How would you change the FCPS boundary maps?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not a pipe dream. All we have to do is get government out of the schools business, and let people take their kid's education dollars to whatever school they want. Then you get lots of specialized schools that people can choose from.

+ a million
School choice.

I'm a die hard Democrat who support school choice. I think that the McKay Scholarship in FL is great...if you read the fine print very closely and are ok w/losing an IEP and everything that goes along with it in return for your kid being able to go to private school. However, my concern is regarding how the new batch of private schools that pop up when school choice is implemented are regulated. Look at Florida, look at DC, look at Baltimore. Once school choice comes to town, so do a ton of shitty schools. And often the kids are the ones who suffer when their parents put them into a school that isn't in any way accredited or regulated or held to any standards.

No place in the US has real school choice, so I think what you're talking ab out in FL, DC, Baltimore are charter schools, which are different. But the vast majority of charter schools are better than the government-run alternatives.


We have thousands of restaurants in Fairfax County. Other than basic health and safety inspections, nobody regulates them for quality. But somehow people seem to know which restaurants are bad and they go out of business.
It will be the same with schools. Good schools will compete for students, and improve and grow. Bad schools will die out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not a pipe dream. All we have to do is get government out of the schools business, and let people take their kid's education dollars to whatever school they want. Then you get lots of specialized schools that people can choose from.

+ a million
School choice.

I'm a die hard Democrat who support school choice. I think that the McKay Scholarship in FL is great...if you read the fine print very closely and are ok w/losing an IEP and everything that goes along with it in return for your kid being able to go to private school. However, my concern is regarding how the new batch of private schools that pop up when school choice is implemented are regulated. Look at Florida, look at DC, look at Baltimore. Once school choice comes to town, so do a ton of shitty schools. And often the kids are the ones who suffer when their parents put them into a school that isn't in any way accredited or regulated or held to any standards.

No place in the US has real school choice, so I think what you're talking ab out in FL, DC, Baltimore are charter schools, which are different. But the vast majority of charter schools are better than the government-run alternatives.


We have thousands of restaurants in Fairfax County. Other than basic health and safety inspections, nobody regulates them for quality. But somehow people seem to know which restaurants are bad and they go out of business.
It will be the same with schools. Good schools will compete for students, and improve and grow. Bad schools will die out.[/quote]

Good theory, but it hasn't happened anywhere that we have charters. Usually the worst schools are charters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The schools along Rte 50 inside the beltway's attendance boundaries are a clusterf_ck - I'm talking Graham Rd, Pine Spring, Beech Tree. And then there's Timberlane - a random school half zoned to McLean - in the middle of all that, and Shrevewood which is very overcrowded. Such a mess.

Yup, and the Stenwood parents continue to fight allowing kids who are closer to Stenwood than Shrevewood attend. It's absurd.

Stenwood is going to have its boundaries substantially changed when Frisch's Dunn Loring project is finished. Part of Shrevewood will finally move to Stenwood, and much of Stenwood (and part of Freedom Hill) will end up at Dunn Loring.

Does anyone actually think Dunn Loring is going to happen? I live near there and it's been business as usual there. No signs of any change.

This link may or may not work (the DCUM software often prevents simple links from working), but it indicates the real work on Dunn Loring isn't planned to begin until the 2023-24 school year:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/budget/sites/budget/files/assets/documents/fy2022/advertised/cip/9-fairfax%20county%20public%20schools.pdf

Shrevewood will be overcrowded for many more years.

That is so unnecessary. Domino over to Colvin Run and up to Great Falls and Forestville. It's like the Blake Lane Park issue where no one could find schools along Hunter mill all the way up to Forest Edge. This county used to more active in administrative and other changes based on school capacity. Now each little fiefdom acts like it the Cities of Falls Church or Fairfax.

It's not really a fiefdom. It's more like a Fido-dom (Frisch cares more about people with dogs than people with kids).

[Anonymous]

I have serious doubts that the School Board will ever change boundaries in a way that would send students to one of the 'lesser' schools. That is why they keep expanding (see West Potomac) schools instead of moving students. The other School Board members could have called Karen Corbett-Sanders out (and stopped her), but they didn't. For the district members, it is because they don't want to be forced into a similar choice in their district. Not sure why the at-large board members did not speak up. How was expanding West Potomac a responsible use of resources with hundreds of seats available next door at Mt. Vernon?

And they won't be undoing moves like taking wealthy people out of Lee (Lewis) and moving them to West Springfield - moves only work in one direction now. West Springfield also got the magical bump in capacity when it was renovated despite Lewis having open capacity

I challenge the School Board to prove me wrong!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have serious doubts that the School Board will ever change boundaries in a way that would send students to one of the 'lesser' schools. That is why they keep expanding (see West Potomac) schools instead of moving students. The other School Board members could have called Karen Corbett-Sanders out (and stopped her), but they didn't. For the district members, it is because they don't want to be forced into a similar choice in their district. Not sure why the at-large board members did not speak up. How was expanding West Potomac a responsible use of resources with hundreds of seats available next door at Mt. Vernon?

