Show me the law that says school boards cannot change boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that AAP busing is A-OK though to pollute our air and clog our streets. Got it. Raising overall student performance in every demographic IS supposed to be the goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://elainetholen.com/priorities

Hey, Dranesville. Looks like addressing "school overcrowding" is a priority for your candidate.

There will be more than one candidate. And yes, it's a priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which school in FCPS do we think has the best mix of SES and races?

This country (not just county) has resegregated, mostly among SEE lines.

And it’s really obvious in our county where the haves and have nots are.

And it really isn’t fair, especially to the have nots.

We need to figure out how to balance equity and transportation. It isn’t easy, but it has to be done. I’m not just talking about in Fairfax-it has to be done nationwide, because segregation is actually worse now than pre-Brown in many places.

Please support this analysis.

Every high school in FCPS is substantially less white than it was 10 or 20 years ago and, with only two exceptions (TJ and Langley), every high school in the county has a higher percentage of low-income kids. It is the case that the increase in poverty has been the largest in certain areas, due primarily to the concentration of older, more affordable apartments in those areas.

To whom is this unfair and in what ways? Would it be fairer if the immigrants had never been allowed to crossed the border? Or if the housing stock they can afford had been torn down, forcing more of them to live out in Prince William instead?

These aren’t rhetorical questions - it’s unclear whether your focus on “equity” is based on concern for the “have nots” or instead based on concerns for the “haves” who happen to live closer to the “have nots.”

PP is not only talking about racial segregation, but more importantly SES segregation. Please look at FCPS high school FARM rates and demographics between Langley vs Herndon. Absolutely outrageous when considering the current boundary lines (which make no sense).

It's not just those high schools either - although the paradox is very obvious - Alexandria has it's own set of problems.

Let’s be clear. Herndon deliberately ignores zoning laws and deliberately adopts a sanctuary policy, hence the increase in FARMS. Please tell me how that is the fault of Langley parents and students and why it is their responsibility to fix it.

[Anonymous]

We don’t have to artificially bus kids around the county based on a hypothesis that it will “close gaps.” That will run up transportation costs and increase pollution from buses, all while pushing many of the families whose presence in the public schools you seem to think is so essential out of FCPS. FCPS does not operate in some vacuum where social experiments can be conducted without repercussions. We’d probably move to Arlington, as would others, and you’d also see more people staying in DC or moving to Loudoun.

How about we focus on paying teachers well, managing our finite resources, and raising student performance, rather than always making “closing gaps” the only priority?


Again, western GF is bussed 16+ miles to Langley when Herndon is less than 6 miles away. Do you care about transportation costs and traffic in this situation?

First, those kids have been attending Langley long before there were so many low income kids at Herndon. Granted, Herndon was never like Langley--but, the demographic changes have mostly occurred in the last twenty years--and I'm pretty sure Forestville has been at Langley for that long. AND, while it does make sense for Forestville kids to go to Herndon, then there would be more empty spaces at Langley.

Second, balancing for balanced SES is a good thing--but, it does not resolve the "gap." It just hides the gap. As long as there are enough kids to provide challenging academics for all students--rich or poor--it is not necessary to move people around just for "balance."

I've taught in very poor schools and well -balanced schools. The very poor students struggle no matter where they are. Sadly, the greatest predictor is the amount of emphasis that the families put on education. Unfortunately, poor families place less emphasis on it. Those who do, are far more able to climb out of poverty. That is a fact. I have witnessed this as a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, that AAP busing is A-OK though to pollute our air and clog our streets. Got it. Raising overall student performance in every demographic IS supposed to be the goal.

You do know that the GT program was extended to AAP in order to get more minorities? It used to be that only a very few kids were in GT.

It needs to be eliminated. Long ago, it was based ONLY on the IQ tests. But, today, there are groups that prep for those tests, too. If a kid has already seen the test and practiced on it, it does not reflect IQ.

An IQ test is supposed to see how kids reason out and answer based on their own reasoning. Today, many have been told the right answers.

Eliminate AAP and provide a challenging curriculum to every student.

