FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, Lewis is actually overcrowded, according to teachers and insiders, and the Principal is a failed DEI hire with high turnover and he has failed to raise any standards at Lewis, then why are we are still trying to send high achieving non-minority students to Lewis to a school that is twice as far as away from their current base school, through the Mixing Bowl during both rush hours?

PP calling to close Lewis and turn it into an adult HS has the best idea so far.

Love this idea. Where would the Lewis kids go? Is there space b/w Edison and WSHS?

The Saratoga neighborhood and surrounding areas could go to South County, which has space and is closer to them.

The Rolling Valley split feeder sould be sent back to WSHS, closing a split feeder, and Sangster split feeder closed, sending kids from WSHS to Lake Braddock. It would be an equal swap student wise.

Lake Braddock has space.

Hayfield has space

Annandale has space.

All 4 (SoCo, LB, Annandale, Hayfield) are adjacent to Hayfield boundaries and are viable options to accept Lewis zoned kids. Whether they could each absorb a few hundred Lewis kids is a different question.

I think Edison is closed to transfers, as is West Springfield, so neither of them are options other than the RV/Sangster split feeder options mentioned above.

But there are 4 other high schools adjacent to Lewis that could absorb students.

Really, though, most large provate high schools are around 1200 students, several hundred smaller than Lewis.

Wouldn't the small Lewis size of 1500+/- students be an ideal size for a low performing high school? You could spread out the kids and have very small class sizes.

Annandale doesn’t have space if you exclude the modular. And you can’t move kids to Hayfield without bumping Hayfield kids to Mount Vernon and/or West Potomac. Did you ask anyone at Hayfield if they wanted these changes?

Nobody, anywhere wants the changes except for a handful of upper middle class households (childless in many cases) zoned for Lewis.

and McLean

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. Stability is important.

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation.

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way.

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private.

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.

Not super concerned about property values, though they are somewhat suppressed, but some neighborhoods ended up with the pariah schools. People on here talk a lot about community, but other communities have been fractured as a higher number of residents go to private or pupil place. Large numbers.

So you want to destroy other peoples communities and kids to raise your own property values?

Just so you know, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to create an awesome community. It doesn't just happen out of the blue or because a neighborhood is wealthy. In facf, a lot of weathy communities don't have a stong community connection.

Our neighborhood and school zone works hard to create community.

If you are talking about Lewis, driving around there, the immigrant families zoned for Lewis also seem to have very tight communities. It might not be your ideal sense of community, but they do have a sense of community that the families prioritize.

I would like to see changes that would make the currently 'undesirable' schools more desirable. That almost certainly means trying to reduce the concentrated poverty. To make neighborhoods more attractive to people who will use the zoned public schools.

No objection until you try to use my kids or other kids as a resource in an attempt to “reduce the concentrated poverty”

Boundary changes won’t solve your problem and should be off the table.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, Lewis is actually overcrowded, according to teachers and insiders, and the Principal is a failed DEI hire with high turnover and he has failed to raise any standards at Lewis, then why are we are still trying to send high achieving non-minority students to Lewis to a school that is twice as far as away from their current base school, through the Mixing Bowl during both rush hours?

PP calling to close Lewis and turn it into an adult HS has the best idea so far.

Love this idea. Where would the Lewis kids go? Is there space b/w Edison and WSHS?

The Saratoga neighborhood and surrounding areas could go to South County, which has space and is closer to them.

The Rolling Valley split feeder sould be sent back to WSHS, closing a split feeder, and Sangster split feeder closed, sending kids from WSHS to Lake Braddock. It would be an equal swap student wise.

Lake Braddock has space.

Hayfield has space

Annandale has space.

All 4 (SoCo, LB, Annandale, Hayfield) are adjacent to Hayfield boundaries and are viable options to accept Lewis zoned kids. Whether they could each absorb a few hundred Lewis kids is a different question.

I think Edison is closed to transfers, as is West Springfield, so neither of them are options other than the RV/Sangster split feeder options mentioned above.

But there are 4 other high schools adjacent to Lewis that could absorb students.

Really, though, most large provate high schools are around 1200 students, several hundred smaller than Lewis.

Wouldn't the small Lewis size of 1500+/- students be an ideal size for a low performing high school? You could spread out the kids and have very small class sizes.

Annandale doesn’t have space if you exclude the modular. And you can’t move kids to Hayfield without bumping Hayfield kids to Mount Vernon and/or West Potomac. Did you ask anyone at Hayfield if they wanted these changes?

