FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

I’ve already wrote letters to board members.
Again you are failing to address my point, so I will repeat it. The school board is not a business. They represent their individual constituencies. They are a part of the community. They have stated repeatedly that they put student mental health and building strong relationships as the key to a solid education.
There is no way to reconcile those points with the lack of grandfathering. They put in the policy. It is hypocracy at its finest. I do not trust people who have show that they
1 lie and say the boundary revision policy was only a new policy- not that they are going to use it, just they they rewrote it. Clearly they are using it immediately.
2- hired a company to redo the boundaries with little transparency into the process
3- didn’t even THINK about the grandfathering clause until the day of the votes.
4 think 6 grade can magically be placed into over crowded middle schools
5- think they have enough money for public Prek when they can’t pay for buses


So if you want to naively carry on about “necessary adjustments” while trusting this board to do it- feel free. They have told me all I need to know about themselves and how they go about making decisions. If their public policy is to take care of student mental health and they then stomp on the first foundations of that (providing stability) for those same students they clearly don’t want to be taken at their word.

It sounds to me like you are taking a pretty narrow view of child mental health.

It is completely understandable for one to fear change and the unknown when the status quo is working well for one’s kids. Be mindful, however, that there are also many parents in other schools who feel like the status quo is not working well for their kids. These are kids who take nearly all their classes in trailers where the A/C routinely fails during the summer months, leaving them to try to learn in a 90 degree heat. These are skids in classrooms with 40 other kids who receive little or no individual attention. These are kids in classrooms where teachers have no space to move other disruptive kids who make learning difficult for everyone else. These are challenges the County needs to somehow address.

Comprehensive grandfathering to ensure “friends can remain with all their friends” also equates to grandfathering of the unacceptable status quo in other schools. By arguing for grandfathering, one is effectively suggesting that children who have endured unsatisfactory learning conditions for two years should have to continue endure those conditions for another two years so your kids can remain in classes with their current friends. Again, it is completely understandable to want what is best for one own’s kids, just recognize that the status quo is detrimental to other kids, and FCPS must consider their mental health too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are the boundary consultants going to suggest a site for the new High Scholol?

Nope. That’s dead in the water, but they keep up the fiction for some reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

Please give specifics on how some kids currently failing will be better off? Because it sounds like the school board really just wants the averages to go up without actually helping kids in need.
-dp

DP. Some students may be better off if their school can offer more advanced classes or more instances of those classes.

If kids are failing general ed classes how would they do better with the school offering more advanced classes?

Sorry, read that as failing schools. But that point still stands.

As for failing students. Some you will never get through to and they could be at any school. They just don't care and aren't going to try.

It is really the borderline cases where there could be a difference where more positive role model students could make a difference. And where perhaps not having all the more difficult students concentrated in the same schools would ease the burden on staff and free up time to help those kids who might do better.

Certainly having a very poor and small Lewis next to considerably wealthier and larger West Springfield is going to work out much better for one group of students than the other.

But fine, let's just keep everything as it is.

No, the point does not still stand. Putting hundreds of UMC kids into Lewis from WSHS will not help the poor ELL students currently at Lewis. It doesn't even help the UMC kids currently at Lewis. The only thing it helps is FCPS and the school board to not look as bad on paper because having more UMC kids will bring up the average test scores and metrics. UMC kids are being used as cover because adults are bad at their jobs.

When they moved Daventry to West Springfield the West Springfield principal said he was happy to get more students because he could keep more classes and staff. That means the school losing those students, Lee, would have fewer classes. And Lee was already smaller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

I’ve already wrote letters to board members.
Again you are failing to address my point, so I will repeat it. The school board is not a business. They represent their individual constituencies. They are a part of the community. They have stated repeatedly that they put student mental health and building strong relationships as the key to a solid education.
There is no way to reconcile those points with the lack of grandfathering. They put in the policy. It is hypocracy at its finest. I do not trust people who have show that they
1 lie and say the boundary revision policy was only a new policy- not that they are going to use it, just they they rewrote it. Clearly they are using it immediately.
2- hired a company to redo the boundaries with little transparency into the process
3- didn’t even THINK about the grandfathering clause until the day of the votes.
4 think 6 grade can magically be placed into over crowded middle schools
5- think they have enough money for public Prek when they can’t pay for buses


So if you want to naively carry on about “necessary adjustments” while trusting this board to do it- feel free. They have told me all I need to know about themselves and how they go about making decisions. If their public policy is to take care of student mental health and they then stomp on the first foundations of that (providing stability) for those same students they clearly don’t want to be taken at their word.

