FCPS is turning the new high school purchased to fix crowding into an Aviation magnet school instead of a high school??

[Anonymous]

At least FCPS is consistent. Given an opportunity the will screw up, could they have devised a worse solution?

[Anonymous]

There is a meeting tomorrow - PLEASE contact the school board about this. Kids who live in 20171 should not have to be on the bus for 30-45 minutes just for some vanity project. We've been promised our own high school for 20+ years, they told us they would be giving it to us, and now they are taking it away.

KYLE McDANIEL: https://www.fcps.edu/staff/kyle-mcdaniel

RYAN MCELVEEN:
https://www.fcps.edu/staff/ryan-mcelveen

ILRYONG MOON:
https://www.fcps.edu/staff/ilryong-moon

SEEMA DIXIT:
https://www.fcps.edu/staff/seema-dixit

MELANIE MEREN:
https://www.fcps.edu/Meren

[Anonymous]

The only thing they needed to do was redistricting and they chose this nonsense over making hard decisions.

[Anonymous]

"Aviation" and "Aerospace" mean totally different things.

Somebody at FCPS is clueless.

[Anonymous]

Why Aviation? Aren't there other industries that are important? We should have a public discussion about why to choose Aviation instead of something else like medicine/health care. Is it because that one school board guy flies planes (didn't he get in trouble for stealing from his business partners?)

And why Amazon? Will kids be doing unpaid work for school credit? Is that legal? It probably shouldn't be. We could have a public discussion as well as why Amazon, whose business practices are suspect, should be chosen instead of other companies, like Apple or Starlink or some defense contractor.

[Anonymous]

An aviation or specialty school? Wow. They aren’t even meeting basic security needs with School resource officers, security guards, technology surveillance and monitoring to deal with fighting, vaping, drugs, and bullying. They have terrible priorities and spending choices.

[Anonymous]

What's the overall capacity of the new school? And was there an indication of what percentage of the student population would be in the magnet program and what would be "general population"?

I'm not very familiar with the high schools out there. Which current high schools do you think the new school will pull from for boundary students (not the magnet program)?

Also, according to their numbers, West Springfield is the most overcrowded high school, and this is way too far away to impact that school.

[Anonymous]

The local school board control model is a complete disaster - terrible spending priorities, nonprofessionals in charge of setting up schools, different school districts teaching different things. school board members that only use the position as a stepping stone to higher office. It has not always been this way - it is an experiment that has been an utter disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Michigan already has a charter school like this aviation magnet proposal. Courtesy of the DeVos family.

So seems like someone thought some kind of Republican-pleasing/business-friendly/Dulles-leveraging STEM magnet would be a fit. Perhaps.

https://www.westmichiganaviation.org/about/dick-devos-founders-letter

What an idiotic thing to say.

Did you look at the curriculum at the link?

[Anonymous]

They are going to spend $ to bus kids from all over the county to learn how to become baggage handlers in a building that should be the promised Western HS?

Literally no one wants this. Where did this idea even come from? Thin air?

[Anonymous]

This model allows students from designated attendance areas to attend as their base school while also drawing students from across Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) for the specialty program. The approach supports enrollment balancing and creates a magnet-like pull that reduces pressure on other high schools without forced reassignment.

What does this even mean? Does it mean that they will allow students from designated areas to attend while giving the option to go to a different school? Knowing this School Board, that would not surprise me.

So, if THRU starts sending Chantilly kids far away, they will be "allowed" to attend this school as their base school?

This sounds like a confusing mess.

If they really want an Aviation Academy, put it at another school. Yes, this school is very close to Dulles, but I don't think we are going to have kids going daily to Dulles to work on airplanes.

And, if it is essential to have access to Dulles, lots of workers go in and out that back gate onto 50 that continues to Lee Road. They could put this at Westfield which has the space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This model allows students from designated attendance areas to attend as their base school while also drawing students from across Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) for the specialty program. The approach supports enrollment balancing and creates a magnet-like pull that reduces pressure on other high schools without forced reassignment.

What does this even mean? Does it mean that they will allow students from designated areas to attend while giving the option to go to a different school? Knowing this School Board, that would not surprise me.

So, if THRU starts sending Chantilly kids far away, they will be "allowed" to attend this school as their base school?

This sounds like a confusing mess.

If they really want an Aviation Academy, put it at another school. Yes, this school is very close to Dulles, but I don't think we are going to have kids going daily to Dulles to work on airplanes.

And, if it is essential to have access to Dulles, lots of workers go in and out that back gate onto 50 that continues to Lee Road. They could put this at Westfield which has the space.

Doesn’t it just mean that it’ll be part community school and part magnet?

[Anonymous]

This is a stupid idea. The only magnet that I've heard consistently asked for besides a duplicate TJ is an Arts magnet ala Duke Ellington or the school in NYC that FAME was based on. Duplicate TJ is also a waste of resources.

[Anonymous]

Magnet schools are terrible. FCPS complains they don't have enough busses or bus drivers, but sure, let's provide 3 busses a day (each way, plus a late bus!) to send kids all across Fairfax County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's the overall capacity of the new school? And was there an indication of what percentage of the student population would be in the magnet program and what would be "general population"?

I'm not very familiar with the high schools out there. Which current high schools do you think the new school will pull from for boundary students (not the magnet program)?

Also, according to their numbers, West Springfield is the most overcrowded high school, and this is way too far away to impact that school.

Good. Those boundaries were jiggered to avoid other less performing schools. All the schools around there are underenrolled and lower performing. They've been catered to for far too long compared to other boundaries and should be among the top schools to redistrict.