Boundary Review Meetings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the Lewis and West Springfield folks need to consider my post from yesterday. Reposting here (it is on page 77).

Here is what I think is going on with Lewis.

The county cannot officially make Lewis an ESL school (that would be illegal), but through their actions they seem to be pushing it that way.

They slightly shrank the boundaries with this latest map. This could reduce the population further (on track to be around 1450 in a couple of years). Remember, in both 2005 and 2015 the boundaries of Lewis (Lee) were made smaller and the enrollment fell from over 2100 to its current 1539.

At Lewis they stick with a woefully underperforming IB program and have shrunk the language choices to a minimum. They put in a STEM program at Edison next door. All of this allows (and incentivizes) families who live within the Lewis boundaries to pupil place to other schools. These are typically families with more resources that can provide their own transportation and likely get more education support at home.

The end effect is Lewis having more high-needs students and fewer advanced students. This theoretically allows the county to focus on high-needs students while more advanced students transfer to different schools to access more advanced courses. They must think this will make the job for Lewis administrators and teachers easier. The problem is that right now they don’t appear to be getting those high-needs students to perform very well (only so much a school can do without proper influence from the home), and it is doing a disservice to advanced students who have to stay at Lewis (fewer advanced courses, fewer instances of those courses).

If they had addressed this 10-15 years ago they may have been able to avert Lewis from becoming a pariah. At this point Lewis is so far down the high ESL / high poverty line that the thought of moving any students to Lewis is seen as cataclysmic. I think all of this explains why no students are being moved to Lewis.

This is the only explanation I can think of. Why else would they hold on to IB at that school?

If that logic is true, then it is completely inequitable to all the other FARMs and ELL kids at the large high schools like Annandale, Falls Church, Justice, etc, which have larger ELL populations than Lewis by the raw numbers. Why do Lewis ELL kids get special small private school treatment?

To some degree it is a tipping point. Once you are below a certain enrollment number AND have a high ESL population it becomes hard to keep the advanced classes populated (or a variety of languages). So if the county can get advanced students to transfer to other schools that, in theory, simplifies the task at Lewis.

Annandale and Falls Church fell under 2000 students this year, but just barely. Justice is just below 2200. Herndon is still over 2000. So they should still have a decent number of advanced students just based on the higher numbers. So those schools may still be very capable of supporting both ESL and advanced students. (Note: sometimes ESL students are advanced, just looking at general needs).

Mt. Vernon is down to 1755, so it is quickly becoming a problem like Lewis (only 1539 students). Poor and small.

[Anonymous]

Mt. Vernon is down to 1755, so it is quickly becoming a problem like Lewis (only 1539 students). Poor and small.

Ask yourself: what else do Lewis and Mount Vernon have in common?
answer: IB

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Mt. Vernon is down to 1755, so it is quickly becoming a problem like Lewis (only 1539 students). Poor and small.

Ask yourself: what else do Lewis and Mount Vernon have in common?
answer: IB

Well yes. Given the dismal results for IB at those schools, the ONLY reason they keep it is to facilitate outbound transfers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Mt. Vernon is down to 1755, so it is quickly becoming a problem like Lewis (only 1539 students). Poor and small.

Ask yourself: what else do Lewis and Mount Vernon have in common?
answer: IB

Well yes. Given the dismal results for IB at those schools, the ONLY reason they keep it is to facilitate outbound transfers.

Agreed. IB is not a “mistake” - it has a very important purpose.

[Anonymous]

Man, I know they really want to keep the boundary review conversation to one thread, but I sure do wish everyone talking about the Springfield high schools could have their own thread. A lot of passionate conversation to be had there... And I want to hear what other people around the county are thinking about the new scenario!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Robinson Pyramid kept all four of their split feeders. Clearly fixing split feeders was not the larger FCPS priority.

At the risk of sounding ignorant because I live in the Robinson pyramid and thought I was reasonably informed about schools here--what split feeders do you mean? Don't all students at the five schools feeding to Robinson go to Robinson?

The presentation last night showed that Oak View is Robinson's only split feeder and it will remain so in Scenario 4. It does, however, eliminate the attendance island.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I doubt the whole Oak Hill would go to KAA. But maybe Emerald Chase goes to South Lakes and the rest of Oak Hill go to KAA.

Remember currently Emerald Chase kids (and Bradley Farm kids south of West Ox) go to Westfield. Moving them to KAA won’t give relief to Chantilly.

