Fall 2022 Over/Under-Enrollment at FCPS High Schools
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Anonymous
| Rezoning Daventry back to Lewis will not result in Saratoga getting rezoned for WSHS |
Anonymous
It's real easy playing armchair redistricting tycoon and ignoring politics, history, budget, logistics, and reality, isn't it? |
Anonymous
Why pass up an opportunity to blame her though? She’s basically a one-person Deep State. |
Anonymous
I do believe that because having worked in schools for 20 years I believe “capacity” is often an arbitrary figure that upper administration determines because it’s less expensive to run fewer, bigger schools. This is why people saying “run schools like a business” always cracks me up- they already do that! I don’t believe that expansion of schools is the solution. More, smaller schools is the solution but that costs more and, well, we can have that because we have to create a Chief Experience Officer and hire 8 bazillion more people to work at Gatehouse and Willow Oaks. |
Anonymous
No, it actually takes a bit of effort to get a handle on the school enrollments and capacities and think through what a feasible plan might entail. And it would take courage to stand up to snotty, privileged parents who throw road block after road block in your way. Currently, we have a lazy, fearful School Board, so these discussions are largely hypothetical. They simply illustrate the possibilities if we had better administration and oversight. |
Anonymous
It's hard to implement a "smaller school" solution when FCPS built schools with large capacities from their inception like Lake Braddock, Robinson, and Westfield, and then has spent the last decade expanding schools like Langley, Madison, Oakton, South Lakes, and West Springfield well beyond their initial size. Since they can't put that genie back in the bottle, the purported advantages of smaller schools now mostly gets invoked to justify doing nothing about the schools that people don't want to be reassigned to. |
Anonymous
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Expanding high schools during renovations makes perfect sense, logistically and economically.
Better to be prepared with surplus space in as many high schools as possible, than to be caugh in a situation with too many students and not place to logically put them other than a bunch of trailers. Rezoning should be the last resort. I hope fcps continues to expand any high school they renovate. |
Anonymous
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This does seen like a good boundary solution. We are zoned for FCHS and loved it - and it is going to be beautiful once the renovation is complete. The McLean schools are so overcrowded for years, with no renovation in sight, that I am surprised it has not had an effect on the real estate market there. It's the location for commutes. Lots depends on where each of a couple works. If you have to get out of a current rental or whatever the reason... Some worse SFH houses for Chesterbrooke went under contract much quicker than stuff for KG. Similar price points. Good point on the commutes. And on the ES - I wonder if people care more about overcrowding at ES or HS? I suppose people buying houses with young kids are focused on the ES and, as you say, assume (maybe incorrectly) that FCPS will finally give MHS the expansion it needs. ES is 7 years and most are in the same room with a teacher for most of the 7. HS is 4 and each subject is in a different classroom. Worse is the fact that KG has been a problem from the days of 2nd class students-citizens whatever for non immersion. As for IB that thing should be at max 3 high schools- west, middle, east FX. VDOE has the senior IB candidate pools and the number that got the diploma per school: 2020-21 IB diplomas Lewis 4 SR pool 4 Mount 12 SR pool 19 Annandale 29 SR pool 31 Justice 42 SR pool 68 Edison 43 SR pool 52 South Lakes55 SR pool 61 Marshall 95 SR pool 98 Robinson 124 SR pool 138 404 471 Just too weird that FCPS has IB at MV which is the site for on base housing for Fort Belvoir, US Army. |
Anonymous
If FCPS were more nimble, they'd expand schools where there is a current or projected for additional space. There's an inconsistency between saying every high school should be expanded when renovated and that rezoning should be a last resort. Money has been spent adding space at schools with flat or declining enrollments, and then boundaries have to be changed to get the kids at other. overcrowded schools out of trailers. They may save money by adding space at a school that is already being renovated, but then they end up with additional transportation costs and inconvenienced families for many years to come. |
Anonymous
