FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:High performing high schools will not guarantee your kid will be a high performer. There will always be outliers. Kids that focus on academics, find their crowd even in low performing schools. It is up to us, as parents to instill the good work ethics, and to make sure our kids are spending time with a good crowd.

My kid went to a low performing school. She found a crowd focused on athletics and academics and did just fine. I volunteered regurlarly, met parents and made sure my kid was on the right track. Now she is at a top 25 university, along with a few of her high school friends.

I wish home values were not tied so closely to school districts. Those websites that give schools grades, do not fully reflect the gains that are happening in these schools. Schools with high ELL numbers, will obviously have lower scores, but that does not mean your native English speaker cannot excel.

100% agree with this. Every child we know that is from a high SES family but at a school that gets low Great Schools or Niche ratings is doing GREAT in school. The high schoolers are excelling in Honors and AP classes (even the ones who didn't go AAP), the few that are in college got into great universities and are doing well there.

If you're upset about your child's cohort that says more about you (and your racism and classism) than it does the school and how well it is teaching students that are willing to work hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was really hoping that the boundary study would be in conjunction with removal of AAP Centers, which are completely unnecessary.

The School Board could have provided some parameters up-front, such as no more AAP centers, no more IB, etc., but they don't want to be responsible for anything, it seems.

Which is a joke because at the end of the day none of these changes happen without their approval, even if they claim to be acting on expert advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe my baby may have two switch schools and because I have closely curated their lives (just like my insta and TikTok, omg!!!), this will ruin everything.

I don’t understand this comment, but it is patently absurd for anyone to think that this won’t have significant consequences for the impacted kids.

Only people with no friends or social IQ will struggle to understand those consequences.

Sometimes things are more important than your childrens' highly curated social lives. I don't know about your kids, but mine have friends that go to other schools. If they had to switch junior year, yes it absolutely would SUCK but (a) they wouldn't be the only ones and (b) they have friends at these other schools that they see every week and I have no doubt they'd continue to see their other friends, too.

Weird that you keeping calling friendships “curated.” Pretty telling.

Anyway, so glad to hear that your kids have friend at different schools. Mine do too, but the bulk are at the school’s they are at, since they are who my kids see most. Maybe the difference is what qualifies as a “friend” for your kids?

PP is big on pushing the narrative that they are prepared to sacrifice if it’s in the greater good, but hasn’t otherwise explained what good would actually come out of boundary changes at a time when FCPS enrollment is stable and even slightly down. Still waiting to hear what problem(s) she actually thinks exists, and where, and how disruptive boundary changes are going to solve it. At some point it becomes a solution in search of a problem.

DP than the person you are responding to but, unless you work for Gatehouse, you yourself have absolutely no idea where all the problem areas are and likely zero experience implementing county-wide boundary changes. That’s why we are waiting for the professionals to propose appropriate solutions.

Given how badly FCPS has handled west county boundary changes over the last 30 years, what makes you think they'd do a better job implementing a county-wide redistricting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High performing high schools will not guarantee your kid will be a high performer. There will always be outliers. Kids that focus on academics, find their crowd even in low performing schools. It is up to us, as parents to instill the good work ethics, and to make sure our kids are spending time with a good crowd.

My kid went to a low performing school. She found a crowd focused on athletics and academics and did just fine. I volunteered regurlarly, met parents and made sure my kid was on the right track. Now she is at a top 25 university, along with a few of her high school friends.

I wish home values were not tied so closely to school districts. Those websites that give schools grades, do not fully reflect the gains that are happening in these schools. Schools with high ELL numbers, will obviously have lower scores, but that does not mean your native English speaker cannot excel.

100% agree with this. Every child we know that is from a high SES family but at a school that gets low Great Schools or Niche ratings is doing GREAT in school. The high schoolers are excelling in Honors and AP classes (even the ones who didn't go AAP), the few that are in college got into great universities and are doing well there.

If you're upset about your child's cohort that says more about you (and your racism and classism) than it does the school and how well it is teaching students that are willing to work hard.

You gotta love the people who try to argue that all kids will be fine based on one or two cherry-picked examples.

