FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But change sucks, no one likes it. I get it. That doesn't mean you don't make changes where it is needed. FCPS is handling this awfully and their priorities are questionable. Stick to shifting students based on overcrowding and stop with the income balancing. And get rid of IB, which wastes money and is underutilized.

The question is: is this needed?
No need
Underutilized and overutilized are vague statements. If there are truly program disparities: address those.

When you have 100+ students transferring out of a school for AP/IB, it is a problem. And, when it appears that AP/IB is the excuse to transfer, it is a much bigger problem.
Eliminate IB ASAP.

That will add students to some of the underperforming schools --maybe all of them. No need to redraw boundaries.

That brings equity to the programming.

Spot on. This is the form of equity we want, not their forced family fun of new zones. Bring students back to their home schools and offer AP classes at all, even dual enrollment. This would reset many natural boundaries and then they can do any necessary geographical tweaks once that settles.

Cost is minimal compared *checks wallet* expanding/converting middle schools facilities, training/moving 6th grade ES teachers, playing with bus routes, fighting parental pitchforks, etc.

[Anonymous]

Fairfax County leaders see no easy solution for school funding needs

https://www.ffxnow.com/2025/02/26/fairfax-county-leaders-see-no-easy-solution-for-school-funding-needs/

At a time when FCPS is already struggling with funding - do they really want to go all-in on the boundary change, and risk public backlash as well as folks moving out or going private, further reducing income?

[Anonymous]

Nobody wants these unnecessary boundary changes in a time of massive upheaval across the DC area.

[Anonymous]

Yes - I completely agree...

[Anonymous]

- People vote with their wallets and their feet.
- People choose their houses based on the school pyramid and are willing to pay taxes for a quality education
- When you pull the rug from under their feet with a switcheroo -- guess what, the same folks vote with their wallets and their feet.
- Don't expect folks to put up with their kids academics being ducked with to not have any political and financial repercussions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:- People vote with their wallets and their feet.
- People choose their houses based on the school pyramid and are willing to pay taxes for a quality education
- When you pull the rug from under their feet with a switcheroo -- guess what, the same folks vote with their wallets and their feet.
- Don't expect folks to put up with their kids academics being ducked with to not have any political and financial repercussions.

This is fundamentally glossed over or ignored by the boundary change proponents. It’s a big reason why all that will happen is the school board will hurt a lot of students and end up with a much worse overall system than they have currently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- People vote with their wallets and their feet.
- People choose their houses based on the school pyramid and are willing to pay taxes for a quality education
- When you pull the rug from under their feet with a switcheroo -- guess what, the same folks vote with their wallets and their feet.
- Don't expect folks to put up with their kids academics being ducked with to not have any political and financial repercussions.

This is fundamentally glossed over or ignored by the boundary change proponents. It’s a big reason why all that will happen is the school board will hurt a lot of students and end up with a much worse overall system than they have currently.

I don’t think the School Board members care. It’s not a group of people who really care about education or the long-term stability of a large school system. It’s primarily composed of people who have a very narrow focus (like special education) or see the School Board as a stepping stone to another office. Currying favor with other politicians and party members, not doing right by kids, is what motivates them.

Even within their own ranks, loyalty to each other trumps common sense or fiscal responsibility. You could see that when the majority went ahead and rubber stamped Karl Frisch’s expensive boondoggle at Dunn Loring, even though they’d previously acknowledged it was a waste of money. Why? Because his one (and only) talent is raising money from wealthy LBGTQ donors that could help them in their next elections.

They will run FCPS into the ground, and find a way to be somewhere else when it’s time to pick up the pieces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone up-thread wrote:

“ Is there some sort of specific secret map somewhere that they are trying to get passed? Considering all the “DEI” being thrown around as I’m skimming, my spidey senses tell me this all boils down to parents being afraid they will be redistricted to a “too poor” or “too brown” school, but honestly I’m having trouble figuring out exactly what all the uproar is over given the lack of details available (that I’ve seen, and admittedly have been paying very little attention).”

Thanks for calling every concerned parent a racist or classist.

The reality is every parent wants the best available education for their child. That is not unreasonable.

