FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

I think it helps the low income kids more to have smaller class sizes where they can confidently practice their English skills and gives them more attention. That is the entire idea behind ESL classes anyway- smaller groups with more talking time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

About 50 pages of this thread is about that topic.

And there are some entries about the size discrepancy, but do posters on this forum really think that matters?

[Anonymous]

I think it’s more likely that some of Edison’s students will eventually - maybe not in this round of boundary changes but eventually - get moved to Lewis if and when the development slated for Edison’s borders actually comes to pass.

There are a few problems with West Springfield to Lewis, 1 the kids on WS’s eastern borders zoned for Keene Mill ES are often walkers to Irving. You create a weird situation where if you pick up kids from this area, they’re getting bussed from their much closer schools to presumably, Key and Lewis.

2, Lake Accotink Park and the Accotink Creek provide a large natural barrier in that area. So on paper, it looks like you could expand Crestwood’s or Garfield’s boundaries to pick up a few more streets currently in bounds for Keene Mill, West Springfield, or Cardinal Forest, when in reality, you’d then be going past the park and creating a weird gerrymandering situation.

3, Hunt Valley on the south side of the boundaries was, many years ago before South County opened, a split feeder sending some of its kids to Lee and most to WSHS. When South County opened as a secondary school (the middle school was not finished until a few years later), it mostly took students from Hayfield and a few from Lake Braddock. The original plan was to send those few neighborhoods to Lake Braddock after it lost some students to South County. But the residents protested the much longer bus ride, and instead were sent to West Springfield, thus eliminating a split feeder. You can see the vestige of that with the one tiny attendance island that Sangster and LB have at the end of Pohick Rd. By the Parkway. It was not possible at that time to send these neighborhoods to the new South County as it opened at max capacity as a 7-12 school immediately. However it would not surprise me now to see some of these neighborhoods sent to likely Newington Forest and South County. South County certainly has room now. It would likely be the Sangster island + the other side of Newington Forest Ave. on the opposite side of Pohick. I doubt there is room for all of Hunt Valley South of the parkway to attend South County as that area is surprisingly dense and full of kids.

There is unfortunately, a longer trend of depopulation of school age, especially MS/HS, age children from central Springfield. It’s difficult to fill out a school’s capacity when you don’t have any places to pull from. South County is also trending toward longer term lower enrollment, not sure about Hayfield. Edison’s problem is that its physical site makes it difficult if not impossible to expand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

I think it helps the low income kids more to have smaller class sizes where they can confidently practice their English skills and gives them more attention. That is the entire idea behind ESL classes anyway- smaller groups with more talking time.

Lewis is not simply comprised of low-income kids who need to practice their English skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

About 50 pages of this thread is about that topic.

And there are some entries about the size discrepancy, but do posters on this forum really think that matters?

You can go back and read the thread. Some do and some don't. What matters is what the School Board thinks.

It hasn't happened recently, but there were significant boundaries changes about 15 years ago to add students to South Lakes when the SB concluded the size discrepancy between South Lakes and other schools was unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

I think it helps the low income kids more to have smaller class sizes where they can confidently practice their English skills and gives them more attention. That is the entire idea behind ESL classes anyway- smaller groups with more talking time.

Lewis is not simply comprised of low-income kids who need to practice their English skills.

There are enough that the scores are low and the school needs teen saviors.

[Anonymous]

55% are low income. Typically that means Title 1 services which give a lower teacher-student ratio. That is exactly what Lewis has so why add more kids unless they expect those kids to pump up test scores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s more likely that some of Edison’s students will eventually - maybe not in this round of boundary changes but eventually - get moved to Lewis if and when the development slated for Edison’s borders actually comes to pass.

There are a few problems with West Springfield to Lewis, 1 the kids on WS’s eastern borders zoned for Keene Mill ES are often walkers to Irving. You create a weird situation where if you pick up kids from this area, they’re getting bussed from their much closer schools to presumably, Key and Lewis.

2, Lake Accotink Park and the Accotink Creek provide a large natural barrier in that area. So on paper, it looks like you could expand Crestwood’s or Garfield’s boundaries to pick up a few more streets currently in bounds for Keene Mill, West Springfield, or Cardinal Forest, when in reality, you’d then be going past the park and creating a weird gerrymandering situation.

3, Hunt Valley on the south side of the boundaries was, many years ago before South County opened, a split feeder sending some of its kids to Lee and most to WSHS. When South County opened as a secondary school (the middle school was not finished until a few years later), it mostly took students from Hayfield and a few from Lake Braddock. The original plan was to send those few neighborhoods to Lake Braddock after it lost some students to South County. But the residents protested the much longer bus ride, and instead were sent to West Springfield, thus eliminating a split feeder. You can see the vestige of that with the one tiny attendance island that Sangster and LB have at the end of Pohick Rd. By the Parkway. It was not possible at that time to send these neighborhoods to the new South County as it opened at max capacity as a 7-12 school immediately. However it would not surprise me now to see some of these neighborhoods sent to likely Newington Forest and South County. South County certainly has room now. It would likely be the Sangster island + the other side of Newington Forest Ave. on the opposite side of Pohick. I doubt there is room for all of Hunt Valley South of the parkway to attend South County as that area is surprisingly dense and full of kids.

There is unfortunately, a longer trend of depopulation of school age, especially MS/HS, age children from central Springfield. It’s difficult to fill out a school’s capacity when you don’t have any places to pull from. South County is also trending toward longer term lower enrollment, not sure about Hayfield. Edison’s problem is that its physical site makes it difficult if not impossible to expand.

There could be some opportunities to bolster enrollment if they added AAP to Key and really put in a robust AP program at Lewis.