Also gotta love the people who claim racism whenever they can. You want what’s best for your kids? You’re a racist, classist bigot. 🙄

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High performing high schools will not guarantee your kid will be a high performer. There will always be outliers. Kids that focus on academics, find their crowd even in low performing schools. It is up to us, as parents to instill the good work ethics, and to make sure our kids are spending time with a good crowd.

My kid went to a low performing school. She found a crowd focused on athletics and academics and did just fine. I volunteered regurlarly, met parents and made sure my kid was on the right track. Now she is at a top 25 university, along with a few of her high school friends.

I wish home values were not tied so closely to school districts. Those websites that give schools grades, do not fully reflect the gains that are happening in these schools. Schools with high ELL numbers, will obviously have lower scores, but that does not mean your native English speaker cannot excel.

100% agree with this. Every child we know that is from a high SES family but at a school that gets low Great Schools or Niche ratings is doing GREAT in school. The high schoolers are excelling in Honors and AP classes (even the ones who didn't go AAP), the few that are in college got into great universities and are doing well there.

If you're upset about your child's cohort that says more about you (and your racism and classism) than it does the school and how well it is teaching students that are willing to work hard.

You gotta love the people who try to argue that all kids will be fine based on one or two cherry-picked examples.

Also gotta love the people who claim racism whenever they can. You want what’s best for your kids? You’re a racist, classist bigot. 🙄

Not cherry picking at all. Many of the high SES kids end up at good universities (VT, W&M, UVA, JMU, OOS). What makes these “low performing” schools great, in my view, are all the URM and FARMS grads who are attending college, be it NOVA or other centers of higher learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High performing high schools will not guarantee your kid will be a high performer. There will always be outliers. Kids that focus on academics, find their crowd even in low performing schools. It is up to us, as parents to instill the good work ethics, and to make sure our kids are spending time with a good crowd.

My kid went to a low performing school. She found a crowd focused on athletics and academics and did just fine. I volunteered regurlarly, met parents and made sure my kid was on the right track. Now she is at a top 25 university, along with a few of her high school friends.

I wish home values were not tied so closely to school districts. Those websites that give schools grades, do not fully reflect the gains that are happening in these schools. Schools with high ELL numbers, will obviously have lower scores, but that does not mean your native English speaker cannot excel.

100% agree with this. Every child we know that is from a high SES family but at a school that gets low Great Schools or Niche ratings is doing GREAT in school. The high schoolers are excelling in Honors and AP classes (even the ones who didn't go AAP), the few that are in college got into great universities and are doing well there.

If you're upset about your child's cohort that says more about you (and your racism and classism) than it does the school and how well it is teaching students that are willing to work hard.

Yeah, a high-achieving, self-motivated kid is going to do well anywhere. But most kids aren’t like that at age 12-16/17. Some kids can really benefit from a more stable cohort of students and higher expectations. Some kids will do well regardless but be stressed out beyond belief with the atmosphere at a low income school. Like it or not those students are treated differently (worse) and the atmosphere is different. Metal detectors, teachers who never give the benefit of the doubt on anything, assumptions that the kids are always goofing off or not going to amount to much, counselors and administration are focused on the pregnant teens and the kids at risk of dropping out and have nothing to give to the kid who’s going to graduate but needs a lot of help with college and career options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe my baby may have two switch schools and because I have closely curated their lives (just like my insta and TikTok, omg!!!), this will ruin everything.

I don’t understand this comment, but it is patently absurd for anyone to think that this won’t have significant consequences for the impacted kids.

Only people with no friends or social IQ will struggle to understand those consequences.

Sometimes things are more important than your childrens' highly curated social lives. I don't know about your kids, but mine have friends that go to other schools. If they had to switch junior year, yes it absolutely would SUCK but (a) they wouldn't be the only ones and (b) they have friends at these other schools that they see every week and I have no doubt they'd continue to see their other friends, too.

Weird that you keeping calling friendships “curated.” Pretty telling.

Anyway, so glad to hear that your kids have friend at different schools. Mine do too, but the bulk are at the school’s they are at, since they are who my kids see most. Maybe the difference is what qualifies as a “friend” for your kids?

