FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And to add, if more people keep squeezing into Chantilly or West Springfield should we just keep expanding them? Or should we adjust the boundaries?

What do you mean “keep expanding them”? Chantilly hasn’t been expanded any time recently.

West Springfield was expanded when it was renovated. There isn’t that much growth planned in the areas that feed into WSHS, and people there aren’t asking to be redistricted.

Regarding Chantilly - just meant that it has one of the largest enrollments currently near 3000. Pretty sure it isn't designed to hold that many. Should we expand it or look for other solutions? A few years ago the county said that an ideal high school capacity was closer to 2000.

For West Springfield, it was just expanded (2505 or so for capacity) and is already over capacity. It is projected to climb to over 2900 students. Should we expand it again? With available seats nearby? Doesn't that reward the people crowding into the same schools, waste taxpayer money, and say that the neighboring school is lousy?

[Anonymous]

If Chantilly likes being supposedly overcrowded, then keep it as is. People are happy there. Has the overcrowding reduced student test scores?

Look, airlines keep squeezing more passengers into planes that have been flying for 40 years. Seems like it should make sense for schools too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And to add, if more people keep squeezing into Chantilly or West Springfield should we just keep expanding them? Or should we adjust the boundaries?

What do you mean “keep expanding them”? Chantilly hasn’t been expanded any time recently.

West Springfield was expanded when it was renovated. There isn’t that much growth planned in the areas that feed into WSHS, and people there aren’t asking to be redistricted.

Regarding Chantilly - just meant that it has one of the largest enrollments currently near 3000. Pretty sure it isn't designed to hold that many. Should we expand it or look for other solutions? A few years ago the county said that an ideal high school capacity was closer to 2000.

For West Springfield, it was just expanded (2505 or so for capacity) and is already over capacity. It is projected to climb to over 2900 students. Should we expand it again? With available seats nearby? Doesn't that reward the people crowding into the same schools, waste taxpayer money, and say that the neighboring school is lousy?

It may, since additions are popular and voters are pleased when they are built (e.g. West Potomac, Madison, Justice). In this day and age, politicians are afraid of their electability going forward, and neighborhoods are afraid of new boundaries that alter high school pyramids, unless the changes are among similar schools.

30-plus years ago when demographics were similar among all the FCPS high schools, with the notable exception of Justice (Stuart), boundary changes were much easier to accomplish, but not without some difficulty (e.g., McLean Langley pyramid boundary changes have always been somewhat difficult).

In conclusion, I expect West Springfield (and similar schools) may move up the queue for an addition before too long.

P.S. Interesting how Justice’s new addition was in part meant to keep the school attendance zone together to prevent moving affluent neighborhoods to neighboring school pyramids. But now with its feeder middle school undergoing a boundary study, that may be all for naught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the McLean HS facility is a crummy 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit, then Annandale HS is a 1990 Saturn. Both are total lemons and the campuses need a serious reboot. MCPS has been continuously rebuilding all their old high schools now for decades (or gutting and restoring the historic ones like B-CC HS 25 years ago). FCPS needs to get with the program.

It was easier for them to do what some posters on this thread wanted and redistrict the hell out of Annandale - moving kids in single-family areas to Falls Church, Lake Braddock, Woodson, and Edison - over the years than step up and invest appropriately in AHS.

None of those rezoned kids attend FCPS any longer. They have all graduated and are now adults. It is a completely irrelevant discussion point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will creating more larger schools help more struggling kids read and do math at grade level? Or will they become one of many more faceless students at these mega schools? Will these mega schools help or hinder efforts to improve chronic absenteeism and truancy? If it’s not a great idea in the first place, why perpetuate it with schools that haven’t been super-sized? Any blips should be temporary.

The county can’t just continue to ignore some schools, when they have projections that some already crowded schools could pick up hundreds of additional kids and there’s no obvious place to build a new school. They didn’t worry about “blips” when they expanded other, less crowded schools.

Their priority should be a new renovation queue, not getting folks agitated about a county-wide boundary study they
wouldn’t have the chops to implement successfully.

Lewis is getting a bunch of new housing at the Springfield Towne Center. That will fix the enrollment in a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And to add, if more people keep squeezing into Chantilly or West Springfield should we just keep expanding them? Or should we adjust the boundaries?