Right now it looks like Key loses about 50 AAP kids per grade to Lake Braddock and Twain. Once those kids are out of the pyramid they have a reduced incentive to attend Lewis.

And they need a full-fledged AP program, not just some AP courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

I think it helps the low income kids more to have smaller class sizes where they can confidently practice their English skills and gives them more attention. That is the entire idea behind ESL classes anyway- smaller groups with more talking time.

Lewis is not simply comprised of low-income kids who need to practice their English skills.

There are enough that the scores are low and the school needs teen saviors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

I think it helps the low income kids more to have smaller class sizes where they can confidently practice their English skills and gives them more attention. That is the entire idea behind ESL classes anyway- smaller groups with more talking time.

Lewis is not simply comprised of low-income kids who need to practice their English skills.

There are enough that the scores are low and the school needs teen saviors.

I agree it is eye roll worthy, but that is exactly what the board is doing. Expecting that moving teens with higher test scores will help “save” a school. It is absolutely eye- roll material, but it is also absolutely what they are attempting to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

I think it helps the low income kids more to have smaller class sizes where they can confidently practice their English skills and gives them more attention. That is the entire idea behind ESL classes anyway- smaller groups with more talking time.

Lewis is not simply comprised of low-income kids who need to practice their English skills.

There are enough that the scores are low and the school needs teen saviors.

I agree it is eye roll worthy, but that is exactly what the board is doing. Expecting that moving teens with higher test scores will help “save” a school. It is absolutely eye- roll material, but it is also absolutely what they are attempting to do.

But to a large degree it is also about numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

I think it helps the low income kids more to have smaller class sizes where they can confidently practice their English skills and gives them more attention. That is the entire idea behind ESL classes anyway- smaller groups with more talking time.

Lewis is not simply comprised of low-income kids who need to practice their English skills.

There are enough that the scores are low and the school needs teen saviors.

I agree it is eye roll worthy, but that is exactly what the board is doing. Expecting that moving teens with higher test scores will help “save” a school. It is absolutely eye- roll material, but it is also absolutely what they are attempting to do.

It can also be about increasing the enrollment at a school with low enrollment or making use of available capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, does anyone on this forum think it is a problem for West Springfield to have 1100-1200 more students than Lewis? With Lewis being a large outlier from the rest of the FCPS high schools in terms of enrollment. These schools are next door, and West Springfield is over design capacity (a fact from the CIP).

Does that concern anyone? Or is it just tough s^% for Lewis and that community?

At the high school level there isn't a single bigger argument for redistricting than the West Springfield / Lewis difference - so if that doesn't happen then there really shouldn't be any change at the high school level. You can send some Edison kids to Lewis at the same time since it is also over design capacity.

I think it helps the low income kids more to have smaller class sizes where they can confidently practice their English skills and gives them more attention. That is the entire idea behind ESL classes anyway- smaller groups with more talking time.

Lewis is not simply comprised of low-income kids who need to practice their English skills.

There are enough that the scores are low and the school needs teen saviors.

I agree it is eye roll worthy, but that is exactly what the board is doing. Expecting that moving teens with higher test scores will help “save” a school. It is absolutely eye- roll material, but it is also absolutely what they are attempting to do.

Hey, they did it with South Lakes and it worked!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:West Springfield Voting Precincts 2024

Precinct Harris Trump
Valley 1565 734
Hunt Valley 1193 664
West Springfield 1713 737
Sydenstricker 1686 823
Cardinal 1219 601
Irving 1513 694
Burke #1 1346 659
Orange 2161 1061

Total 12396 5973

2-1 ratio of Harris to Trump Votes. None of the precincts was close. Similar results in the other races across those precincts.

West Springfield voters continue to back the Blue. Why shouldn't the School Board member continue down the redistricting path? The previous all Blue School Board advertised this plan.

Great Falls Precincts

Precinct Harris Trump
Seneca 1595 1169
Forestville 1468 1136
Great Falls 1024 691
Hickory 1660 1062

Totals 5747 4058

1.4 ratio of Harris to Trump. While redder, even the Great Falls area districts that may be at risk of redistricting supported the Blue.

While obviously not the School Board races, the consistent vote for Blue sends a message to the School Board that the county will continue to support them.

Even if they lose some precincts to conservative backed School Board members next time around because they redistricted, they will 90% chance will still control the School Board (and all the other local offices).

Seems like Blue received a mandate to proceed with what they’ve been doing — especially with no other choices. FCPS SB is supposed to be politically neutral but it is really a joke here. FAFO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:West Springfield Voting Precincts 2024

Precinct Harris Trump
Valley 1565 734
Hunt Valley 1193 664
West Springfield 1713 737
Sydenstricker 1686 823
Cardinal 1219 601
Irving 1513 694
Burke #1 1346 659
Orange 2161 1061

Total 12396 5973

2-1 ratio of Harris to Trump Votes. None of the precincts was close. Similar results in the other races across those precincts.

West Springfield voters continue to back the Blue. Why shouldn't the School Board member continue down the redistricting path? The previous all Blue School Board advertised this plan.

Great Falls Precincts

Precinct Harris Trump
Seneca 1595 1169
Forestville 1468 1136
Great Falls 1024 691
Hickory 1660 1062

Totals 5747 4058

1.4 ratio of Harris to Trump. While redder, even the Great Falls area districts that may be at risk of redistricting supported the Blue.

While obviously not the School Board races, the consistent vote for Blue sends a message to the School Board that the county will continue to support them.

Even if they lose some precincts to conservative backed School Board members next time around because they redistricted, they will 90% chance will still control the School Board (and all the other local offices).

Seems like Blue received a mandate to proceed with what they’ve been doing — especially with no other choices. FCPS SB is supposed to be politically neutral but it is really a joke here. FAFO

Hey, Blue Lives Matter