FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[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.

It’s FCPS. They picked the study. That is the first link in their 12/6 meeting notes.

I know you really want the change, but it’s not supported by their OWN hand picked studies.

[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

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.

To summarize. You’re mad you got redistricted and want to stock it to your neighbors. Gross.

[Anonymous]

Here’s what they showed BRAC at the meeting on Friday.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/TheImpactofCommuteonStudentsPerformance.pdf

Do better FCPS. This study doesn’t support your transportation rationale pretext for boundary moves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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.

To summarize. You’re mad you got redistricted and want to stock it to your neighbors. Gross.

It was more of a reality check for whiny Langley posters who may not recognize what’s already happened in other areas. You act like you’re being singled out when you’re just being treated like everyone else in the county.

[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.

It’s FCPS. They picked the study. That is the first link in their 12/6 meeting notes.

I know you really want the change, but it’s not supported by their OWN hand picked studies.

There will be more meetings, more citations, more justifications, more capitulations. That’s how this goes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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.

To summarize. You’re mad you got redistricted and want to stock it to your neighbors. Gross.

You're ridiculous. Not DP, but they are just pointing out their experience. They probably couldn't care less what happens to your schools and wrote nothing about wanting to "stick it to you". By explaining their situation, they might give you insights into what the board may do.
Grow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s what they showed BRAC at the meeting on Friday.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/TheImpactofCommuteonStudentsPerformance.pdf

Do better FCPS. This study doesn’t support your transportation rationale pretext for boundary moves.

Gatehouse boss: "The study setting was GMU so this is perfectly relevant for FCPS to use."
GH staffer 2: "Well, it's Gulf Medical University, so it's like GMU but better because they have medical doctors"
Gatehouse boss: "We went to Clearwater last year, nicest beaches on the east coast! A local study would have been ideal, but I think we can make due with one from another east coast state."
GH staffer 2: "Yeah, about that...."
Gatehouse boss: "You mean it's not from Florida?"
GH staffer 2: "It's from Unite-"
Gatehouse boss: "Let me stop you there, of course it's from our country. Now cut to the chase and tell me exactly where."
GH staffer 1: *sweats*. "United Arab Emirates"
Gatehouse boss: "Doesn't matter, Reid's contract is locked in, we can publish this study at the December 6th meeting."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s what they showed BRAC at the meeting on Friday.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/TheImpactofCommuteonStudentsPerformance.pdf

Do better FCPS. This study doesn’t support your transportation rationale pretext for boundary moves.

Gatehouse boss: "The study setting was GMU so this is perfectly relevant for FCPS to use."
GH staffer 2: "Well, it's Gulf Medical University, so it's like GMU but better because they have medical doctors"
Gatehouse boss: "We went to Clearwater last year, nicest beaches on the east coast! A local study would have been ideal, but I think we can make due with one from another east coast state."
GH staffer 2: "Yeah, about that...."
Gatehouse boss: "You mean it's not from Florida?"
GH staffer 2: "It's from Unite-"
Gatehouse boss: "Let me stop you there, of course it's from our country. Now cut to the chase and tell me exactly where."
GH staffer 1: *sweats*. "United Arab Emirates"
Gatehouse boss: "Doesn't matter, Reid's contract is locked in, we can publish this study at the December 6th meeting."

Feel better now?

Imagine if you spent even a fraction of your time thinking about how your family could make a positive contribution to Herndon HS instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s what they showed BRAC at the meeting on Friday.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/TheImpactofCommuteonStudentsPerformance.pdf

Do better FCPS. This study doesn’t support your transportation rationale pretext for boundary moves.

Gatehouse boss: "The study setting was GMU so this is perfectly relevant for FCPS to use."
GH staffer 2: "Well, it's Gulf Medical University, so it's like GMU but better because they have medical doctors"
Gatehouse boss: "We went to Clearwater last year, nicest beaches on the east coast! A local study would have been ideal, but I think we can make due with one from another east coast state."
GH staffer 2: "Yeah, about that...."
Gatehouse boss: "You mean it's not from Florida?"
GH staffer 2: "It's from Unite-"
Gatehouse boss: "Let me stop you there, of course it's from our country. Now cut to the chase and tell me exactly where."
GH staffer 1: *sweats*. "United Arab Emirates"
Gatehouse boss: "Doesn't matter, Reid's contract is locked in, we can publish this study at the December 6th meeting."

