FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, is the goal to make sure every school has the same percentage of free lunches? The same racial demographics?

I don't think they realize just how destructive a boundary review is to the communities. When you cannot even divulge the names of the people on the review committee, that should tell you something.

I live on one edge of a compact boundary. If the committee members are from the other edge, who do you think will move? And, FWIW, no school is closer to us than the current one.

We are one of the neighborhoods rumored for rezonng to a distant high school on the other side of the interstate.

Most of the neighborhoods that feed into our elementary school are close enough to the high school that we can listen to the football games from our yards and even hear them with windows closed in some levels of the house. We can hear marching band practice and performances from our houses.

The neighbors often joke that we know when to run over to pick up our kids from the games, a 5-10 minute drive through neighborhood roads, just by listening to the football game calls from our houses.

It is not just our elementary school zone. Most of the elementary schools in our high school zone are close enough to the high school to hear the football games. Yet FCPS wants to divide our community and rezone us over inaccurate enrollment data and equity. It stinks.

[Anonymous]

There is no way they can equalize demographics without very long bus rides. That means shifting poor students out, as well as moving more affluent students into the school. There will be winners and losers.

And, they need to consider this: poor students will not benefit from being sent on long bus rides. It will make it difficult for kids with jobs and difficult for families. School support from poor parents is already challenging, it will become impossible.

But, again, shifting kids is easier than teaching them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can’t we all agree that commutes over an hour to school are not a good thing, no matter where the study was done? That meas two lost hours a day for some kids. For many FARMS high school students, that means lost wages. It also means lost SAT prep time or sports training for wealthier students.

What justifies a two hour long ride on a bus over a 15 min one? Some will say school quality. Then go ahead and sign your kid up to private school, and enjoy that hour drive to and from every morning; and, then again in the afternoon if you work from home. You have that choice. Nobody is stopping you. Public schools should be looking out for the general public good, not just the squeaky wheels.

Just to be crystal clear, negative effects on academics and sleep time were only found for commutes longer than an hour.

The FCPS hand-picked study doesn’t support messing with commutes under one hour. Their study did not find detrimental effects on academics or sleep time for commutes less than an hour.

That is a really important point, because I’m guessing there really aren’t too many commutes over an hour in the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t we all agree that commutes over an hour to school are not a good thing, no matter where the study was done? That meas two lost hours a day for some kids. For many FARMS high school students, that means lost wages. It also means lost SAT prep time or sports training for wealthier students.

What justifies a two hour long ride on a bus over a 15 min one? Some will say school quality. Then go ahead and sign your kid up to private school, and enjoy that hour drive to and from every morning; and, then again in the afternoon if you work from home. You have that choice. Nobody is stopping you. Public schools should be looking out for the general public good, not just the squeaky wheels.

Just to be crystal clear, negative effects on academics and sleep time were only found for commutes longer than an hour.

The FCPS hand-picked study doesn’t support messing with commutes under one hour. Their study did not find detrimental effects on academics or sleep time for commutes less than an hour.

That is a really important point, because I’m guessing there really aren’t too many commutes over an hour in the county.

There was an interesting slide (slide 11) in the MS Start Time study that showed a breakdown of some of the bus routes. There are plenty just in this small sample that exceed an hour.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DBCPSG65FD03/$file/Presentation%20MS%20Start%20Times%20Dec%203%202024%20WS.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t we all agree that commutes over an hour to school are not a good thing, no matter where the study was done? That meas two lost hours a day for some kids. For many FARMS high school students, that means lost wages. It also means lost SAT prep time or sports training for wealthier students.

What justifies a two hour long ride on a bus over a 15 min one? Some will say school quality. Then go ahead and sign your kid up to private school, and enjoy that hour drive to and from every morning; and, then again in the afternoon if you work from home. You have that choice. Nobody is stopping you. Public schools should be looking out for the general public good, not just the squeaky wheels.

Just to be crystal clear, negative effects on academics and sleep time were only found for commutes longer than an hour.

The FCPS hand-picked study doesn’t support messing with commutes under one hour. Their study did not find detrimental effects on academics or sleep time for commutes less than an hour.

