The selection process was on viddo. Fairfacts had it online. WSHS had one of the largest pools of volunteers for BRAC. Most of them were from HV. 2 HV people selected by the random number generator. If you put 140 red jellybeans in a jar, plus 40 jellybeans mixed between 7 additional colors, shake the jar, close your eyes and pick 2 jellybeans, you are almost certainly going to end up with 2 red jellybeans. It was basic marh, nothing nafarous. |
It was all on video. Fairfacts has it and posted it When did your neighborhood dial in to the rezoning fight? In the WSHS pyramid, Hunt Valley and West Springfield Elementary were involved from before 8130 was revised, in very large numbers, because they felt the most threat from the potential changes The other elementary schools felt that rezoning wouldn't affect them, so they weren't as motivated to get involved so early. They didn't start getting involved until after maps started happening. |
Exactly this. We’re in Hunt Valley and have been getting warned on DCUM (and thru the local grapevine) that they wanted to redistrict us out for the last what, two years now? All of the local neighborhoods organized and are unified in our advocacy. Safer neighborhoods didn’t tune in until recently. A lot of HV parents (including me) applied for the BRAC but didn’t make it. |
I think we are saying the same thing- that the reps were chosen at random. From the outside looking in, that seems fair. What’s being stated by so many is that the priorities can become flawed when reps are only representative of one elementary school. This is not on the reps, but on the process as a whole. |
BRAC also compiled recommendations based on what comments were made on the scenario 3 maps. If your neighborhood didn’t comment they wouldn’t have taken your concerns into consideration. I’m sorry Sangster parents feel like LBSS isn’t good enough for them. But they’ll find that others in the community won’t share that opinion. It’s a great school. |
| I think they could have been randomly chosen but also have different schools represented. That would have been a logical system to have in place. |
Wild that you assume it’s only sangster parents wishing BRAC representation was more than hves. Our neighbors did comment. Top priorities were hves related. |
How is it flawed? Happy with the changes or not, the Map 4 recommendations for WSHS follow ths BRAC guidelines to the letter. Eliminate split feeders/islands and minimize transportation expenses: Sangster to Lake Braddock checks both of these boxes. It also checks the equitable access to programs box since LB and WSHS are both AP schools and equally ranked, with one or the other higher depending on the year. Keene Mill island to White Oaks checks all 3 of those boxes as well. Rolling Valley to WSHS is a little messier. It checks split feeder and transportation boxes, but is a dramatic upgrade to program equity, by switching from an unwanted IB program to a coveted AP program, and into a much higher ranked school. It also breaks up the Rolling Valley community, by moving a small portion of Rolling Valley to a new elementary school. And it moves more students into an overcrowded school, also against BRAC guidelines and against the whole justification behind rezoning WSHS. The Rolling Valley move wasn't from the Springfield BRAC reps though. That came from the Springfield school board rep who has been fixated since this process started on miving families out of WSHS so she can move Rolling Valley into WSHS. The only WSHS change that does not follow BRAC recommendations to the letter is the Rolling Valley move. That did not come from the BRAC committee though. Their changes followed the mandate they were given. You can't blame those WSHS for other pyramid reps ignoring the requirements, or for the Springfield school board rep's pet project (RV). The WSHS BRAC reps followed the instructions rhey were given as closely as they could. |
You could have had any other school represented on the BRAC committee for WSHS, with no Hunt Valley representation, and of they followed the mandates that the BRAC committee was given, the outcome for Sangster and the Keene Mill island would have been exactly the same as it is now. You could have picked 2 BRAC members from the other side of the county, and they would have come up with the same recommendations for Sangster and the Keene Mill Island. Anyone who followed the instructions would have recommended Sangster split feeder and the Keene Mill island sent to Lake Braddock. Neither of those are surprising changes. Neither of them are changes that randomly target a neighborhood. Both of those changes would have been recommended by anyone looking at that map who had been given the mandates that the BRAC committee was given. |
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I don't live in WS area, but my pyramid's BRAC reps are from the same elementary school--on the far edge of the boundary from mine. I guess we would both be considered "fringes" by Reid.
Guess who gets to stay? |
the problem is they are doing this every 5 years. if there is liberal grandfathering no one ever moves. also reid has hinted there won’t be transportation for any grandfathering. that’s also going to set people off |
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I am amazed they are doing this to Sangster yet leaving kids who live so close to Herndon at Langley.
Where is the equity in the process? Who are the right people to contact to express our outrage at the double standards? |
Neither Herndon or Langley are overcrowded, there is no need to move students. The only kids who should be moved are kids at over crowded schools and others who are affected by that. |
Please. The RVES community is not being "broken up". A small number of homes south of the Fairfax Co Pkwy are being rezoned to an elementary school on the same side of the parkway. If anything, the RVES community is being strengthened since the townhomes north of the parkway are now being rezoned to the closest middle school (Irving) and high school (WSHS), where the vast majority of RVES students already go. |
And to do that, you just need to move those Sangster families out and close that attendance island. |