FCPS' plans to address concerns at under-enrolled and over-enrolled schools.
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Anonymous
Again, these people suck at their jobs. They have little knowledge of the county or its schools, and no enthusiasm for what they are doing, so every one of these meeting feels like it’s being led by some mindless drone who drew the short end of a stick at a staff meeting. All of Reid’s energies focus on Skyview. It’s the only thing she cares about. People at Bren Mar Park are just sacrificial lambs caught up in a mess that has its origins in bad decisions made a few years ago by dolts like Karl Frisch. |
Anonymous
| 🤌 |
Anonymous
Agree with all of this. It feels like that school is being weirdly targeted for some reason. I wonder why? Seems like a whole mess to get the kids into Lewis - need to fix the 6th grade middle school problem, some high schoolers will wave hi to Edison on their way to Lewis. Other high schoolers will have to get on 395 to get to school. It’s just one exit but that area of the highway can be a mess and you have to cross multiple lanes as soon as you get on to go south. Weren’t the WSHS parents complaining about the commute to Lewis? At least you don’t have to get on the highway to do it. Why is Bren Mar being singled out? |
Anonymous
| West Springfield has over 2800 kids but they are proposing to kick kids out of Edison because they think Lewis needs more kids? Pathetic. |
Anonymous
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Why want Franconia Elementary School an option to move to Lewis? It’s literally right there. If over crowding at Edison is an issue, why isn’t this school being considered?
Has anyone looked at the demographics of Bren Mar? Interesting that this was the school targeted…… |
Anonymous
Edison is already at capacity and there are new housing developments being built literally within walking distance at the old Top Golf and the old local government building. They are going to have to do something about capacity there in the next 5 years and the Bryn Mar Park option seems like a pretty solid solution. |
Anonymous
A lot of Franconia ES walks to Edison HS. Cross Van Dorn from Edison and you’re in the Franconia ES area. They target Bren Mar Park because it’s the only school zoned to Holmes that doesn’t feed to Annandale and they expect the parents to put up less of a fight than if they tried to move people out of West Springfield to Lewis. They are the lowest-hanging fruit. |
Anonymous
Well, Edison is also over capacity and getting a lot of new development, to be fair. It could stand to lose some students before the crowding situation gets really bad. It’s also on probably the worst physical site for a HS in FCPS, directly on a busy corner. There was an early map last spring showing BMP returning to Annandale, where they were zoned prior to about 2010. This would make a certain amount of sense as they could stay at Holmes with other Annandale kids/the 6-8 vs. 7-8 MS situation would not be an issue. However with people making noise about Lewis being under enrolled late in the boundary process, BMP was targeted to not just relieve Edison, but also to fill up Lewis. |
Anonymous
Uh huh. Because that POS facilities guy who went to West Springfield (Platenberg) made sure West Springfield got a much bigger expansion than Edison when they were renovated within years of one another? Move BMP to Lewis and then both Edison and Lewis will have 1800-1850 kids while West Springfield is closer to 2800. |
Anonymous
If they pull BMP out of Holmes and send it to Key then Holmes will be significantly under capacity. |
Anonymous
Yeah and they never discussed that point. Maybe they figure since it has 3 grades vs. 2 they can just sort of get away with it? |
Anonymous
They may be able to add 6th grade to Bren Mar Park but pulling it out of Holmes leaves Holmes well under capacity - and it makes the recent decision to add AAP to Poe rather than Holmes look really stupid. |
Anonymous
| I find it interesting that the school targeted, Bren Mar, is over 50% low income and almost 50% Hispanic. |
Anonymous
Why is the Chief Equity Officer being named champion for the “Lorton issue”? Unless the issue has nothing to do with capacity and everything to do with “equity.” It’s also interesting that Silverbrook Elementary is not being included in the Lorton Boundary review issue, which is where Sandy Anderson lives. Halley and Silverbrook are both physically located in Crosspointe, and moving Hagel Circle out of Halley will leave the school at roughly 60% capacity. Wouldn’t it make sense to also include the other elementary school in the same neighborhood in the review? Some students assigned for Silverbrook live physically close enough to Halley to be walkers. |
Anonymous
I’m in the area (but not at Halley, but am at South County) and this is my take. Halley and Silverbrook are literally in the same neighborhood and there could easily be capacity balancing between the two schools if and when Hagel Circle is out of Halley. Halley also has a big pre-K program of both the income-based and special needs, both the half day and PAC classes, and I could see it growing if needed to take up some empty classroom space. Silverbrook is quite large but always seems to be at capacity, but they did just get a renovation and expansion. There was a proposal to move some of the edge neighborhoods on the other side (so like behind South Run Park) to Sangster and Lake Braddock, but those few neighborhoods fought against it because that’s an annoying drive and Sangster doesn’t need any more students. Halley is also going to get a Korean immersion program to fill up some space … allegedly. Lorton is one of those places that has lower income areas alongside middle class and nice neighborhoods. Right now those areas are pretty evenly distributed. Hagel Circle is in an attendance island for Halley and South County. The income restricted apartments and Woods of Fairfax are with Lorton Station and Hayfield. The low rise condos at the end of Silverbrook Road are with Laurel Hill and South County, and Newington Forest/South County has a small section of public housing off Southrun by their pool. Gunston has some lower income neighborhoods but I don’t know if those areas end up at South County or Hayfield for MS/HS since I’m less familiar with that area. The issue right now is where Hagel Circle ends up and who, potentially, goes with it. As a South County parent the only thing I really don’t want, is Hagel Circle at Lorton Station and all of Lorton Station ES ending up at South County. Lorton Station is a very large school. Adding them to our attendance area would push both SCMS and HS over 105% capacity, I think they said the middle school would instantly jump to 119% which is insane. But this was a proposal on one of the maps when this was discussed privately with LSES’s PTA earlier this year. South County is literally at the southern border of the county so we have a very limited number of “moves out” that can be made. Again as a South County parent I don’t care if Hagel Circle stays here. They’re already here! I’m not trying to dump this neighborhood. My issue is solely with the proposal to add all of Lorton Station to South County and adding several hundred students to our middle and HS. That would also create a cascading effect at Hayfield where they’d have to pick up a large number of students from Edison most likely in order to balance the enrollments. |