FCPS Skyview Boundary Scenario 1/2/3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, there’s the merits and then there’s the process.

On the merits, you have Lees Corner close to Chantilly, but also closer to Westfield than other areas likely to get moved there. And then you have some Centreville areas that are further away from Westfield but also not as close to Centreville as Lees Corner is to Chantilly.

Unless they just plan to gut Westfield, someone has to move there if a large chunk of Westfield moves to Skyview, and it’s hard to say one area has a better argument than the other. They don’t have a clear flow chart in place that dictates the “right” result.

That’s when the process kicks in. In theory, the School Board hired a third-party consultant to make recommendations to Reid and for Reid to make recommendations to the School Board. When you have School Board members weighing in now, in the middle of the process, it looks like they are jumping the gun. And once a few members do this, the other members with potentially affected schools feel like they are stooges if they don’t also enter the fray, and we’re off to the races.

It happened during the county-wide review and now it’s happening again. I’d argue that it’s a significant enough break-down in how they should be approaching major decisions that the current School Board should be replaced next year, with the next School Board firing Reid after being sworn in. Any boundary process will be controversial, but they repeatedly take challenging situations and make them worse.

I agree with this entire post. Especially regarding the process and SB members butting in and disrupting the established process. We are paying these consultants I assume a lot of money to come up with objective, reasonable approaches. Almost all of the proposed HS boundaries in their three proposed scenarios made logical sense from an unbiased birds eye view. (ES and MS not so much, but now ES is off the table.)

But, I would add, the one rabid Lees Corner parent who sits on this thread all day and night screeching at people is not doing her neighborhood any favors. I am pretty much rooting for them to get moved at this point just to p!ss her off. The rest of the many posters can't even have a discussion without her jumping in with her crazy exaggerations and nonsense.

What makes you think this consultant knew what they were doing? Speaking from my neighborhood, they took a small portion of our elementary school boundary and took them out of the rest of their neighborhood which currently is in the elementary school. Really stupid move. So, no, I don't think these people were objective or experts.

But, people are mistaken if they think the School Board members are out of line. Perhaps, they should not have been so vocal, but the decision is THEIRS. At least, it always has been in the past. (Ask me how I know? I've been involved in three boundary discussions.) They vote on it.

And, it does not make any sense to take kids who are five minutes from the school and send them 20 to 30 minutes away. If any Centreville students are five minutes from Centreville and being sent 20 to 30 minutes away, that also does not make sense. I don't think that is the case, but, if it is, please feel free to post the details here.

You presumably like what Dixit and McDaniel are doing, so you give them flowers. No surprise there.

But your logic is flawed. No one denies that the School Board makes the final decisions about boundaries. But when they commit in advance to a process where a third-party consultant is supposed to work with Reid to come up with recommendations to provide to the School Board, and School Board members interject themselves in the middle of the process, they are making a hash of things and corrupting an agreed-upon process to set boundaries. The School Board members who didn't jump in and were prepared to let the process work as intended then feel like they have no alternative but to start weighing in as well. And it also creates the impression that Dixit and McDaniel were doing the bidding of the community members who yelled the loudest.

That's just what they did.
and Reid! Who caved to Walney Oaks with literally no discussion or analysis.

How do we know they caved? Did they?

McDaniel and Dixit both sent emails this week saying Lees Corner won't be moved.
Reid told Walney Oaks at a meeting that she promised she wouldn't move them (are they in any of the three scenarios)?

The Lee's Corner move was a non starter for anyone familiar with the area.

Chantilly's senior class this year is huge. The other classes are smaller and losing Oak Hill and the Cub Run people should be sufficient. I've no idea what the Walney Oaks folks did, but looking at the map, it does seem logical to send them to Westfield. But, if they are at Brookfield, I guess that could play into it.

Westfield has lots of new construction and it is continuing. I've no idea which neighborhoods should go there, but it is for sure not Lee's Corner. Bull Run does share boundaries with other Westfield elementary schools. Lee's Corner does not and would not. Perhaps, Bull Run should be a split feeder.