If a parents’ desire for the best for their child happens to coincide with a wealthier school, or for example, a predominantly Asian school, it really horrible of you, PP, to bluntly hurl unfounded charges of racism and classism.

Is that not the very definition of classism…?

Yes of course, every parent wants the best education for their child. The problem is that when we all make the same individual decisions, abetted by decades of redlining and social policy that deliberately lead to racial and economic segregation, the end result is that we wind up with low SES students segregated in underperforming schools. That means us making the best decisions for OUR children directly results in poorer outcomes for OTHER children. Unfortunately that requires some sort of outside intervention to mediate, since individuals will always choose what is in their own best interest, period. Hence, government (school board) intervention.

I’m not naive enough to believe the NIMBYs on this thread would ever allow any sort of truly transformative change to happen any time soon, when there are those here who are just seething at the mouth to get rid of the office we have dedicated to try to figure out how to help the kids who need it the most. And the reality of the situation is that is not even one of the stated goals of the redistricting, so in the end this all just fearmongering by a small group of parents who are dead set against any change, ever, for their kids, no matter the needs of the greater district. In the end hopefully we will wind up with boundaries that make marginally more sense, and an overall small percentage of students in the district will ultimately be affected.

Personally, I think targeted child tax credits, good housing policy, universal school lunch and breakfast, and universal pre-k would be more effective interventions than boundary changes that are in the end going to be incremental at best, but we aren’t going to get any of that either, so 🤷‍♀️

As someone who grew up in a high poverty school, and experienced redistricting, and yes is part of a minority community I want my kids to be a part of, and now enjoys a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle that I never thought would be possible for me, I’m confident my kids will be fine no matter where the chips fall. Not just because they are resilient, but because they have me. Advocating, providing, using all of my resources to help them navigate life. And your kids have you. You are doing the same. They are going to be fine. And if they aren’t… it’s not because they had to switch schools in the 10th grade. That will be a small drop in the bucket of their cumulative life experiences.

Seriously, the world is burning y’all. Perspective.

But no I actually do not care if your kid gets into an Ivy or UVA, just for the record. How is “a highly competitive college admissions environment” something we are throwing around as a factor to consider in all this? Get a grip, people 🤯

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- People vote with their wallets and their feet.
- People choose their houses based on the school pyramid and are willing to pay taxes for a quality education
- When you pull the rug from under their feet with a switcheroo -- guess what, the same folks vote with their wallets and their feet.
- Don't expect folks to put up with their kids academics being ducked with to not have any political and financial repercussions.

This is fundamentally glossed over or ignored by the boundary change proponents. It’s a big reason why all that will happen is the school board will hurt a lot of students and end up with a much worse overall system than they have currently.

I don’t think the School Board members care. It’s not a group of people who really care about education or the long-term stability of a large school system. It’s primarily composed of people who have a very narrow focus (like special education) or see the School Board as a stepping stone to another office. Currying favor with other politicians and party members, not doing right by kids, is what motivates them.

Even within their own ranks, loyalty to each other trumps common sense or fiscal responsibility. You could see that when the majority went ahead and rubber stamped Karl Frisch’s expensive boondoggle at Dunn Loring, even though they’d previously acknowledged it was a waste of money. Why? Because his one (and only) talent is raising money from wealthy LBGTQ donors that could help them in their next elections.

They will run FCPS into the ground, and find a way to be somewhere else when it’s time to pick up the pieces.

Reid will waltz away to her next role with this on her resume and spin it as a grand success as FCPS is nationally known. She doesn’t care about this area.

As you mentioned, others more permanently local will use it as a stepping stone if/when voted out.

[Anonymous]

To the person at 11:31, I moved my kids because one of them was being targeted and assaulted by another group of kids in the hallways. It was racially motivated. This school is such a mess (still) that I knew anything I did would just make things worse. I also know that it takes a ridiculous amount of work and documentation to get the kids that causae this kind of trouble into the alternative schools they should be in - it can take years - even when they seriously hurt others. Frankly, I don't think kids that create unsafe environments and threaten other students deserve to be in other schools with kids at all. They can do online school for all I care. The school we moved to isn't the best in the world, but my kids said that at least they feel safe.

