other is an attendance island surrounded by Mount Vernon neighborhoods that goes to Ft. Hunt, Sandburg and WP. It's an apartment complex and the students are almost walking distance to Mount Vernon Woods Elementary but they are bused almost 5 miles away, past 3 to 4 other elementary schools to Ft. Hunt. The proposal is to send them to MVW, Whitman and Mount Vernon.

FCPS and Fairfax County had an opportunity to use a public building for a middle school located in boundary and serving the Mount Vernon pyramid.
8333 Richmond Highway. Boundary locator is Woodley hills, Whitman, Mount Vernon. Can be seen on the Thru tool. Address of the original Mount Vernon HS, de-commissioned, then rented to Saudis, then Saudis ended up on public land zoned for a school next to Carson [Sully District].

Corbett Sanders [pre school board] chaired the task force. Storck, now BOS, was MV SB, MacKay franconia on BOS...https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/topics/sites/topics/files/assets/documents/pdf/mount-vernon-hs-task-force-report.pdf

So there were 2 Board of Supervisors plus 2 School Board members and Corbett Sanders on that.

Just a few years ago FCPS could've used the old historic Mount Vernon HS as an in-bounds middle school. (Actually it used to be an intermediate school.) Too late now however, as it is become an adult career education center and community hub.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to get rid of immersion and IB. They need to focus on actual proven pedagogy. Same languages at every HS, no language transfers.

Hard disagree. We love our immersion program. Learning a second language is very helpful for brain development. I’m not going to bother stating research about this because I’m guessing you hate science as well so you can do it yourself if you want.

Why would you want the world to be so cookie cutter and factory like? Everyone must do the same thing at the same time. Go to China if you want that.

I don't question that learning a second language is a good thing. However, these special program do require FCPS to spend additional funds on staff and it does skew our school boundaries.

Right now, funds are tight. This is a "nice to have" program. Not a necessary one. There are better places to spend our funds.

Not really. FLES does require more teachers. Immersion doesn’t. The gen ed kids in immersion have to have a teacher and they make up a regular class size. Those children would need a teacher even if they weren’t in immersion. It does require selective hiring as the teachers have to speak the target language, but the teachers of immersion get paid the same as other teachers.

That is not a great arguement.

[Anonymous]

They need to push the boundary changes another year and incorporate KAA boundary changes at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They need to push the boundary changes another year and incorporate KAA boundary changes at the same time.

I think that's right. Reid appears to have been gambling with the idea that the School Board would support her magnet proposal and that the KAA purchase wouldn't impact any boundaries.

But it needs to be a neighborhood school and it appears most of the SB recognizes that. She miscalculated, so now they need to start doing what they should have been doing already, even if it pushes the boundary changes out another year.

And quite honestly pushing them out another year might demonstrate how unnecessary many of the Thru proposals are - and the School Board might be more restrained if the changes are first going to be implemented in an election year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to get rid of immersion and IB. They need to focus on actual proven pedagogy. Same languages at every HS, no language transfers.

Hard disagree. We love our immersion program. Learning a second language is very helpful for brain development. I’m not going to bother stating research about this because I’m guessing you hate science as well so you can do it yourself if you want.

Why would you want the world to be so cookie cutter and factory like? Everyone must do the same thing at the same time. Go to China if you want that.

I don't question that learning a second language is a good thing. However, these special program do require FCPS to spend additional funds on staff and it does skew our school boundaries.

Right now, funds are tight. This is a "nice to have" program. Not a necessary one. There are better places to spend our funds.

Not really. FLES does require more teachers. Immersion doesn’t. The gen ed kids in immersion have to have a teacher and they make up a regular class size. Those children would need a teacher even if they weren’t in immersion. It does require selective hiring as the teachers have to speak the target language, but the teachers of immersion get paid the same as other teachers.

That is not a great arguement.

I don't think you understand how it affects staffing.

Just like having an AAP center, the number of teachers has to be divided up separately.

Here is a simplistic explanation: If you have 500 kids and the staffing calculation is 25 students per teacher, then you need 20 teachers.
However, if you have to separate some of those kids for immersion, then you cannot divide them evenly.

Throw in different enrollment levels for each grade, and it makes it even more difficult.
This is why, in AAP schools that some of the same grade levels have an extreme disparity in classes within a grade level. In that situation, the principal may take higher achieving gen ed and place them in AAP. I don't think you can do the same in an immersion program.

It is more expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to get rid of immersion and IB. They need to focus on actual proven pedagogy. Same languages at every HS, no language transfers.

Hard disagree. We love our immersion program. Learning a second language is very helpful for brain development. I’m not going to bother stating research about this because I’m guessing you hate science as well so you can do it yourself if you want.