[Anonymous]

All of Bull Run, Cub Run, and slice into Western Chantilly and you get Westfield to 2,300 right away. New construction gets it to 2,500 in a few years and then you can consider the building fairly full.
Westfield probably comes out of this looking good. Becomes more of a community school with a contiguous boundary and pickups a couple nice neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The original opt in, opt out plan was designed because of the lack of sports and electives into the second year. The admin team has said at many of the meetings that if they have close to 1,000 kids in the initial classes that they will have sports in the second year, with the exception of varsity football for safety purposes. That could change the opt out option in the second year but we don't know.

And with opt out, you are more likely to be in the minority staying at your base school. More families are not going to read the emails and end up at Skyview then read their email and chose to opt out. If transportation is provided to Skyview and not the old school, fewer kids are going to opt out of Skyview. It won't be like this year were there were more reasons to stay at the base school. There are going to fully running clubs, there is a list 30 clubs at the moment, sports, full freshman academics, and transportation.

We have no way of knowing now how many families will opt out of Skyview if they have an option. It depends largely on how the boundaries are drawn, how many students within the boundary have older siblings at other schools, and how Skyview functions in its first year. The new staff seems dedicated, but the roll-out has been chaotic; FCPS has not met its enrollment targets; and FCPS may be faced with a difficult decision to cut back on what Skyview offers or, conversely, spend far more per student at Skyview than at other schools and face criticism for that decision.

450 ninth graders opted in this year before they opened enrollment up to kids outside of the 5 schools. Do you really think that there is going to be a large number of people opting out next year? They have 800 kids enrolled at Skyview and have been upfront that they cannot offer as many electives the first year because they won't have the student numbers for some electives. That said, they mainly need electives that are available to freshman and sophomores so they don't need a full slate of electives. There will be more options in the second year because they will have 400-500 more kids.

I think it is safe to say that there are a good number of parents who don't pay attention to the school emails and will not be opting out simply because they don't read their emails. There have been parents asking about opt-in options from the 5 original schools targeted since March 1 because they never looked at the emails.

With a brand new school, a year under it's belt, an enthusiastic staff, and sports I suspect you will find more people wanting to attend Skyview. And there will be people who send their kids because it means they have transportation even if they would slightly prefer the old school. Does it really matter that your kids are at the same school if you end up having to drive one to school for 2-3 years because they are being pupil placed and transportation for your neighborhood no longer exists?

The kids opting out will be in the minority. They want to be at school with their friends and it will be more convenient for most families. And it is shiny and new.

Shiny and new doesn’t matter to people as much as whether a school can offer what a family wants, compared to the available alternatives. The verdict is still out on what the Skyview experience will look like in a year. Limited electives might not matter much at a middle school, but that will be a bigger concern at a high school.

I agree there will be plenty of families in boundary for Skyview who’ll ignore school communications so their kids will end up there by default. Others will pay more attention.

I suppose people whose kids are taking obscure electives and AP classes will try to place at another school, but there aren't as many of those as you think.

It will all sort out in about five years, but the way they've gone about opening Skyview creates risks that wouldn't exist if they'd gone the traditional route of setting boundaries, opening with two classes assigned to the school, and only having an "opt in" option for juniors. Westfield and South County opened with substantially more than 800 kids.

What you consider an "obscure" elective might be a deal-breaker for some kids if not available. And sophomores at many schools take AP classes that may not even be offered at Skyview for years.

In year 2, Skyview will be full.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Scenario 2 doesn’t seem that horrible at all at the HS level.
Could some of the middle school boundaries be adjusted to make more sense? For example, u don’t understand why they would reassign the neighborhood (Dogwood?) that is currently Hughes/SL to RCMS when they’d still be at SLHS.
And then Oak Hill could be RCMS/Skyview.

Oh look, here's "Everyone wants Scenario 2" lady. She's been quiet for a few days, but popped back up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And then Oak Hill could be RCMS/Skyview.

Yeah, although a good portion of Oak Hill walks to Franklin, can see it from their houses.

And, if it weren't for traffic, a good portion could walk to Carson.