West Springfield will go down significantly when class of 2026 graduates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will creating more larger schools help more struggling kids read and do math at grade level? Or will they become one of many more faceless students at these mega schools? Will these mega schools help or hinder efforts to improve chronic absenteeism and truancy? If it’s not a great idea in the first place, why perpetuate it with schools that haven’t been super-sized? Any blips should be temporary.

The county can’t just continue to ignore some schools, when they have projections that some already crowded schools could pick up hundreds of additional kids and there’s no obvious place to build a new school. They didn’t worry about “blips” when they expanded other, less crowded schools.

Their priority should be a new renovation queue, not getting folks agitated about a county-wide boundary study they
wouldn’t have the chops to implement successfully.

Lewis is getting a bunch of new housing at the Springfield Towne Center. That will fix the enrollment in a few years.

How many kids will live in these apartments? It can't be that many in each grade. It wouldn't be enough to move the needle in the under enrolled Lewis. They just added more AP courses to Lewis. I suspect they are trying to reduce transfers from Lewis to other high schools. They won't address the reasons parents don't want to send their children to Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been times when parents really pushed for boundary changes to address overcrowding.

I know that's what some DCUM posters want, for reasons that aren't always articulated, but there's no evidence of any significant group of parents at any school asking to be moved elsewhere. And the only schools where people had really been agitating are either the subject of a recent boundary change (Kent Gardens ES) or a current boundary study (Glasgow MS, Parklawn ES, Coates ES). If others want to exit their overcrowded schools, they can pupil place without changing the boundaries for others.

Otherwise, people want to stay at their schools and for FCPS to come up with an updated renovation queue so they know where their schools stand. That seems quite reasonable.

That’s factual inaccurate. It’s not guaranteed to pupil place and there are many schools you can’t pupil place at that parents would prefer vs current assigned schools due to overcrowding and student enrollment limitations.

You can still pupil place. It just might not be to your first choice.

The whole point of the original point of the pupil place comment was let families find another school that want to pupil place. The point of the second posting is correct families can’t just pupil place wherever they want. That’s now how the FCPS system works and you can’t choose a school. You are only given what is not overcrowded so often it’s not even a choice for many families when there are no options avail because of overcrowding. Our neighbors have tried. It doesn’t work like the original poster cited.

No, the original point wasn't that you can always pupil place to a school you'd like your kid to attend, regardless of how you chose to interpret it. It was that if you are dissatisfied with your base school because it is overcrowded, you can ultimately pupil place your kid to a school with capacity. Again, that may or may not be your first choice, but you can almost surely get a slot at a school that isn't overcrowded.

But, not worth arguing over too much, because people at the schools that are currently overcrowded generally would prefer to stay there than voluntarily pupil place or involuntary get reassigned to another school. They would like to know when FCPS plans to renovate and/or expand them next, but in the interim people generally will tolerate a certain level of overcrowding.

Just because people want to stay at their current school doesn't mean county taxpayers have to fork out more money to expand them. The FIRST option for overcrowding should always be use of existing seats. Sadly the county set a very bad precedent in the last 14 or so years by NOT using available seats first.

You are ignorant if you think the county set a new precedent “in the last 14 years or so.” As discussed earlier, 40 years ago the county was closing schools at the same time as schools were opening elsewhere in the county where there was more growth. More recently, schools have been expanded even when an alternative might have been to bus kids longer distances to under-enrolled schools (which are largely concentrated in certain areas). It’s what most families prefer, and the fact that this preference generally has been recognized is a good thing, not something to criticize.

You don't make sense. Closing schools can be a very hard and politically unpopular thing to do, but the county made those tough choices years ago. The last tough boundary choice FCPS made was the South Lakes change. And that was about 14 years ago. Now the county won't make tough choices. They just spend more taxpayer money and leave unused seats open. It is not a good thing from a taxpayer point of view and it reinforces the perception that some schools are not good.

The point is that they added capacity where it was actually needed rather than just moved kids around like widgets.

You want kids reshuffled to fill some under-enrolled schools, but you ignore the fact that this would often result in higher recurring transportation costs.

Maybe the county could concentrate on figuring out what’s led to certain schools being under-enrolled and address those underlying factors, rather than suggest they may just move kids around to cover up problems and back-fill schools that can’t retain students.

I want them to use available seats before expanding schools. There are cases where this has been ignored when the schools are adjacent. Nobody is talking about sending kids across the county.

