FCPS Skyview Boundary Revised Scenario 1 / 2

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed no one from Westfield is raging in here

I am reasonably certain that is why Westfield is going to end up losing so many students with limited backfill. The Centreville and Chantilly families have been very vocal about not wanting to move and Westfield has been quiet.

The people who have made the most noise got what they wanted. Crossfield is unhappy because it got what it wanted just not in a way that they wanted it.

Well, the families who aren't being zoned out of Westfield can't really advocate for...other neighborhoods to be moved in? How would that work exactly, without sounding totally racist and classist?

It's FCPS's responsibility---that they are abdicating completely--to make fair decisions on behalf of all the schools.

Sure they can. South Lakes and Langley groups have been very vocal in the past about which areas they did and did not want rezoned to their schools, and they got their way in 2008 and 2021.

Maybe the middle class Westfield parents are not as big of obnoxious a-holes as those other groups were.

OK. Someone started off by suggesting Westfield parents couldn’t advocate on their own behalf. Then, when it’s pointed out that other school communities have done just that, the response is that it would be obnoxious.

So that leaves them dependent on FCPS staff and School Board members - the very people who’ve put them in the position they find unattractive. Good luck with that.

It doesn’t strike me as particularly obnoxious to ask FCPS to ensure that a smaller Westfield can continue to offer core classes and important electives, and that attention to the school’s demographics is part of that process.

Westfield will be large enough to offer core classes and a good number of electives. It might not offer as many sections of some electives but they will be offered.

Judging from what just happened at McLean after they announced they were moving 200 kids to Langley, I wouldn’t be so blasé about the impact of moving four times that number of kids out of Westfield. They aren’t just going to lose sections; they are going to lose teachers and electives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed no one from Westfield is raging in here

I am reasonably certain that is why Westfield is going to end up losing so many students with limited backfill. The Centreville and Chantilly families have been very vocal about not wanting to move and Westfield has been quiet.

The people who have made the most noise got what they wanted. Crossfield is unhappy because it got what it wanted just not in a way that they wanted it.

Well, the families who aren't being zoned out of Westfield can't really advocate for...other neighborhoods to be moved in? How would that work exactly, without sounding totally racist and classist?

It's FCPS's responsibility---that they are abdicating completely--to make fair decisions on behalf of all the schools.

Sure they can. South Lakes and Langley groups have been very vocal in the past about which areas they did and did not want rezoned to their schools, and they got their way in 2008 and 2021.

Maybe the middle class Westfield parents are not as big of obnoxious a-holes as those other groups were.

OK. Someone started off by suggesting Westfield parents couldn’t advocate on their own behalf. Then, when it’s pointed out that other school communities have done just that, the response is that it would be obnoxious.

So that leaves them dependent on FCPS staff and School Board members - the very people who’ve put them in the position they find unattractive. Good luck with that.

It doesn’t strike me as particularly obnoxious to ask FCPS to ensure that a smaller Westfield can continue to offer core classes and important electives, and that attention to the school’s demographics is part of that process.

Westfield will be large enough to offer core classes and a good number of electives. It might not offer as many sections of some electives but they will be offered.

They are losing 1000 students and backfilling with a few hundreded almost all FARMs students.
Once schools get below a certain number, the staffing formula which requires 32 students per class, only allows principals to offer one section of most APs. So if the times conflict, the student has to choose between say AP English and AP history. And most of the less popular APs simply won't be offered at all, b/c they won't have 32 students who want to take them.

This is a huge complaint from families at the smaller HS with a lot of low income kids. The AP options are very limited and only one section due to the staffing formulas principals must follow.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Its absolutely insane that they did not move those Herndon kids over to a closer school and left them at Oakton in both scenarios.

Literally one of the reasons they bought the school was to reduce overcrowding at *OAKTON* and to keep those kids from having to go such a long way to school.

Now both scenarios have no one moving out of Oakton, but leaving South Lakes and Westfield without enough students.

It makes no sense.

A school in the perfect location falls into their lap and they still manage to make a complete disaster out of it.

And the self-dealing by Seema Dixit and apparently, Kyle McDaniel, needs to be reviewed by an FCPS ethics office.

The first revised scenario does move kids out of Oakton, just not all of Crossfield.

I’d check my facts more carefully next time before composing such a screed.

By the way, there’s no requirement for School Board members to recuse themselves from decisions affecting schools to which they are zoned. In the past, School Board members like Stu Gibson and Elaine Tholen were visibly involved in championing boundary changes that benefited their own schools (South Lakes and Langley). If you don’t like it, your recourse is to vote her out next year because the chances of an ethics inquiry are nil.

