FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school board is rushing this through because they want the kids actually transferred before the school board elections in 2027 so the rezoning cannot be halted or reversed by the next school board, knowing that many seats will flip over this issue.

Rezoning is an ugly process.

This schoop board eliminated some of the safe guards, including, I believe, the meticulous boundary studies and processes that would have delayed or blocked a lot of the rezoning.

They did this in darkness, not letting parents know until it was a done deal.

Rest assured, if they are saying they are ready to have kids, current freshman and below, at their new high schools schools in Fall 2025, then they already have the new schools assigned and just need their show vote.

Agree with most of this, just to point out though McDaniel said likely fall of 2026. Still before the election though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP centers see the same issues because they also have non-AAP kids there. It's just a bit more insulated in the classrooms for the AAP kids.

But the promise of getting your kid into aap or a school being able to say (indirectly or directly) “we ARE serving your kid, they aren’t ready for extra.” Plays into the minds of parents and helps them feel they have somethjng to strive for. It has kept much parents in.

VA orMD not parents will do what is best for their kids. There will be flight from schools. The board is new and dumb and haven’t figured out this will be a downfall for years to come.

The board is not dumb. There is no perfect solution to this complicated problem and no decision will make everyone happy.

Sorry but this board is green and dumb and clearly doesn’t understand what nice white and upper middle class parents actually want. Just look at what they are doing. They don’t understand the actual consequences of what they are doing.

Some of them, like McDaniels, ran on this in their equity platform.

They were decidedly elected by all of you who don't pay attention and only vote party.

Of course, McDaniels and crew think they have a mandate to do this. You guys voted in favor of having your high school students rezoned as a 10th/11th grader when you elected a solid blue school board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP centers see the same issues because they also have non-AAP kids there. It's just a bit more insulated in the classrooms for the AAP kids.

But the promise of getting your kid into aap or a school being able to say (indirectly or directly) “we ARE serving your kid, they aren’t ready for extra.” Plays into the minds of parents and helps them feel they have somethjng to strive for. It has kept much parents in.

VA orMD not parents will do what is best for their kids. There will be flight from schools. The board is new and dumb and haven’t figured out this will be a downfall for years to come.

The board is not dumb. There is no perfect solution to this complicated problem and no decision will make everyone happy.

Sorry but this board is green and dumb and clearly doesn’t understand what nice white and upper middle class parents actually want. Just look at what they are doing. They don’t understand the actual consequences of what they are doing.

Guessing you are not the “not everything is about race” poster 🙄

Go ahead, write your to, make your noise… denial and anger come before acceptance.

Or, just stfu and MOVE since you’ve got it like that. Go insulate yourself from the browns and the poors and be done with it.

He is not that person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The board is starting with updating this policy - 8130. https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/97KJK54D54F8/$file/P8130.pdf

This line should terrify everyone, considering they are talking about expedited boundary changes.

"For administrative boundary adjustments or expedited boundary study adjustments
affecting the assignment of less than fifteen percent of the pupils in average daily
membership in the affected school, no public hearing shall be required."

No Public Hearing??? That's awful.

Is this one of tge policies they just adjusted last month?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They won't touch Keene Mill. That school brings in a good amount of diversity to WSHS.

It's going to be Hunt Valley, folks. No way to get around that. Most of the neighborhoods (if not all) that border the parkway after Gambrill, go to Lewis.

Bulllshit


Hunt Valley is the farthests neighborhood away from.Lewis, with the exception of Sangster.

Keene Mill is the closest.

BOTH west Springfield elem and keene mill are 3.2 miles away from Lewis. Keene mill is 2 miles from wshs and west Springfield is closer. We walk to Irving because it is in our community.

KEENE mill is a 10 minute drive to Lewis, with or without traffic.

Hv is a 20 minute drive to Lewis without traffic, and is much longer in the morning.

I mean, geography matters and arguing that Keene Mill and WSHS are not the closest neighborhoods to Lewis and HV is not one of the farthest is laughable

Never said that. Said that proximity to a high school doesn't matter. Hunt Valley is also the farthest from WSHS. Hunt Valley to Lewis will happen, or most of that school will get shifted to Saratoga.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't have bad schools AND no way for UMC parents to transfer out.

You cannot rezone 200 kids from WAHS to Lewis, when there is currently 230 kids transferring OUT of Lewis.

Fix the transfers out before disrupting other families to fill those spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They won't touch Keene Mill. That school brings in a good amount of diversity to WSHS.

It's going to be Hunt Valley, folks. No way to get around that. Most of the neighborhoods (if not all) that border the parkway after Gambrill, go to Lewis.

Bulllshit


Hunt Valley is the farthests neighborhood away from.Lewis, with the exception of Sangster.

Keene Mill is the closest.