Why would you want the world to be so cookie cutter and factory like? Everyone must do the same thing at the same time. Go to China if you want that.

I don't question that learning a second language is a good thing. However, these special program do require FCPS to spend additional funds on staff and it does skew our school boundaries.

Right now, funds are tight. This is a "nice to have" program. Not a necessary one. There are better places to spend our funds.

Not really. FLES does require more teachers. Immersion doesn’t. The gen ed kids in immersion have to have a teacher and they make up a regular class size. Those children would need a teacher even if they weren’t in immersion. It does require selective hiring as the teachers have to speak the target language, but the teachers of immersion get paid the same as other teachers.

That is not a great arguement.

I don't think you understand how it affects staffing.

Just like having an AAP center, the number of teachers has to be divided up separately.

Here is a simplistic explanation: If you have 500 kids and the staffing calculation is 25 students per teacher, then you need 20 teachers.
However, if you have to separate some of those kids for immersion, then you cannot divide them evenly.

Throw in different enrollment levels for each grade, and it makes it even more difficult.
This is why, in AAP schools that some of the same grade levels have an extreme disparity in classes within a grade level. In that situation, the principal may take higher achieving gen ed and place them in AAP. I don't think you can do the same in an immersion program.

It is more expensive.

Right back at you dude. Take away immersion and those kids at the neighborhood school that used to be in immersion need a teacher. A couple of kindergarten kids coming from immersion schools back to their neighborhood one school throws the kindergarten classes into needing three teachers instead of just the 2 classes they were going to have. And suddenly you are needing more gen ed teachers than you did. It is just playing numbers and teachers will still be needed. You aren’t taking int9 account staffing ratios. Immersion starts in younger grades than AAP and because ratios are lower it is easier to need another teacher and classroom when you return the gen ed students to their schools. The kids still need teachers.

AAP in higher grades has higher teacher student rations so this doesn’t happen as much.

Just because you don’t like choice or are angry that your kid didn’t get in does not mean the program is wasteful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS needs to get rid of immersion and IB. They need to focus on actual proven pedagogy. Same languages at every HS, no language transfers.

Hard disagree. We love our immersion program. Learning a second language is very helpful for brain development. I’m not going to bother stating research about this because I’m guessing you hate science as well so you can do it yourself if you want.

Why would you want the world to be so cookie cutter and factory like? Everyone must do the same thing at the same time. Go to China if you want that.

I don't question that learning a second language is a good thing. However, these special program do require FCPS to spend additional funds on staff and it does skew our school boundaries.

Right now, funds are tight. This is a "nice to have" program. Not a necessary one. There are better places to spend our funds.

Not really. FLES does require more teachers. Immersion doesn’t. The gen ed kids in immersion have to have a teacher and they make up a regular class size. Those children would need a teacher even if they weren’t in immersion. It does require selective hiring as the teachers have to speak the target language, but the teachers of immersion get paid the same as other teachers.

That is not a great arguement.

I don't think you understand how it affects staffing.

Just like having an AAP center, the number of teachers has to be divided up separately.

Here is a simplistic explanation: If you have 500 kids and the staffing calculation is 25 students per teacher, then you need 20 teachers.
However, if you have to separate some of those kids for immersion, then you cannot divide them evenly.

Throw in different enrollment levels for each grade, and it makes it even more difficult.
This is why, in AAP schools that some of the same grade levels have an extreme disparity in classes within a grade level. In that situation, the principal may take higher achieving gen ed and place them in AAP. I don't think you can do the same in an immersion program.

It is more expensive.

Right back at you dude. Take away immersion and those kids at the neighborhood school that used to be in immersion need a teacher. A couple of kindergarten kids coming from immersion schools back to their neighborhood one school throws the kindergarten classes into needing three teachers instead of just the 2 classes they were going to have. And suddenly you are needing more gen ed teachers than you did. It is just playing numbers and teachers will still be needed. You aren’t taking int9 account staffing ratios. Immersion starts in younger grades than AAP and because ratios are lower it is easier to need another teacher and classroom when you return the gen ed students to their schools. The kids still need teachers.

AAP in higher grades has higher teacher student rations so this doesn’t happen as much.

Just because you don’t like choice or are angry that your kid didn’t get in does not mean the program is wasteful.

Wow. A little defensive there. Have you ever worked in a school and seen how the staffing works?

And, by the way, do they not have additional materials? Training? And, what about the staff at Gatehouse who run the program? Do you think a lottery does not require time from staff? Funds?

And, I did not try to get my child in the program. So, it is not sour grapes.