Boundaries assessment update 2023

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Instead of making this yet another IB vs. AP debate (they are both fine), let's get back to original topic. Yes making some IB schools AP would help. SB won't do jack because they don't want to stir up the pot. Parents-many in this forum-will freak out with boundary changes if it doesn't go their way. So what is the solution?

Distribute affordable housing across the county instead on concentrating it. Unless that happens, boundary adjustment will always be bitter and career ending for politicians

A politician who truly believes that a boundary adjustment is the right thing to do for the sake of equity, fiscal responsibility and any other good reason should have character enough to go through with it anyway.

The school board is supposed to exist for proper education and responsible use of facilities/resources, not as a stepping stone that ambitious politicians use to get to higher office.

You throw out that it should be done for the sake of "equity." How is this going to achieve "equity?" What do you think it will do?

2. So, you redistribute and get "equity" of demographics. What does this accomplish for the kids?

Maybe, just maybe, a politician will step forward who thinks we should educate our kids. To me, that would be "equity."

To me, equity is all about course offerings. All schools should have a student body that can support a robust STEM program along with strong humanities offerings. Currently we have schools that struggle to fill a single class with enough kids capable of taking certain advanced courses, or worse, the school doesn't even offer particular courses.

The findings and recommendations from the latest Career Pathways report and presentation are significant and unfortunately will be largely ignored by the SB and the community. The document showing enrollment of Career Pathway classes per school for 2021-22 demonstrates the inequalities that currently exist.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CM2JEP4CC430/$file/Career_Pathways_SBWS_%20Presentation.pdf
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CM2JEH4CC429/$file/High%20School%20Pathway%20Course%20Offerings%20by%20School%20SY%202021-22%20-%20High%20School%20(1).pdf

As a baseline, every school should be capable of offering and filling at least one full class of AP Computer Science A. Chantilly and Woodson have over 140 students enrolled in that class, while Mt. Vernon doesn't even offer IB Computer Science (they had a total of 26 kids enrolled in a regular 'Computer Science' elective.)
Similarly, every school should be capable of offering and filling AP Calculus BC. McLean had 133 kids enrolled in AP Calc BC, while Mt. Vernon had <10 enrolled in the equivalent IB Math A&A HL 2.

I'm not suggesting that we bus kids one way or the other. I'm only illustrating the very wide spectrum of course offerings and enrollment at our schools. The factor that boundaries play in creating this situation is not trivial.

How do you solve the issue without bussing? Do you think Mt. Vernon should offer post calc math like other schools even if only 10 kids are even taking HL 2 math? The places that you'd bus from for most of these schools barely have advanced cohorts themselves.

NP

I think 10 is enough, if people know it will be offered more students would stay and the class size would grow in future years.

This plus 10 is a great sized math class.

what if less than 10 is 2 students or 1 student? Should the class still be offered?

How about provide transportation to the students to take the class at another school, or establish an online cohort? We have the technology to provide such solutions.

They already do that.

Only to a limited extent. It's not an option for those families opting for pupil placement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instead of making this yet another IB vs. AP debate (they are both fine), let's get back to original topic. Yes making some IB schools AP would help. SB won't do jack because they don't want to stir up the pot. Parents-many in this forum-will freak out with boundary changes if it doesn't go their way. So what is the solution?

Distribute affordable housing across the county instead on concentrating it. Unless that happens, boundary adjustment will always be bitter and career ending for politicians

A politician who truly believes that a boundary adjustment is the right thing to do for the sake of equity, fiscal responsibility and any other good reason should have character enough to go through with it anyway.

The school board is supposed to exist for proper education and responsible use of facilities/resources, not as a stepping stone that ambitious politicians use to get to higher office.

You throw out that it should be done for the sake of "equity." How is this going to achieve "equity?" What do you think it will do?

2. So, you redistribute and get "equity" of demographics. What does this accomplish for the kids?

Maybe, just maybe, a politician will step forward who thinks we should educate our kids. To me, that would be "equity."

To me, equity is all about course offerings. All schools should have a student body that can support a robust STEM program along with strong humanities offerings. Currently we have schools that struggle to fill a single class with enough kids capable of taking certain advanced courses, or worse, the school doesn't even offer particular courses.

The findings and recommendations from the latest Career Pathways report and presentation are significant and unfortunately will be largely ignored by the SB and the community. The document showing enrollment of Career Pathway classes per school for 2021-22 demonstrates the inequalities that currently exist.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CM2JEP4CC430/$file/Career_Pathways_SBWS_%20Presentation.pdf
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CM2JEH4CC429/$file/High%20School%20Pathway%20Course%20Offerings%20by%20School%20SY%202021-22%20-%20High%20School%20(1).pdf

As a baseline, every school should be capable of offering and filling at least one full class of AP Computer Science A. Chantilly and Woodson have over 140 students enrolled in that class, while Mt. Vernon doesn't even offer IB Computer Science (they had a total of 26 kids enrolled in a regular 'Computer Science' elective.)
Similarly, every school should be capable of offering and filling AP Calculus BC. McLean had 133 kids enrolled in AP Calc BC, while Mt. Vernon had <10 enrolled in the equivalent IB Math A&A HL 2.