Moving to another boundary was still the hardest thing we ever did and my kids were not in high school at the time.

Also, the only way you know your kids will be fine is if you have so much wealth you know they won't have to work. You are also discounting the impact of other trauma outside your control on their mental health. I don't know if my kids will be fine, but I'm trying to prepare them the best I can with the resources I have. A boundary change on top of a previous move to escape the trauma of another FCPS school on top of the Covid setback isn't something I'm going to roll over for and say "you'll be fine kid. You've got me."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:- People vote with their wallets and their feet.
- People choose their houses based on the school pyramid and are willing to pay taxes for a quality education
- When you pull the rug from under their feet with a switcheroo -- guess what, the same folks vote with their wallets and their feet.
- Don't expect folks to put up with their kids academics being ducked with to not have any political and financial repercussions.

If I’m remembering correctly, the CIP numbers showed the percentage of school age kids being opted out of FCPS increased from about 10% to 25% during COVID. Given the magnitude of the event, that was a smaller change than I honestly expected. I don’t think people will join you in opting into private at nearly the rate you would hope, and hardly enough to make a huge dent. And if they do, we still get their property tax dollars anyway.

If you and your neighbors move en masse, maybe we see a slight decrease in your home’s price when you sell. Then someone slightly less wealthy, who sees where the school boundary is and doesn’t mind, will buy it. Incremental wealth redistribution and better neighbors all in one go 👍

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone up-thread wrote:

“ Is there some sort of specific secret map somewhere that they are trying to get passed? Considering all the “DEI” being thrown around as I’m skimming, my spidey senses tell me this all boils down to parents being afraid they will be redistricted to a “too poor” or “too brown” school, but honestly I’m having trouble figuring out exactly what all the uproar is over given the lack of details available (that I’ve seen, and admittedly have been paying very little attention).”

Thanks for calling every concerned parent a racist or classist.

The reality is every parent wants the best available education for their child. That is not unreasonable.

If a parents’ desire for the best for their child happens to coincide with a wealthier school, or for example, a predominantly Asian school, it really horrible of you, PP, to bluntly hurl unfounded charges of racism and classism.

Is that not the very definition of classism…?

Yes of course, every parent wants the best education for their child. The problem is that when we all make the same individual decisions, abetted by decades of redlining and social policy that deliberately lead to racial and economic segregation, the end result is that we wind up with low SES students segregated in underperforming schools. That means us making the best decisions for OUR children directly results in poorer outcomes for OTHER children. Unfortunately that requires some sort of outside intervention to mediate, since individuals will always choose what is in their own best interest, period. Hence, government (school board) intervention.

I’m not naive enough to believe the NIMBYs on this thread would ever allow any sort of truly transformative change to happen any time soon, when there are those here who are just seething at the mouth to get rid of the office we have dedicated to try to figure out how to help the kids who need it the most. And the reality of the situation is that is not even one of the stated goals of the redistricting, so in the end this all just fearmongering by a small group of parents who are dead set against any change, ever, for their kids, no matter the needs of the greater district. In the end hopefully we will wind up with boundaries that make marginally more sense, and an overall small percentage of students in the district will ultimately be affected.

Personally, I think targeted child tax credits, good housing policy, universal school lunch and breakfast, and universal pre-k would be more effective interventions than boundary changes that are in the end going to be incremental at best, but we aren’t going to get any of that either, so 🤷‍♀️

As someone who grew up in a high poverty school, and experienced redistricting, and yes is part of a minority community I want my kids to be a part of, and now enjoys a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle that I never thought would be possible for me, I’m confident my kids will be fine no matter where the chips fall. Not just because they are resilient, but because they have me. Advocating, providing, using all of my resources to help them navigate life. And your kids have you. You are doing the same. They are going to be fine. And if they aren’t… it’s not because they had to switch schools in the 10th grade. That will be a small drop in the bucket of their cumulative life experiences.

Seriously, the world is burning y’all. Perspective.

