Mount Vernon?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a crazy, crazy idea. Make Lee the sole IB school in the county. Include bussing from anywhere. Redistribute the students from Lee to neighboring schools.

One reason why I think it would work is that if you took the whole county's IB participation, it would likely only fill a single school. So why bother spreading it around. That way demand matches the usage. And the building is used.

This is actually a very sound idea.

I could be wrong, but my sense is that both Marshall and South Lakes are very invested in their IB programs. They get pupil placements from surrounding AP schools that boost their enrollments and test scores, and people in both communities would fight very hard to keep IB. Robinson has a big IB program, too, but I'd bet most (not all) parents there would favor having a full menu of AP courses over IB and a handful of AP courses, which is what they have currently. Fairfax Station and Clifton are fairly conservative areas, and areas like that tend to prefer AP over IB given a choice.

As for the other five schools, shrinking IB from five to one or two schools would make sense. I'd keep IB at Lee, since Edison has the Edison Academy, and maybe Stuart, but get rid of it at Annandale, Edison and Mount Vernon. It would attract more IB students to Lee and stem pupil placements from the other IB schools to AP schools like Woodson, Lake Braddock and West Potomac.

But this is FCPS, so none of this will ever be up for reconsideration. It would be tantamount to conceding that FCPS made a bad decision installing IB at so many schools, and FCPS never acknowledges mistakes.

That's a good point. I do think if it was built as a cost cutting measure, they might try this. I don't know what IB participation rates at Marshall and South Lakes looks like, but I do think you could probably get away with a single IB school (i.e. Lee) to serve South County, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, West Potomac, Edison, Annadale, Woodson. I imagine if you were to limit the school to solely IB, you could probably even absorb capacity from Robinson (many parents would likely have their kids switch to AP to avoid bussing).

Having the 3 IB schools (South Lakes, Marshall, and ONE in the eastern/northern part of the county - not the cluster of Edison/Lee/Annandale/Stuart/Mount Vernon which are all pretty close to one another) would make a lot of sense. Then turn the rest of them into AP. If you keep IB at Lee, maybe students from those areas would pupil place and improve the school as a whole.

But seriously, it makes no sense that Lee and Edison are both IB. They are on the same damn road.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a crazy, crazy idea. Make Lee the sole IB school in the county. Include bussing from anywhere. Redistribute the students from Lee to neighboring schools.

One reason why I think it would work is that if you took the whole county's IB participation, it would likely only fill a single school. So why bother spreading it around. That way demand matches the usage. And the building is used.

This is actually a very sound idea.

I could be wrong, but my sense is that both Marshall and South Lakes are very invested in their IB programs. They get pupil placements from surrounding AP schools that boost their enrollments and test scores, and people in both communities would fight very hard to keep IB. Robinson has a big IB program, too, but I'd bet most (not all) parents there would favor having a full menu of AP courses over IB and a handful of AP courses, which is what they have currently. Fairfax Station and Clifton are fairly conservative areas, and areas like that tend to prefer AP over IB given a choice.

As for the other five schools, shrinking IB from five to one or two schools would make sense. I'd keep IB at Lee, since Edison has the Edison Academy, and maybe Stuart, but get rid of it at Annandale, Edison and Mount Vernon. It would attract more IB students to Lee and stem pupil placements from the other IB schools to AP schools like Woodson, Lake Braddock and West Potomac.

But this is FCPS, so none of this will ever be up for reconsideration. It would be tantamount to conceding that FCPS made a bad decision installing IB at so many schools, and FCPS never acknowledges mistakes.

That's a good point. I do think if it was built as a cost cutting measure, they might try this. I don't know what IB participation rates at Marshall and South Lakes looks like, but I do think you could probably get away with a single IB school (i.e. Lee) to serve South County, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, West Potomac, Edison, Annadale, Woodson. I imagine if you were to limit the school to solely IB, you could probably even absorb capacity from Robinson (many parents would likely have their kids switch to AP to avoid bussing).

Having the 3 IB schools (South Lakes, Marshall, and ONE in the eastern/northern part of the county - not the cluster of Edison/Lee/Annandale/Stuart/Mount Vernon which are all pretty close to one another) would make a lot of sense. Then turn the rest of them into AP. If you keep IB at Lee, maybe students from those areas would pupil place and improve the school as a whole.