Feel better now?

Imagine if you spent even a fraction of your time thinking about how your family could make a positive contribution to Herndon HS instead.

As a Herndon resident i prefer not to have them here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s what they showed BRAC at the meeting on Friday.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/TheImpactofCommuteonStudentsPerformance.pdf

Do better FCPS. This study doesn’t support your transportation rationale pretext for boundary moves.

Gatehouse boss: "The study setting was GMU so this is perfectly relevant for FCPS to use."
GH staffer 2: "Well, it's Gulf Medical University, so it's like GMU but better because they have medical doctors"
Gatehouse boss: "We went to Clearwater last year, nicest beaches on the east coast! A local study would have been ideal, but I think we can make due with one from another east coast state."
GH staffer 2: "Yeah, about that...."
Gatehouse boss: "You mean it's not from Florida?"
GH staffer 2: "It's from Unite-"
Gatehouse boss: "Let me stop you there, of course it's from our country. Now cut to the chase and tell me exactly where."
GH staffer 1: *sweats*. "United Arab Emirates"
Gatehouse boss: "Doesn't matter, Reid's contract is locked in, we can publish this study at the December 6th meeting."

😂 they are so inept.

Btw, the “study” shows that from an accident perspective the commute time should either be less than five minutes or, wait for it, greater than an hour.

You couldn’t make this up if you tried. Whoever added that study into the mix should be fired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s what they showed BRAC at the meeting on Friday.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/TheImpactofCommuteonStudentsPerformance.pdf

Do better FCPS. This study doesn’t support your transportation rationale pretext for boundary moves.

Gatehouse boss: "The study setting was GMU so this is perfectly relevant for FCPS to use."
GH staffer 2: "Well, it's Gulf Medical University, so it's like GMU but better because they have medical doctors"
Gatehouse boss: "We went to Clearwater last year, nicest beaches on the east coast! A local study would have been ideal, but I think we can make due with one from another east coast state."
GH staffer 2: "Yeah, about that...."
Gatehouse boss: "You mean it's not from Florida?"
GH staffer 2: "It's from Unite-"
Gatehouse boss: "Let me stop you there, of course it's from our country. Now cut to the chase and tell me exactly where."
GH staffer 1: *sweats*. "United Arab Emirates"
Gatehouse boss: "Doesn't matter, Reid's contract is locked in, we can publish this study at the December 6th meeting."

Feel better now?

Imagine if you spent even a fraction of your time thinking about how your family could make a positive contribution to Herndon HS instead.

Different poster. I’ll feel better when FCPS stops using crappy studies as a pretext to move kids to other pyramids.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if FCPS has taken the educational impact of changing schools into account in it's research?

Educational researcher John Hattie ranks "moving between schools" as negative influence on education outcomes, ranked just above depression and far below things like parental military deployment and lack of sleep. I wonder what the overall impact of thousands of students moving who would not normally have moved will be?

https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I think the full day K thing was at one of the ES in Fairfax and involved a trailer park. Regardless, when South County opened and took kids mostly from Hayfield, there was some “wheeling and dealing” to distribute the “troubled” neighborhoods. Lorton Station ES has two of the troubled areas, the low income apartments right by the ES and the Woods of Fairfax apartments and both of those go to Hayfield. I’m not sure if Hagel Circle was always at Halley, but regardless, they are now and they go to South County as opposed to Hayfield. Whether it will stay that way remains to be seen.

[Anonymous]

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.

Due to the size of Great Falls and some areas of McLean the bus takes significantly longer for Cooper than other middle schools. This is because the bus has to make so many stops before the houses are much more spread out and fewer children are at the same bus stop. To fix this FCPS could make more centralized bus stops and make less stops in GF/McLean.

[Anonymous]

Once people start scrutinizing the purported reasons for boundary changes, all these things are starting to fall apart.

Transportation? The FCPS study is junk and doesn’t support any of the frequently discussed moves on DCUM.

Capacity? They neglect residential development in their projections.

All that’s left is program equity, which can be solved by moving kids back to their base schools and getting rid of AAP centers and IB.

So simple, it’s infuriating.