The walk from Chantilly Highlands to Carson is very different than the one road Franklin Farm kids have to cross to get to Franklin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The original opt in, opt out plan was designed because of the lack of sports and electives into the second year. The admin team has said at many of the meetings that if they have close to 1,000 kids in the initial classes that they will have sports in the second year, with the exception of varsity football for safety purposes. That could change the opt out option in the second year but we don't know.

And with opt out, you are more likely to be in the minority staying at your base school. More families are not going to read the emails and end up at Skyview then read their email and chose to opt out. If transportation is provided to Skyview and not the old school, fewer kids are going to opt out of Skyview. It won't be like this year were there were more reasons to stay at the base school. There are going to fully running clubs, there is a list 30 clubs at the moment, sports, full freshman academics, and transportation.

We have no way of knowing now how many families will opt out of Skyview if they have an option. It depends largely on how the boundaries are drawn, how many students within the boundary have older siblings at other schools, and how Skyview functions in its first year. The new staff seems dedicated, but the roll-out has been chaotic; FCPS has not met its enrollment targets; and FCPS may be faced with a difficult decision to cut back on what Skyview offers or, conversely, spend far more per student at Skyview than at other schools and face criticism for that decision.

450 ninth graders opted in this year before they opened enrollment up to kids outside of the 5 schools. Do you really think that there is going to be a large number of people opting out next year? They have 800 kids enrolled at Skyview and have been upfront that they cannot offer as many electives the first year because they won't have the student numbers for some electives. That said, they mainly need electives that are available to freshman and sophomores so they don't need a full slate of electives. There will be more options in the second year because they will have 400-500 more kids.

I think it is safe to say that there are a good number of parents who don't pay attention to the school emails and will not be opting out simply because they don't read their emails. There have been parents asking about opt-in options from the 5 original schools targeted since March 1 because they never looked at the emails.

With a brand new school, a year under it's belt, an enthusiastic staff, and sports I suspect you will find more people wanting to attend Skyview. And there will be people who send their kids because it means they have transportation even if they would slightly prefer the old school. Does it really matter that your kids are at the same school if you end up having to drive one to school for 2-3 years because they are being pupil placed and transportation for your neighborhood no longer exists?

The kids opting out will be in the minority. They want to be at school with their friends and it will be more convenient for most families. And it is shiny and new.

Shiny and new doesn’t matter to people as much as whether a school can offer what a family wants, compared to the available alternatives. The verdict is still out on what the Skyview experience will look like in a year. Limited electives might not matter much at a middle school, but that will be a bigger concern at a high school.

I agree there will be plenty of families in boundary for Skyview who’ll ignore school communications so their kids will end up there by default. Others will pay more attention.

I suppose people whose kids are taking obscure electives and AP classes will try to place at another school, but there aren't as many of those as you think.

It will all sort out in about five years, but the way they've gone about opening Skyview creates risks that wouldn't exist if they'd gone the traditional route of setting boundaries, opening with two classes assigned to the school, and only having an "opt in" option for juniors. Westfield and South County opened with substantially more than 800 kids.

What you consider an "obscure" elective might be a deal-breaker for some kids if not available. And sophomores at many schools take AP classes that may not even be offered at Skyview for years.

In year 2, Skyview will be full.

In year two, Skyview won’t even be built out to full capacity or have four classes, and its junior class will be small. So, no, it won’t be full.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A recent Melanie Meren post:

"The Crossfield ES community celebrated the official completion of the school renovation that began in 2023! While there for the ribbon cutting, I remembered being in the Crossfield cafeteria many years ago and hearing parents’ questions about how the process would unfold. Principal Mark Granieri remarked today that the renovation went very smoothly, and I was so glad to hear that. While I thank our FCPS facilities and design teams, I do want the school division to shorten the amount of time it takes for a renovation.

While the darling musical performance by kindergarten students brought a smile to my face on the sunny day, for me, the event was overshadowed by the distress I’ve heard from many Crossfield ES families about the Superintendent’s proposed boundary scenarios for Skyview HS that would impact this elementary school. Like many residents, I believe that people who’ve participated in months of boundary-related community meetings in good faith feel they’ve been blindsided by the Superintendent’s recommendations that for this school in particular, create new split feeders. This has caused unnecessary distress. Approaching proposals for boundaries cannot be done cavalierly.