This does seen like a good boundary solution. We are zoned for FCHS and loved it - and it is going to be beautiful once the renovation is complete. The McLean schools are so overcrowded for years, with no renovation in sight, that I am surprised it has not had an effect on the real estate market there. It's the location for commutes. Lots depends on where each of a couple works. If you have to get out of a current rental or whatever the reason... Some worse SFH houses for Chesterbrooke went under contract much quicker than stuff for KG. Similar price points. Good point on the commutes. And on the ES - I wonder if people care more about overcrowding at ES or HS? I suppose people buying houses with young kids are focused on the ES and, as you say, assume (maybe incorrectly) that FCPS will finally give MHS the expansion it needs. ES is 7 years and most are in the same room with a teacher for most of the 7. HS is 4 and each subject is in a different classroom. Worse is the fact that KG has been a problem from the days of 2nd class students-citizens whatever for non immersion. As for IB that thing should be at max 3 high schools- west, middle, east FX. VDOE has the senior IB candidate pools and the number that got the diploma per school: 2020-21 IB diplomas Lewis 4 SR pool 4 Mount 12 SR pool 19 Annandale 29 SR pool 31 Justice 42 SR pool 68 Edison 43 SR pool 52 South Lakes55 SR pool 61 Marshall 95 SR pool 98 Robinson 124 SR pool 138 404 471 Just too weird that FCPS has IB at MV which is the site for on base housing for Fort Belvoir, US Army. Really interesting stats! Thank you! How can the school board justify the expense and inflexibility of IB at that cluster of high schools that are only graduating a handful of aiB diplomas, particularly Lewis with only 4 students. No wonder the Lewis parents are complaining that their kids cannot access advanced classes. With only 4 IB students, there is zero flexibility for those kids. This is NOT a WSHS issue. This is an issue of the school board designating Lewis as an IB school. Lewis parents, you need to fight to get your school switched from IB to AP, not rezoning. Eliminating IB and switcing to AP will open many more advanced classes for your students, particularly those who are strong in math and science but cannot handle the writing components of IB. It will also eliminate the IB/AP loophole where advanced students with engaged parents pupil place out of Lewis for AP. Finally, switching to an AP school and eliminating IB will make Lewis less unappealing to military and academically focused families. IB is just not practical for those families. |
Anonymous
I disagree. You can't look at enrollment today to justify whether or not to expand a school.. It is way more responsible to expand high school capacity during full renovations, whenever practical. Better to be prepared than to be caught unprepared. |
Anonymous
Then be prepared to admit that what you really favor is boundary changes, just ones that don't involve your own kids. Because that's what will happen to other kids due to such an inflexible approach. |
Anonymous
The Rolling Valley 10% split to Lewis should be rezoned to Saratoga ES. Then they are in the Lewis pyramid the entire time. No more split. Plenty of room at Saratoga. |
Anonymous
Here are the additional high school students FCPS is projecting in different pyramids if current and planned projects are built (only a fraction of these units are included in existing FCPS projections): Marshall 795 McLean 615 Westfield 597 South Lakes 541 Edison 224 Fairfax 98 Falls Church 88 Lewis 86 West Potomac 73 Mount Vernon 52 Oakton 48 Justice 43 Chantilly 37 Woodson 25 Hayfield 15 South County 11 Annandale 6 Langley 4 Robinson 4 West Springfield 3 Herndon 2 Madison 2 Centreville 1 So in essence they know the county has four main growth areas: (1) Tysons (Marshall, McLean); (2) Herndon/Silver Line (Westfield); (3) Reston (South Lakes); and (4) Route 1/Embark (Edison). Nevertheless, according to you, if Hayfield came up for a renovation, it would make more sense to spend money adding lots of additional seats there than to pro-actively allocate money to expand capacity in any of these four growth areas. That seems like slavish adherence to a principle rather than smart planning. |
Anonymous
Expanding capacity whenever fcps renovates a high school give schools ultimate flexibility to deal with shifts in enrollment as communities grow or shrink, with the least amount of disruption to students and the greatest consistency for homeowners, parents and students, and sense of community and community connection to the schools. Running in crisis mode and rezoning students constantly over claims of equity or normal ebb and flow of student population is short sighted, disruptive and wasteful of taxpayer money. |