[Anonymous]

The only argument I hear for moving Langley’s students out of an under-enrolled school is fairness. Yet the same people expect our tax dollars to go up.

[Anonymous]

The Herndon HS boundaries are compact and, except for the area off the Fairfax County Parkway on the south side of Route 7 that clearly should be zoned for Herndon rather than Langley, sensible. The school has a healthy enrollment (over 2230 this year), and it’s telling that Herndon fought hard and successfully to stay out of the South Lakes boundary study in 2008. The demographic changes there have largely occurred over the past decade.

I understand the changes there have been rapid; there may have never been another high school in FCPS where the demographics and poverty changed so quickly. But perhaps those who are unhappy with that situation need to examine the reasons for that change and stop taking out all their frustration on Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only argument I hear for moving Langley’s students out of an under-enrolled school is fairness. Yet the same people expect our tax dollars to go up.

Actually, that's not true. The reason why the county should move some great falls feeders from Langley has more to do with the fact that the schools that are geographically near langley like McLean, Marshall and Justice are all massively overenrolled and need capacity relief. Langley can do that and it is much cheaper, efficient to do a boundary change than to conduct even more capacity expansions.

That said, I find it interesting that the same people who complain about FCPS wasting money expanding school capacity are the same people who also stamp there feet and get angry when the idea of a boundary change to fix capacity issues is considered. I mean, look at West Potomac. What do you think would happen if the county chose to send fort hunt and Waynewood to Mount Vernon? People's heads would explode. The same thing with the idea of using Langley to fix capacity issue -- people are going nuts even considering the idea that their children might have to attend Herndon or South Lakes.

You really can't win with this crowd. Anything the county does is going to piss people off and it seems like the county is choosing to waste money expanding schools to avoid the craziness that this thread has encompassed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only argument I hear for moving Langley’s students out of an under-enrolled school is fairness. Yet the same people expect our tax dollars to go up.

Actually, that's not true. The reason why the county should move some great falls feeders from Langley has more to do with the fact that the schools that are geographically near langley like McLean, Marshall and Justice are all massively overenrolled and need capacity relief. Langley can do that and it is much cheaper, efficient to do a boundary change than to conduct even more capacity expansions.

That said, I find it interesting that the same people who complain about FCPS wasting money expanding school capacity are the same people who also stamp there feet and get angry when the idea of a boundary change to fix capacity issues is considered. I mean, look at West Potomac. What do you think would happen if the county chose to send fort hunt and Waynewood to Mount Vernon? People's heads would explode. The same thing with the idea of using Langley to fix capacity issue -- people are going nuts even considering the idea that their children might have to attend Herndon or South Lakes.

You really can't win with this crowd. Anything the county does is going to piss people off and it seems like the county is choosing to waste money expanding schools to avoid the craziness that this thread has encompassed.

You can’t win with this crowd when your facts or assumptions are off.

Moving Langley kids to Herndon or South Lakes right now does not solve any capacity problems. It just creates them at Herndon or South Lakes.

McLean is the only school near Langley that is “massively overcrowded.” It’s been held hostage - with no current plans either to expand the school or to move kids to Langley - while the SB talks about boundary policies.

Marshall was recently expanded and also got a modular. And there are also plans to expand Justice (which isn’t especially close to Langley in any event) even though it is projected to be less overcrowded than McLean. FCPS apparently would rather expand Justice than move kids who live the closest to other schools with capacity like Annandale, as this would drive up the poverty at Justice, which is mostly concentrated near Seven Corners and Bailey’s Crossroads near the border of other jurisdictions.

So, while the case for moving some kids into Langley now is strong, the argument for moving anyone out until there is more capacity in western Fairfax is weak.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely should be better utilizing current capacity before adding on or building new schools. Yes, the decisions aren’t going to make certain people happy. Too bad.

But in evaluating moves, transportation AND a more equitable SES mix need to be considered. The disparity between the high SES schools and the low SES schools is stark. And because we write it off as “well, that’s just where the rich people live..” we have re-segregated schools and are using the separate but equal argument without realizing it. Yes, schools are segregated now by SES (and race by default in some areas - many inner cities, not necessarily FCPS). We have got to find a way to fix this if we ever expect to close gaps.

