Fall 2022 Over/Under-Enrollment at FCPS High Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone see how hard WS posters are fighting the suggestions that any WS kids ever get zoned to Lewis? Any of the other surrounding schools would be fine.

That is what happens when you concentrate all of the poor and ESL students.

FCPS needs a reckoning on this.

There's no getting around the fact that there is going to be a concentration of "poor and ESL students", as you say, in a particular area. It's the place they can afford to live!

We live in walking distance of West Springfield so I have no fears personally about shifting boundaries, but in terms of community and neighborhood, definitely Lewis and Edison should be your discussion, not Lewis and WS. I too rolled my eyes a bit when Daventry shifted to WSHS from Lewis, but they are, in terms of how our neighborhoods are laid out, definitely a West Springfield community.

My kids went to Rolling Valley which is also a split feeder. About 10% of our students go to Lewis (the rest to WSHS). Every single family I know personally in that Lewis group moved, placed into a specialty program (like stem at Edison), had divorced parents and chose the other parent's high school (like South County), or chose private high school. They should focus on improving Lewis rather than trying to move kids there who have the resources to just choose somewhere else for high school. It won't help enrollment at Lewis at all to shift a few neighborhoods from West Springfield there.

90-10 split feeders are just a bad idea generally. In general, the 10% ends up less invested in the public school system. This isn't just a Lewis issue.

I agree.

Unless the schools are very similar with overlapping communities.

Sangster is a good example. Most of the achools goes to Lake Braddock. The neighborhood Sangster sits in goes to West Springfield.

Thos two high schools are very interchangeable, because there is a lot of community overlap from things like little league, swim team, scouts, church, milktary families, etc. There is so much overlap. The WSHS and LBSS communitjes are intertwined. No one in either community would blink an eye over getting rezoned back or forth between either of those schools. They are a shared community, and the two schools are fairly equivalent.

Lewis is different in that it very separate community wise. These is no overlap anywhere. There is even a physical boundary of the mixing bowl.

I personally believe all split feeders should be eliminated wherever possible, certainly those that are less than 10%.

If rezoning were to happen, it should be Sangster to Lake Braddock, and the elimination of the Rolling Valley split feeder, with all of those houses zoned for WSHS.

Saratoga or Lewis should not even be part of the discussion of any rezoning of WSHS.

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.

That makes zero sense.

Really, this is a WSHS/LBSS conversation. Not a Saratoga/Lewis conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

If they are gutting a high school, and there is a practical way tod add capacity while the school is gutted, then yes, fcps should add capacity.

That being said, I don't think the schools in that middle range of capacity, even the schools barely over capcity like Edison or West Springfield should be a part of the over crowding discussion.

The focus should slowly be on those 4 schools that would benefit from significant attention from fcps.

There is a poster who continuously wants West Springfield to be the focus of the over crowding discussion. It is ridiculous for the poster to even try to do this as there is no comparison to those 4 schools in that part of the county.

I do think that the decision to add capacity during that full renovation was a very smart move, and would say that no matter what school it was. It did not add to the 4 year timeline. In fact, they finished ahead of schedule. It added very little to budget. It gave the school breathing room to manage the 2-4 year jump in size of the classes of 24-26, and the swing back to lower enrollment in a few years when the 3 large classes graduate.

The WSHS renovation should be a model for all of the high schools that undergo a full renovation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone see how hard WS posters are fighting the suggestions that any WS kids ever get zoned to Lewis? Any of the other surrounding schools would be fine.

That is what happens when you concentrate all of the poor and ESL students.

FCPS needs a reckoning on this.

There's no getting around the fact that there is going to be a concentration of "poor and ESL students", as you say, in a particular area. It's the place they can afford to live!

We live in walking distance of West Springfield so I have no fears personally about shifting boundaries, but in terms of community and neighborhood, definitely Lewis and Edison should be your discussion, not Lewis and WS. I too rolled my eyes a bit when Daventry shifted to WSHS from Lewis, but they are, in terms of how our neighborhoods are laid out, definitely a West Springfield community.

My kids went to Rolling Valley which is also a split feeder. About 10% of our students go to Lewis (the rest to WSHS). Every single family I know personally in that Lewis group moved, placed into a specialty program (like stem at Edison), had divorced parents and chose the other parent's high school (like South County), or chose private high school. They should focus on improving Lewis rather than trying to move kids there who have the resources to just choose somewhere else for high school. It won't help enrollment at Lewis at all to shift a few neighborhoods from West Springfield there.