BOTH west Springfield elem and keene mill are 3.2 miles away from Lewis. Keene mill is 2 miles from wshs and west Springfield is closer. We walk to Irving because it is in our community.

KEENE mill is a 10 minute drive to Lewis, with or without traffic.

Hv is a 20 minute drive to Lewis without traffic, and is much longer in the morning.

I mean, geography matters and arguing that Keene Mill and WSHS are not the closest neighborhoods to Lewis and HV is not one of the farthest is laughable

jeez- can you imagine the 95 to frontier drive interchange on that short ramp that is already always a mess in the mornings if they add west Springfield high school kids driving to school.

Your privilege is showing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For WS and Lewis, if the projections for enrollment are accurate, a change in boundaries is simply a numbers game. Having an overcapacity school with 2900 students next to an under capacity school with 1425 students doesn't work. The overcapacity school is crowded and the under capacity school can't offer the same level of courses. And basically any of the students you pull over to Lewis will likely be better off than the current student body.

People can complain and move away or go private (though seats at private aren't that abundant), but this is definitely one change that could happen.

And the root cause long term of this is the border, so think about that when voting.

It’s really the only change that needs to happen at the HS level.

Ok now the trolls have hit. This thread is dead and won’t be helpful discussion at all anymore. Jeff should shut it down

DP. I find it hilarious that you whine to the moderator because other people have a different opinion than you. We tell our three year old that she’s too old to whine.

Jeff, Jeff, other people are disagreeing with me!

It is the mass of posts saying nothing but yeah switch this one boundary that makes me suspicious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They won't touch Keene Mill. That school brings in a good amount of diversity to WSHS.

It's going to be Hunt Valley, folks. No way to get around that. Most of the neighborhoods (if not all) that border the parkway after Gambrill, go to Lewis.

Bulllshit


Hunt Valley is the farthests neighborhood away from.Lewis, with the exception of Sangster.

Keene Mill is the closest.

BOTH west Springfield elem and keene mill are 3.2 miles away from Lewis. Keene mill is 2 miles from wshs and west Springfield is closer. We walk to Irving because it is in our community.

KEENE mill is a 10 minute drive to Lewis, with or without traffic.

Hv is a 20 minute drive to Lewis without traffic, and is much longer in the morning.

I mean, geography matters and arguing that Keene Mill and WSHS are not the closest neighborhoods to Lewis and HV is not one of the farthest is laughable

jeez- can you imagine the 95 to frontier drive interchange on that short ramp that is already always a mess in the mornings if they add west Springfield high school kids driving to school.

Your privilege is showing.

I don’t care. it will suck and you know it too. At least the fbi isn’t going there too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They won't touch Keene Mill. That school brings in a good amount of diversity to WSHS.

It's going to be Hunt Valley, folks. No way to get around that. Most of the neighborhoods (if not all) that border the parkway after Gambrill, go to Lewis.

Bulllshit


Hunt Valley is the farthests neighborhood away from.Lewis, with the exception of Sangster.

Keene Mill is the closest.

BOTH west Springfield elem and keene mill are 3.2 miles away from Lewis. Keene mill is 2 miles from wshs and west Springfield is closer. We walk to Irving because it is in our community.

They won't move an elementary school feeder when kids can walk to Irving. Wake up. And they won't shift West Springfield Elementary either. It will be Hunt Valley. It's not about proximity to the high school.

Keep saying this will not make it true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For WS and Lewis, if the projections for enrollment are accurate, a change in boundaries is simply a numbers game. Having an overcapacity school with 2900 students next to an under capacity school with 1425 students doesn't work. The overcapacity school is crowded and the under capacity school can't offer the same level of courses. And basically any of the students you pull over to Lewis will likely be better off than the current student body.

People can complain and move away or go private (though seats at private aren't that abundant), but this is definitely one change that could happen.

And the root cause long term of this is the border, so think about that when voting.

It’s really the only change that needs to happen at the HS level.

Ok now the trolls have hit. This thread is dead and won’t be helpful discussion at all anymore. Jeff should shut it down

How is that a troll comment? Seriously, the projected disparity in enrollment between West Springfield and neighboring Lewis is unique within FCPS at the moment. The closest precedent would be back in 2008 when Westfield had about 2950 kids and South Lakes was around 1450, and they redistricted.

I’m hard pressed to say they don’t need a major plan for Lewis or that it couldn’t involve a boundary change.

At the same time there is no need to redistrict other schools simply because they want to drown out West Springfield parents with the voices of other unhappy parents. They need to focus on the elephant in the room and not turn the entire county into a zoo. Also, if they just focus on WSHS and Lewis, they could have generous grandfathering, which simply won’t be possible with larger changes.