Nobody, anywhere wants the changes except for a handful of upper middle class households (childless in many cases) zoned for Lewis.

and McLean

Fairfax County voters seem to like DEI initiatives. I mean, when you vote for them and then expect something else, who’s really at fault?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, Lewis is actually overcrowded, according to teachers and insiders, and the Principal is a failed DEI hire with high turnover and he has failed to raise any standards at Lewis, then why are we are still trying to send high achieving non-minority students to Lewis to a school that is twice as far as away from their current base school, through the Mixing Bowl during both rush hours?

PP calling to close Lewis and turn it into an adult HS has the best idea so far.

Love this idea. Where would the Lewis kids go? Is there space b/w Edison and WSHS?

The Saratoga neighborhood and surrounding areas could go to South County, which has space and is closer to them.

The Rolling Valley split feeder sould be sent back to WSHS, closing a split feeder, and Sangster split feeder closed, sending kids from WSHS to Lake Braddock. It would be an equal swap student wise.

Lake Braddock has space.

Hayfield has space

Annandale has space.

All 4 (SoCo, LB, Annandale, Hayfield) are adjacent to Hayfield boundaries and are viable options to accept Lewis zoned kids. Whether they could each absorb a few hundred Lewis kids is a different question.

I think Edison is closed to transfers, as is West Springfield, so neither of them are options other than the RV/Sangster split feeder options mentioned above.

But there are 4 other high schools adjacent to Lewis that could absorb students.

Really, though, most large provate high schools are around 1200 students, several hundred smaller than Lewis.

Wouldn't the small Lewis size of 1500+/- students be an ideal size for a low performing high school? You could spread out the kids and have very small class sizes.

Annandale doesn’t have space if you exclude the modular. And you can’t move kids to Hayfield without bumping Hayfield kids to Mount Vernon and/or West Potomac. Did you ask anyone at Hayfield if they wanted these changes?

Nobody, anywhere wants the changes except for a handful of upper middle class households (childless in many cases) zoned for Lewis.

and McLean

I’ve heard the opposite from many families zoned for McLean. The good news is Langley has room to alleviate the McLean situation and not be overcrowded. So it’s fixable by just moving the western attendance island to Langley.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. Stability is important.

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation.

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way.

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private.

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.

Not super concerned about property values, though they are somewhat suppressed, but some neighborhoods ended up with the pariah schools. People on here talk a lot about community, but other communities have been fractured as a higher number of residents go to private or pupil place. Large numbers.

So you want to destroy other peoples communities and kids to raise your own property values?

Just so you know, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to create an awesome community. It doesn't just happen out of the blue or because a neighborhood is wealthy. In facf, a lot of weathy communities don't have a stong community connection.

Our neighborhood and school zone works hard to create community.

If you are talking about Lewis, driving around there, the immigrant families zoned for Lewis also seem to have very tight communities. It might not be your ideal sense of community, but they do have a sense of community that the families prioritize.

I would like to see changes that would make the currently 'undesirable' schools more desirable. That almost certainly means trying to reduce the concentrated poverty. To make neighborhoods more attractive to people who will use the zoned public schools.

No objection until you try to use my kids or other kids as a resource in an attempt to “reduce the concentrated poverty”

Boundary changes won’t solve your problem and should be off the table.

The majority of Fairfax County wants this or it would have gone red.

[Anonymous]

I haven't been here lately. Why aren't committee members posted?

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. Stability is important.

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation.

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way.

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private.

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.

Not super concerned about property values, though they are somewhat suppressed, but some neighborhoods ended up with the pariah schools. People on here talk a lot about community, but other communities have been fractured as a higher number of residents go to private or pupil place. Large numbers.

So you want to destroy other peoples communities and kids to raise your own property values?

Just so you know, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to create an awesome community. It doesn't just happen out of the blue or because a neighborhood is wealthy. In facf, a lot of weathy communities don't have a stong community connection.

Our neighborhood and school zone works hard to create community.

If you are talking about Lewis, driving around there, the immigrant families zoned for Lewis also seem to have very tight communities. It might not be your ideal sense of community, but they do have a sense of community that the families prioritize.

I would like to see changes that would make the currently 'undesirable' schools more desirable. That almost certainly means trying to reduce the concentrated poverty. To make neighborhoods more attractive to people who will use the zoned public schools.

No objection until you try to use my kids or other kids as a resource in an attempt to “reduce the concentrated poverty”

Boundary changes won’t solve your problem and should be off the table.

It won't work. Lewis and MVHS have enough well off kids in zone, the parents just choose to avoid them. You have to get big enough to have a viable school within a school (Herndon and WestPo)

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. Stability is important.