That is a really important point, because I’m guessing there really aren’t too many commutes over an hour in the county.

The only kids I could see having commutes regularly approaching or over an hour are kids in the really far flung areas of Clifton, Fairfax Station etc. - but those kids have to go to school somewhere and presumably their parents knew about the potentially long bus rides when they bought their house on a hilly, windy 2 lane road in the relative boonies. And kids going to TJ from out of the county. And they knew what they were signing up for too. Who else is having a massively long bus ride? Most boundaries are pretty compact, and if they’re not it’s because they pick up a lower population yet more spread out area.

[Anonymous]

Obviously, proximity would be one thing they'd look at. Hey, my kids go to Hayfield but Langley looks amazing - obviously when I bought my house I didn't think my kids would ever be going there. But, if I bought in Herndon, I might think my kids would go to Herndon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t we all agree that commutes over an hour to school are not a good thing, no matter where the study was done? That meas two lost hours a day for some kids. For many FARMS high school students, that means lost wages. It also means lost SAT prep time or sports training for wealthier students.

What justifies a two hour long ride on a bus over a 15 min one? Some will say school quality. Then go ahead and sign your kid up to private school, and enjoy that hour drive to and from every morning; and, then again in the afternoon if you work from home. You have that choice. Nobody is stopping you. Public schools should be looking out for the general public good, not just the squeaky wheels.

Just to be crystal clear, negative effects on academics and sleep time were only found for commutes longer than an hour.

The FCPS hand-picked study doesn’t support messing with commutes under one hour. Their study did not find detrimental effects on academics or sleep time for commutes less than an hour.

That is a really important point, because I’m guessing there really aren’t too many commutes over an hour in the county.

There was an interesting slide (slide 11) in the MS Start Time study that showed a breakdown of some of the bus routes. There are plenty just in this small sample that exceed an hour.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DBCPSG65FD03/$file/Presentation%20MS%20Start%20Times%20Dec%203%202024%20WS.pdf

Cooper’s boundary is enormous because it has to pick up the far western edges of the county. Honestly those kids aren’t much closer to Herndon, they’d face a long commute in either location. Same goes for Halley ES in Lorton. Now I’m not sure why some of the Woodson kids are on the bus so long, or Mason Crest ES in Annandale. Maybe that’s due to traffic, maybe they need more buses and routes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, proximity would be one thing they'd look at. Hey, my kids go to Hayfield but Langley looks amazing - obviously when I bought my house I didn't think my kids would ever be going there. But, if I bought in Herndon, I might think my kids would go to Herndon

Of course, that’s what you want, but all the people clamoring for Forestville to be rezoned based on commute times are barking up the wrong tree.

Fcps’s own cherry-picked transportation study that FCPS showed to the boundary review advisory committee on Friday doesn’t show any benefit for the academics or sleep time for these students from a shorter commute time.

Another pretext domino has fallen.

[Anonymous]

They’ll do what they want. The Langley posters claiming long commutes are no big deal and the West Springfield posters claiming longer commutes will be a nightmare will conveniently cancel each other out if they really want to change those boundaries.

All this blather about the relevance or irrelevance of some academic study on commuting times will fall by the wayside. They still can cite Google Maps and further justify many changes under the guise of promoting equitable access to programming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’ll do what they want. The Langley posters claiming long commutes are no big deal and the West Springfield posters claiming longer commutes will be a nightmare will conveniently cancel each other out if they really want to change those boundaries.

All this blather about the relevance or irrelevance of some academic study on commuting times will fall by the wayside. They still can cite Google Maps and further justify many changes under the guise of promoting equitable access to programming.

Yep. They'll do what they want, and all our voices will just cancel each other out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, proximity would be one thing they'd look at. Hey, my kids go to Hayfield but Langley looks amazing - obviously when I bought my house I didn't think my kids would ever be going there. But, if I bought in Herndon, I might think my kids would go to Herndon

Equally to the point, if I bought in western Great Falls, I might think my kids could end up at schools in Herndon that are closer than schools miles further away in McLean. No guarantees, especially when there’s no middle or high school located in Great Falls.