But seriously, it makes no sense that Lee and Edison are both IB. They are on the same damn road.

I completely agree (and put up the crazy idea). I think the whole point is that if we could turn Lee into a higher performing "choice" school would be a great way to utilize an underused school that is surrounded by schools that either have space or could accommodate space if Lee is turned into a choice school. I agree, keeping South Lakes and Marshall makes sense. But I would send kids from Stuart, Robinson, Lake Braddock, South County, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, Edison, West Potomac, Annadale, Woodson, and Hayfield who want to pursue IB coursework to a single school.

[Anonymous]

Sure, make my kid ride the bus. Is your kid going to a neighborhood school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a crazy, crazy idea. Make Lee the sole IB school in the county. Include bussing from anywhere. Redistribute the students from Lee to neighboring schools.

One reason why I think it would work is that if you took the whole county's IB participation, it would likely only fill a single school. So why bother spreading it around. That way demand matches the usage. And the building is used.

This is actually a very sound idea.

I could be wrong, but my sense is that both Marshall and South Lakes are very invested in their IB programs. They get pupil placements from surrounding AP schools that boost their enrollments and test scores, and people in both communities would fight very hard to keep IB. Robinson has a big IB program, too, but I'd bet most (not all) parents there would favor having a full menu of AP courses over IB and a handful of AP courses, which is what they have currently. Fairfax Station and Clifton are fairly conservative areas, and areas like that tend to prefer AP over IB given a choice.

As for the other five schools, shrinking IB from five to one or two schools would make sense. I'd keep IB at Lee, since Edison has the Edison Academy, and maybe Stuart, but get rid of it at Annandale, Edison and Mount Vernon. It would attract more IB students to Lee and stem pupil placements from the other IB schools to AP schools like Woodson, Lake Braddock and West Potomac.

But this is FCPS, so none of this will ever be up for reconsideration. It would be tantamount to conceding that FCPS made a bad decision installing IB at so many schools, and FCPS never acknowledges mistakes.

That's a good point. I do think if it was built as a cost cutting measure, they might try this. I don't know what IB participation rates at Marshall and South Lakes looks like, but I do think you could probably get away with a single IB school (i.e. Lee) to serve South County, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, West Potomac, Edison, Annadale, Woodson. I imagine if you were to limit the school to solely IB, you could probably even absorb capacity from Robinson (many parents would likely have their kids switch to AP to avoid bussing).

Having the 3 IB schools (South Lakes, Marshall, and ONE in the eastern/northern part of the county - not the cluster of Edison/Lee/Annandale/Stuart/Mount Vernon which are all pretty close to one another) would make a lot of sense. Then turn the rest of them into AP. If you keep IB at Lee, maybe students from those areas would pupil place and improve the school as a whole.

But seriously, it makes no sense that Lee and Edison are both IB. They are on the same damn road.

I completely agree (and put up the crazy idea). I think the whole point is that if we could turn Lee into a higher performing "choice" school would be a great way to utilize an underused school that is surrounded by schools that either have space or could accommodate space if Lee is turned into a choice school. I agree, keeping South Lakes and Marshall makes sense. But I would send kids from Stuart, Robinson, Lake Braddock, South County, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, Edison, West Potomac, Annadale, Woodson, and Hayfield who want to pursue IB coursework to a single school.

I disagree. As posted up thread, the numbers are too great to fit them all in a single school.

[Anonymous]

Lee is the worst school mentioned. Why make that The IB school? Yuck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a crazy, crazy idea. Make Lee the sole IB school in the county. Include bussing from anywhere. Redistribute the students from Lee to neighboring schools.

One reason why I think it would work is that if you took the whole county's IB participation, it would likely only fill a single school. So why bother spreading it around. That way demand matches the usage. And the building is used.

This is actually a very sound idea.

I could be wrong, but my sense is that both Marshall and South Lakes are very invested in their IB programs. They get pupil placements from surrounding AP schools that boost their enrollments and test scores, and people in both communities would fight very hard to keep IB. Robinson has a big IB program, too, but I'd bet most (not all) parents there would favor having a full menu of AP courses over IB and a handful of AP courses, which is what they have currently. Fairfax Station and Clifton are fairly conservative areas, and areas like that tend to prefer AP over IB given a choice.

