FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, pretty much every speaker at the meeting just now was against boundary moves. You gotta wonder how the school board can be so tone deaf on this issue.

Curious why? Did they have any proposed alternatives? I couldn't get to rhe meeting today.

Where to begin? Disruptive, people chose where they live based in current pyramids, concerns about reliability of data, residency fraud, grandfathering.

Families don’t want to move. It’s very simple. Unfortunately, every time the board heard that they dismiss it as a vocal group rather than the majority opinion in our county.

The school board is an echo chamber.

It’s funny because the reality is the complete opposite. The people who really want changes are a small but loud minority. I’m so tired of FCPS only listening to the super left. It’s how schools stayed closed so long during COVID, how we got a terrible school calendar, and now this impending mess. Republicans could win school board seats so easily if they figured out how to run someone normal. We need balance!!

I am definitely not left, for sure not super left ...but can see the need for some change. Throwing stones and stereotyping and getting hysterical on the internet isn't going to help.

Really? Are you personally volunteering to move? If so, tell us the schools involved.

People tend to support change when it involves someone else, not them.

Which is why boundary changes will happen. Most students will not be moved. These discussions seem to revolve around one or two ES per region. There are 5 regions - so 10 elementary schools shift to a different HS - There are 141 elementary schools. Even if 20 elementary schools are shifted it’s still less than 15%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, pretty much every speaker at the meeting just now was against boundary moves. You gotta wonder how the school board can be so tone deaf on this issue.

Curious why? Did they have any proposed alternatives? I couldn't get to rhe meeting today.

Where to begin? Disruptive, people chose where they live based in current pyramids, concerns about reliability of data, residency fraud, grandfathering.

Families don’t want to move. It’s very simple. Unfortunately, every time the board heard that they dismiss it as a vocal group rather than the majority opinion in our county.

The school board is an echo chamber.

It’s funny because the reality is the complete opposite. The people who really want changes are a small but loud minority. I’m so tired of FCPS only listening to the super left. It’s how schools stayed closed so long during COVID, how we got a terrible school calendar, and now this impending mess. Republicans could win school board seats so easily if they figured out how to run someone normal. We need balance!!

I am definitely not left, for sure not super left ...but can see the need for some change. Throwing stones and stereotyping and getting hysterical on the internet isn't going to help.

Really? Are you personally volunteering to move? If so, tell us the schools involved.

People tend to support change when it involves someone else, not them.

Which is why boundary changes will happen. Most students will not be moved. These discussions seem to revolve around one or two ES per region. There are 5 regions - so 10 elementary schools shift to a different HS - There are 141 elementary schools. Even if 20 elementary schools are shifted it’s still less than 15%.

Your prediction doesn’t really align with anything they’ve said they will or won’t do. They are the ones creating uncertainty and anxiety by announcing some lofty goals while refusing to provide clarity on key issues like transportation, grandfathering, and programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, pretty much every speaker at the meeting just now was against boundary moves. You gotta wonder how the school board can be so tone deaf on this issue.

Curious why? Did they have any proposed alternatives? I couldn't get to rhe meeting today.

Where to begin? Disruptive, people chose where they live based in current pyramids, concerns about reliability of data, residency fraud, grandfathering.

Families don’t want to move. It’s very simple. Unfortunately, every time the board heard that they dismiss it as a vocal group rather than the majority opinion in our county.

The school board is an echo chamber.

It’s funny because the reality is the complete opposite. The people who really want changes are a small but loud minority. I’m so tired of FCPS only listening to the super left. It’s how schools stayed closed so long during COVID, how we got a terrible school calendar, and now this impending mess. Republicans could win school board seats so easily if they figured out how to run someone normal. We need balance!!

I am definitely not left, for sure not super left ...but can see the need for some change. Throwing stones and stereotyping and getting hysterical on the internet isn't going to help.

Really? Are you personally volunteering to move? If so, tell us the schools involved.

People tend to support change when it involves someone else, not them.

Which is why boundary changes will happen. Most students will not be moved. These discussions seem to revolve around one or two ES per region. There are 5 regions - so 10 elementary schools shift to a different HS - There are 141 elementary schools. Even if 20 elementary schools are shifted it’s still less than 15%.

Your prediction doesn’t really align with anything they’ve said they will or won’t do. They are the ones creating uncertainty and anxiety by announcing some lofty goals while refusing to provide clarity on key issues like transportation, grandfathering, and programs.

Herein lies the problem both. There should have been clear areas of focus before the public engagement events, because right now it seems the superintendent and school board have no clear objective, and are only throwing around broad sweeping terms. It’s only led to wild speculation that makes redistributing even more unpopular. Of course they’re going to demand no changes be made at all because they’ve only been presented with broad hypotheticals.