And I don't think our blue county would like to admit why some schools are avoided.

Your argumemt makes zero sense


Construction, renovation and expansion is a multi year process, sometimes decades in the making.

Waiting to start the process of expansion until all open seats are filled is just stupid and incredibly ignorant of what is involved in a renovation.

The only acceptable option is to expand high schools whenever a school hits the scheduled full renovation.

Anything else is just a silly, emotional idea based off temper tantrums, wasteful ideas and selfishness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been times when parents really pushed for boundary changes to address overcrowding.

I know that's what some DCUM posters want, for reasons that aren't always articulated, but there's no evidence of any significant group of parents at any school asking to be moved elsewhere. And the only schools where people had really been agitating are either the subject of a recent boundary change (Kent Gardens ES) or a current boundary study (Glasgow MS, Parklawn ES, Coates ES). If others want to exit their overcrowded schools, they can pupil place without changing the boundaries for others.

Otherwise, people want to stay at their schools and for FCPS to come up with an updated renovation queue so they know where their schools stand. That seems quite reasonable.

That’s factual inaccurate. It’s not guaranteed to pupil place and there are many schools you can’t pupil place at that parents would prefer vs current assigned schools due to overcrowding and student enrollment limitations.

You can still pupil place. It just might not be to your first choice.

The whole point of the original point of the pupil place comment was let families find another school that want to pupil place. The point of the second posting is correct families can’t just pupil place wherever they want. That’s now how the FCPS system works and you can’t choose a school. You are only given what is not overcrowded so often it’s not even a choice for many families when there are no options avail because of overcrowding. Our neighbors have tried. It doesn’t work like the original poster cited.

No, the original point wasn't that you can always pupil place to a school you'd like your kid to attend, regardless of how you chose to interpret it. It was that if you are dissatisfied with your base school because it is overcrowded, you can ultimately pupil place your kid to a school with capacity. Again, that may or may not be your first choice, but you can almost surely get a slot at a school that isn't overcrowded.

But, not worth arguing over too much, because people at the schools that are currently overcrowded generally would prefer to stay there than voluntarily pupil place or involuntary get reassigned to another school. They would like to know when FCPS plans to renovate and/or expand them next, but in the interim people generally will tolerate a certain level of overcrowding.

Just because people want to stay at their current school doesn't mean county taxpayers have to fork out more money to expand them. The FIRST option for overcrowding should always be use of existing seats. Sadly the county set a very bad precedent in the last 14 or so years by NOT using available seats first.

You are ignorant if you think the county set a new precedent “in the last 14 years or so.” As discussed earlier, 40 years ago the county was closing schools at the same time as schools were opening elsewhere in the county where there was more growth. More recently, schools have been expanded even when an alternative might have been to bus kids longer distances to under-enrolled schools (which are largely concentrated in certain areas). It’s what most families prefer, and the fact that this preference generally has been recognized is a good thing, not something to criticize.

You don't make sense. Closing schools can be a very hard and politically unpopular thing to do, but the county made those tough choices years ago. The last tough boundary choice FCPS made was the South Lakes change. And that was about 14 years ago. Now the county won't make tough choices. They just spend more taxpayer money and leave unused seats open. It is not a good thing from a taxpayer point of view and it reinforces the perception that some schools are not good.

The point is that they added capacity where it was actually needed rather than just moved kids around like widgets.

You want kids reshuffled to fill some under-enrolled schools, but you ignore the fact that this would often result in higher recurring transportation costs.

Maybe the county could concentrate on figuring out what’s led to certain schools being under-enrolled and address those underlying factors, rather than suggest they may just move kids around to cover up problems and back-fill schools that can’t retain students.

I want them to use available seats before expanding schools. There are cases where this has been ignored when the schools are adjacent. Nobody is talking about sending kids across the county.

And I don't think our blue county would like to admit why some schools are avoided.

Your argumemt makes zero sense


Construction, renovation and expansion is a multi year process, sometimes decades in the making.

Waiting to start the process of expansion until all open seats are filled is just stupid and incredibly ignorant of what is involved in a renovation.

The only acceptable option is to expand high schools whenever a school hits the scheduled full renovation.

Anything else is just a silly, emotional idea based off temper tantrums, wasteful ideas and selfishness.