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation.

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way.

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private.

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.

Or maybe people bought off Gambrill and never did their research about where that area used to attend.

I blame realtors. They shouldn't put certain phrases in their listings....it is subjective anyway.

I am so sorry but the Gambrill.argument is just so stupid.

I don't live in that neighborhood, but anyone who has ever driven a car in that area knows that it would be beyond ludicrous to zone the Gambrill neighborhood to Lewis.

Saratoga Mom's fixation on Hunt Valley is simply ludicrous and not based on any current traffic patterns or reality.

Not really, it's straight down the parkway and then left on whatever that road is in front of the mall. Those houses used to go to Lewis (lee)

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. Stability is important.

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation.

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way.

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private.

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.

Not super concerned about property values, though they are somewhat suppressed, but some neighborhoods ended up with the pariah schools. People on here talk a lot about community, but other communities have been fractured as a higher number of residents go to private or pupil place. Large numbers.

So you want to destroy other peoples communities and kids to raise your own property values?

Just so you know, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to create an awesome community. It doesn't just happen out of the blue or because a neighborhood is wealthy. In facf, a lot of weathy communities don't have a stong community connection.

Our neighborhood and school zone works hard to create community.

If you are talking about Lewis, driving around there, the immigrant families zoned for Lewis also seem to have very tight communities. It might not be your ideal sense of community, but they do have a sense of community that the families prioritize.

I would like to see changes that would make the currently 'undesirable' schools more desirable. That almost certainly means trying to reduce the concentrated poverty. To make neighborhoods more attractive to people who will use the zoned public schools.

Rezoning will not fix that issue.

FCPS needs to first take advantge of the low enrollment of the school to do a full 3-4 year renovation to bring it up to the standards of the rest of the FCPS high schools. Make it beautiful and clean and fix the theater and athletic fields. Because the enrollment is lower, FCPS could probably complete the renovation without relying on trailers. The school board cannot tell everyone the schools are just as good when compared to every other high school in FCPS, Lewis looks like a neglected stepsister with very junky sports fields sitting under an interstate.

The renovation will likely be complete as the new housing scheduled in that area starts to fill. This will add to Lewis' enrollment.

While the renovation is being completed, ditch the stupid leadership academy that no one wants, and create a magnet style school for something like arts or languages, an IB magnet, technical/trades or maybe a 2nd TJ type school. Make some applications based program that people will actually want to attend and make it stellar, so it can launch when the reno is complete. As a taxpayer, I would much rather spend money on that than on unwanted disruptive rezoning every 5 years and the expensive consultants that go with rezoning.

Once the Lewis campus looks like every other FCPS high school in the county, launch the new program, and revisit whether or not there is even a need for rezoning.

Throwing a couple of dozen kids per grade into Lewis will not fix one thing, and we will be back to square one in a year or two.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. Stability is important.

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation.

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way.

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private.

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.

Or maybe people bought off Gambrill and never did their research about where that area used to attend.

I blame realtors. They shouldn't put certain phrases in their listings....it is subjective anyway.

I am so sorry but the Gambrill.argument is just so stupid.

I don't live in that neighborhood, but anyone who has ever driven a car in that area knows that it would be beyond ludicrous to zone the Gambrill neighborhood to Lewis.

Saratoga Mom's fixation on Hunt Valley is simply ludicrous and not based on any current traffic patterns or reality.

Not really, it's straight down the parkway and then left on whatever that road is in front of the mall. Those houses used to go to Lewis (lee)

That can be a 25 to 30 minute drive during traffic times, past the metro, the mixing bowl and the mall.

It can take 15 minute just to go from the mall through that major mixing bowl interchange into the Lewis parking lot.

WSHS is bikeable from the Gambril neighborhoods, or a short 10 minute drive through neighborhood roads.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. Stability is important.

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation.

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way.

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private.

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.

Not super concerned about property values, though they are somewhat suppressed, but some neighborhoods ended up with the pariah schools. People on here talk a lot about community, but other communities have been fractured as a higher number of residents go to private or pupil place. Large numbers.

So you want to destroy other peoples communities and kids to raise your own property values?

Just so you know, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to create an awesome community. It doesn't just happen out of the blue or because a neighborhood is wealthy. In facf, a lot of weathy communities don't have a stong community connection.

Our neighborhood and school zone works hard to create community.

If you are talking about Lewis, driving around there, the immigrant families zoned for Lewis also seem to have very tight communities. It might not be your ideal sense of community, but they do have a sense of community that the families prioritize.