[Anonymous]

So far, there have been at least three community meetings. The school board and administration are answering no questions and providing no details. Everyone is left to speculate, and with all of those imaginings come worry, fear, and anger. This is just going to keep getting worse as time goes on. Those of us that attended our regional meetings are disappointed with what they're doing -- having us just talk to the other parents in the room when what we want are answers from FCPS. Talking to other parents is just fuelling more and more fear and anger. And this is to run for another four months?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, pretty much every speaker at the meeting just now was against boundary moves. You gotta wonder how the school board can be so tone deaf on this issue.

Curious why? Did they have any proposed alternatives? I couldn't get to rhe meeting today.

Where to begin? Disruptive, people chose where they live based in current pyramids, concerns about reliability of data, residency fraud, grandfathering.

Families don’t want to move. It’s very simple. Unfortunately, every time the board heard that they dismiss it as a vocal group rather than the majority opinion in our county.

The school board is an echo chamber.

It’s funny because the reality is the complete opposite. The people who really want changes are a small but loud minority. I’m so tired of FCPS only listening to the super left. It’s how schools stayed closed so long during COVID, how we got a terrible school calendar, and now this impending mess. Republicans could win school board seats so easily if they figured out how to run someone normal. We need balance!!

I am definitely not left, for sure not super left ...but can see the need for some change. Throwing stones and stereotyping and getting hysterical on the internet isn't going to help.

Really? Are you personally volunteering to move? If so, tell us the schools involved.

People tend to support change when it involves someone else, not them.

Which is why boundary changes will happen. Most students will not be moved. These discussions seem to revolve around one or two ES per region. There are 5 regions - so 10 elementary schools shift to a different HS - There are 141 elementary schools. Even if 20 elementary schools are shifted it’s still less than 15%.

There are 6 regions. And 24 pyramids. I think you are highly underestimating how many will be affected. It’s not or two elementary per region. I bet it’s 1-2 per pyramid. So 24-48 elementary affected. People who think this won’t affect many either are delusional or perhaps one of the lucky who aren’t affected so continue to brush this off

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So far, there have been at least three community meetings. The school board and administration are answering no questions and providing no details. Everyone is left to speculate, and with all of those imaginings come worry, fear, and anger. This is just going to keep getting worse as time goes on. Those of us that attended our regional meetings are disappointed with what they're doing -- having us just talk to the other parents in the room when what we want are answers from FCPS. Talking to other parents is just fuelling more and more fear and anger. And this is to run for another four months?

None of this should be a surprise. The whole point of the process is to retain a third-party consultant to avoid accountability and refrain from providing answers or transparency.

The consultants know how to run a meeting where the flow of information is largely one-way. And then they’ll come up with recommendations that reflect the preferences of Reid and the School Board, but if there is too much backlash they’ll blame the consultants, who will be happy to be the bad guys so long as they pocket their fee.

[Anonymous]

I would like to see them update their obsolete 2008 renovation queue before they start talking about moving kids around. Why does High School X get a fancy renovation with 2700 seats while High Schools Y and Z get overlooked with 2000 seats?

If they want to blather on about equity let’s at least have a plan to make sure schools have roughly comparable facilities before they screw some schools and families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, pretty much every speaker at the meeting just now was against boundary moves. You gotta wonder how the school board can be so tone deaf on this issue.

Curious why? Did they have any proposed alternatives? I couldn't get to rhe meeting today.

Where to begin? Disruptive, people chose where they live based in current pyramids, concerns about reliability of data, residency fraud, grandfathering.

Families don’t want to move. It’s very simple. Unfortunately, every time the board heard that they dismiss it as a vocal group rather than the majority opinion in our county.

The school board is an echo chamber.

It’s funny because the reality is the complete opposite. The people who really want changes are a small but loud minority. I’m so tired of FCPS only listening to the super left. It’s how schools stayed closed so long during COVID, how we got a terrible school calendar, and now this impending mess. Republicans could win school board seats so easily if they figured out how to run someone normal. We need balance!!

I am definitely not left, for sure not super left ...but can see the need for some change. Throwing stones and stereotyping and getting hysterical on the internet isn't going to help.

Really? Are you personally volunteering to move? If so, tell us the schools involved.

People tend to support change when it involves someone else, not them.

Which is why boundary changes will happen. Most students will not be moved. These discussions seem to revolve around one or two ES per region. There are 5 regions - so 10 elementary schools shift to a different HS - There are 141 elementary schools. Even if 20 elementary schools are shifted it’s still less than 15%.

There are 6 regions. And 24 pyramids. I think you are highly underestimating how many will be affected. It’s not or two elementary per region. I bet it’s 1-2 per pyramid. So 24-48 elementary affected. People who think this won’t affect many either are delusional or perhaps one of the lucky who aren’t affected so continue to brush this off

There are two thoughts at play here. 37 elementary schools are split feeders and an additional 10 schools are single feeders with attendance islands, so 47 elementary schools easily impacted. Based on Reid’s comments that changes will mostly impact elementary borders they will favor moving elementary boundaries to fit within the existing high school boundaries. Many split feeders heavily favor one pyramid with only a few streets zoned for the other school. In those cases, they’d probably make changes at the elementary level. It’s the schools with closer to a 50/50 split that would be more vulnerable to a high school level shift.