However, people seem to have no problem suggesting that Lee's Corner which is on Chantilly's doorstep to Westfield--which is not close in any way.

What I don't understand is why, if they can make Brookfield such an egregious split feeder (picking winners and losers) why can't they do the same with Bull Run? There are people at Bull Run who live in neighborhoods that border Westfield schools. That would make sense. And, yes, I know they picked one small area of Bull Run to add to Westfield--an area that is one of the closer ones to Centreville.

Its obviously because Seema Dixit intervened to preserve her own property values.

“Obviously”. More like conspiracy theory.

Can you think of an explanation for the consultants to change their minds on moving all of Bull Run and instead, move just one random low income building instead?

This question was asked and answered last night at the meeting. You either weren’t there or missed that part. They said the online map went live before the consultant and FCPS had finished the final scenarios.

You can accept it at face value, or keep twisting in the wind with your conspiracy theories. Your choice.

I don't think it takes a crazy conspiracy theorist to see this explanation is absurd.
The consultant put the maps online "before they were finished"? No freaking way would that happen. We are supposed to believe they were still working on the substance of who was moved where 5 minutes before maps were to be posted?

The consultants final scenarios designated Walney Oaks as an area that made sense to move to Westfield. Instead of leaving it for the community to discuss, someone at FCPS demanded the map be edited.

So from the comprehensive boundary project here is what went down with Walney Oaks. In some of the scenarios they got moved to Westfield, but they argued against it saying they could hear the Chantilly marching band from their community (would love to go test that out). Ultimately FCPS withdrew all of the proposed changes to high schools in the comprehensive boundary because of what was coming with the Skyview boundary project. The Walney group currently goes to Franklin and was advocating hard to be moved to Rocky Run, presumably as a defensive move to put them in a cohort with the rest of Chantilly. The move to Rocky Run was not in any of the 5 scenarios proposed, nor was it in the Reid's final recommendation of about 15 changes that were presented in a slide deck to the School Board. Suddenly though in a revised deck they were added as an additional change moving them from Franklin to Rocky Run.

Huh, this sounds familiar. Like when RIO lobbied to get to Franklin MS so they could then stay at Oakton HS. RIO wanted out of Carson so they wouldn’t dare be sent to Skyview. Crossfield has never been at Franklin in the last 20 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No dog in this fight, but going down to just 2,000 seems way better than being over 2,700.

Seems like some Westfield posters are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

There are several issues at play--the SES makeup of the 2000 who will be attending, the impact of losing so many staff and students, and the fiscal common sense of leaving 800 open seats at a school.

2000 students works for Langley b/c of the makeup of its student body.

The SB and FCPS seem to be deliberately setting Westfield up for failure to protect other areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed no one from Westfield is raging in here

Well, half their students are being moved out and those families are happy.

For a school community to lose half their students and a third of their teachers is really terrible. I can't think of the last time FCPS disrupted and screwed over an existing HS to this extent.

Me neither and i have had kids in FCPS for almost 20 years.

Losing that many teachers means destaffing anyone who isn't an educational dinosaur. No offense to teachers in general, but its good to have a mix in the building.

Exactly. The teachers you get when you are opening up a bright shiny new school are very different from the teachers who are left after the seniority rules are followed with a major destaffing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of IB. People have been screaming this for over 20 years.

There used to be information on the cost difference to FCPS and it was significant. However, I cannot seem to find it now.

Or do what Loudon and Arlington do and make IB opt in. They house the program at specific schools and the kids who are interested in IB apply for the program. In applying, they are agreeing to pursue the IB Diploma. They are provided transportation to the school closest to them that provides IB. Set one IB school for the North, South, East, and West of FCPS and kids can opt into that program. Have a full AP program for all of the other students in the school. Kids who want IB can make the choice to attend an IB school, parents don't have to worry about transportation, everyone else can do AP.

The parents who want a school within a school or really value IB can send their kids to those schools. Everyone else has AP.

Please stop. They are not getting rid of IB. They love IB and faithfully renew the contract with the IBO every year. Getting rid of IB is not on their radar and certainly won’t affect the Skyview boundaries. If anything, moving Fox Mill to Skyview locks them into keeping IB at South Lakes, because South Lakes’ maintaining a reasonable enrollment becomes more dependent on a large number of transfers “for IB” every year from Herndon.