I'm not suggesting that we bus kids one way or the other. I'm only illustrating the very wide spectrum of course offerings and enrollment at our schools. The factor that boundaries play in creating this situation is not trivial.

How do you solve the issue without bussing? Do you think Mt. Vernon should offer post calc math like other schools even if only 10 kids are even taking HL 2 math? The places that you'd bus from for most of these schools barely have advanced cohorts themselves.

NP

I think 10 is enough, if people know it will be offered more students would stay and the class size would grow in future years.

This plus 10 is a great sized math class.

what if less than 10 is 2 students or 1 student? Should the class still be offered?

How about provide transportation to the students to take the class at another school, or establish an online cohort? We have the technology to provide such solutions.

They already do this. That’s why it is silly to not consider joining these schools more .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Posted 6 years ago (some of the info may now be dated, such as the comment on Latin or the numbers of pupil placements):

How Lee was changed by FCPS -

Step 1 - Early 2000's - Differentiate curriculums by putting in a program (IB) as a magnet and leaving AP at other schools.

Step 2 - Twice, in 2005 and 2015, take kids from the wealthiest elementary schools feeding Lee and move them to West Springfield.
- In 2005 the School Board could have moved Crestwood (a much poorer school) to West Springfield and left Hunt Valley students at Lee. Lee still would have been poorer than West Springfield, but the balance would have been better). Essentially, FCPS doubled down on poverty at Lee.

Step 3 - Drop languages from the curriculum at Lee (including Latin and Japanese; only Lee, Mt. Vernon, and Stuart do not offer Latin).

Step 4 - Have a liberal pupil placement policy in place that allows parents to easily avoid a school because of the different curriculums at the schools (as established by FCPS). Generally only non-F/R lunch families can take advantage of the pupil placement policy because of transportation and logistics issues associated with being poor. Putting in IB at Lee, as opposed to drawing families in, actually provided legal justification to leave. Lee loses over 150 students to pupil placement and I am sure very few of them qualify for F/R lunch. It also loses the vast majority of its pyramid AAP students.

It all spiraled downward from there to the point where military families (and other non-F/R lunch families) started avoiding Lee. Hence it gets poorer and poorer.

So which came first, people avoiding Lee, or FCPS changing Lee so that people started avoiding it? I'll admit Lee was never as wealthy as West Springfield, but now the gap is ridiculous.

I am not advocating boundary changes. That would not fly and would not work. At this point I just want them to replace IB with AP and stop the rise in the F/R lunch numbers. For example, don't build any affordable housing on the Springfield Town Center property (if and when they ever build any). The only other option would be to make Lee a complete magnet school like Jefferson (perhaps for the arts or IB). Not sure where they would put the kids who now attend Lee. By the way, from a taxpayer perspective, IB is twice as expensive as AP and only one school with IB achieved a 20% IB Diploma rate last year (Robinson). That means that even the best performing IB school saw 80% of its graduates not get the IB Diploma. FCPS should drop IB altogether. Just because we tried it does not mean we have to keep it.

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Since that post, the gap between West Springfield and Lewis has only gotten worse. In 2005 there was only a 150 student enrollment difference between them. Now it is close to 1000. And Lee was roughly 27% F/R lunch in 2005, now it is 63%. After the 2005 boundary change FCPS said Lee would only rise to roughly 30%, but it quickly flew past 40%. West Springfield is in the mid-teens. And honestly, the elephant in the room continues to be uncontrolled immigration. Unless that starts to impact the West Springfields, Madisons, or Langleys of this county, nothing will change.

Step 2: really stupid suggestion as HV is a tenn minute commute to WSHS using all back roads, and Crestview is double the commute.

There is one Saratoga poster that always brings up a 20 year old boundary change.

HV to LB or South County might have made sense. But HV at Lee never made sense.

Actually, Hannover Ave at Old Keene Mill Road near Crestwood is only 3 miles from West Springfield. Gambrill and the Fairfax County Parkway is 4 miles from West Springfield even going the backway. So distance is not an issue. Especially considering the county has no issue sending kids all the way from Great Falls at the Loudoun County border to Langley. The distance even from Great Falls Elementary to Langley is over 8 miles and that is not the furthest reaches of the Langley boundary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Hunt Valley/Orange Hunt/WSHS thing would be easy. 1) cut off HV south of the parkway and send those kids to Newington Forest. That gets them out of the WSHS pyramid entirely since Newington Forest goes to South County. Which is probably about the same distance as WSHS for those kids.