You can disagree but I’m not trolling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is just a huge mistake to make these sort of changes without transparency. It makes people doubt the process and not understand the thinking behind the changes. The school board should be able to stand behind their proposed boundary changes publicly and through their defense of it might ease some minds. There also would be less panic if people knew what was actually being considered. As it is, no one knows whether what they are considering is actually reasonable or not.

I'm interested that so much of the discussion on this thread is about WSHS. Is that just because that's the community most on this board? Because I think there are other areas, West Potomac/Mt. Vernon springs to mind, that are just as problematic. Are those people just not tracking this or does everyone think they won't be included?

Honestly I think it is because those families already have private and what wshs has going for it is middle class families/military and government workers who want public. But they want strong public.
It is a tight knit community within a huge district and breaking that feels like a huge loss. We do little league sports and pools together. Taking one part of that while everyone else gets to stay is sad.

WSHS family here. I feel the same. We’re a mixed race, half immigrant, dual government family and our kids have a community here. I’d rather my children go to South County if we have to leave WSHS; we’ve played Little League and Burke Basketball with SC families.

Any guesses as to what will happen to Newington Forest families who are currently zoned for WS?

Newington Forest is not zoned for WEST springfield High School.

If there are Newington Forest zoned students attending West Springfield High School, that should be corrected with a residency check before any rezoning occurs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For WS and Lewis, if the projections for enrollment are accurate, a change in boundaries is simply a numbers game. Having an overcapacity school with 2900 students next to an under capacity school with 1425 students doesn't work. The overcapacity school is crowded and the under capacity school can't offer the same level of courses. And basically any of the students you pull over to Lewis will likely be better off than the current student body.

People can complain and move away or go private (though seats at private aren't that abundant), but this is definitely one change that could happen.

And the root cause long term of this is the border, so think about that when voting.

It’s really the only change that needs to happen at the HS level.

Ok now the trolls have hit. This thread is dead and won’t be helpful discussion at all anymore. Jeff should shut it down

How is that a troll comment? Seriously, the projected disparity in enrollment between West Springfield and neighboring Lewis is unique within FCPS at the moment. The closest precedent would be back in 2008 when Westfield had about 2950 kids and South Lakes was around 1450, and they redistricted.

I’m hard pressed to say they don’t need a major plan for Lewis or that it couldn’t involve a boundary change.

At the same time there is no need to redistrict other schools simply because they want to drown out West Springfield parents with the voices of other unhappy parents. They need to focus on the elephant in the room and not turn the entire county into a zoo. Also, if they just focus on WSHS and Lewis, they could have generous grandfathering, which simply won’t be possible with larger changes.

You can disagree but I’m not trolling.

I agree with you. There's a lot of hate from WSHS parents - especially the "special" ones that live on the wrong side of the parkway. They can talk about driving distance and whatever, but it makes the most sense and least disruptive to the rest of the county. Saratoga elementary would also get a great boost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For WS and Lewis, if the projections for enrollment are accurate, a change in boundaries is simply a numbers game. Having an overcapacity school with 2900 students next to an under capacity school with 1425 students doesn't work. The overcapacity school is crowded and the under capacity school can't offer the same level of courses. And basically any of the students you pull over to Lewis will likely be better off than the current student body.

People can complain and move away or go private (though seats at private aren't that abundant), but this is definitely one change that could happen.

And the root cause long term of this is the border, so think about that when voting.

It’s really the only change that needs to happen at the HS level.

Ok now the trolls have hit. This thread is dead and won’t be helpful discussion at all anymore. Jeff should shut it down

How is that a troll comment? Seriously, the projected disparity in enrollment between West Springfield and neighboring Lewis is unique within FCPS at the moment. The closest precedent would be back in 2008 when Westfield had about 2950 kids and South Lakes was around 1450, and they redistricted.

I’m hard pressed to say they don’t need a major plan for Lewis or that it couldn’t involve a boundary change.

At the same time there is no need to redistrict other schools simply because they want to drown out West Springfield parents with the voices of other unhappy parents. They need to focus on the elephant in the room and not turn the entire county into a zoo. Also, if they just focus on WSHS and Lewis, they could have generous grandfathering, which simply won’t be possible with larger changes.

You can disagree but I’m not trolling.

Not pp. I don’t understand when people say others are trolling. Some people on the internet are just weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For WS and Lewis, if the projections for enrollment are accurate, a change in boundaries is simply a numbers game. Having an overcapacity school with 2900 students next to an under capacity school with 1425 students doesn't work. The overcapacity school is crowded and the under capacity school can't offer the same level of courses. And basically any of the students you pull over to Lewis will likely be better off than the current student body.

People can complain and move away or go private (though seats at private aren't that abundant), but this is definitely one change that could happen.

And the root cause long term of this is the border, so think about that when voting.

The numbers are not accurate.