I think what'll be interesting to watch is with SLHS moving back to similar to the old pre-2008 boundaries is the school going to tank again. Pre-2008 there wasn't much of a reputational difference between Herndon and South Lakes, so I don't know how many would use IB to transfer from Herndon to South Lakes now...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of IB. People have been screaming this for over 20 years.

There used to be information on the cost difference to FCPS and it was significant. However, I cannot seem to find it now.

Or do what Loudon and Arlington do and make IB opt in. They house the program at specific schools and the kids who are interested in IB apply for the program. In applying, they are agreeing to pursue the IB Diploma. They are provided transportation to the school closest to them that provides IB. Set one IB school for the North, South, East, and West of FCPS and kids can opt into that program. Have a full AP program for all of the other students in the school. Kids who want IB can make the choice to attend an IB school, parents don't have to worry about transportation, everyone else can do AP.

The parents who want a school within a school or really value IB can send their kids to those schools. Everyone else has AP.

Please stop. They are not getting rid of IB. They love IB and faithfully renew the contract with the IBO every year. Getting rid of IB is not on their radar and certainly won’t affect the Skyview boundaries. If anything, moving Fox Mill to Skyview locks them into keeping IB at South Lakes, because South Lakes’ maintaining a reasonable enrollment becomes more dependent on a large number of transfers “for IB” every year from Herndon.

I think what'll be interesting to watch is with SLHS moving back to similar to the old pre-2008 boundaries is the school going to tank again. Pre-2008 there wasn't much of a reputational difference between Herndon and South Lakes, so I don't know how many would use IB to transfer from Herndon to South Lakes now...

Honestly, if they didn't send FMES to Skyview you would have seen an increase in the number of kids pupil placing for AP. Skyview is closer then Herndon and we all knew that there are busses leaving from the Floris neighborhood, which parents can apply to have a pupil place kid ride. SLHS loses about 250 kids to TJ and AP placement, mainly to Herndon. Change the AP school from Herndon to Skyview and that number goes up.

The number of students pupil placing from SLHS to Herndon is going to drop. The number going to Skyview will probably be high, even with losing FMES and Floris because those were not the only ones interested in Skyview. I know that there are some Hughes students who opted in to Skyview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed no one from Westfield is raging in here

Well, half their students are being moved out and those families are happy.

For a school community to lose half their students and a third of their teachers is really terrible. I can't think of the last time FCPS disrupted and screwed over an existing HS to this extent.

There are a still a lot of parents of Westfield students from the new Skyview boundary that are already at Westfield and will continue to go there until graduation. They should ALSO not be happy about how the school board is handling this and have something to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No dog in this fight, but going down to just 2,000 seems way better than being over 2,700.

Seems like some Westfield posters are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

There are several issues at play--the SES makeup of the 2000 who will be attending, the impact of losing so many staff and students, and the fiscal common sense of leaving 800 open seats at a school.

2000 students works for Langley b/c of the makeup of its student body.

The SB and FCPS seem to be deliberately setting Westfield up for failure to protect other areas.

Agreed entirely, but it seems consultants have been told to just use butts rather than consider SES of the butts when they play around moving kids. Had they included SES, there's simply no way they'd ever pull Fox Mill from SLHS while leaving Crossfield at Oakton or not move Walney Oaks, etc. as part of the backfill to Westfield.

[Anonymous]

They did move Walney Oaks....pre-sketchy edit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a Westfield parent but I agree that FCPS needs to put some kind of high level academic programming into the building to get kids wanting to attend. Adding academy classes doesn't help the Westfield community b/c those kids just come in for one class.

Also, its refreshing that they aren't out whining like all these other groups had/were/did. Makes me much more sympathetic to how they are getting d!cked over here by FCPS.

I'm a Floris/Westfield parent with one kid attending Westfield next year and the other attending Skyview. After three years there the older one has pretty much given up on getting a quality education so the bar is set pretty low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of IB. People have been screaming this for over 20 years.

There used to be information on the cost difference to FCPS and it was significant. However, I cannot seem to find it now.

Or do what Loudon and Arlington do and make IB opt in. They house the program at specific schools and the kids who are interested in IB apply for the program. In applying, they are agreeing to pursue the IB Diploma. They are provided transportation to the school closest to them that provides IB. Set one IB school for the North, South, East, and West of FCPS and kids can opt into that program. Have a full AP program for all of the other students in the school. Kids who want IB can make the choice to attend an IB school, parents don't have to worry about transportation, everyone else can do AP.

The parents who want a school within a school or really value IB can send their kids to those schools. Everyone else has AP.