"We" did not re-segregate schools in FCPS. FCPS got a massive influx due to irregular migration from Central America. FCPS has targeted resources and our resources and tax dollars are NOT considered finite by FCPS.

FCPS has reduced ratio classrooms, programs, dual immersion at some sites [target is Spanish], young scholars, going to full time advanced academic resource teacher in title 1 schools. There are reports on title 1 and pre school.

FCPS is also moving to universal preschool. That could be headstart age 6 weeks to age 5 or less - age 4? age 3? Plus they want to gear up family engagement at title 1 schools, field trips, tutoring and homework help [includes Grandparents/retirees not specific to that school and middle schoolers].

Definition of universal pre school and classrooms and staffing are major issues. Add system wide grade 6 weeks to 1, 2, 3, 4. Full day. Elementary school standrad is grades k-6. That's 7 and some sites have FCPS pre k and headstart. 46 title 1 schools with 4 more grade levels? 2 more grade levels?

I'm the last PP. Some elementary schools in the Herndon Pyramid are over 70% Hispanic and over 50% Hispanic ESOL for lower grades. Data is on the VDOE per grade level, school, demographics [ethnicity, FRPM per ethnicity, etc]. VDOE Herndon middle school:

Herndon MS: 2003-04 2018-19
esol 194 = 16% > 603 = 54%
hispanic esol 124 = 10% > 483 = 43%
hispanic 215 = 18% > 557 = 49%
total 1222 = 100%> 1126 = 100%

So here's a school with high % Hispanic in the Herndon Pyramid pre-K and kindergarten for 2018-2019 from VDOE:
Kindergarten fall membership on VDOE site example for an FCPS school Hutchison:
Hispanic ESOL 107 = 66%
Hispanic K total 123 = 76%
Kindergarten total 161
Pre K=Hispanic 41 = 73%
Total Pre K 56

Run school year round on the site until 6 pm with summer including a larger PE/arts/dance component? How many classrooms needed for FX local funded unerversal Pre-K? 400 more pre-K at that site alone? Year round extended day? School board candidates use universal pre-K as an issue but fail to define the scope that would be funded locally. 38% of students in the Herndon pyramid enter kindergarten with no pre-school.

Who is going to pay for it? Obviously costs will be born by local real estate taxes. How much does it cost? DC has universal for 3 and 4 - note AA population in DC. In FX target market are not AA [multi-generational USA citizens].


FCPS through the public sector would provide equity in experiences, family involvement, after-schooling etc . FCPS self-flagellates itself on MSA . I'm not being snarky - FCPS has enough data to generate estimates yet I can't find anything other than budgets and applying local costs to more students.

[Anonymous]

FCPS through the public sector would provide equity in experiences, family involvement, after-schooling etc . FCPS self-flagellates itself on MSA . I'm not being snarky - FCPS has enough data to generate estimates yet I can't find anything other than budgets and applying local costs to more students.

question: MSA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only argument I hear for moving Langley’s students out of an under-enrolled school is fairness. Yet the same people expect our tax dollars to go up.

Actually, that's not true. The reason why the county should move some great falls feeders from Langley has more to do with the fact that the schools that are geographically near langley like McLean, Marshall and Justice are all massively overenrolled and need capacity relief. Langley can do that and it is much cheaper, efficient to do a boundary change than to conduct even more capacity expansions.

That said, I find it interesting that the same people who complain about FCPS wasting money expanding school capacity are the same people who also stamp there feet and get angry when the idea of a boundary change to fix capacity issues is considered. I mean, look at West Potomac. What do you think would happen if the county chose to send fort hunt and Waynewood to Mount Vernon? People's heads would explode. The same thing with the idea of using Langley to fix capacity issue -- people are going nuts even considering the idea that their children might have to attend Herndon or South Lakes.