NO MORE EXPANSIONS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And to add, if more people keep squeezing into Chantilly or West Springfield should we just keep expanding them? Or should we adjust the boundaries?

West Springfield will go down significantly when class of 2026 graduates.

Not according to the CIP. That says WS will exceed 2900 students while Lewis drops to a little over 1400. WS will be twice the size of Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Several kids at our large FCPS HS are zoned to attend a nearby high school, yet somehow they are at our school, starting for the Varsity basketball team.

Yep. At an AP and want IB (to play for that school) or vice versa, then biology-boppity-boo! You can rig it to draw kids in.

Wow that’s just wrong. I hope these basketball stars are pursuing the IB Programme Diploma if they “transferred for IB.”

There is a reason that Madison offers ASL as a foreign language

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the McLean HS facility is a crummy 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit, then Annandale HS is a 1990 Saturn. Both are total lemons and the campuses need a serious reboot. MCPS has been continuously rebuilding all their old high schools now for decades (or gutting and restoring the historic ones like B-CC HS 25 years ago). FCPS needs to get with the program.

It was easier for them to do what some posters on this thread wanted and redistrict the hell out of Annandale - moving kids in single-family areas to Falls Church, Lake Braddock, Woodson, and Edison - over the years than step up and invest appropriately in AHS.

None of those rezoned kids attend FCPS any longer. They have all graduated and are now adults. It is a completely irrelevant discussion point.

To the contrary, the effect of all the supposedly expedient but ill-advised boundary changes at Annandale are the greatest on the remaining students there now, not the students who graduated a decade ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And to add, if more people keep squeezing into Chantilly or West Springfield should we just keep expanding them? Or should we adjust the boundaries?

What do you mean “keep expanding them”? Chantilly hasn’t been expanded any time recently.

West Springfield was expanded when it was renovated. There isn’t that much growth planned in the areas that feed into WSHS, and people there aren’t asking to be redistricted.

Regarding Chantilly - just meant that it has one of the largest enrollments currently near 3000. Pretty sure it isn't designed to hold that many. Should we expand it or look for other solutions? A few years ago the county said that an ideal high school capacity was closer to 2000.

For West Springfield, it was just expanded (2505 or so for capacity) and is already over capacity. It is projected to climb to over 2900 students. Should we expand it again? With available seats nearby? Doesn't that reward the people crowding into the same schools, waste taxpayer money, and say that the neighboring school is lousy?

It may, since additions are popular and voters are pleased when they are built (e.g. West Potomac, Madison, Justice). In this day and age, politicians are afraid of their electability going forward, and neighborhoods are afraid of new boundaries that alter high school pyramids, unless the changes are among similar schools.

30-plus years ago when demographics were similar among all the FCPS high schools, with the notable exception of Justice (Stuart), boundary changes were much easier to accomplish, but not without some difficulty (e.g., McLean Langley pyramid boundary changes have always been somewhat difficult).

In conclusion, I expect West Springfield (and similar schools) may move up the queue for an addition before too long.

P.S. Interesting how Justice’s new addition was in part meant to keep the school attendance zone together to prevent moving affluent neighborhoods to neighboring school pyramids. But now with its feeder middle school undergoing a boundary study, that may be all for naught.

West Springfield is not getting another addition for many decades but it’s not appropriate to move kids to Lewis without major changes to Lewis that start with adding a full array of AP courses and if necessary jettisoning the under-subscribed IB program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the McLean HS facility is a crummy 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit, then Annandale HS is a 1990 Saturn. Both are total lemons and the campuses need a serious reboot. MCPS has been continuously rebuilding all their old high schools now for decades (or gutting and restoring the historic ones like B-CC HS 25 years ago). FCPS needs to get with the program.

It was easier for them to do what some posters on this thread wanted and redistrict the hell out of Annandale - moving kids in single-family areas to Falls Church, Lake Braddock, Woodson, and Edison - over the years than step up and invest appropriately in AHS.

None of those rezoned kids attend FCPS any longer. They have all graduated and are now adults. It is a completely irrelevant discussion point.

To the contrary, the effect of all the supposedly expedient but ill-advised boundary changes at Annandale are the greatest on the remaining students there now, not the students who graduated a decade ago.

Every family zoned for Annandale now knew exactly what high school pyramid they were purchasing in, and chose convenient location inside the beltway over high school ratings.