PP is big on pushing the narrative that they are prepared to sacrifice if it’s in the greater good, but hasn’t otherwise explained what good would actually come out of boundary changes at a time when FCPS enrollment is stable and even slightly down. Still waiting to hear what problem(s) she actually thinks exists, and where, and how disruptive boundary changes are going to solve it. At some point it becomes a solution in search of a problem.

DP than the person you are responding to but, unless you work for Gatehouse, you yourself have absolutely no idea where all the problem areas are and likely zero experience implementing county-wide boundary changes. That’s why we are waiting for the professionals to propose appropriate solutions.

Given how badly FCPS has handled west county boundary changes over the last 30 years, what makes you think they'd do a better job implementing a county-wide redistricting?

The capital and facilities planning in FCPS has been atrocious for years, in response to which people have largely hunkered down and just asked that they do no harm - respect the clear preference for stable boundaries and renovate if and when they finally get around to it.

Rather than respect this overall preference, they are now holding out the prospect that someone else can do a better job and we should defer to the consultant’s recommendations. That’s a big ask, and there’s a moderately high risk they are just going to end up driving more families out of FCPS, which will mean less money from the state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High performing high schools will not guarantee your kid will be a high performer. There will always be outliers. Kids that focus on academics, find their crowd even in low performing schools. It is up to us, as parents to instill the good work ethics, and to make sure our kids are spending time with a good crowd.

My kid went to a low performing school. She found a crowd focused on athletics and academics and did just fine. I volunteered regurlarly, met parents and made sure my kid was on the right track. Now she is at a top 25 university, along with a few of her high school friends.

I wish home values were not tied so closely to school districts. Those websites that give schools grades, do not fully reflect the gains that are happening in these schools. Schools with high ELL numbers, will obviously have lower scores, but that does not mean your native English speaker cannot excel.

100% agree with this. Every child we know that is from a high SES family but at a school that gets low Great Schools or Niche ratings is doing GREAT in school. The high schoolers are excelling in Honors and AP classes (even the ones who didn't go AAP), the few that are in college got into great universities and are doing well there.

If you're upset about your child's cohort that says more about you (and your racism and classism) than it does the school and how well it is teaching students that are willing to work hard.

You gotta love the people who try to argue that all kids will be fine based on one or two cherry-picked examples.

Also gotta love the people who claim racism whenever they can. You want what’s best for your kids? You’re a racist, classist bigot. 🙄

Not cherry picking at all. Many of the high SES kids end up at good universities (VT, W&M, UVA, JMU, OOS). What makes these “low performing” schools great, in my view, are all the URM and FARMS grads who are attending college, be it NOVA or other centers of higher learning.

You are right. I don’t care. I’m still against this plan because they gave such short shrift to grandfathering. The lack of understanding and planning around this iissue along with the lack of alignment the much espoused values of relationships and mental health is appalling.

I still don’t want my kids moved in the middle of high school.

Why current do 7-10th have to pay the price of a mismanaged zoning system?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High performing high schools will not guarantee your kid will be a high performer. There will always be outliers. Kids that focus on academics, find their crowd even in low performing schools. It is up to us, as parents to instill the good work ethics, and to make sure our kids are spending time with a good crowd.

My kid went to a low performing school. She found a crowd focused on athletics and academics and did just fine. I volunteered regurlarly, met parents and made sure my kid was on the right track. Now she is at a top 25 university, along with a few of her high school friends.

I wish home values were not tied so closely to school districts. Those websites that give schools grades, do not fully reflect the gains that are happening in these schools. Schools with high ELL numbers, will obviously have lower scores, but that does not mean your native English speaker cannot excel.

100% agree with this. Every child we know that is from a high SES family but at a school that gets low Great Schools or Niche ratings is doing GREAT in school. The high schoolers are excelling in Honors and AP classes (even the ones who didn't go AAP), the few that are in college got into great universities and are doing well there.

If you're upset about your child's cohort that says more about you (and your racism and classism) than it does the school and how well it is teaching students that are willing to work hard.

You gotta love the people who try to argue that all kids will be fine based on one or two cherry-picked examples.