I appreciate the Superintendent changing course quickly and halting boundary work at elementary schools, allowing them to remain in place for the next five years. Thank you to everyone who showed up and spoke up."

Meren represents Hunter Mill. She not only allowed, but facilitated, the last-minute creation of a new Kilmer/Marshall attendance island in Hunter Mill near Reston that separates one group of Kilmer/Marshall families from all the other families at those schools. She has little credibility when it comes to acting in good faith or not approaching boundaries cavalierly. Everything she does is based on "what's best for me" and "where are the most votes." No one involved in the current Skyview discussions should indulge in the fiction that she'll act any differently this time.

I am not going to vote for her next time.

She says nice things to Crossfield families, but she has very much been promoting moving them to Skyview behind the scenes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McDaniel:

Based on the feedback from the Lees Corner community, it is our expectation that Lees Corner remains within the Chantilly High School pyramid.

Can he and Dixit unilaterally decide that LC is not moving? Based on the feedback?

This is worse than the RIO situation.

No, it's not. RIO has no legs to stand on. Some Lees Corner families are less than a block away from Chantilly. It's absurd to move them to Westfield.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McDaniel:

Based on the feedback from the Lees Corner community, it is our expectation that Lees Corner remains within the Chantilly High School pyramid.

Can he and Dixit unilaterally decide that LC is not moving? Based on the feedback?

This is worse than the RIO situation.

The school board makes the final decision. And, no, this is not like RIO at all. Lees Corner has valid reasons to object that are based in reality, not emotion. They would not be in the mix but for RIO.

Its exactly the same situation as RIO.

No it's not. No one from Crossfield can walk to Oakton. They have zero justification to stay at Oakton. No kid can walk home after sports practice from Oakton to Franklin Farm, LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of Bull Run, Cub Run, and slice into Western Chantilly and you get Westfield to 2,300 right away. New construction gets it to 2,500 in a few years and then you can consider the building fairly full.
Westfield probably comes out of this looking good. Becomes more of a community school with a contiguous boundary and pickups a couple nice neighborhoods.

The only nice area it picks up in your scenario is that small part of Cub Run, which is very few students. Bull Run has a very high FARMs rate--pulling them out of CVHS will make CVHS much wealthier school. I think FCPS needs to be careful with Westfield's numbers on that. Its not fair to have Westfield increase to 50% FARMS or more and Chantilly next door at 12%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The original opt in, opt out plan was designed because of the lack of sports and electives into the second year. The admin team has said at many of the meetings that if they have close to 1,000 kids in the initial classes that they will have sports in the second year, with the exception of varsity football for safety purposes. That could change the opt out option in the second year but we don't know.

And with opt out, you are more likely to be in the minority staying at your base school. More families are not going to read the emails and end up at Skyview then read their email and chose to opt out. If transportation is provided to Skyview and not the old school, fewer kids are going to opt out of Skyview. It won't be like this year were there were more reasons to stay at the base school. There are going to fully running clubs, there is a list 30 clubs at the moment, sports, full freshman academics, and transportation.

We have no way of knowing now how many families will opt out of Skyview if they have an option. It depends largely on how the boundaries are drawn, how many students within the boundary have older siblings at other schools, and how Skyview functions in its first year. The new staff seems dedicated, but the roll-out has been chaotic; FCPS has not met its enrollment targets; and FCPS may be faced with a difficult decision to cut back on what Skyview offers or, conversely, spend far more per student at Skyview than at other schools and face criticism for that decision.

450 ninth graders opted in this year before they opened enrollment up to kids outside of the 5 schools. Do you really think that there is going to be a large number of people opting out next year? They have 800 kids enrolled at Skyview and have been upfront that they cannot offer as many electives the first year because they won't have the student numbers for some electives. That said, they mainly need electives that are available to freshman and sophomores so they don't need a full slate of electives. There will be more options in the second year because they will have 400-500 more kids.

I think it is safe to say that there are a good number of parents who don't pay attention to the school emails and will not be opting out simply because they don't read their emails. There have been parents asking about opt-in options from the 5 original schools targeted since March 1 because they never looked at the emails.