So no, the kids currently attending Annandale HS or zoned for that pyramid are not affected by the rezoning that happened decades ago. Their families made an informed choice to buy inside the beltway in the Annandale pyramid. That is on them and has zero to do with the rezoning from before many of these students were even born and years before many of their parents purchased a home zoned for Annandale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been times when parents really pushed for boundary changes to address overcrowding.

I know that's what some DCUM posters want, for reasons that aren't always articulated, but there's no evidence of any significant group of parents at any school asking to be moved elsewhere. And the only schools where people had really been agitating are either the subject of a recent boundary change (Kent Gardens ES) or a current boundary study (Glasgow MS, Parklawn ES, Coates ES). If others want to exit their overcrowded schools, they can pupil place without changing the boundaries for others.

Otherwise, people want to stay at their schools and for FCPS to come up with an updated renovation queue so they know where their schools stand. That seems quite reasonable.

That’s factual inaccurate. It’s not guaranteed to pupil place and there are many schools you can’t pupil place at that parents would prefer vs current assigned schools due to overcrowding and student enrollment limitations.

You can still pupil place. It just might not be to your first choice.

The whole point of the original point of the pupil place comment was let families find another school that want to pupil place. The point of the second posting is correct families can’t just pupil place wherever they want. That’s now how the FCPS system works and you can’t choose a school. You are only given what is not overcrowded so often it’s not even a choice for many families when there are no options avail because of overcrowding. Our neighbors have tried. It doesn’t work like the original poster cited.

No, the original point wasn't that you can always pupil place to a school you'd like your kid to attend, regardless of how you chose to interpret it. It was that if you are dissatisfied with your base school because it is overcrowded, you can ultimately pupil place your kid to a school with capacity. Again, that may or may not be your first choice, but you can almost surely get a slot at a school that isn't overcrowded.

But, not worth arguing over too much, because people at the schools that are currently overcrowded generally would prefer to stay there than voluntarily pupil place or involuntary get reassigned to another school. They would like to know when FCPS plans to renovate and/or expand them next, but in the interim people generally will tolerate a certain level of overcrowding.

Just because people want to stay at their current school doesn't mean county taxpayers have to fork out more money to expand them. The FIRST option for overcrowding should always be use of existing seats. Sadly the county set a very bad precedent in the last 14 or so years by NOT using available seats first.

You are ignorant if you think the county set a new precedent “in the last 14 years or so.” As discussed earlier, 40 years ago the county was closing schools at the same time as schools were opening elsewhere in the county where there was more growth. More recently, schools have been expanded even when an alternative might have been to bus kids longer distances to under-enrolled schools (which are largely concentrated in certain areas). It’s what most families prefer, and the fact that this preference generally has been recognized is a good thing, not something to criticize.

You don't make sense. Closing schools can be a very hard and politically unpopular thing to do, but the county made those tough choices years ago. The last tough boundary choice FCPS made was the South Lakes change. And that was about 14 years ago. Now the county won't make tough choices. They just spend more taxpayer money and leave unused seats open. It is not a good thing from a taxpayer point of view and it reinforces the perception that some schools are not good.

The point is that they added capacity where it was actually needed rather than just moved kids around like widgets.

You want kids reshuffled to fill some under-enrolled schools, but you ignore the fact that this would often result in higher recurring transportation costs.

Maybe the county could concentrate on figuring out what’s led to certain schools being under-enrolled and address those underlying factors, rather than suggest they may just move kids around to cover up problems and back-fill schools that can’t retain students.

I want them to use available seats before expanding schools. There are cases where this has been ignored when the schools are adjacent. Nobody is talking about sending kids across the county.

And I don't think our blue county would like to admit why some schools are avoided.

Your argumemt makes zero sense


Construction, renovation and expansion is a multi year process, sometimes decades in the making.

Waiting to start the process of expansion until all open seats are filled is just stupid and incredibly ignorant of what is involved in a renovation.

The only acceptable option is to expand high schools whenever a school hits the scheduled full renovation.

Anything else is just a silly, emotional idea based off temper tantrums, wasteful ideas and selfishness.

NO MORE EXPANSIONS!

Umm, so what would you do about the McLean overcrowding? Esp since Fairfax County is focusing growth on Tysons. There's only so many more students that the neighboring HS can take...