As for the other five schools, shrinking IB from five to one or two schools would make sense. I'd keep IB at Lee, since Edison has the Edison Academy, and maybe Stuart, but get rid of it at Annandale, Edison and Mount Vernon. It would attract more IB students to Lee and stem pupil placements from the other IB schools to AP schools like Woodson, Lake Braddock and West Potomac.

But this is FCPS, so none of this will ever be up for reconsideration. It would be tantamount to conceding that FCPS made a bad decision installing IB at so many schools, and FCPS never acknowledges mistakes.

That's a good point. I do think if it was built as a cost cutting measure, they might try this. I don't know what IB participation rates at Marshall and South Lakes looks like, but I do think you could probably get away with a single IB school (i.e. Lee) to serve South County, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, West Potomac, Edison, Annadale, Woodson. I imagine if you were to limit the school to solely IB, you could probably even absorb capacity from Robinson (many parents would likely have their kids switch to AP to avoid bussing).

Having the 3 IB schools (South Lakes, Marshall, and ONE in the eastern/northern part of the county - not the cluster of Edison/Lee/Annandale/Stuart/Mount Vernon which are all pretty close to one another) would make a lot of sense. Then turn the rest of them into AP. If you keep IB at Lee, maybe students from those areas would pupil place and improve the school as a whole.

But seriously, it makes no sense that Lee and Edison are both IB. They are on the same damn road.

I completely agree (and put up the crazy idea). I think the whole point is that if we could turn Lee into a higher performing "choice" school would be a great way to utilize an underused school that is surrounded by schools that either have space or could accommodate space if Lee is turned into a choice school. I agree, keeping South Lakes and Marshall makes sense. But I would send kids from Stuart, Robinson, Lake Braddock, South County, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, Edison, West Potomac, Annadale, Woodson, and Hayfield who want to pursue IB coursework to a single school.

I disagree. As posted up thread, the numbers are too great to fit them all in a single school.

There were 502 diploma candidates in the Class of 2013. I'm not sure if FCPS has made that information available for later years.

Obviously you could not fit all the kids taking at least IB course into one high school (duh). You could possibly fit all the IB diploma candidates into one school, although it might be difficult to identify the pre-IB diploma students who are freshmen and sophomores. A lot of kids start out at IB high schools now thinking they may do the full diploma program, and then bail on it with no consequences.

However you slice it, there is no need for eight IB high schools in FCPS when the number of actual diploma candidates would fit in one school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is a crazy, crazy idea. Make Lee the sole IB school in the county. Include bussing from anywhere. Redistribute the students from Lee to neighboring schools.

One reason why I think it would work is that if you took the whole county's IB participation, it would likely only fill a single school. So why bother spreading it around. That way demand matches the usage. And the building is used.

This is actually a very sound idea.

I could be wrong, but my sense is that both Marshall and South Lakes are very invested in their IB programs. They get pupil placements from surrounding AP schools that boost their enrollments and test scores, and people in both communities would fight very hard to keep IB. Robinson has a big IB program, too, but I'd bet most (not all) parents there would favor having a full menu of AP courses over IB and a handful of AP courses, which is what they have currently. Fairfax Station and Clifton are fairly conservative areas, and areas like that tend to prefer AP over IB given a choice.

As for the other five schools, shrinking IB from five to one or two schools would make sense. I'd keep IB at Lee, since Edison has the Edison Academy, and maybe Stuart, but get rid of it at Annandale, Edison and Mount Vernon. It would attract more IB students to Lee and stem pupil placements from the other IB schools to AP schools like Woodson, Lake Braddock and West Potomac.

But this is FCPS, so none of this will ever be up for reconsideration. It would be tantamount to conceding that FCPS made a bad decision installing IB at so many schools, and FCPS never acknowledges mistakes.

That's a good point. I do think if it was built as a cost cutting measure, they might try this. I don't know what IB participation rates at Marshall and South Lakes looks like, but I do think you could probably get away with a single IB school (i.e. Lee) to serve South County, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, West Potomac, Edison, Annadale, Woodson. I imagine if you were to limit the school to solely IB, you could probably even absorb capacity from Robinson (many parents would likely have their kids switch to AP to avoid bussing).

Having the 3 IB schools (South Lakes, Marshall, and ONE in the eastern/northern part of the county - not the cluster of Edison/Lee/Annandale/Stuart/Mount Vernon which are all pretty close to one another) would make a lot of sense. Then turn the rest of them into AP. If you keep IB at Lee, maybe students from those areas would pupil place and improve the school as a whole.