Also gotta love the people who claim racism whenever they can. You want what’s best for your kids? You’re a racist, classist bigot. 🙄

Not cherry picking at all. Many of the high SES kids end up at good universities (VT, W&M, UVA, JMU, OOS). What makes these “low performing” schools great, in my view, are all the URM and FARMS grads who are attending college, be it NOVA or other centers of higher learning.

You are right. I don’t care. I’m still against this plan because they gave such short shrift to grandfathering. The lack of understanding and planning around this iissue along with the lack of alignment the much espoused values of relationships and mental health is appalling.

I still don’t want my kids moved in the middle of high school.

Why current do 7-10th have to pay the price of a mismanaged zoning system?

They made a mistake by not guaranteeing high school grandfathering. Has there been a boundary adjustment in recent memory where they haven’t offered phased grandfathering for 9th and up? If they had put this in writing from the start rather than hemming and hawing about it they would have gained a lot more trust in the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know if the school you are currently zoned for would change? The next high school over from us is absolutely horrible. We bought our house because of the schools. If we we rezoned we would have to move. This is terrible.

When it's all said and done, the currently bad schools will likely be far improved with the new influx and wouldn't necessitate moving. Just something to consider long-term.

What an unserious post. No one buys that, even the school board.

How so? Imagine one low-income complex gets moved from school A to school B, and a large SFH neighborhood gets moved from school C to school A.

School A test scores would get quite the jump and GreatSchools score would go up accordingly.

Realistically that isn’t going to happen because poverty is concentrated in certain areas. Can you even think of any areas where a troubled neighborhood currently attends a school that’s at least decent overall, but could get moved to a school that’s currently let’s say average but would become a lot more troubled with the addition of another low income complex?

DP, but there are probably some areas zoned to Westfield that, if reassigned to Herndon, would further drive up the FARMS rates at Herndon. Thinking in particular of Coates, which is about 65% FARMS.

Another DP. There are areas zoned to Westfield that used to be zoned to Chantilly. Kathy Smith took care of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High performing high schools will not guarantee your kid will be a high performer. There will always be outliers. Kids that focus on academics, find their crowd even in low performing schools. It is up to us, as parents to instill the good work ethics, and to make sure our kids are spending time with a good crowd.

My kid went to a low performing school. She found a crowd focused on athletics and academics and did just fine. I volunteered regurlarly, met parents and made sure my kid was on the right track. Now she is at a top 25 university, along with a few of her high school friends.

I wish home values were not tied so closely to school districts. Those websites that give schools grades, do not fully reflect the gains that are happening in these schools. Schools with high ELL numbers, will obviously have lower scores, but that does not mean your native English speaker cannot excel.

100% agree with this. Every child we know that is from a high SES family but at a school that gets low Great Schools or Niche ratings is doing GREAT in school. The high schoolers are excelling in Honors and AP classes (even the ones who didn't go AAP), the few that are in college got into great universities and are doing well there.

If you're upset about your child's cohort that says more about you (and your racism and classism) than it does the school and how well it is teaching students that are willing to work hard.

You gotta love the people who try to argue that all kids will be fine based on one or two cherry-picked examples.

Also gotta love the people who claim racism whenever they can. You want what’s best for your kids? You’re a racist, classist bigot. 🙄

Not cherry picking at all. Many of the high SES kids end up at good universities (VT, W&M, UVA, JMU, OOS). What makes these “low performing” schools great, in my view, are all the URM and FARMS grads who are attending college, be it NOVA or other centers of higher learning.

I’m so happy that those schools are “great” to you. Sounds like there is no need to impose your will or views on other families who have a different view on the schools they want their kids to attend.

Especially when there is no overcrowding to be concerned with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High performing high schools will not guarantee your kid will be a high performer. There will always be outliers. Kids that focus on academics, find their crowd even in low performing schools. It is up to us, as parents to instill the good work ethics, and to make sure our kids are spending time with a good crowd.

My kid went to a low performing school. She found a crowd focused on athletics and academics and did just fine. I volunteered regurlarly, met parents and made sure my kid was on the right track. Now she is at a top 25 university, along with a few of her high school friends.

I wish home values were not tied so closely to school districts. Those websites that give schools grades, do not fully reflect the gains that are happening in these schools. Schools with high ELL numbers, will obviously have lower scores, but that does not mean your native English speaker cannot excel.