2) change overcrowded OH boundaries to send some kids to now under capacity HV. The schools are physically quite close to one another so you have plenty of options. Also in that area, a not insignificant number of families would elect to stay at OH for the German immersion program so you could likely pick up a larger section of OH’s current boundaries than you might think.

3) if possible, fix the Rolling Valley split feeder and send all the kids to Irving/WSHS if there is still capacity at WSHS.

Now OH and HV aren’t bursting at the seams and we’ve even done a little to fix overenrollment at WSHS. And no one is getting bussed down the parkway to the other side of 95 to do it.

How about fixing the Rolling Valley split feeder by sending the RV (split) students to Saratoga? They already go to Key and Lewis. Those split students will ride a bus to elementary school regardless if they are at RV or Saratoga. And Saratoga is close and has plenty of room. You can fix it at the lower level instead of the higher level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Hunt Valley/Orange Hunt/WSHS thing would be easy. 1) cut off HV south of the parkway and send those kids to Newington Forest. That gets them out of the WSHS pyramid entirely since Newington Forest goes to South County. Which is probably about the same distance as WSHS for those kids.

2) change overcrowded OH boundaries to send some kids to now under capacity HV. The schools are physically quite close to one another so you have plenty of options. Also in that area, a not insignificant number of families would elect to stay at OH for the German immersion program so you could likely pick up a larger section of OH’s current boundaries than you might think.

3) if possible, fix the Rolling Valley split feeder and send all the kids to Irving/WSHS if there is still capacity at WSHS.

Now OH and HV aren’t bursting at the seams and we’ve even done a little to fix overenrollment at WSHS. And no one is getting bussed down the parkway to the other side of 95 to do it.

How about fixing the Rolling Valley split feeder by sending the RV (split) students to Saratoga? They already go to Key and Lewis. Those split students will ride a bus to elementary school regardless if they are at RV or Saratoga. And Saratoga is close and has plenty of room. You can fix it at the lower level instead of the higher level.

Rolling Valley inside the parkway should ho to WSHS.

They are within walking distance of WSHS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Hunt Valley/Orange Hunt/WSHS thing would be easy. 1) cut off HV south of the parkway and send those kids to Newington Forest. That gets them out of the WSHS pyramid entirely since Newington Forest goes to South County. Which is probably about the same distance as WSHS for those kids.

2) change overcrowded OH boundaries to send some kids to now under capacity HV. The schools are physically quite close to one another so you have plenty of options. Also in that area, a not insignificant number of families would elect to stay at OH for the German immersion program so you could likely pick up a larger section of OH’s current boundaries than you might think.

3) if possible, fix the Rolling Valley split feeder and send all the kids to Irving/WSHS if there is still capacity at WSHS.

Now OH and HV aren’t bursting at the seams and we’ve even done a little to fix overenrollment at WSHS. And no one is getting bussed down the parkway to the other side of 95 to do it.

How about fixing the Rolling Valley split feeder by sending the RV (split) students to Saratoga? They already go to Key and Lewis. Those split students will ride a bus to elementary school regardless if they are at RV or Saratoga. And Saratoga is close and has plenty of room. You can fix it at the lower level instead of the higher level.

Rolling valley inside the parkway should stay at WSHS.

They are within walking distance of WSHS.

They are the 2nd closet elementary after Cardinal Forest to WSHS.

No rezoning should involve moving any houses from walkable to a bus ride.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Hunt Valley/Orange Hunt/WSHS thing would be easy. 1) cut off HV south of the parkway and send those kids to Newington Forest. That gets them out of the WSHS pyramid entirely since Newington Forest goes to South County. Which is probably about the same distance as WSHS for those kids.

2) change overcrowded OH boundaries to send some kids to now under capacity HV. The schools are physically quite close to one another so you have plenty of options. Also in that area, a not insignificant number of families would elect to stay at OH for the German immersion program so you could likely pick up a larger section of OH’s current boundaries than you might think.

3) if possible, fix the Rolling Valley split feeder and send all the kids to Irving/WSHS if there is still capacity at WSHS.

Now OH and HV aren’t bursting at the seams and we’ve even done a little to fix overenrollment at WSHS. And no one is getting bussed down the parkway to the other side of 95 to do it.

How about fixing the Rolling Valley split feeder by sending the RV (split) students to Saratoga? They already go to Key and Lewis. Those split students will ride a bus to elementary school regardless if they are at RV or Saratoga. And Saratoga is close and has plenty of room. You can fix it at the lower level instead of the higher level.

Rolling valley inside the parkway should stay at WSHS.

They are within walking distance of WSHS.

They are the 2nd closet elementary after Cardinal Forest to WSHS.

No rezoning should involve moving any houses from walkable to a bus ride.