It sounds to me like you are taking a pretty narrow view of child mental health.

It is completely understandable for one to fear change and the unknown when the status quo is working well for one’s kids. Be mindful, however, that there are also many parents in other schools who feel like the status quo is not working well for their kids. These are kids who take nearly all their classes in trailers where the A/C routinely fails during the summer months, leaving them to try to learn in a 90 degree heat. These are skids in classrooms with 40 other kids who receive little or no individual attention. These are kids in classrooms where teachers have no space to move other disruptive kids who make learning difficult for everyone else. These are challenges the County needs to somehow address.

Comprehensive grandfathering to ensure “friends can remain with all their friends” also equates to grandfathering of the unacceptable status quo in other schools. By arguing for grandfathering, one is effectively suggesting that children who have endured unsatisfactory learning conditions for two years should have to continue endure those conditions for another two years so your kids can remain in classes with their current friends. Again, it is completely understandable to want what is best for one own’s kids, just recognize that the status quo is detrimental to other kids, and FCPS must consider their mental health too.

What a paternalistic view you have.

Anything else you want to force my kids to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

I’ve already wrote letters to board members.
Again you are failing to address my point, so I will repeat it. The school board is not a business. They represent their individual constituencies. They are a part of the community. They have stated repeatedly that they put student mental health and building strong relationships as the key to a solid education.
There is no way to reconcile those points with the lack of grandfathering. They put in the policy. It is hypocracy at its finest. I do not trust people who have show that they
1 lie and say the boundary revision policy was only a new policy- not that they are going to use it, just they they rewrote it. Clearly they are using it immediately.
2- hired a company to redo the boundaries with little transparency into the process
3- didn’t even THINK about the grandfathering clause until the day of the votes.
4 think 6 grade can magically be placed into over crowded middle schools
5- think they have enough money for public Prek when they can’t pay for buses


So if you want to naively carry on about “necessary adjustments” while trusting this board to do it- feel free. They have told me all I need to know about themselves and how they go about making decisions. If their public policy is to take care of student mental health and they then stomp on the first foundations of that (providing stability) for those same students they clearly don’t want to be taken at their word.

It sounds to me like you are taking a pretty narrow view of child mental health.

It is completely understandable for one to fear change and the unknown when the status quo is working well for one’s kids. Be mindful, however, that there are also many parents in other schools who feel like the status quo is not working well for their kids. These are kids who take nearly all their classes in trailers where the A/C routinely fails during the summer months, leaving them to try to learn in a 90 degree heat. These are skids in classrooms with 40 other kids who receive little or no individual attention. These are kids in classrooms where teachers have no space to move other disruptive kids who make learning difficult for everyone else. These are challenges the County needs to somehow address.

Comprehensive grandfathering to ensure “friends can remain with all their friends” also equates to grandfathering of the unacceptable status quo in other schools. By arguing for grandfathering, one is effectively suggesting that children who have endured unsatisfactory learning conditions for two years should have to continue endure those conditions for another two years so your kids can remain in classes with their current friends. Again, it is completely understandable to want what is best for one own’s kids, just recognize that the status quo is detrimental to other kids, and FCPS must consider their mental health too.

What a paternalistic view you have.

Anything else you want to force my kids to do?

DP. It is FCPS’s and the school board’s responsibility to look out for the needs of all children (in the aggregate). That may be paternalistic, but that is the job. It is why FCPS exists and why the school board exists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

I’ve already wrote letters to board members.
Again you are failing to address my point, so I will repeat it. The school board is not a business. They represent their individual constituencies. They are a part of the community. They have stated repeatedly that they put student mental health and building strong relationships as the key to a solid education.
There is no way to reconcile those points with the lack of grandfathering. They put in the policy. It is hypocracy at its finest. I do not trust people who have show that they
1 lie and say the boundary revision policy was only a new policy- not that they are going to use it, just they they rewrote it. Clearly they are using it immediately.
2- hired a company to redo the boundaries with little transparency into the process
3- didn’t even THINK about the grandfathering clause until the day of the votes.
4 think 6 grade can magically be placed into over crowded middle schools
5- think they have enough money for public Prek when they can’t pay for buses


So if you want to naively carry on about “necessary adjustments” while trusting this board to do it- feel free. They have told me all I need to know about themselves and how they go about making decisions. If their public policy is to take care of student mental health and they then stomp on the first foundations of that (providing stability) for those same students they clearly don’t want to be taken at their word.