100% agree with this. Every child we know that is from a high SES family but at a school that gets low Great Schools or Niche ratings is doing GREAT in school. The high schoolers are excelling in Honors and AP classes (even the ones who didn't go AAP), the few that are in college got into great universities and are doing well there.

If you're upset about your child's cohort that says more about you (and your racism and classism) than it does the school and how well it is teaching students that are willing to work hard.

You gotta love the people who try to argue that all kids will be fine based on one or two cherry-picked examples.

Also gotta love the people who claim racism whenever they can. You want what’s best for your kids? You’re a racist, classist bigot. 🙄

Not cherry picking at all. Many of the high SES kids end up at good universities (VT, W&M, UVA, JMU, OOS). What makes these “low performing” schools great, in my view, are all the URM and FARMS grads who are attending college, be it NOVA or other centers of higher learning.

You are right. I don’t care. I’m still against this plan because they gave such short shrift to grandfathering. The lack of understanding and planning around this iissue along with the lack of alignment the much espoused values of relationships and mental health is appalling.

I still don’t want my kids moved in the middle of high school.

Why current do 7-10th have to pay the price of a mismanaged zoning system?

They made a mistake by not guaranteeing high school grandfathering. Has there been a boundary adjustment in recent memory where they haven’t offered phased grandfathering for 9th and up? If they had put this in writing from the start rather than hemming and hawing about it they would have gained a lot more trust in the process.

As far as I’m aware the only situations where existing students weren’t grandfathered were when a new school opened, and FCPS hasn’t opened a new HS/SS since South County originally opened as a secondary school in 2005. Otherwise the changes were phased in with rising 9th graders. The Langley/McLean boundary change in 2021 was even more generous because rising 9th graders could elect to attend either school (that was described as a special accommodation given the disruption due to Covid). Refusing to grandfather rising sophomores and juniors would be quite a departure.

[Anonymous]

The school board shall build a wall, a glorious and beautiful wall, around each school district. That wall should be tall and unchanging. The law will be that no one shall move from one walled school district to another. (Unless ye be interested in the Hayfield football team, then you may slip between walls, but ONLY to the Hayfield district.)

The children on one side of their wall shall never interact with children on the other side, for to mix children from one district to another could enact such damages upon them the like of which we've never seen. Such horrors! No, they must remain with their own peoples, within the safety of their own walled school district. We shall not pay heed to long bus rides, or oddly shaped borders. If there be squished conditions within a school or bare empty school hallways, it matters not. The walls shall never change.

To all, I tell ye, the walls of the school disctricts shall stand proudly for a thousand years, all for the glory of FCPS. And once the wall is built, the parents shall find other things to complain about to the school board, for that is the way.

So it shall be written in the Book of FCPS. So it shall be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school board shall build a wall, a glorious and beautiful wall, around each school district. That wall should be tall and unchanging. The law will be that no one shall move from one walled school district to another. (Unless ye be interested in the Hayfield football team, then you may slip between walls, but ONLY to the Hayfield district.)

The children on one side of their wall shall never interact with children on the other side, for to mix children from one district to another could enact such damages upon them the like of which we've never seen. Such horrors! No, they must remain with their own peoples, within the safety of their own walled school district. We shall not pay heed to long bus rides, or oddly shaped borders. If there be squished conditions within a school or bare empty school hallways, it matters not. The walls shall never change.

To all, I tell ye, the walls of the school disctricts shall stand proudly for a thousand years, all for the glory of FCPS. And once the wall is built, the parents shall find other things to complain about to the school board, for that is the way.

So it shall be written in the Book of FCPS. So it shall be done.

Did that take you all night? So lame.

Stable pyramids are not an unreasonable expectation, especially when there is no compelling need to change them.

[Anonymous]

And lo, let the school board no-bid a consulting contract to get out ahead of the next election cycle, since the boundary changes will be immensely unpopular, so that they may pretend to help students in the name of equity, while cannibalizing the tax base. This in the name of sticking it to thy neighbors.

May Sandy Anderson smite the parents looking out for their own families.

With limited grandfathering for all.