I don't take it for granted that Thru and the school board will do what makes sense, but what makes sense is to send Emerald Chase to KAA with the rest of Oak Hill in order to keep pyramids aligned (and, assuming the Franklin Middle School kids get redistricted for Carson, to eliminate a split feeder).

I agree. The school board has an opportunity to build an actual school pyramid with no split feeders with just making a few changes. I hope they don’t find a way to screw that up.

Thru basically gave Emerald Chase two choices: merge with Fox Mill and go to SLHS with other Fox Mill kids (no split feeder scenario 3) or stay with Oak Hill and split at MS/HS level (scenario 4).

I get that Emerald Chase parents may want to avoid SLHS but KAA can take only 2000 kids and Chantilly needs relief.

Emerald Chase parents have been very vocal about what they want. But it’s not like the school board and Thru ignored their original complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Robinson Pyramid kept all four of their split feeders. Clearly fixing split feeders was not the larger FCPS priority.

At the risk of sounding ignorant because I live in the Robinson pyramid and thought I was reasonably informed about schools here--what split feeders do you mean? Don't all students at the five schools feeding to Robinson go to Robinson?

The presentation last night showed that Oak View is Robinson's only split feeder and it will remain so in Scenario 4. It does, however, eliminate the attendance island.

Union Mill ES is also a split feeder, and remains one in scenario 4. Scenario 3 had split the Robinson portion between Oak View and Fairview, but that was undone for scenario 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Man, I know they really want to keep the boundary review conversation to one thread, but I sure do wish everyone talking about the Springfield high schools could have their own thread. A lot of passionate conversation to be had there... And I want to hear what other people around the county are thinking about the new scenario!

70% of the posts on rezoning are usually about Langley in some way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the Lewis and West Springfield folks need to consider my post from yesterday. Reposting here (it is on page 77).

Here is what I think is going on with Lewis.

The county cannot officially make Lewis an ESL school (that would be illegal), but through their actions they seem to be pushing it that way.

They slightly shrank the boundaries with this latest map. This could reduce the population further (on track to be around 1450 in a couple of years). Remember, in both 2005 and 2015 the boundaries of Lewis (Lee) were made smaller and the enrollment fell from over 2100 to its current 1539.

At Lewis they stick with a woefully underperforming IB program and have shrunk the language choices to a minimum. They put in a STEM program at Edison next door. All of this allows (and incentivizes) families who live within the Lewis boundaries to pupil place to other schools. These are typically families with more resources that can provide their own transportation and likely get more education support at home.

The end effect is Lewis having more high-needs students and fewer advanced students. This theoretically allows the county to focus on high-needs students while more advanced students transfer to different schools to access more advanced courses. They must think this will make the job for Lewis administrators and teachers easier. The problem is that right now they don’t appear to be getting those high-needs students to perform very well (only so much a school can do without proper influence from the home), and it is doing a disservice to advanced students who have to stay at Lewis (fewer advanced courses, fewer instances of those courses).

If they had addressed this 10-15 years ago they may have been able to avert Lewis from becoming a pariah. At this point Lewis is so far down the high ESL / high poverty line that the thought of moving any students to Lewis is seen as cataclysmic. I think all of this explains why no students are being moved to Lewis.

This is the only explanation I can think of. Why else would they hold on to IB at that school?

If that logic is true, then it is completely inequitable to all the other FARMs and ELL kids at the large high schools like Annandale, Falls Church, Justice, etc, which have larger ELL populations than Lewis by the raw numbers. Why do Lewis ELL kids get special small private school treatment?

To some degree it is a tipping point. Once you are below a certain enrollment number AND have a high ESL population it becomes hard to keep the advanced classes populated (or a variety of languages). So if the county can get advanced students to transfer to other schools that, in theory, simplifies the task at Lewis.

Annandale and Falls Church fell under 2000 students this year, but just barely. Justice is just below 2200. Herndon is still over 2000. So they should still have a decent number of advanced students just based on the higher numbers. So those schools may still be very capable of supporting both ESL and advanced students. (Note: sometimes ESL students are advanced, just looking at general needs).

Mt. Vernon is down to 1755, so it is quickly becoming a problem like Lewis (only 1539 students). Poor and small.