It sounds to me like you are taking a pretty narrow view of child mental health.

It is completely understandable for one to fear change and the unknown when the status quo is working well for one’s kids. Be mindful, however, that there are also many parents in other schools who feel like the status quo is not working well for their kids. These are kids who take nearly all their classes in trailers where the A/C routinely fails during the summer months, leaving them to try to learn in a 90 degree heat. These are skids in classrooms with 40 other kids who receive little or no individual attention. These are kids in classrooms where teachers have no space to move other disruptive kids who make learning difficult for everyone else. These are challenges the County needs to somehow address.

Comprehensive grandfathering to ensure “friends can remain with all their friends” also equates to grandfathering of the unacceptable status quo in other schools. By arguing for grandfathering, one is effectively suggesting that children who have endured unsatisfactory learning conditions for two years should have to continue endure those conditions for another two years so your kids can remain in classes with their current friends. Again, it is completely understandable to want what is best for one own’s kids, just recognize that the status quo is detrimental to other kids, and FCPS must consider their mental health too.

What a paternalistic view you have.

Anything else you want to force my kids to do?

DP. It is FCPS’s and the school board’s responsibility to look out for the needs of all children (in the aggregate). That may be paternalistic, but that is the job. It is why FCPS exists and why the school board exists.

I didn’t realize I was corresponding with a school board member.

The school board isn’t looking out for the needs of all children, just trying to bring up a few aggregate test scores using county kids as their resource. Actually the opposite of what you said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are the boundary consultants going to suggest a site for the new High Scholol?

The proposed new western high school should be in a walkable neighborhood to cut down on bussing. A remote location in some industrial or business park like that of Westfield High School would be most unfortunate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

Please give specifics on how some kids currently failing will be better off? Because it sounds like the school board really just wants the averages to go up without actually helping kids in need.
-dp

DP. Some students may be better off if their school can offer more advanced classes or more instances of those classes.

If kids are failing general ed classes how would they do better with the school offering more advanced classes?

Sorry, read that as failing schools. But that point still stands.

As for failing students. Some you will never get through to and they could be at any school. They just don't care and aren't going to try.

It is really the borderline cases where there could be a difference where more positive role model students could make a difference. And where perhaps not having all the more difficult students concentrated in the same schools would ease the burden on staff and free up time to help those kids who might do better.

Certainly having a very poor and small Lewis next to considerably wealthier and larger West Springfield is going to work out much better for one group of students than the other.

But fine, let's just keep everything as it is.

No, the point does not still stand. Putting hundreds of UMC kids into Lewis from WSHS will not help the poor ELL students currently at Lewis. It doesn't even help the UMC kids currently at Lewis. The only thing it helps is FCPS and the school board to not look as bad on paper because having more UMC kids will bring up the average test scores and metrics. UMC kids are being used as cover because adults are bad at their jobs.

When they moved Daventry to West Springfield the West Springfield principal said he was happy to get more students because he could keep more classes and staff. That means the school losing those students, Lee, would have fewer classes. And Lee was already smaller.

WSHS is not Lewis. Saying you want to keep more classes and staff at a solid school is not the same as what is happening at Lewis.

The majority of the kids are failing, thus the school is failing. Pouring UMC kids into a failing school will not fix the failing kids. They will continue to fail but in this instance, FCPS can go on to look better on paper, especially after they implement the new criteria for school accreditation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

I’ve already wrote letters to board members.
Again you are failing to address my point, so I will repeat it. The school board is not a business. They represent their individual constituencies. They are a part of the community. They have stated repeatedly that they put student mental health and building strong relationships as the key to a solid education.
There is no way to reconcile those points with the lack of grandfathering. They put in the policy. It is hypocracy at its finest. I do not trust people who have show that they
1 lie and say the boundary revision policy was only a new policy- not that they are going to use it, just they they rewrote it. Clearly they are using it immediately.
2- hired a company to redo the boundaries with little transparency into the process
3- didn’t even THINK about the grandfathering clause until the day of the votes.
4 think 6 grade can magically be placed into over crowded middle schools
5- think they have enough money for public Prek when they can’t pay for buses


So if you want to naively carry on about “necessary adjustments” while trusting this board to do it- feel free. They have told me all I need to know about themselves and how they go about making decisions. If their public policy is to take care of student mental health and they then stomp on the first foundations of that (providing stability) for those same students they clearly don’t want to be taken at their word.

It sounds to me like you are taking a pretty narrow view of child mental health.