That’s not to say single feeder schools won’t be impacted. But it would be rare for those changes to take them out of pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Doesn’t everybody think that eliminating split feeders and reducing bus times is a good idea?
But what another commenter said is absolutely correct, if the board isn’t providing information at these meetings, that will just fuel more anger and speculation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t everybody think that eliminating split feeders and reducing bus times is a good idea?
But what another commenter said is absolutely correct, if the board isn’t providing information at these meetings, that will just fuel more anger and speculation.

Eliminating split feeders, sure, I guess.

Bus time is pretext. They are considering adding 196 buses for middle school start times. One hundred and ninety six. Option D. No one can say worry a straight face that transportation costs are motivating any part of this process, especially when even minimal grandfathering will increase the transportation costs immensely.

Regarding transportation time for kids, parents are in the best position to determine how much time on the bus is too much time. We chose where we live knowing full well commute time to schools in our pyramid. So again, not a concern for anyone but my family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t everybody think that eliminating split feeders and reducing bus times is a good idea?
But what another commenter said is absolutely correct, if the board isn’t providing information at these meetings, that will just fuel more anger and speculation.

It’s not a great idea if it just means middle and high schools that are already struggling to meet the needs of students get bigger and schools that are thriving get gutted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t everybody think that eliminating split feeders and reducing bus times is a good idea?
But what another commenter said is absolutely correct, if the board isn’t providing information at these meetings, that will just fuel more anger and speculation.

I believe if Reid and the board had said from the beginning, “we are going to hire a consultant to clean up our boundary maps with the goal of eliminating split feeders and attendance islands throughout the county and this will also help us reduce bus times in many places” that they would not be facing this degree of backlash and distrust. But they can’t get their messaging right and no one knows what’s going on. Is it just fixing the weird situations? Is it a full nuke of the map and starting from scratch with a focus on SES equity? Is it something in between? They aren’t being fully transparent and that’s how rumors and distrust gets started. I’ve heard multiple “my neighbor’s friend at church’s daughter in law works for Gatehouse and she said blah blah blah” type rumors and I don’t think it necessarily had to come to this.

[Anonymous]

The Westfield/Chantilly/South Lakes area just had huge and controversial boundary changes around 2012-sh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t everybody think that eliminating split feeders and reducing bus times is a good idea?
But what another commenter said is absolutely correct, if the board isn’t providing information at these meetings, that will just fuel more anger and speculation.

I believe if Reid and the board had said from the beginning, “we are going to hire a consultant to clean up our boundary maps with the goal of eliminating split feeders and attendance islands throughout the county and this will also help us reduce bus times in many places” that they would not be facing this degree of backlash and distrust. But they can’t get their messaging right and no one knows what’s going on. Is it just fixing the weird situations? Is it a full nuke of the map and starting from scratch with a focus on SES equity? Is it something in between? They aren’t being fully transparent and that’s how rumors and distrust gets started. I’ve heard multiple “my neighbor’s friend at church’s daughter in law works for Gatehouse and she said blah blah blah” type rumors and I don’t think it necessarily had to come to this.

FWIW they probably aren't being transparent because different SB members and Gatehouse staff (not to mention the outside consultant) think different things are happening. SB and Gatehouse have wanted to be all things to all people since at least the last SB/Brabrand - look at the calendar debacle. This is more of that. They all want to please everyone, which works far worse than picking what they think is right and sticking to their guns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t everybody think that eliminating split feeders and reducing bus times is a good idea?
But what another commenter said is absolutely correct, if the board isn’t providing information at these meetings, that will just fuel more anger and speculation.

I believe if Reid and the board had said from the beginning, “we are going to hire a consultant to clean up our boundary maps with the goal of eliminating split feeders and attendance islands throughout the county and this will also help us reduce bus times in many places” that they would not be facing this degree of backlash and distrust. But they can’t get their messaging right and no one knows what’s going on. Is it just fixing the weird situations? Is it a full nuke of the map and starting from scratch with a focus on SES equity? Is it something in between? They aren’t being fully transparent and that’s how rumors and distrust gets started. I’ve heard multiple “my neighbor’s friend at church’s daughter in law works for Gatehouse and she said blah blah blah” type rumors and I don’t think it necessarily had to come to this.

FWIW they probably aren't being transparent because different SB members and Gatehouse staff (not to mention the outside consultant) think different things are happening. SB and Gatehouse have wanted to be all things to all people since at least the last SB/Brabrand - look at the calendar debacle. This is more of that. They all want to please everyone, which works far worse than picking what they think is right and sticking to their guns.

Sure, but this should be their opportunity to present each of their agendas to the public to see what has legs and what are dead ends. The absence of direction means they’re going to face complete resistance to the process.