Please stop. They are not getting rid of IB. They love IB and faithfully renew the contract with the IBO every year. Getting rid of IB is not on their radar and certainly won’t affect the Skyview boundaries. If anything, moving Fox Mill to Skyview locks them into keeping IB at South Lakes, because South Lakes’ maintaining a reasonable enrollment becomes more dependent on a large number of transfers “for IB” every year from Herndon.

I think what'll be interesting to watch is with SLHS moving back to similar to the old pre-2008 boundaries is the school going to tank again. Pre-2008 there wasn't much of a reputational difference between Herndon and South Lakes, so I don't know how many would use IB to transfer from Herndon to South Lakes now...

So what I was referencing is actually the brain drain from Herndon that currently pupil place to South Lakes for IB, but mainly as a way to get out of Herndon. I'm thinking within the next few years that won't look like a promising option for Herndon parents as South Lakes' performance and reputation will likely drop back down to Pre-2008 levels.

Honestly, if they didn't send FMES to Skyview you would have seen an increase in the number of kids pupil placing for AP. Skyview is closer then Herndon and we all knew that there are busses leaving from the Floris neighborhood, which parents can apply to have a pupil place kid ride. SLHS loses about 250 kids to TJ and AP placement, mainly to Herndon. Change the AP school from Herndon to Skyview and that number goes up.

The number of students pupil placing from SLHS to Herndon is going to drop. The number going to Skyview will probably be high, even with losing FMES and Floris because those were not the only ones interested in Skyview. I know that there are some Hughes students who opted in to Skyview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of IB. People have been screaming this for over 20 years.

There used to be information on the cost difference to FCPS and it was significant. However, I cannot seem to find it now.

Or do what Loudon and Arlington do and make IB opt in. They house the program at specific schools and the kids who are interested in IB apply for the program. In applying, they are agreeing to pursue the IB Diploma. They are provided transportation to the school closest to them that provides IB. Set one IB school for the North, South, East, and West of FCPS and kids can opt into that program. Have a full AP program for all of the other students in the school. Kids who want IB can make the choice to attend an IB school, parents don't have to worry about transportation, everyone else can do AP.

The parents who want a school within a school or really value IB can send their kids to those schools. Everyone else has AP.

Please stop. They are not getting rid of IB. They love IB and faithfully renew the contract with the IBO every year. Getting rid of IB is not on their radar and certainly won’t affect the Skyview boundaries. If anything, moving Fox Mill to Skyview locks them into keeping IB at South Lakes, because South Lakes’ maintaining a reasonable enrollment becomes more dependent on a large number of transfers “for IB” every year from Herndon.

I think what'll be interesting to watch is with SLHS moving back to similar to the old pre-2008 boundaries is the school going to tank again. Pre-2008 there wasn't much of a reputational difference between Herndon and South Lakes, so I don't know how many would use IB to transfer from Herndon to South Lakes now...

Honestly, if they didn't send FMES to Skyview you would have seen an increase in the number of kids pupil placing for AP. Skyview is closer then Herndon and we all knew that there are busses leaving from the Floris neighborhood, which parents can apply to have a pupil place kid ride. SLHS loses about 250 kids to TJ and AP placement, mainly to Herndon. Change the AP school from Herndon to Skyview and that number goes up.

The number of students pupil placing from SLHS to Herndon is going to drop. The number going to Skyview will probably be high, even with losing FMES and Floris because those were not the only ones interested in Skyview. I know that there are some Hughes students who opted in to Skyview.

Currently Floris busses go to Westfield and Westfield's not available for AP transfer from the SLHS Floris and Fox Mill since Westfield's not closest AP HS. With the change to Skyview, the Floris busses will be to the nearest AP HS with space and any FMES kids west of the Parkway are easy walking distance to several current Floris stops and even easier with the new stops for SLHS Floris at Skyview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of IB. People have been screaming this for over 20 years.

There used to be information on the cost difference to FCPS and it was significant. However, I cannot seem to find it now.

Or do what Loudon and Arlington do and make IB opt in. They house the program at specific schools and the kids who are interested in IB apply for the program. In applying, they are agreeing to pursue the IB Diploma. They are provided transportation to the school closest to them that provides IB. Set one IB school for the North, South, East, and West of FCPS and kids can opt into that program. Have a full AP program for all of the other students in the school. Kids who want IB can make the choice to attend an IB school, parents don't have to worry about transportation, everyone else can do AP.

The parents who want a school within a school or really value IB can send their kids to those schools. Everyone else has AP.