It is completely understandable for one to fear change and the unknown when the status quo is working well for one’s kids. Be mindful, however, that there are also many parents in other schools who feel like the status quo is not working well for their kids. These are kids who take nearly all their classes in trailers where the A/C routinely fails during the summer months, leaving them to try to learn in a 90 degree heat. These are skids in classrooms with 40 other kids who receive little or no individual attention. These are kids in classrooms where teachers have no space to move other disruptive kids who make learning difficult for everyone else. These are challenges the County needs to somehow address.

Comprehensive grandfathering to ensure “friends can remain with all their friends” also equates to grandfathering of the unacceptable status quo in other schools. By arguing for grandfathering, one is effectively suggesting that children who have endured unsatisfactory learning conditions for two years should have to continue endure those conditions for another two years so your kids can remain in classes with their current friends. Again, it is completely understandable to want what is best for one own’s kids, just recognize that the status quo is detrimental to other kids, and FCPS must consider their mental health too.

What a paternalistic view you have.

Anything else you want to force my kids to do?

DP. It is FCPS’s and the school board’s responsibility to look out for the needs of all children (in the aggregate). That may be paternalistic, but that is the job. It is why FCPS exists and why the school board exists.

I didn’t realize I was corresponding with a school board member.

The school board isn’t looking out for the needs of all children, just trying to bring up a few aggregate test scores using county kids as their resource. Actually the opposite of what you said.

+1 they are only looking out for a certain type of student. The rest "will be fine."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

Please give specifics on how some kids currently failing will be better off? Because it sounds like the school board really just wants the averages to go up without actually helping kids in need.
-dp

DP. Some students may be better off if their school can offer more advanced classes or more instances of those classes.

If kids are failing general ed classes how would they do better with the school offering more advanced classes?

Sorry, read that as failing schools. But that point still stands.

As for failing students. Some you will never get through to and they could be at any school. They just don't care and aren't going to try.

It is really the borderline cases where there could be a difference where more positive role model students could make a difference. And where perhaps not having all the more difficult students concentrated in the same schools would ease the burden on staff and free up time to help those kids who might do better.

Certainly having a very poor and small Lewis next to considerably wealthier and larger West Springfield is going to work out much better for one group of students than the other.

But fine, let's just keep everything as it is.

No, the point does not still stand. Putting hundreds of UMC kids into Lewis from WSHS will not help the poor ELL students currently at Lewis. It doesn't even help the UMC kids currently at Lewis. The only thing it helps is FCPS and the school board to not look as bad on paper because having more UMC kids will bring up the average test scores and metrics. UMC kids are being used as cover because adults are bad at their jobs.

When they moved Daventry to West Springfield the West Springfield principal said he was happy to get more students because he could keep more classes and staff. That means the school losing those students, Lee, would have fewer classes. And Lee was already smaller.

Honestly very few MS+ kids lived in Daventry at the time it was moved. That was the kind of place people rented in (lots of military renters) or lived in with kids in ES and moved elsewhere in WS when the kids hit MS. Now that they fixed the neighborhood as a split feeder (which BTW is one of the stated goals of the boundary re-drawing - removing split feeders and attendance islands) people can live there all of their kids’ school careers and not have to move. And now they have more MS/HS kids in the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

I’ve already wrote letters to board members.
Again you are failing to address my point, so I will repeat it. The school board is not a business. They represent their individual constituencies. They are a part of the community. They have stated repeatedly that they put student mental health and building strong relationships as the key to a solid education.
There is no way to reconcile those points with the lack of grandfathering. They put in the policy. It is hypocracy at its finest. I do not trust people who have show that they
1 lie and say the boundary revision policy was only a new policy- not that they are going to use it, just they they rewrote it. Clearly they are using it immediately.
2- hired a company to redo the boundaries with little transparency into the process
3- didn’t even THINK about the grandfathering clause until the day of the votes.
4 think 6 grade can magically be placed into over crowded middle schools
5- think they have enough money for public Prek when they can’t pay for buses


So if you want to naively carry on about “necessary adjustments” while trusting this board to do it- feel free. They have told me all I need to know about themselves and how they go about making decisions. If their public policy is to take care of student mental health and they then stomp on the first foundations of that (providing stability) for those same students they clearly don’t want to be taken at their word.

It sounds to me like you are taking a pretty narrow view of child mental health.

It is completely understandable for one to fear change and the unknown when the status quo is working well for one’s kids. Be mindful, however, that there are also many parents in other schools who feel like the status quo is not working well for their kids. These are kids who take nearly all their classes in trailers where the A/C routinely fails during the summer months, leaving them to try to learn in a 90 degree heat. These are skids in classrooms with 40 other kids who receive little or no individual attention. These are kids in classrooms where teachers have no space to move other disruptive kids who make learning difficult for everyone else. These are challenges the County needs to somehow address.