90-10 split feeders are just a bad idea generally. In general, the 10% ends up less invested in the public school system. This isn't just a Lewis issue.

I agree.

Unless the schools are very similar with overlapping communities.

Sangster is a good example. Most of the achools goes to Lake Braddock. The neighborhood Sangster sits in goes to West Springfield.

Thos two high schools are very interchangeable, because there is a lot of community overlap from things like little league, swim team, scouts, church, milktary families, etc. There is so much overlap. The WSHS and LBSS communitjes are intertwined. No one in either community would blink an eye over getting rezoned back or forth between either of those schools. They are a shared community, and the two schools are fairly equivalent.

Lewis is different in that it very separate community wise. These is no overlap anywhere. There is even a physical boundary of the mixing bowl.

I personally believe all split feeders should be eliminated wherever possible, certainly those that are less than 10%.

If rezoning were to happen, it should be Sangster to Lake Braddock, and the elimination of the Rolling Valley split feeder, with all of those houses zoned for WSHS.

Saratoga or Lewis should not even be part of the discussion of any rezoning of WSHS.

The staunch WSHS supporters certainly like to point to the mixing bowl as a natural divider. In that case, how would you feel about absorbing parts of the Crestwood and Garfield neighborhoods? Not so excited about that idea? I wonder why. They are also on the west side of the mixing bowl and right off of Old Keene Mill. They're practically a continuation of Daventry and I don't see why they should specifically belong to Lewis by design.

Lewis and Key are just a few hundred yards away from being in Alexandria, after all, so it seems Crestwood and Garfield are best aligned to the WSHS community. Who gave you the right to decide who belongs to what community?

I'm being facetious to point out the hypocrisy of gerrymandering as it best fits ones preference for gatekeeping poor people out of the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

If they are gutting a high school, and there is a practical way tod add capacity while the school is gutted, then yes, fcps should add capacity.

That being said, I don't think the schools in that middle range of capacity, even the schools barely over capcity like Edison or West Springfield should be a part of the over crowding discussion.

The focus should slowly be on those 4 schools that would benefit from significant attention from fcps.

There is a poster who continuously wants West Springfield to be the focus of the over crowding discussion. It is ridiculous for the poster to even try to do this as there is no comparison to those 4 schools in that part of the county.

I do think that the decision to add capacity during that full renovation was a very smart move, and would say that no matter what school it was. It did not add to the 4 year timeline. In fact, they finished ahead of schedule. It added very little to budget. It gave the school breathing room to manage the 2-4 year jump in size of the classes of 24-26, and the swing back to lower enrollment in a few years when the 3 large classes graduate.

The WSHS renovation should be a model for all of the high schools that undergo a full renovation.

No one will argue against the wisdom of having expanded West Springfield during its renovation since it is now making full use of that space and more.

However, you're so enamored of West Springfield's current condition that you've suggested it's the model for every school that's scheduled for a renovation.

Claiming that adding more space than is necessary or was planned adds very little to budget is simply wrong. It takes both time and money, including money that could be spent elsewhere. And it then creates pressure invariably to make use of that space, in ways that may or may not align with FCPS's other goals, whether it's reducing transportation costs, limiting the amount of time kids spend on buses, or offering comparable programs at different schools.

If you don't see this, you're either not considering the full picture, or willfully blind to the consequences of this policy. It's been the policy at FCPS for a while, and it's been good for some pyramids, like yours, and anything but positive for others.

[Anonymous]

It is one thing for parents from a 20-30% over capacity school like McLean to push to have their own school rezoned to alleviate terrible over crowding.

A parent who is zoned for a completely unconnected school complaining and pushing for an entirely unrelated school from their own to be rezoned over slight "overcrowding" when no one from that other school is inconvenienced or concerned in the least over their zoned school's enrollment is really misplaced.

No one from WSHS is complaining about overcrowding or asking to be rezoned. That is why it is so odd for someone who does not have kids at WS and is not zoned for WS and was never zoned for WS to be so fixated on rezoning that school and pushing that the rezoning should occur because of "overcrowding"

Why not redirect some of that energy toward lobbying for the elimination of IB at your school and a switch to AP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone see how hard WS posters are fighting the suggestions that any WS kids ever get zoned to Lewis? Any of the other surrounding schools would be fine.

That is what happens when you concentrate all of the poor and ESL students.

FCPS needs a reckoning on this.

There's no getting around the fact that there is going to be a concentration of "poor and ESL students", as you say, in a particular area. It's the place they can afford to live!