You really can't win with this crowd. Anything the county does is going to piss people off and it seems like the county is choosing to waste money expanding schools to avoid the craziness that this thread has encompassed.

You can’t win with this crowd when your facts or assumptions are off.

Moving Langley kids to Herndon or South Lakes right now does not solve any capacity problems. It just creates them at Herndon or South Lakes.

McLean is the only school near Langley that is “massively overcrowded.” It’s been held hostage - with no current plans either to expand the school or to move kids to Langley - while the SB talks about boundary policies.

Marshall was recently expanded and also got a modular. And there are also plans to expand Justice (which isn’t especially close to Langley in any event) even though it is projected to be less overcrowded than McLean. FCPS apparently would rather expand Justice than move kids who live the closest to other schools with capacity like Annandale, as this would drive up the poverty at Justice, which is mostly concentrated near Seven Corners and Bailey’s Crossroads near the border of other jurisdictions.

So, while the case for moving some kids into Langley now is strong, the argument for moving anyone out until there is more capacity in western Fairfax is weak.

That's actually not true, PP. Justice was massively over capacity before an expensive, large expansion was completed. But it is STILL projected to be at 125 percent capacity even including the massive expansion. Marshall is also overcapacity and projected to be seriously overcapacity in the future. No expansion is funded for that school, fwiw.

I do agree that just shuffling seats without actually building the new high school in the western part of the county is not a real solution. That said, I would fully support pulling great falls feeders that are far from Langley out of that zone if the new school is built. It's just common sense to actually use the resource as intended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely should be better utilizing current capacity before adding on or building new schools. Yes, the decisions aren’t going to make certain people happy. Too bad.

But in evaluating moves, transportation AND a more equitable SES mix need to be considered. The disparity between the high SES schools and the low SES schools is stark. And because we write it off as “well, that’s just where the rich people live..” we have re-segregated schools and are using the separate but equal argument without realizing it. Yes, schools are segregated now by SES (and race by default in some areas - many inner cities, not necessarily FCPS). We have got to find a way to fix this if we ever expect to close gaps.

"We" did not re-segregate schools in FCPS. FCPS got a massive influx due to irregular migration from Central America. FCPS has targeted resources and our resources and tax dollars are NOT considered finite by FCPS.

FCPS has reduced ratio classrooms, programs, dual immersion at some sites [target is Spanish], young scholars, going to full time advanced academic resource teacher in title 1 schools. There are reports on title 1 and pre school.

FCPS is also moving to universal preschool. That could be headstart age 6 weeks to age 5 or less - age 4? age 3? Plus they want to gear up family engagement at title 1 schools, field trips, tutoring and homework help [includes Grandparents/retirees not specific to that school and middle schoolers].

Definition of universal pre school and classrooms and staffing are major issues. Add system wide grade 6 weeks to 1, 2, 3, 4. Full day. Elementary school standrad is grades k-6. That's 7 and some sites have FCPS pre k and headstart. 46 title 1 schools with 4 more grade levels? 2 more grade levels?

I'm the last PP. Some elementary schools in the Herndon Pyramid are over 70% Hispanic and over 50% Hispanic ESOL for lower grades. Data is on the VDOE per grade level, school, demographics [ethnicity, FRPM per ethnicity, etc]. VDOE Herndon middle school:

Herndon MS: 2003-04 2018-19
esol 194 = 16% > 603 = 54%
hispanic esol 124 = 10% > 483 = 43%
hispanic 215 = 18% > 557 = 49%
total 1222 = 100%> 1126 = 100%

So here's a school with high % Hispanic in the Herndon Pyramid pre-K and kindergarten for 2018-2019 from VDOE:
Kindergarten fall membership on VDOE site example for an FCPS school Hutchison:
Hispanic ESOL 107 = 66%
Hispanic K total 123 = 76%
Kindergarten total 161
Pre K=Hispanic 41 = 73%
Total Pre K 56

Run school year round on the site until 6 pm with summer including a larger PE/arts/dance component? How many classrooms needed for FX local funded unerversal Pre-K? 400 more pre-K at that site alone? Year round extended day? School board candidates use universal pre-K as an issue but fail to define the scope that would be funded locally. 38% of students in the Herndon pyramid enter kindergarten with no pre-school.