But seriously, it makes no sense that Lee and Edison are both IB. They are on the same damn road.

I completely agree (and put up the crazy idea). I think the whole point is that if we could turn Lee into a higher performing "choice" school would be a great way to utilize an underused school that is surrounded by schools that either have space or could accommodate space if Lee is turned into a choice school. I agree, keeping South Lakes and Marshall makes sense. But I would send kids from Stuart, Robinson, Lake Braddock, South County, West Springfield, Mount Vernon, Edison, West Potomac, Annadale, Woodson, and Hayfield who want to pursue IB coursework to a single school.

I disagree. As posted up thread, the numbers are too great to fit them all in a single school.

If you made it a choice school, I imagine enrollment would go down somewhat. And more likely, you would have better outcomes in terms of students who actually complete the program.

[Anonymous]

Novel idea:

Don't make SES, ESL or any other demographics part of the boundary decision.

Instead, draw a circle or square around said schools and that's the boundary. Period.

Your school should be reflective of your neighborhood and community.

If you don't want lots of lower SES, don't buy in certain areas. I.e. If a SFH in one area is priced the same as a no garage town home in a different area, I'd bet the town home is in a more desirable district.

You get what you pay for!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lee is the worst school mentioned. Why make that The IB school? Yuck!

Lee is fairly accessible in terms of being a mid-point between these different school zones. And it's severely under capacity, so the neighboring schools could absorb the students moved out of Lee fairly easily

[Anonymous]

^^ the the previous poster. That is a
very sound idea. In fact I believe that is how Arlington got people to attend their schools years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Novel idea:

Don't make SES, ESL or any other demographics part of the boundary decision.

Instead, draw a circle or square around said schools and that's the boundary. Period.

Your school should be reflective of your neighborhood and community.

If you don't want lots of lower SES, don't buy in certain areas. I.e. If a SFH in one area is priced the same as a no garage town home in a different area, I'd bet the town home is in a more desirable district.

You get what you pay for!

If you did that, a large part of great falls would be attending Herdon. The boundaries are wonky, PP. Partially due to political reasons, partially due to flux in enrollment and capacity. That's just the way of life.

I imagine the boundaries will change in a large way when my kids enter high school (I have small kids now but teach in the county). You can see the population surges and see capacity and that's where you end up with a wonky boundary and busing kids from here to there.

[Anonymous]

And Herndon is where they should be, then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Novel idea:

Don't make SES, ESL or any other demographics part of the boundary decision.

Instead, draw a circle or square around said schools and that's the boundary. Period.

Your school should be reflective of your neighborhood and community.

If you don't want lots of lower SES, don't buy in certain areas. I.e. If a SFH in one area is priced the same as a no garage town home in a different area, I'd bet the town home is in a more desirable district.

You get what you pay for!

It wouldn't be as simple as a circle or a square, given where the schools have been built. The proximity of schools is one reason why some of the current boundaries are so funky.

You could presumably come up with an algorithm to assign students or planning units to schools with the goal of minimizing total commuting time for all students, subject to a cap on commuting time for any student. It would be interesting to see how the current boundaries might change if such a system were in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And Herndon is where they should be, then.

Easy to proclaim, but there would be ripple effects throughout the system. You'd have to move other kids out of Herndon to compensate for the ones you're moving there from Great Falls, and the dominos keep falling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Novel idea:

Don't make SES, ESL or any other demographics part of the boundary decision.

Instead, draw a circle or square around said schools and that's the boundary. Period.

Your school should be reflective of your neighborhood and community.

If you don't want lots of lower SES, don't buy in certain areas. I.e. If a SFH in one area is priced the same as a no garage town home in a different area, I'd bet the town home is in a more desirable district.

You get what you pay for!

It wouldn't be as simple as a circle or a square, given where the schools have been built. The proximity of schools is one reason why some of the current boundaries are so funky.

You could presumably come up with an algorithm to assign students or planning units to schools with the goal of minimizing total commuting time for all students, subject to a cap on commuting time for any student. It would be interesting to see how the current boundaries might change if such a system were in place.

No I hope the above poster gets exactly what they want. Then we can call lobby to have dense, multi family, affordable housing build right in her little square.