People in the 20171 area have had to deal with similar uncertainty over the years - some got moved from Oakton to Westfield to South Lakes. The folks in western Great Falls have been lucky their boundaries were stable for as long as they have been until now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They’ll do what they want. The Langley posters claiming long commutes are no big deal and the West Springfield posters claiming longer commutes will be a nightmare will conveniently cancel each other out if they really want to change those boundaries.

All this blather about the relevance or irrelevance of some academic study on commuting times will fall by the wayside. They still can cite Google Maps and further justify many changes under the guise of promoting equitable access to programming.

They need to tie the commute times to $$. IF we change these boundaries and the commute is shorter we save $$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, proximity would be one thing they'd look at. Hey, my kids go to Hayfield but Langley looks amazing - obviously when I bought my house I didn't think my kids would ever be going there. But, if I bought in Herndon, I might think my kids would go to Herndon

Of course, that’s what you want, but all the people clamoring for Forestville to be rezoned based on commute times are barking up the wrong tree.

Fcps’s own cherry-picked transportation study that FCPS showed to the boundary review advisory committee on Friday doesn’t show any benefit for the academics or sleep time for these students from a shorter commute time.

Another pretext domino has fallen.

They’ll find something else.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/how-distance-to-school-affects-student-well-being

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t we all agree that commutes over an hour to school are not a good thing, no matter where the study was done? That meas two lost hours a day for some kids. For many FARMS high school students, that means lost wages. It also means lost SAT prep time or sports training for wealthier students.

What justifies a two hour long ride on a bus over a 15 min one? Some will say school quality. Then go ahead and sign your kid up to private school, and enjoy that hour drive to and from every morning; and, then again in the afternoon if you work from home. You have that choice. Nobody is stopping you. Public schools should be looking out for the general public good, not just the squeaky wheels.

Just to be crystal clear, negative effects on academics and sleep time were only found for commutes longer than an hour.

The FCPS hand-picked study doesn’t support messing with commutes under one hour. Their study did not find detrimental effects on academics or sleep time for commutes less than an hour.

That is a really important point, because I’m guessing there really aren’t too many commutes over an hour in the county.

There was an interesting slide (slide 11) in the MS Start Time study that showed a breakdown of some of the bus routes. There are plenty just in this small sample that exceed an hour.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DBCPSG65FD03/$file/Presentation%20MS%20Start%20Times%20Dec%203%202024%20WS.pdf

Cooper’s boundary is enormous because it has to pick up the far western edges of the county. Honestly those kids aren’t much closer to Herndon, they’d face a long commute in either location. Same goes for Halley ES in Lorton. Now I’m not sure why some of the Woodson kids are on the bus so long, or Mason Crest ES in Annandale. Maybe that’s due to traffic, maybe they need more buses and routes.

Isn't there a group of minority kids with free lunch status who were redisticted to a far away elementary school near Fairfax Station from their neighborhood schools, at a specific number to tip the wealthy school farms rate to get full day kindergarten, then rezoned the next year to an adjacent elementary school, maybe Halley, to remove them from the wealthy elementary school? If I remember the complaints from that era, the poor minority kids had 3 schools in 3 or 4 years, and ended up at a school farther away than the rich school, but at a population just low enough that the final destination did not qualify for services like full day kindergarten?

It was orchestrated by the school board, if I remember right. The member lost her reelection over it.

Maybe an old timer can chime in. My kids were little, so I was only half paying attention. I think Halley elementary was the final destination, but I might be mistaken.
Those gerrymandered kids still have a very long bus ride.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’ll do what they want. The Langley posters claiming long commutes are no big deal and the West Springfield posters claiming longer commutes will be a nightmare will conveniently cancel each other out if they really want to change those boundaries.

All this blather about the relevance or irrelevance of some academic study on commuting times will fall by the wayside. They still can cite Google Maps and further justify many changes under the guise of promoting equitable access to programming.

They need to tie the commute times to $$. IF we change these boundaries and the commute is shorter we save $$.

The boundary adjustment should be tied with the Middle School Start Time study. People may have a more vested interest if they push some school start times to 9:50 to preserve 90 minute bus routes.