Please stop. They are not getting rid of IB. They love IB and faithfully renew the contract with the IBO every year. Getting rid of IB is not on their radar and certainly won’t affect the Skyview boundaries. If anything, moving Fox Mill to Skyview locks them into keeping IB at South Lakes, because South Lakes’ maintaining a reasonable enrollment becomes more dependent on a large number of transfers “for IB” every year from Herndon.

I think what'll be interesting to watch is with SLHS moving back to similar to the old pre-2008 boundaries is the school going to tank again. Pre-2008 there wasn't much of a reputational difference between Herndon and South Lakes, so I don't know how many would use IB to transfer from Herndon to South Lakes now...

Hard to believe but Herndon used to be a tad better than SLHS.

Stu Gibson (then Hunter Mills board member) moved Fox Mill from Oakton to SLHS despite the community opposition. SLHS became a mediocre school (used to be bad).

Town of Herndon went downwhill mainly because of a large inflow of illegals. HHS became bad.

Many HHS kids transfer to SLHS for the IB program. This is only case I know where a large number of students opting for an IB school from an AP school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its absolutely insane that they did not move those Herndon kids over to a closer school and left them at Oakton in both scenarios.

Literally one of the reasons they bought the school was to reduce overcrowding at *OAKTON* and to keep those kids from having to go such a long way to school.

Now both scenarios have no one moving out of Oakton, but leaving South Lakes and Westfield without enough students.

It makes no sense.

A school in the perfect location falls into their lap and they still manage to make a complete disaster out of it.

And the self-dealing by Seema Dixit and apparently, Kyle McDaniel, needs to be reviewed by an FCPS ethics office.

The first revised scenario does move kids out of Oakton, just not all of Crossfield.

It did in the 90's though! I know because I was a Crossfield-Franklin-Oakton kid. It was pretty much a 50-50 feeder to Chantilly and Oakton when I went there, which made for a fun rivalry.

I’d check my facts more carefully next time before composing such a screed.

By the way, there’s no requirement for School Board members to recuse themselves from decisions affecting schools to which they are zoned. In the past, School Board members like Stu Gibson and Elaine Tholen were visibly involved in championing boundary changes that benefited their own schools (South Lakes and Langley). If you don’t like it, your recourse is to vote her out next year because the chances of an ethics inquiry are nil.

However, people seem to have no problem suggesting that Lee's Corner which is on Chantilly's doorstep to Westfield--which is not close in any way.

What I don't understand is why, if they can make Brookfield such an egregious split feeder (picking winners and losers) why can't they do the same with Bull Run? There are people at Bull Run who live in neighborhoods that border Westfield schools. That would make sense. And, yes, I know they picked one small area of Bull Run to add to Westfield--an area that is one of the closer ones to Centreville.

Its obviously because Seema Dixit intervened to preserve her own property values.

“Obviously”. More like conspiracy theory.

Can you think of an explanation for the consultants to change their minds on moving all of Bull Run and instead, move just one random low income building instead?

This question was asked and answered last night at the meeting. You either weren’t there or missed that part. They said the online map went live before the consultant and FCPS had finished the final scenarios.

You can accept it at face value, or keep twisting in the wind with your conspiracy theories. Your choice.

I don't think it takes a crazy conspiracy theorist to see this explanation is absurd.
The consultant put the maps online "before they were finished"? No freaking way would that happen. We are supposed to believe they were still working on the substance of who was moved where 5 minutes before maps were to be posted?

The consultants final scenarios designated Walney Oaks as an area that made sense to move to Westfield. Instead of leaving it for the community to discuss, someone at FCPS demanded the map be edited.

So from the comprehensive boundary project here is what went down with Walney Oaks. In some of the scenarios they got moved to Westfield, but they argued against it saying they could hear the Chantilly marching band from their community (would love to go test that out). Ultimately FCPS withdrew all of the proposed changes to high schools in the comprehensive boundary because of what was coming with the Skyview boundary project. The Walney group currently goes to Franklin and was advocating hard to be moved to Rocky Run, presumably as a defensive move to put them in a cohort with the rest of Chantilly. The move to Rocky Run was not in any of the 5 scenarios proposed, nor was it in the Reid's final recommendation of about 15 changes that were presented in a slide deck to the School Board. Suddenly though in a revised deck they were added as an additional change moving them from Franklin to Rocky Run.

Huh, this sounds familiar. Like when RIO lobbied to get to Franklin MS so they could then stay at Oakton HS. RIO wanted out of Carson so they wouldn’t dare be sent to Skyview. Crossfield has never been at Franklin in the last 20 years.