Annandale will get more kids with Bren Mar Park moving back to Annandale from Edison. This is undoing part of an earlier redistricting of kids out of Annandale in 2011.

Falls Church will get more kids with Sleepy Hollow Woods moving from Justice to eliminate the Mason Crest split feeder. Not sure how they feel about getting moved into Poe, though.

Justice is losing Sleepy Hollow Woods but picking up a small area in Lincolnia now at Annandale that fought out a move from pre-STEM Jefferson to Justice (then Stuart) decades ago. Justice enrollment will keep going down if some of the immigrant families are forced out or leave voluntarily.

All of these schools are healthier than Lewis. Annandale has a great principal. Falls Church is getting a major renovation. Justice has some wealthy areas the Lake Barcroft/Sleepy Hollow area to go along with the poorer areas. Lewis just gets treated like dirt year after year. So does Mount Vernon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man, I know they really want to keep the boundary review conversation to one thread, but I sure do wish everyone talking about the Springfield high schools could have their own thread. A lot of passionate conversation to be had there... And I want to hear what other people around the county are thinking about the new scenario!

70% of the posts on rezoning are usually about Langley in some way.

Disagree. Quite a bit of talk about WSHS, Lewis, and LB

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I doubt the whole Oak Hill would go to KAA. But maybe Emerald Chase goes to South Lakes and the rest of Oak Hill go to KAA.

Remember currently Emerald Chase kids (and Bradley Farm kids south of West Ox) go to Westfield. Moving them to KAA won’t give relief to Chantilly.

I don't take it for granted that Thru and the school board will do what makes sense, but what makes sense is to send Emerald Chase to KAA with the rest of Oak Hill in order to keep pyramids aligned (and, assuming the Franklin Middle School kids get redistricted for Carson, to eliminate a split feeder).

I agree. The school board has an opportunity to build an actual school pyramid with no split feeders with just making a few changes. I hope they don’t find a way to screw that up.

Thru basically gave Emerald Chase two choices: merge with Fox Mill and go to SLHS with other Fox Mill kids (no split feeder scenario 3) or stay with Oak Hill and split at MS/HS level (scenario 4).

I get that Emerald Chase parents may want to avoid SLHS but KAA can take only 2000 kids and Chantilly needs relief.

Emerald Chase parents have been very vocal about what they want. But it’s not like the school board and Thru ignored their original complaints.

I don't live in Emerald Chase, but nearby. I think they sincerely hate the split feeder thing. It seems that any time people object to going to a different school that people assume it is because it is a less desirable school.

I will remind you that during the South Lakes boundary study that Chantilly neighborhoods fought against one another to stay at Chantilly over Oakton--which, at the time, was considered a much more "desirable" school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Robinson Pyramid kept all four of their split feeders. Clearly fixing split feeders was not the larger FCPS priority.

At the risk of sounding ignorant because I live in the Robinson pyramid and thought I was reasonably informed about schools here--what split feeders do you mean? Don't all students at the five schools feeding to Robinson go to Robinson?

The presentation last night showed that Oak View is Robinson's only split feeder and it will remain so in Scenario 4. It does, however, eliminate the attendance island.

Union Mill is in the Centreville pyramid but has been a split feeder to Centreville and Robinson for years. It picked up part of Clifton zoned to Robinson when Clifton closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the Lewis and West Springfield folks need to consider my post from yesterday. Reposting here (it is on page 77).

Here is what I think is going on with Lewis.

The county cannot officially make Lewis an ESL school (that would be illegal), but through their actions they seem to be pushing it that way.

They slightly shrank the boundaries with this latest map. This could reduce the population further (on track to be around 1450 in a couple of years). Remember, in both 2005 and 2015 the boundaries of Lewis (Lee) were made smaller and the enrollment fell from over 2100 to its current 1539.

At Lewis they stick with a woefully underperforming IB program and have shrunk the language choices to a minimum. They put in a STEM program at Edison next door. All of this allows (and incentivizes) families who live within the Lewis boundaries to pupil place to other schools. These are typically families with more resources that can provide their own transportation and likely get more education support at home.

The end effect is Lewis having more high-needs students and fewer advanced students. This theoretically allows the county to focus on high-needs students while more advanced students transfer to different schools to access more advanced courses. They must think this will make the job for Lewis administrators and teachers easier. The problem is that right now they don’t appear to be getting those high-needs students to perform very well (only so much a school can do without proper influence from the home), and it is doing a disservice to advanced students who have to stay at Lewis (fewer advanced courses, fewer instances of those courses).