I would like to see changes that would make the currently 'undesirable' schools more desirable. That almost certainly means trying to reduce the concentrated poverty. To make neighborhoods more attractive to people who will use the zoned public schools.

No objection until you try to use my kids or other kids as a resource in an attempt to “reduce the concentrated poverty”

Boundary changes won’t solve your problem and should be off the table.

The majority of Fairfax County wants this or it would have gone red.

Silly me, I figured that your statement would have required that the school board candidates run on the boundary change platform rather than hiding their intentions.

Since none of them ran on it, your logic is very faulty.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.[/quote]

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. [b]Stability is important.[/b]

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities[/quote]

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?[/quote]

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation. [/quote]

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way. [/quote]

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private. [/quote]

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? [b]If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?[/b]

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.
[/quote]

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.[/quote]

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.[/quote]

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.[/quote]

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.[/quote]

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.
[/quote]

Not super concerned about property values, though they are somewhat suppressed, but some neighborhoods ended up with the pariah schools. People on here talk a lot about community, but other communities have been fractured as a higher number of residents go to private or pupil place. Large numbers. [/quote]

So you want to destroy other peoples communities and kids to raise your own property values?

Just so you know, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to create an awesome community. It doesn't just happen out of the blue or because a neighborhood is wealthy. In facf, a lot of weathy communities don't have a stong community connection.

Our neighborhood and school zone works hard to create community.

If you are talking about Lewis, driving around there, the immigrant families zoned for Lewis also seem to have very tight communities. It might not be your ideal sense of community, but they do have a sense of community that the families prioritize. [/quote]

I would like to see changes that would make the currently 'undesirable' schools more desirable. That almost certainly means trying to reduce the concentrated poverty. To make neighborhoods more attractive to people who will use the zoned public schools.[/quote]

No objection until you try to use my kids or other kids as a resource in an attempt to “reduce the concentrated poverty”

Boundary changes won’t solve your problem and should be off the table.[/quote]

But that is not how this works. No one is promised a certain school. Now whether the board will carry through is another story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't been here lately. Why aren't committee members posted?

Because they had to sign an NDA to particpate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When they change the boundaries - when do the new ones get implemented? How will you know if you are at risk of your kids being moved?

If you are not within the walk zone to your high school, live in an attendance island, or are on the edge of the boundary between a good high school and a failing high school, your high school student is.at risk of rezoning.

Is "walk zone" even an official thing? For example, my kids are zoned for Madison, we live about a mile away and they can walk....but what is a "walk zone" for that school?

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They've stated what the priority criteria for this process are, it's in their presentations if you attend any of the community meetings. Equity is not one of them.

6th grade MS would indeed require some changes... more or bigger MS (could potentially repurpose some of the admin centers similar to Dunn-Loring) and/or create some more secondary schools. They might need to phase it in over time rather than in one fell swoop. A 6th grade academy program would be a nice idea, but given the transport issues they're already dealing with trying to shift start times, etc. I doubt it would be realistic to implement. Anyway, point is I think there are options other than whatever massive rezoning you imagine as the only plausible alternative.

I don't think there's anything ridiculous about wanting both HS and MS students to start at 830a or later as research suggests is best. I also don't think balancing capacity across schools periodically is idiotic, it's a sane best practice.

The problem is there have been so few changes for so long that many (vocal) people are ossified into this view that they're somehow entitled to attend the school they are currently zoned for in perpetuity. If you're looking for arrogance and ridiculousness, start there.[/quote]

Ha you have a LOT to learn about the way school systems run
Did you WaATCH or attend any work sessions or board meetings about policy 8130?
This is definitely about equity. Both sandy anderson (whose kids go to majority white elementary schools) and st John’s Cummings have had tirades about parents who they think are racist in not wanting their kids moved. In fact Cummings said “equity is at the heart of this policy”

No one wants their kid moved in high school. No one wants their kid moved in middle school. [b]Stability is important.[/b]

I think if you are talkin by about entitled people having a bunch of teens never ever have to wake up early with ensure these kids are late for work and never make that early college class because the logic in entitlement will spill over.

T
Yiu have some warped
priorities[/quote]

If stabilty is so important, why do so many parents say they will move their kids to private if they get re-zoned?[/quote]

DP. Guess they are saying that if there is going to be disruption either way, they will make the best of the situation. [/quote]

Another DP and I agree with this. If you’re going to blow up a school community and kids end up going to a different school from their friends, might as well go private and get to choose the school environment. I think it also depends on the age of people’s kids. If your kids are still young and they have this policy that they can review every 5 years and make more changes, then maybe you go private to make sure your kids can stay at the same school from K-8 or whatever.