We live in walking distance of West Springfield so I have no fears personally about shifting boundaries, but in terms of community and neighborhood, definitely Lewis and Edison should be your discussion, not Lewis and WS. I too rolled my eyes a bit when Daventry shifted to WSHS from Lewis, but they are, in terms of how our neighborhoods are laid out, definitely a West Springfield community.

My kids went to Rolling Valley which is also a split feeder. About 10% of our students go to Lewis (the rest to WSHS). Every single family I know personally in that Lewis group moved, placed into a specialty program (like stem at Edison), had divorced parents and chose the other parent's high school (like South County), or chose private high school. They should focus on improving Lewis rather than trying to move kids there who have the resources to just choose somewhere else for high school. It won't help enrollment at Lewis at all to shift a few neighborhoods from West Springfield there.

90-10 split feeders are just a bad idea generally. In general, the 10% ends up less invested in the public school system. This isn't just a Lewis issue.

I agree.

Unless the schools are very similar with overlapping communities.

Sangster is a good example. Most of the achools goes to Lake Braddock. The neighborhood Sangster sits in goes to West Springfield.

Thos two high schools are very interchangeable, because there is a lot of community overlap from things like little league, swim team, scouts, church, milktary families, etc. There is so much overlap. The WSHS and LBSS communitjes are intertwined. No one in either community would blink an eye over getting rezoned back or forth between either of those schools. They are a shared community, and the two schools are fairly equivalent.

Lewis is different in that it very separate community wise. These is no overlap anywhere. There is even a physical boundary of the mixing bowl.

I personally believe all split feeders should be eliminated wherever possible, certainly those that are less than 10%.

If rezoning were to happen, it should be Sangster to Lake Braddock, and the elimination of the Rolling Valley split feeder, with all of those houses zoned for WSHS.

Saratoga or Lewis should not even be part of the discussion of any rezoning of WSHS.

The staunch WSHS supporters certainly like to point to the mixing bowl as a natural divider. In that case, how would you feel about absorbing parts of the Crestwood and Garfield neighborhoods? Not so excited about that idea? I wonder why. They are also on the west side of the mixing bowl and right off of Old Keene Mill. They're practically a continuation of Daventry and I don't see why they should specifically belong to Lewis by design.

Lewis and Key are just a few hundred yards away from being in Alexandria, after all, so it seems Crestwood and Garfield are best aligned to the WSHS community. Who gave you the right to decide who belongs to what community?

I'm being facetious to point out the hypocrisy of gerrymandering as it best fits ones preference for gatekeeping poor people out of the area.

Yeah, you don't know your geography, but keep on preaching, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is one thing for parents from a 20-30% over capacity school like McLean to push to have their own school rezoned to alleviate terrible over crowding.

A parent who is zoned for a completely unconnected school complaining and pushing for an entirely unrelated school from their own to be rezoned over slight "overcrowding" when no one from that other school is inconvenienced or concerned in the least over their zoned school's enrollment is really misplaced.

No one from WSHS is complaining about overcrowding or asking to be rezoned. That is why it is so odd for someone who does not have kids at WS and is not zoned for WS and was never zoned for WS to be so fixated on rezoning that school and pushing that the rezoning should occur because of "overcrowding"

Why not redirect some of that energy toward lobbying for the elimination of IB at your school and a switch to AP?

+1

Yup. Odd indeed. This is why when the topic comes up, it's fueled by a small cadre of parents who are pissed that they bought into neighborhoods that feed into Lewis, and cling onto the arbitrary and ridiculous argument of "overcrowding" or "under capacity." Nobody beyond the immediate Springfield area cares about either Lewis or WSHS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

McLean cannot absorb a single extra students, let alone over 600. The situation there is dire as it is. And it is starting to show in the declining SAT scores. You cannot maintain a decent quality education in a dangerously overcrowded environment.
https://www.fcps.edu/news/fairfax-county-sat-scores-continue-surpass-state-and-global-averages?utm_campaign+=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
And comparing FCPS declining SAT scores to global scores is as dumb as it gets. How could non-native speakers of English - living abroad -- possibly have comparable scores to students in U.S. public schools? But, yeah, globally, we are doing great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

This is helpful information.

Thank you for sharing.

It looks like Edison, which is 5-6% over capacity is projected to grow by over 200 students. The simplest fix for the Lewis issue would be to rezone a couple hundred students from Edison to Lewis.

Combine that with the nearly 100 students projected for Lewis. Lewis will end up with a student enrollment growth of roughly 300 students, which brings that school to roughly 2000 students. That is full capacity or just over capacity, based solely on projected growth for the neighborhoods along Franconia Road. Very good news for those worried about the current smaller enrollment of Lewis. Perhaps this natural ebb and flow of enrollment will sort out that issue in the next few years with natural population shifts. That looks like a win for the people posting here who are worried that Lewis is too small.