With a brand new school, a year under it's belt, an enthusiastic staff, and sports I suspect you will find more people wanting to attend Skyview. And there will be people who send their kids because it means they have transportation even if they would slightly prefer the old school. Does it really matter that your kids are at the same school if you end up having to drive one to school for 2-3 years because they are being pupil placed and transportation for your neighborhood no longer exists?

The kids opting out will be in the minority. They want to be at school with their friends and it will be more convenient for most families. And it is shiny and new.

Shiny and new doesn’t matter to people as much as whether a school can offer what a family wants, compared to the available alternatives. The verdict is still out on what the Skyview experience will look like in a year. Limited electives might not matter much at a middle school, but that will be a bigger concern at a high school.

I agree there will be plenty of families in boundary for Skyview who’ll ignore school communications so their kids will end up there by default. Others will pay more attention.

And the likelihood is that the kid will decide it is more important to go to school with their friends from ES and MS then take an obscure elective some point in time down the line. Especially if the kid is coming from a HS that offers said elective and it is popular. Skyview listened to the FMES families that were asking about Japanese and are offering Japanese at the school. There are enough 9th graders to have a Japanese 3 class. If there is an elective that is popular at Chantilly, that is not one of the Academy electives, let the Admin team know that you are interested. If enough people are and enough kids put it on their class list when they should be taking it, they will try and make it work. I know people from FMES that got phone calls from the Admin team at Skyview to talk to them about Japanese and what other classes parents wanted to make sure were there.

This is great news about Japanese.

Why are we catering to a school that we don't even now is going to be zoned to Skyview?? That's so bizarre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Highland Oaks has been proposed to move from Chantilly to Oakton. Does anyone think that makes sense? They are also in walking distance of Chantilly.

I live in Highland Oaks and I’d prefer to stick with the rest of the ES community, whether it’s feeding into Chantilly or Oakton. I don’t care, they’re both great schools. It’s sad that 90% of Navy goes to Oakton except for this little sliver of communities off of RT 50.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McDaniel:

Based on the feedback from the Lees Corner community, it is our expectation that Lees Corner remains within the Chantilly High School pyramid.

Can he and Dixit unilaterally decide that LC is not moving? Based on the feedback?

This is worse than the RIO situation.

The school board makes the final decision. And, no, this is not like RIO at all. Lees Corner has valid reasons to object that are based in reality, not emotion. They would not be in the mix but for RIO.

Its exactly the same situation as RIO.

Literally *exactly the same*.
Two different, completely unbiased groups of consultants proposed that it made sense to move these two wealthy, well-connected neighborhoods of single family homes to schools they were very close by that needed seats filled. Residents of both neighborhoods had enormous tantrums and extracted special promises and special treatment from FCPS political hacks.

If you don't see how these situations are absolutely identical, then you must be seriously low IQ.

We can't take anyone that quotes Donald Trump in their insults seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It will be incredibly racist and classist if the poor, minority-heavy Bull Run ES neighborhoods that also don't want to move high schools do not get treated the same as the Lees Corner/RIO tantrummers.

Is Bull Run ES walkable to the high school they are currently zoned to? Lees Corner and Crossfield are very different. Nobody has come out and said "we're not moving Crossfield", have they? Nope, it's still an option. Because their reason for not moving is stupid. Lees Corner's reason makes perfect sense. Also I believe that Lees Corner is not particularly wealthy or white..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Bull Run, Cub Run, and slice into Western Chantilly and you get Westfield to 2,300 right away. New construction gets it to 2,500 in a few years and then you can consider the building fairly full.
Westfield probably comes out of this looking good. Becomes more of a community school with a contiguous boundary and pickups a couple nice neighborhoods.

The only nice area it picks up in your scenario is that small part of Cub Run, which is very few students. Bull Run has a very high FARMs rate--pulling them out of CVHS will make CVHS much wealthier school. I think FCPS needs to be careful with Westfield's numbers on that. Its not fair to have Westfield increase to 50% FARMS or more and Chantilly next door at 12%.

I think the suggested move of LC was an attempt to try to balance Westfield out more, since its a much, much wealthier area than basically all of the other Westfield ESes.