It’s concerning to me that people who are in favor of these large scale boundary changes don’t seem capable of thinking through all the different scenarios and how different families might respond.

Reid and the school board do not care about individual schools or students. They care about getting test scores to be more similar across schools because the disparities (and some schools “failing”) makes them look bad. If you believe otherwise you are falling for some BS.

I get to decide whether or not these people use my kids in order to make themselves look better. If my kids get moved to a lower performing school so they can try to bring that school up, we are out… either a move to a different county or private. I suspect many others feel the same way. [/quote]

Not everybody has the means for private school. Real estate is already incredibly expensive around here, so this is a very privileged response. Note everybody is able to spend 20-40k PER year PER kid for school. I do recognize that much of FFX likely can, but many in those income brackets are already sending their kids to private. [/quote]

But ask yourself, honestly, think about this, is there a correlation between SES and academic performance that will end up blunting any of these boundary equity moves when they occur? [b]If all the families that can move or go private do, is that substantially a better population at those poorer performing schools? Or are you just adding LMC to those schools?[/b]

Then ask yourself if you are doing a disservice to the LMC kids that you move, and whether the school board is contributing to a further degradation and segregation of schools?

I have always considered public school a public good, that’s why, even though we can afford private we haven’t sent our kids there. This has been a fundamental Democratic Party platform plank over the years. We will contribute more to certain populations’ education, but don’t mess with our kids’ ability to get a good education. But the school board doesn’t seem to get this democratic pillar and instead seems hell bent on making UMC go private or elsewhere.
[/quote]

This is exactly what will happen. I must be one of the few people here who grew up in a place where the school boundaries were crazy in order to balance demographics. The majority of people MC and above do what it takes to make private school work. I knew very few people who went to public, even people who really didn’t have a lot of money found a way to make it work.

Nobody felt an ounce of guilt for doing this either. Normal people do what they feel is best for their kids. It’s a very weird DC area (and maybe SF?) thing to be like “I need to send my kids to public school no matter what because I believe in it”. Who cares if other people think you are privileged for choosing private school. It’s none of their business and not your fault if other people can’t afford it.

It’s wild to me that FCPS wants to push forward with sticking it to the ‘privileged’ in order to achieve equity when the recent election showed that this thinking is clearly being rejected by the American people… including working class people and including Fairfax County which had much closer margins than 2020. I guess the school board wants Winsome Sears to be the next governor.[/quote]

Hate to beat a dead horse, but before we imported a large amount of poverty, FCPS high schools were much more balanced. Over the last 25 years that poverty, combined with sites like Great Schools, very open pupil placement, and boundary changes that moved wealthier families to wealthier schools, the Fairfax population has managed to segregate itself. Just facts. Now it is not palatable to many families to make adjustments. So here we are.[/quote]

None of the above is the fault of individual families. Those were choices made by Fairfax County and/or FCPS. Most of us don't appreciate being punished for bad choices made by others. If they want to make their poor planning my problem, I'm out.[/quote]

That is true. It has been a collective effort by the population of Fairfax County. Now some people are left holding the bag. In particular, some long term residents have been screwed.[/quote]

It takes real gall to beg for a handout in the form of redistricting other people’s kids to try to help your own property values, especially when you knew your pyramid when you bought.
[/quote]

Not super concerned about property values, though they are somewhat suppressed, but some neighborhoods ended up with the pariah schools. People on here talk a lot about community, but other communities have been fractured as a higher number of residents go to private or pupil place. Large numbers. [/quote]

So you want to destroy other peoples communities and kids to raise your own property values?

Just so you know, it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people to create an awesome community. It doesn't just happen out of the blue or because a neighborhood is wealthy. In facf, a lot of weathy communities don't have a stong community connection.

Our neighborhood and school zone works hard to create community.

If you are talking about Lewis, driving around there, the immigrant families zoned for Lewis also seem to have very tight communities. It might not be your ideal sense of community, but they do have a sense of community that the families prioritize. [/quote]

I would like to see changes that would make the currently 'undesirable' schools more desirable. That almost certainly means trying to reduce the concentrated poverty. To make neighborhoods more attractive to people who will use the zoned public schools.[/quote]

No objection until you try to use my kids or other kids as a resource in an attempt to “reduce the concentrated poverty”

Boundary changes won’t solve your problem and should be off the table.[/quote]

But that is not how this works. No one is promised a certain school. Now whether the board will carry through is another story.[/quote]

So you believe FCPS kids are just chattel. Pretty gross.