School Board Forum on "Boundary and Capacity"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

I don't see how they lavish money on some schools, continue to ignore others, and then claim the fix is to redraw lines across the board. It's a recipe for political suicide.

Lavish? LOLOLOL

It's a fair verb. Feel free to check the CIP for how much is being budgeted now for some current and upcoming renovations. It's arbitrary. If a school was built in the wrong decade, it got screwed; if it was built later, in the right decade, it gets tons of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

I don't see how they lavish money on some schools, continue to ignore others, and then claim the fix is to redraw lines across the board. It's a recipe for political suicide.

They need to be brave. It could actually be a boost.

This is the mindset that got Youngkin elected to office. A county-wide redistricting is the third rail for democrats and republicans alike.

[Anonymous]

It's precisely because they are a bunch of politicians who want to avoid blow-back that a few of them are engaging in the pie-in-the-sky fiction that they can just look to staff or an outside consultant to propose county-wide boundary changes "once and for all" and then be done.

That's not how things work. If they farm out the work, they'll be viewed as hiding the ball, and they are still the ones who'd have to approve big changes. And enrollments fluctuate, so it's never really a "one-and-done" exercise.

At some point they'll get a bit smarter and pipe down. There are two constituencies for county-wide changes: (1) people who want to stick it to wealthier pyramids and (2) people who want to avoid paying money for school construction. Those people are at the extremes and the vast majority in the middle will not want them to go down the county-wide redistricting route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

Nobody is leaving FCPS. They're trapped in the homes they got for ultra cheap and nobody is making any quick sales anytime soon. Only the very wealthy can do that, and most of them are already private.

It's a ridiculous notion anyway. You mean to tell me everyone in Vienna and Clifton and Burke an Chantilly is going to leave because a few more brown and black kids go to their schools? Oh please. People are racist but not stupid with their money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

I don't see how they lavish money on some schools, continue to ignore others, and then claim the fix is to redraw lines across the board. It's a recipe for political suicide.

They need to be brave. It could actually be a boost.

This is the mindset that got Youngkin elected to office. A county-wide redistricting is the third rail for democrats and republicans alike.

Look at Langley's boundary appendage that runs all the way to Herndon. That will never survive a county wide redistricting. Parents rezoned to Herndon are going to be mad and get politically active. Multiply that across every change where a neighborhood feels that they lost out. It's not worth it for any of the politicians

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

Nobody is leaving FCPS. They're trapped in the homes they got for ultra cheap and nobody is making any quick sales anytime soon. Only the very wealthy can do that, and most of them are already private.

It's a ridiculous notion anyway. You mean to tell me everyone in Vienna and Clifton and Burke an Chantilly is going to leave because a few more brown and black kids go to their schools? Oh please. People are racist but not stupid with their money.

To take one example, where are you going to find these additional brown and black kids to go to school in Vienna? Are you planning to bus them from Herndon or Bailey's Crossroads or Route 1? What if those kids currently walk to school or have after-school jobs? Do you think they want to spend an extra 90 minutes on a bus when they could be helping out their families? And, of course, do you think the folks at Madison are going to willingly accept that their kids are at Herndon, Justice, or Mount Vernon rather than Madison?

Basically, you're suggesting we swap contiguous or largely contiguous boundaries for either a lottery system or checker-board boundaries, and there's virtually no support for this in the county. People can and would leave the county rather than put up with it (and there's evidence to that effect from other school systems that adopted a lottery approach).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

Nobody is leaving FCPS. They're trapped in the homes they got for ultra cheap and nobody is making any quick sales anytime soon. Only the very wealthy can do that, and most of them are already private.

It's a ridiculous notion anyway. You mean to tell me everyone in Vienna and Clifton and Burke a Chantilly is going to leave because a few more brown and black kids go to their schools? Oh please. People are racist but not stupid with their money.

Not a ridiculous notion. You’re forgetting the fluidity that exists in FCPS. At the very most, all it takes is renting an extra apartment in the desired school district. For $2000 per month you could go to almost any school in the county.

And you also (incorrectly) assume that the FCPS population is static when that is very much not the case. Even if current residents are stuck, people absolutely decide where to move based on schools, and your redistricting plan would be a real turn off for large swaths of people making rational decisions about what school district they want their kids to be in.

So, to sum up, you are so very wrong on multiple levels.

[Anonymous]

I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

So we’re in agreement then. They should stay away from redistricting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

So we’re in agreement then. They should stay away from redistricting.

They should make the decisions that are best for the educational outcomes of kids and for professional success of their prime human resource, i.e. teachers. Does district management play a role in those goals? Absolutely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

So we’re in agreement then. They should stay away from redistricting.

They should make the decisions that are best for the educational outcomes of kids and for professional success of their prime human resource, i.e. teachers. Does district management play a role in those goals? Absolutely.

And as the school board discussed a week ago, redistricting is absolutely detrimental to kids, especially poor kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

So we’re in agreement then. They should stay away from redistricting.

No. You appear to only be concerned about you want not what may happen after an unbiased COLD hard look. If your district stays the same after that, fine. But I’m sure you will cry unfair. Poor little rich girl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

So we’re in agreement then. They should stay away from redistricting.

They should make the decisions that are best for the educational outcomes of kids and for professional success of their prime human resource, i.e. teachers. Does district management play a role in those goals? Absolutely.

And as the school board discussed a week ago, redistricting is absolutely detrimental to kids, especially poor kids.

Based on their feelings. Need to look beyond that at many other factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

So we’re in agreement then. They should stay away from redistricting.

No. You appear to only be concerned about you want not what may happen after an unbiased COLD hard look. If your district stays the same after that, fine. But I’m sure you will cry unfair. Poor little rich girl.

Well, you have your thoughts about what is “right” for politicians to do, and I have mine. Your extreme agenda, supported by just a sliver of FCPS, grounded in a hatred of your neighbors, and sure to lead to suboptimal outcomes for most students, is not likely to come to fruition.