FCPS HS Boundary

[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.

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.

Yes it will.

[Anonymous]

This is going to affect less than 5% of FCPS students, probably far less. The districts are already geographically appropriate for the most part. There aren’t going to be new bussing/demographic islands created (eg. Timber Lane to McLean). There will be minor tweaks at the boundaries of some obvious places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is going to affect less than 5% of FCPS students, probably far less. The districts are already geographically appropriate for the most part. There aren’t going to be new bussing/demographic islands created (eg. Timber Lane to McLean). There will be minor tweaks at the boundaries of some obvious places.

The most compact and geographically appropriate boundary is West Springfield High School.

The school board is going to gerrymander the boundary lines over equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I think what you really want is for them to propose nothing or propose massive redistricting because you think there might be a tidal wave of opposition in the latter case that would avoid any changes, including at WS/Lewis.

I understand the sentiment. Objectively, however, I think they need a plan for Lewis and that, realistically, it may involve moving some WSHS kids. It is a special case right now, unless their projections are just totally off.

[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’m glad you aren’t trolling there were just several posts in a row that were just short assents rather than arguments.

There are other schools chantilly Langley west po that need overcrowding relief even before wshs. It is just dominating this board right now

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][b]It is just a huge mistake to make these sort of changes without transparency.[/b] 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. T[b]here 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. [/b]

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?

[/quote]

Please go back and read what you wrote. Very slowly.

This thread is unhinged.

[Anonymous]

What are the projections for WS? I thought while this current cohort of HS kids was large, the current ES cohort was smaller than typical.

[Anonymous]

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.

The numbers are not accurate.

Then form a county-wide group of parents that can split the cost of a FOIA request to dig into their projections. Just saying their numbers are wrong won’t get you anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Couldn’t the problem with Lewis be solved by consolidating all FCPS academies and ESL in the eastern part of the county to that one school, making those programs full-time, and dividing the remaining students among nearby high schools?

[Anonymous]

When the plans come out and they involve a small amount of tinkering around the edges at a few schools, and not Lewis getting 2 whole feeder ES from WS, are we allowed to say “I told you so” to the crazy Lewis booster mom? Or is she going to say that it was all worth it to troll and get everyone all in a dander about attending school with ~*~ThE PoOrZ~*~*~, interspersed with some old Twitter lingo “We SeE YoU”/“it’s the _____ for me” type phrases???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please reach out to the board to let them know your thoughts. At this point, it’ll only be community engagement that will stop this disaster.

Oh I did! I've emailed my rep twice and the entire school board got a long letter. We'll see if I hear anything meaningful back. I doubt it.

That's funny. I got an almost immediate (although mostly typical boilerplate) response when I told them how much I support their efforts on this redistricting plan. Use the school resources we have already paid for. Shorten the bus routes so they aren't always late and running double routes. Now if they could just get rid of all those split feeders that would be terrific. Between this and moving back the ridiculously early middle school start times I think this school board is off to a great start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are the projections for WS? I thought while this current cohort of HS kids was large, the current ES cohort was smaller than typical.

You are correct.

Once the current class of 2026 graduates, all the subsequent classes go down in size significantly.

2026 is well over 700 students. 2025 and 2024 are in the mkd to upper 600s.

Every class after 2026 is in the low 600s.

WSHS will self correct without a boundary adjustment once 2026 graduates, based on all the numbers in the middle school and elementary classes zoned for WSHS.

However, there are many out of zone kids attending WSHS usiing other addresses.

WSHS needs to do a residency check before sny rezoning occurs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please reach out to the board to let them know your thoughts. At this point, it’ll only be community engagement that will stop this disaster.

Oh I did! I've emailed my rep twice and the entire school board got a long letter. We'll see if I hear anything meaningful back. I doubt it.

That's funny. I got an almost immediate (although mostly typical boilerplate) response when I told them how much I support their efforts on this redistricting plan. Use the school resources we have already paid for. Shorten the bus routes so they aren't always late and running double routes. Now if they could just get rid of all those split feeders that would be terrific. Between this and moving back the ridiculously early middle school start times I think this school board is off to a great start.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the projections for WS? I thought while this current cohort of HS kids was large, the current ES cohort was smaller than typical.

You are correct.

Once the current class of 2026 graduates, all the subsequent classes go down in size significantly.

2026 is well over 700 students. 2025 and 2024 are in the mkd to upper 600s.

Every class after 2026 is in the low 600s.

WSHS will self correct without a boundary adjustment once 2026 graduates, based on all the numbers in the middle school and elementary classes zoned for WSHS.

However, there are many out of zone kids attending WSHS usiing other addresses.

WSHS needs to do a residency check before sny rezoning occurs.

PP here. Thanks for this. I have a ‘26 and a ‘28 and that was definitely my understanding as well. Wonder if the Board will conveniently ignore these numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the projections for WS? I thought while this current cohort of HS kids was large, the current ES cohort was smaller than typical.

You are correct.

Once the current class of 2026 graduates, all the subsequent classes go down in size significantly.

2026 is well over 700 students. 2025 and 2024 are in the mkd to upper 600s.

Every class after 2026 is in the low 600s.

WSHS will self correct without a boundary adjustment once 2026 graduates, based on all the numbers in the middle school and elementary classes zoned for WSHS.

However, there are many out of zone kids attending WSHS usiing other addresses.

WSHS needs to do a residency check before sny rezoning occurs.

I wonder how things would shake out across the entire county if FCPS did a comprehensive residency check on everyone. Like I know 2 families just off hand using their parent’s (the kid’s grandparents) addresses for school. And my ES isn’t even all that great. I’m sure it’s a lot more in the very desirable areas.