Comprehensive grandfathering to ensure “friends can remain with all their friends” also equates to grandfathering of the unacceptable status quo in other schools. By arguing for grandfathering, one is effectively suggesting that children who have endured unsatisfactory learning conditions for two years should have to continue endure those conditions for another two years so your kids can remain in classes with their current friends. Again, it is completely understandable to want what is best for one own’s kids, just recognize that the status quo is detrimental to other kids, and FCPS must consider their mental health too.

The boundary changes have very little to do with class sizes. If they pull kids out of “overcrowded” schools they will just destaff teachers and keep the class sizes as large as they were before.

The fact that you don’t realize this renders anything else you have to say on the topic irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the boundary consultants going to suggest a site for the new High Scholol?

Nope. That’s dead in the water, but they keep up the fiction for some reason.

\

Didn't the voters approve bond money for it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the boundary consultants going to suggest a site for the new High Scholol?

The proposed new western high school should be in a walkable neighborhood to cut down on bussing. A remote location in some industrial or business park like that of Westfield High School would be most unfortunate.

What locations have they identified as viable that are located in neighborhoods?

My kids go to WFHS and I hate the location, its depressing and inconvenient. Would have loved a neighborhood high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the boundary consultants going to suggest a site for the new High Scholol?

Nope. That’s dead in the water, but they keep up the fiction for some reason.

\

Didn't the voters approve bond money for it?

Only for land acquisition but it’s a very small fraction of what the total cost would be and they don’t appear to have a site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No wonder why Gen Z kids are notoriously entitled and selfish. They're raised by parents like the ones commenting on this thread.

Agree. It is beyond entitled and selfish to demand you know what's best for other people's kids.

+1. She loves telling us what’s best for our kids.

It's insane to argue that there shouldn't even be a review because your kid may be negatively affected by it. Guess what, some kids will be better off, others will be worse off, but on balance the changes should benefit most. That's called public policy. If you have doubts or worries about the process being fair or balanced, then you should get off your couch and volunteer to be on the review committee or advocate some other way. Lazy armchair advocacy won't get you anywhere. But it's just so much easier to be a victim, isn't it? The immediate gratification of shouting at someone on an anonymous board is so so sweet.

Please give specifics on how some kids currently failing will be better off? Because it sounds like the school board really just wants the averages to go up without actually helping kids in need.
-dp

DP. Some students may be better off if their school can offer more advanced classes or more instances of those classes.

If kids are failing general ed classes how would they do better with the school offering more advanced classes?

Sorry, read that as failing schools. But that point still stands.

As for failing students. Some you will never get through to and they could be at any school. They just don't care and aren't going to try.

It is really the borderline cases where there could be a difference where more positive role model students could make a difference. And where perhaps not having all the more difficult students concentrated in the same schools would ease the burden on staff and free up time to help those kids who might do better.

Certainly having a very poor and small Lewis next to considerably wealthier and larger West Springfield is going to work out much better for one group of students than the other.

But fine, let's just keep everything as it is.

No, the point does not still stand. Putting hundreds of UMC kids into Lewis from WSHS will not help the poor ELL students currently at Lewis. It doesn't even help the UMC kids currently at Lewis. The only thing it helps is FCPS and the school board to not look as bad on paper because having more UMC kids will bring up the average test scores and metrics. UMC kids are being used as cover because adults are bad at their jobs.

When they moved Daventry to West Springfield the West Springfield principal said he was happy to get more students because he could keep more classes and staff. That means the school losing those students, Lee, would have fewer classes. And Lee was already smaller.

WSHS is not Lewis. Saying you want to keep more classes and staff at a solid school is not the same as what is happening at Lewis.

The majority of the kids are failing, thus the school is failing. Pouring UMC kids into a failing school will not fix the failing kids. They will continue to fail but in this instance, FCPS can go on to look better on paper, especially after they implement the new criteria for school accreditation.

The new VDOE standards on accreditation aren’t based on educational goals. It’s a Trump-like response from Youngkin to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment and build support for vouchers.

The Youngkin supporters will get hoisted by their own petard if systems like FCPS then respond by moving kids around to try and meet accreditation standards. But I’m not sure FCPS will bother. A lot of its schools will not meet the new standards regardless of whether they do things like move a WS feeder to Lewis.