But really, this list and the initial post simply emphasize that all focus right now needs to be on rectifying the desparate overcrowding of McLean. Any additional bandwidth needs to be on Centerville, Chantilly, South Lakes and Marshall.

All of the other schools need to take a back burner until these high priority issues are addressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is one thing for parents from a 20-30% over capacity school like McLean to push to have their own school rezoned to alleviate terrible over crowding.

A parent who is zoned for a completely unconnected school complaining and pushing for an entirely unrelated school from their own to be rezoned over slight "overcrowding" when no one from that other school is inconvenienced or concerned in the least over their zoned school's enrollment is really misplaced.

No one from WSHS is complaining about overcrowding or asking to be rezoned. That is why it is so odd for someone who does not have kids at WS and is not zoned for WS and was never zoned for WS to be so fixated on rezoning that school and pushing that the rezoning should occur because of "overcrowding"

Why not redirect some of that energy toward lobbying for the elimination of IB at your school and a switch to AP?

+1

Yup. Odd indeed. This is why when the topic comes up, it's fueled by a small cadre of parents who are pissed that they bought into neighborhoods that feed into Lewis, and cling onto the arbitrary and ridiculous argument of "overcrowding" or "under capacity." Nobody beyond the immediate Springfield area cares about either Lewis or WSHS.

It isn't a ridiculous argument when a single school is a clear outlier sitting at 1685 students in a county as large and affluent as FCPS. Some so fervently oppose redistricting by the School Board for fear of having their child's education negatively affected, but that is precisely what Lewis and Mt. Vernon have suffered through over the past 10 years. Of course, it's not your problem so you're indifferent, but Lewis and Mt. Vernon have very little say now in the community as the population continues to decrease year by year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is one thing for parents from a 20-30% over capacity school like McLean to push to have their own school rezoned to alleviate terrible over crowding.

A parent who is zoned for a completely unconnected school complaining and pushing for an entirely unrelated school from their own to be rezoned over slight "overcrowding" when no one from that other school is inconvenienced or concerned in the least over their zoned school's enrollment is really misplaced.

No one from WSHS is complaining about overcrowding or asking to be rezoned. That is why it is so odd for someone who does not have kids at WS and is not zoned for WS and was never zoned for WS to be so fixated on rezoning that school and pushing that the rezoning should occur because of "overcrowding"

Why not redirect some of that energy toward lobbying for the elimination of IB at your school and a switch to AP?

+1

Yup. Odd indeed. This is why when the topic comes up, it's fueled by a small cadre of parents who are pissed that they bought into neighborhoods that feed into Lewis, and cling onto the arbitrary and ridiculous argument of "overcrowding" or "under capacity." Nobody beyond the immediate Springfield area cares about either Lewis or WSHS.

It isn't a ridiculous argument when a single school is a clear outlier sitting at 1685 students in a county as large and affluent as FCPS. Some so fervently oppose redistricting by the School Board for fear of having their child's education negatively affected, but that is precisely what Lewis and Mt. Vernon have suffered through over the past 10 years. Of course, it's not your problem so you're indifferent, but Lewis and Mt. Vernon have very little say now in the community as the population continues to decrease year by year.

Did you see the projected growth for the area along Franconia Rd? It appears that the number of new high school students is projected to be in the 300 range. That means Lewis has the potential to hit full capacity in the next few years, with minimal rezoning.

Very exciting news for those of you concerned about Lewis' current enrollment size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

This is helpful information.

Thank you for sharing.

It looks like Edison, which is 5-6% over capacity is projected to grow by over 200 students. The simplest fix for the Lewis issue would be to rezone a couple hundred students from Edison to Lewis.

Combine that with the nearly 100 students projected for Lewis. Lewis will end up with a student enrollment growth of roughly 300 students, which brings that school to roughly 2000 students. That is full capacity or just over capacity, based solely on projected growth for the neighborhoods along Franconia Road. Very good news for those worried about the current smaller enrollment of Lewis. Perhaps this natural ebb and flow of enrollment will sort out that issue in the next few years with natural population shifts. That looks like a win for the people posting here who are worried that Lewis is too small.

But really, this list and the initial post simply emphasize that all focus right now needs to be on rectifying the desparate overcrowding of McLean. Any additional bandwidth needs to be on Centerville, Chantilly, South Lakes and Marshall.

