Many issues converging: Contact SB and Reid!

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09/05/2025 19:49

Subject: Many issues converging: Contact SB and Reid!

quote

Anonymous

Are you concerned about any of these issues? Comprehensive boundary review, Thru consulting integrity, school start times, buses, purchase of new high school, AAP center, IB programs. If so, please write to SB members and Dr. Reid ASAP!

Addresses: kvfrisch@fcps.edu, rlmcelveen@fcps.edu, RALady@fcps.edu, Melanie.Meren@fcps.edu, Ricardy.Anderson@fcps.edu,
Rachna.SizemoreHeizer@fcps.edu, MDunne@fcps.edu, MStJohncunni@fcps.edu, SBAanderson@fcps.edu, SDixit@fcps.edu, Kyle.McDaniel@fcps.edu, imoon@fcps.edu, superintendent@fcps.edu

Sample email text:

I am writing in response to the latest meeting notes and communications about the county-wide boundary review. While I understand that the boundary review was set in motion years ago and that the policy has specific goals in mind (e.g., "eliminating attendance islands"), I also know from following the process that the full current slate of issues is NOT being addressed. I strongly urge the Superintendent and School Board to re-calibrate important decision making that will impact thousands of families rather than rushing to meet a previously set deadline. For example:
- The suggested boundary change maps released by your hired consultant Thru have been challenged on many fronts as not meeting community needs or student safety.
- No revised maps have been released, yet the Superintendent plans to host meetings in each pyramid in September. To discuss what? This would merely be performative to meet the letter of obligations, but not in fact give people updated information to react to and comment on since you've now said new maps will be released in mid-October. Holding "meetings" in September is insulting and unacceptable.
- School start time changes have been casually rolled into boundary change decisions, without an idea of how many families would be affected by boundary changes and therefore how many students will be assigned to each bus route. It's been suggested by school board members that grandfathered students will not be provided buses, meaning that only students with more affluent families will be able to avoid switching high or middle schools (and the negative mental health and academic plunge of switching schools).
- FCPS - really taxpayers - purchased a new high school, yet the additional seats in that school for 2026 are apparently not being considered in the calculations of which students should move schools to accommodate ideal capacity and commute times. This alone is reason to delay the boundary review decisions and recalibrate.
- Issues like student transfers for middle and high schools are not being addressed, although they affect capacity and boundaries: for example the issue of offering AAP at every middle school to eliminate center transfers and then requests for HS transfers. Then the bigger issue of expensive IB programs being underutilized (i.e., unwanted) at FCPS HS in favor of AP schools, but students transferring "for" IB to avoid lower performing schools. Please consider confining IB to one or two schools and letting students access the more popular and financially-positive AP programs.
- These issues should be addressed by any comprehensive boundary review before students and staff are moved around like pawns.
This all seems urgent and obvious to me as a parent of FCPS students and a taxpayer supporting the system.

Please pause and prioritize reasonable actions that help students rather than meet old deadlines or political promises. We are one of the largest school systems in the country, and a leader, and need to reflect that in our decisions and work for our students and a better future.