And they won't be undoing moves like taking wealthy people out of Lee (Lewis) and moving them to West Springfield - moves only work in one direction now. West Springfield also got the magical bump in capacity when it was renovated despite Lewis having open capacity

I challenge the School Board to prove me wrong!

You aren't wrong. They are such hypocrites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It will be the same with schools. Good schools will compete for students, and improve and grow. Bad schools will die out.[/quote]

Good theory, but it hasn't happened anywhere that we have charters. Usually the worst schools are charters

That's becasue charters today are almost all in bad areas where "the schools are failing". But the problem is there's no such thing as a failing school, only failing students, so when those students go to the charter school they still have the same problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not a pipe dream. All we have to do is get government out of the schools business, and let people take their kid's education dollars to whatever school they want. Then you get lots of specialized schools that people can choose from.

+ a million
School choice.

I'm a die hard Democrat who support school choice. I think that the McKay Scholarship in FL is great...if you read the fine print very closely and are ok w/losing an IEP and everything that goes along with it in return for your kid being able to go to private school. However, my concern is regarding how the new batch of private schools that pop up when school choice is implemented are regulated. Look at Florida, look at DC, look at Baltimore. Once school choice comes to town, so do a ton of shitty schools. And often the kids are the ones who suffer when their parents put them into a school that isn't in any way accredited or regulated or held to any standards.

No place in the US has real school choice, so I think what you're talking ab out in FL, DC, Baltimore are charter schools, which are different. But the vast majority of charter schools are better than the government-run alternatives.


We have thousands of restaurants in Fairfax County. Other than basic health and safety inspections, nobody regulates them for quality. But somehow people seem to know which restaurants are bad and they go out of business.
It will be the same with schools. Good schools will compete for students, and improve and grow. Bad schools will die out.

And who cares about the kids that get a few years of education at the "bad schools" before everyone figures it out....

[Anonymous]

I am a Herndon HS parent. My kids did k-8 private. Now, they are the big fish in the small pond. Many AP classes, high stats, athletics. They like their teachers, classes are challenging as well. School is highly segregated by the level of classes taken by students. I wish my kids shared classes with kids who have more difficult home lives. I think they would appreciate their privileged lifestyle a lot more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a Herndon HS parent. My kids did k-8 private. Now, they are the big fish in the small pond. Many AP classes, high stats, athletics. They like their teachers, classes are challenging as well. School is highly segregated by the level of classes taken by students. I wish my kids shared classes with kids who have more difficult home lives. I think they would appreciate their privileged lifestyle a lot more.

Maybe you should have sent them to public school for K-8 if you didn’t want them thinking they were probably privileged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a Herndon HS parent. My kids did k-8 private. Now, they are the big fish in the small pond. Many AP classes, high stats, athletics. They like their teachers, classes are challenging as well. School is highly segregated by the level of classes taken by students. I wish my kids shared classes with kids who have more difficult home lives. I think they would appreciate their privileged lifestyle a lot more.

I graduated from Herndon in the 2000s and had a similar experience with the segregation in class level; however, I will say that I ended up taking a class here or there that wasn't at the hardest level when I could have, and the difference is night and day. We were hardly learning anything in the general classes, it was a joke. Your kid will end up taking several classes with the rest of the population, but if they can handle the honors/AP classes they should take them, because otherwise they're going to be seriously under-challenged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a Herndon HS parent. My kids did k-8 private. Now, they are the big fish in the small pond. Many AP classes, high stats, athletics. They like their teachers, classes are challenging as well. School is highly segregated by the level of classes taken by students. I wish my kids shared classes with kids who have more difficult home lives. I think they would appreciate their privileged lifestyle a lot more.

I graduated from Herndon in the 2000s and had a similar experience with the segregation in class level; however, I will say that I ended up taking a class here or there that wasn't at the hardest level when I could have, and the difference is night and day. We were hardly learning anything in the general classes, it was a joke. Your kid will end up taking several classes with the rest of the population, but if they can handle the honors/AP classes they should take them, because otherwise they're going to be seriously under-challenged.

Agree. My somewhat above average, but essentially lazy DS asked to take Honors because the behavior was so poor in one of his classes. DD had the same teacher prior and teacher was fine--but she was in Honors. For DS to complain about behavior of other kids, it must have been pretty awful.

[Anonymous]

An easy one that wouldn't piss people off is basically to put all of Oakview into Robinson instead of it being a split feeder to Woodson. Robinson is way under capacity, Woodson is crowded and Oakview is literally across the street from Robinson. It makes zero sense to not make this change. This would even fit within that exception for facilities to do this on their own without the Board's approval, fwiw.

If the county was serious about using boundary changes to effectively use its facilities this is an easy example to execute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An easy one that wouldn't piss people off is basically to put all of Oakview into Robinson instead of it being a split feeder to Woodson. Robinson is way under capacity, Woodson is crowded and Oakview is literally across the street from Robinson. It makes zero sense to not make this change. This would even fit within that exception for facilities to do this on their own without the Board's approval, fwiw.

If the county was serious about using boundary changes to effectively use its facilities this is an easy example to execute.

Brabrand put a moratorium on administrative boundary changes after he became the superintendent in 2017.