If they had addressed this 10-15 years ago they may have been able to avert Lewis from becoming a pariah. At this point Lewis is so far down the high ESL / high poverty line that the thought of moving any students to Lewis is seen as cataclysmic. I think all of this explains why no students are being moved to Lewis.

This is the only explanation I can think of. Why else would they hold on to IB at that school?

If that logic is true, then it is completely inequitable to all the other FARMs and ELL kids at the large high schools like Annandale, Falls Church, Justice, etc, which have larger ELL populations than Lewis by the raw numbers. Why do Lewis ELL kids get special small private school treatment?

To some degree it is a tipping point. Once you are below a certain enrollment number AND have a high ESL population it becomes hard to keep the advanced classes populated (or a variety of languages). So if the county can get advanced students to transfer to other schools that, in theory, simplifies the task at Lewis.

Annandale and Falls Church fell under 2000 students this year, but just barely. Justice is just below 2200. Herndon is still over 2000. So they should still have a decent number of advanced students just based on the higher numbers. So those schools may still be very capable of supporting both ESL and advanced students. (Note: sometimes ESL students are advanced, just looking at general needs).

Mt. Vernon is down to 1755, so it is quickly becoming a problem like Lewis (only 1539 students). Poor and small.

Annandale will get more kids with Bren Mar Park moving back to Annandale from Edison. This is undoing part of an earlier redistricting of kids out of Annandale in 2011.

Falls Church will get more kids with Sleepy Hollow Woods moving from Justice to eliminate the Mason Crest split feeder. Not sure how they feel about getting moved into Poe, though.

Justice is losing Sleepy Hollow Woods but picking up a small area in Lincolnia now at Annandale that fought out a move from pre-STEM Jefferson to Justice (then Stuart) decades ago. Justice enrollment will keep going down if some of the immigrant families are forced out or leave voluntarily.

All of these schools are healthier than Lewis. Annandale has a great principal. Falls Church is getting a major renovation. Justice has some wealthy areas the Lake Barcroft/Sleepy Hollow area to go along with the poorer areas. Lewis just gets treated like dirt year after year. So does Mount Vernon.

If they were trying to reduce the FARMS percentage at Falls Church, and I'm not sure they really cared one way or the other, picking up Sleepy Hollow Woods and Columbia Pines from Justice does more than picking up Timber Lane north of Route 29 from McLean would have done. It's 100% single-family houses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I doubt the whole Oak Hill would go to KAA. But maybe Emerald Chase goes to South Lakes and the rest of Oak Hill go to KAA.

Remember currently Emerald Chase kids (and Bradley Farm kids south of West Ox) go to Westfield. Moving them to KAA won’t give relief to Chantilly.

I don't take it for granted that Thru and the school board will do what makes sense, but what makes sense is to send Emerald Chase to KAA with the rest of Oak Hill in order to keep pyramids aligned (and, assuming the Franklin Middle School kids get redistricted for Carson, to eliminate a split feeder).

I agree. The school board has an opportunity to build an actual school pyramid with no split feeders with just making a few changes. I hope they don’t find a way to screw that up.

Thru basically gave Emerald Chase two choices: merge with Fox Mill and go to SLHS with other Fox Mill kids (no split feeder scenario 3) or stay with Oak Hill and split at MS/HS level (scenario 4).

I get that Emerald Chase parents may want to avoid SLHS but KAA can take only 2000 kids and Chantilly needs relief.

Emerald Chase parents have been very vocal about what they want. But it’s not like the school board and Thru ignored their original complaints.

I don't live in Emerald Chase, but nearby. I think they sincerely hate the split feeder thing. It seems that any time people object to going to a different school that people assume it is because it is a less desirable school.

I will remind you that during the South Lakes boundary study that Chantilly neighborhoods fought against one another to stay at Chantilly over Oakton--which, at the time, was considered a much more "desirable" school.

Then they can go with Scenario 3. No split feeding under Scenario 3.

But they lobbied hard against Scenario 3 to stay with Oak Hill. Now their wish is granted under Scenario 4. Are they going to complain about split feeding this time?

To be clear FCPS is not creating a new split feeding pattern here. Emerald Chase kids are currenlty going to Westfield, while the most Oak Hill kids are going to Chantilly.