TJ was expanded to a design capacity of 2390 during its renovation. When they changed the admissions process, they also agreed to expand the TJ entering classes to about 540 students (up from around 475). They are two years into that change, so TJ's enrollment can be expected to go up by another 130 students or so two years from now. That would leave TJ below capacity compared to its design capacity, though less so than is the case now. It's been argued TJ would be overcrowded if it actually had more than 2250 students or so, because of the space requirements for some of TJ's labs, etc. |
Why would TJ require more space requirements now that it has dumped down the academic requirements? |
You could probably spar with people on the AAP forum forever about the TJ admissions changes. The TJ labs aren't going to be converted to classrooms for remedial reading. For purposes of this thread, the most relevant part of the TJ admissions changes is that it means more kids ending up at some already overcrowded high schools like Chantilly, McLean, and Oakton. |
This does seen like a good boundary solution. We are zoned for FCHS and loved it - and it is going to be beautiful once the renovation is complete. The McLean schools are so overcrowded for years, with no renovation in sight, that I am surprised it has not had an effect on the real estate market there. |
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Changing TJ to an Academy would help by freeing up classroom space in other high schools. There are almost no classes offered to TJ freshmen and sophomores that are not offered at every other school.
Allow any Junior or Senior in FCPS or the surrounding counties access to TJ if they want and meet the pre-reqs. Could have one group of kids attend their base schools on the even days and TJ on the odd days. They have another cohort that attends base school on the even days and TJ on the even days. This frees up classroom space at the high schools with a high interest in the post-AP offerings only available at TJ. |
+1 |
| It’s interesting. Edison HS is as “overenrolled” as WSHS. It’s closer to Lewis, it’s on the same side of the mixing bowl as Lewis, but the Lewis crowd is only obsessively fixated on West Springfield. |
There are two overcrowded schools in the McLean pyramid - Kent Gardens ES and McLean HS. The rest are not overcrowded. I think the market probably assumes that FCPS is rational and would not intentionally destroy one of its highest-performing pyramids. That assumption may be unwarranted. |
It seems more the converse: the West Springfield crowd is obsessively fixated on trying to exclude WSHS from any conversation relating to Lewis. The focus should be on why Lewis is severely under-capacity and what changes are needed to offer Lewis students opportunities comparable to those available to students at other schools. If West Springfield is part of the solution, so be it; if it is not, that's OK, too. |
I suspect the complaints are coming from Saratoga families, or those who bought those huge houses along the Ffx pkwy that are zoned for Lewis. The high school rating was the trade off of getting more house for less money. |
Quit trying to make fetch happen. |
Maybe some fetch needs to happen. |
>>> Then, when the enrollment went up more than expected, they built an addition at South Lakes, even when it wasn't scheduled for a full renovation. Now, South Lakes gets a large number of pupil placements for IB, including over 150 kids from Herndon. Nope... The Anti-redistricters predicted that they'd be way over-enrolled. They used FCPS numbers, counted the number of kids in the pre-redistricting ESes, and found something like 150 per class were missing from South Lakes. Answer - somehow all the Reston mummies and datties suddenly decided their houses were "too small" when it was time for little Johnny/Janey to go to Hughes/South Lakes... And Tisdadt told the "lady in red" that he simply didn't believe that the redistricted kids would show up. And... of course... the Astronaut mummies insisted that their kids stay at Herndon - because Herndon had "perfect demographics" yet somehow have decided to send their kids to South Lakes "for IB"... |
Sounds like some lingering resentment there. Be that as it may, if FCPS hadn’t intervened back in 2008 South Lakes would be about the same as Lewis now - much smaller enrollment, much higher poverty rate, and not attracting hundreds of pupil placements. |
+1 I suspect you're right. That would explain the weird fixation on WSHS. |