All of the other schools need to take a back burner until these high priority issues are addressed.

The caveats there should be that some of these students are factored into FCPS's current projections and some of the other housing units that give rise to the forecasts may never get built. So it's not like all these students will show up next year, or even the year after that.

But, yes, the current situation at McLean and the likely future situation at both Marshall and McLean require far more attention that they have received from FCPS staff and the School Board. McLean is caught in the middle between a School Board representative who only looks out after the interests of Langley, which isn't facing a similar capacity crunch, and the other School Board members, who think the wealthier schools like Langley and McLean have no problems, warrant little attention and, in McLean's case, deserve next to no money.

It is interesting that the potential Route 1/Embark growth could add a significant number of students at Edison, which was expanded during its renovation but not to the same extent as some other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone see how hard WS posters are fighting the suggestions that any WS kids ever get zoned to Lewis? Any of the other surrounding schools would be fine.

That is what happens when you concentrate all of the poor and ESL students.

FCPS needs a reckoning on this.

There's no getting around the fact that there is going to be a concentration of "poor and ESL students", as you say, in a particular area. It's the place they can afford to live!

We live in walking distance of West Springfield so I have no fears personally about shifting boundaries, but in terms of community and neighborhood, definitely Lewis and Edison should be your discussion, not Lewis and WS. I too rolled my eyes a bit when Daventry shifted to WSHS from Lewis, but they are, in terms of how our neighborhoods are laid out, definitely a West Springfield community.

My kids went to Rolling Valley which is also a split feeder. About 10% of our students go to Lewis (the rest to WSHS). Every single family I know personally in that Lewis group moved, placed into a specialty program (like stem at Edison), had divorced parents and chose the other parent's high school (like South County), or chose private high school. They should focus on improving Lewis rather than trying to move kids there who have the resources to just choose somewhere else for high school. It won't help enrollment at Lewis at all to shift a few neighborhoods from West Springfield there.

So it’s OK to move students from Lewis to West Springfield, but not in the opposite direction? Even though it contributes to West Springfield having over 800 more kids than Lewis (about twice as many more kids than Edison)?

We all know that real change will happen at Lewis only when they move families into the school who have the time, skills, and incentives to speak up. But you all just don’t want to do the work. If other kids suffer, too bad.

The Daventry rezoning went through because there were fewer than 20 high school students from Daventry attending then Lee (Lewis). It has been a while, but I believe the total number was in the low teens.

However, after the rezoning, high school students started coming out of the woodwork from Daventry. Kids who were homeschooling high school. Kids who had switched to Cafholic schools. Military families with high schoolers who would not buy or rent in a house zoned for Lewis. Kids who had pupil placed to other schools for languages or special programs.

The amount of high school students living in Daventry increased exponentially overnight, once FCPS rezoned the neighborhood to WSHS. If I were to guess based off knowing the community, it went from around a 10-20 students who went to Lewis, to easily over 100 the following year after rezoning.

Don't try to kid yourself that rezoning Daventry back to Lewis will bring 100s of WSHS kids to that school.

It would be the same 10-20 students, with everyone else doing what they did before.

Even if it were 100-150 daventry kids, 25-35 kids per grade is not going to transform that school, especially since the kids will be invested more in the West Springfield community and friends theh grew up with.

To get that 500 figure you want, you would need to rezone neighborhoods walkable to WSHS, and neighborhoods deep into the West Springfiled neighborhoods.

Maybe that was the goal of Laura Jane Cohen and the Board of supervisors when they created a back door deal to slice up West Springfield's magisterial districs. She had a lot of support from those neigborhoods but stabbed them in the back. I am sure she would do it again in a heartbeat.

WS has over 2500 kids and Edison 2250. Move 300 from WS and 100 from Edison, replace IB with AP, and provide transportation from Lewis to Edison for rising seniors who want to complete the IB diploma program.

That should get Lewis to over 2000, assuming some attrition and placements to Edison. It would demonstrate a real commitment to putting Lewis on a stronger footing, unlike just changing the school's name.

It's real easy playing armchair redistricting tycoon and ignoring politics, history, budget, logistics, and reality, isn't it?

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.

“Road block after road block?”

How exactly are parents stopping the school board from redoing boundaries to balance capacity?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.


The IB diploma is a poor metric for its utility. Students can take IB classes and receive college credit, just like AP, without getting the IB diploma.

[Anonymous]

Clearly IB is a waste of money and resources at several of those schools. It requires special certification and costs a lot more money.

There is no was FCPS can justify IB at a school graduating si gle digits of kids with the IB diploma.