The RV split feeder kids are pretty close to the parkway I think. It’s only basically 1 neighborhood anymore. It’s definitely not walkable to WSHS or Lewis for that matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Hunt Valley/Orange Hunt/WSHS thing would be easy. 1) cut off HV south of the parkway and send those kids to Newington Forest. That gets them out of the WSHS pyramid entirely since Newington Forest goes to South County. Which is probably about the same distance as WSHS for those kids.

2) change overcrowded OH boundaries to send some kids to now under capacity HV. The schools are physically quite close to one another so you have plenty of options. Also in that area, a not insignificant number of families would elect to stay at OH for the German immersion program so you could likely pick up a larger section of OH’s current boundaries than you might think.

3) if possible, fix the Rolling Valley split feeder and send all the kids to Irving/WSHS if there is still capacity at WSHS.

Now OH and HV aren’t bursting at the seams and we’ve even done a little to fix overenrollment at WSHS. And no one is getting bussed down the parkway to the other side of 95 to do it.

How about fixing the Rolling Valley split feeder by sending the RV (split) students to Saratoga? They already go to Key and Lewis. Those split students will ride a bus to elementary school regardless if they are at RV or Saratoga. And Saratoga is close and has plenty of room. You can fix it at the lower level instead of the higher level.

Rolling valley inside the parkway should stay at WSHS.

They are within walking distance of WSHS.

They are the 2nd closet elementary after Cardinal Forest to WSHS.

No rezoning should involve moving any houses from walkable to a bus ride.

None of the kids zoned to RV, Key, and Lewis are within walking distance of West Springfield HS. At least not a practical day after day walk. That is the very south end of the RV boundary. Many probably don't even walk to RV. Sure, you could walk to WSHS, but no parent is going to let that happen every day.

I don't actually expect the county to rezone those kids to Saratoga, just pointing out there is another way to close the split feeder.

I wouldn't be surprised if they do close the split feeder by moving those RV kids to WSHS. And further reducing the catchment area for Lewis. Why would they stop screwing Lewis now?

[Anonymous]

FCPS should communicate to Board of Supervisors which school districts can no longer handle any more high density housing developments and buildings. I assume right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing

[Anonymous]

I wish they would figure out Western High School lot as well. This is such a disservice to our community and would help with overcrowding as well as serve a population that has a high minority concentration. Feels like they don’t care about equity when they say it’s ok to raise your kids in an overcrowded school with high teacher:student ratio and less resources. We need this school project to be a priority. Then they’d get my vote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish they would figure out Western High School lot as well. This is such a disservice to our community and would help with overcrowding as well as serve a population that has a high minority concentration. Feels like they don’t care about equity when they say it’s ok to raise your kids in an overcrowded school with high teacher:student ratio and less resources. We need this school project to be a priority. Then they’d get my vote.

I don't think the student to teacher ratio is any worse at Chantilly than anywhere else. Staffing is based on the number of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish they would figure out Western High School lot as well. This is such a disservice to our community and would help with overcrowding as well as serve a population that has a high minority concentration. Feels like they don’t care about equity when they say it’s ok to raise your kids in an overcrowded school with high teacher:student ratio and less resources. We need this school project to be a priority. Then they’d get my vote.

I don't think the student to teacher ratio is any worse at Chantilly than anywhere else. Staffing is based on the number of students.

Staffing is also based on the demographics of students so the student-to-teacher ratios at Chantilly tend to be on the high end.

[Anonymous]

Came across this letter from 2019 - it's kind of sad because you have a loyal Democrat in the Mount Vernon district thinking somehow FCPS was going to adjust the West Potomac/Mount Vernon boundary to take advantage of capacity at MV and boost MV's academics and programs.

Didn't happen then, probably won't happen now. Especially since Corbett Sanders went right along with expanding West Potomac to 3000 seats.

http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2019/aug/12/opinion-letter-editor-get-involved-boundary-proces/

[Anonymous]

Lewis is so small now that it even makes practical sense to shut it down as a base school and use it for a specialized site like an expansive IAESP program. The Board and community have clearly shown they favor the 3000-student base HS model. In many ways it is more efficient and better for kids to attend large base schools than holding on to small schools.

Despite the overcrowding issues affecting our western schools, there has been zero interest or initiative in taking advantage of available capacity at under-enrolled schools anyway so it isn't a loss of a building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Came across this letter from 2019 - it's kind of sad because you have a loyal Democrat in the Mount Vernon district thinking somehow FCPS was going to adjust the West Potomac/Mount Vernon boundary to take advantage of capacity at MV and boost MV's academics and programs.

Didn't happen then, probably won't happen now. Especially since Corbett Sanders went right along with expanding West Potomac to 3000 seats.

http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2019/aug/12/opinion-letter-editor-get-involved-boundary-proces/

Poor thing.