Who is going to pay for it? Obviously costs will be born by local real estate taxes. How much does it cost? DC has universal for 3 and 4 - note AA population in DC. In FX target market are not AA [multi-generational USA citizens].


FCPS through the public sector would provide equity in experiences, family involvement, after-schooling etc . FCPS self-flagellates itself on MSA . I'm not being snarky - FCPS has enough data to generate estimates yet I can't find anything other than budgets and applying local costs to more students.

Congratulations Fairfax Dems you have taken a once healthy middle class area Herndon and created a third world country hell hole through illegal immigration

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only argument I hear for moving Langley’s students out of an under-enrolled school is fairness. Yet the same people expect our tax dollars to go up.

Actually, that's not true. The reason why the county should move some great falls feeders from Langley has more to do with the fact that the schools that are geographically near langley like McLean, Marshall and Justice are all massively overenrolled and need capacity relief. Langley can do that and it is much cheaper, efficient to do a boundary change than to conduct even more capacity expansions.

That said, I find it interesting that the same people who complain about FCPS wasting money expanding school capacity are the same people who also stamp there feet and get angry when the idea of a boundary change to fix capacity issues is considered. I mean, look at West Potomac. What do you think would happen if the county chose to send fort hunt and Waynewood to Mount Vernon? People's heads would explode. The same thing with the idea of using Langley to fix capacity issue -- people are going nuts even considering the idea that their children might have to attend Herndon or South Lakes.

You really can't win with this crowd. Anything the county does is going to piss people off and it seems like the county is choosing to waste money expanding schools to avoid the craziness that this thread has encompassed.

You can’t win with this crowd when your facts or assumptions are off.

Moving Langley kids to Herndon or South Lakes right now does not solve any capacity problems. It just creates them at Herndon or South Lakes.

McLean is the only school near Langley that is “massively overcrowded.” It’s been held hostage - with no current plans either to expand the school or to move kids to Langley - while the SB talks about boundary policies.

Marshall was recently expanded and also got a modular. And there are also plans to expand Justice (which isn’t especially close to Langley in any event) even though it is projected to be less overcrowded than McLean. FCPS apparently would rather expand Justice than move kids who live the closest to other schools with capacity like Annandale, as this would drive up the poverty at Justice, which is mostly concentrated near Seven Corners and Bailey’s Crossroads near the border of other jurisdictions.

So, while the case for moving some kids into Langley now is strong, the argument for moving anyone out until there is more capacity in western Fairfax is weak.

That's actually not true, PP. Justice was massively over capacity before an expensive, large expansion was completed. But it is STILL projected to be at 125 percent capacity even including the massive expansion. Marshall is also overcapacity and projected to be seriously overcapacity in the future. No expansion is funded for that school, fwiw.

I do agree that just shuffling seats without actually building the new high school in the western part of the county is not a real solution. That said, I would fully support pulling great falls feeders that are far from Langley out of that zone if the new school is built. It's just common sense to actually use the resource as intended.

Justice doesn’t appear to have been renovated or expanded since 2005. And with the planned addition it will be at 98% capacity by 2023. Marshall will be at 100% (presumably taking the modular into account). Neither will be so overcrowded as to suggest changing their boundaries for capacity reasons. McLean is a different story.

When you look at the CIP, however, Falls Church is a question mark. They haven’t addressed whether they’ll expand it when it’s renovated. If they don’t, FCHS will be overcrowded and that could have a ripple effect on the Marshall, McLean, and Langley boundaries.

[Anonymous]

More data from VDOE:
FCPS-division
change 2003-2018
esol 8796 37%
hispanic esol 9019 38%
hispanic 23916 101%
total students 23595 100%

Those numbers are the increases from 2003 to 2018. Total school division students:
2003=164235
2018=187830

Increase in Hispanic is greater than the total increase over a 15 year period. FCPS has programs for immigrant family reunification.