But no I actually do not care if your kid gets into an Ivy or UVA, just for the record. How is “a highly competitive college admissions environment” something we are throwing around as a factor to consider in all this? Get a grip, people 🤯

Did an equity AI bot write this drivel? 🤡

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the person at 11:31, I moved my kids because one of them was being targeted and assaulted by another group of kids in the hallways. It was racially motivated. This school is such a mess (still) that I knew anything I did would just make things worse. I also know that it takes a ridiculous amount of work and documentation to get the kids that causae this kind of trouble into the alternative schools they should be in - it can take years - even when they seriously hurt others. Frankly, I don't think kids that create unsafe environments and threaten other students deserve to be in other schools with kids at all. They can do online school for all I care. The school we moved to isn't the best in the world, but my kids said that at least they feel safe.

Moving to another boundary was still the hardest thing we ever did and my kids were not in high school at the time.

Also, the only way you know your kids will be fine is if you have so much wealth you know they won't have to work. You are also discounting the impact of other trauma outside your control on their mental health. I don't know if my kids will be fine, but I'm trying to prepare them the best I can with the resources I have. A boundary change on top of a previous move to escape the trauma of another FCPS school on top of the Covid setback isn't something I'm going to roll over for and say "you'll be fine kid. You've got me."

I feel for your kid - truly. And agree that we need to be doing more and a better job addressing bullying and those kinds of disruptive kids and behaviors in the school system as a whole. Honestly I think that aspect of our school system is something that is broken, but I don't know enough about those specific needs to know what good policy there would be. But at the same time, you simply can't make district policy revolve around the very individual needs of specific students. The very best we can strive for is to maximize the possible outcomes, given constrained resources, for the largest number of students in our care.

I'm not discounting trauma outside your control, I'm saying a boundary change is a drop in the bucket compared to a lifetime of experiences. We all experience trauma. Some far greater than others. A boundary change is not traumatic enough to move the needle on lifetime outcomes for your child. And if you believe that it would, I'm fully confident that you, being an excellent parent, would use every resource at your disposal to perhaps move, or secure a boundary exception of some sort. But trying to take individual specific needs into account when creating districtwide policy is just impossible. The answer to individual trauma, is individual solutions (and therapy). It isn't fighting a boundary change that would positively impact a larger number of kids. Which, we don't even know yet if it would. Because there is no plan yet. I've been honestly searching for those "leaked maps" and haven't turned them up yet.

The thing that has me so exasperated is that all of this hand wringing is truly just parents saying, preemptively, "better not be me." Its either, "not my neighborhood", or "not this year" (hoping your kids will be gone before it can affect them), or "eliminate IB instead" (because we all know that would affect the kids whose parents bought in a neighborhood knowing they could use the loophole to transfer out - IE not your kids).

FCPS hasn't don't a comprehensive boundary review in 40 years. Just let them do their review. I don't think that it is too much to ask our community to come to the table with honesty and a desire to truly do what is best, for the greatest number of kids in the district. Not the loudest ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- People vote with their wallets and their feet.
- People choose their houses based on the school pyramid and are willing to pay taxes for a quality education
- When you pull the rug from under their feet with a switcheroo -- guess what, the same folks vote with their wallets and their feet.
- Don't expect folks to put up with their kids academics being ducked with to not have any political and financial repercussions.

If I’m remembering correctly, the CIP numbers showed the percentage of school age kids being opted out of FCPS increased from about 10% to 25% during COVID. Given the magnitude of the event, that was a smaller change than I honestly expected. I don’t think people will join you in opting into private at nearly the rate you would hope, and hardly enough to make a huge dent. And if they do, we still get their property tax dollars anyway.

If you and your neighbors move en masse, maybe we see a slight decrease in your home’s price when you sell. Then someone slightly less wealthy, who sees where the school boundary is and doesn’t mind, will buy it. Incremental wealth redistribution and better neighbors all in one go 👍

I don't think your class warfare-inspired drivel will work out too well for FCPS or the county, even if it appeals to a bunch of Democratic politicians whose only real goal is to solidify their base and not end up like one of those School Board members like Frisch, Moon, and McElveen who tried to run for higher office and got rebuffed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- People vote with their wallets and their feet.
- People choose their houses based on the school pyramid and are willing to pay taxes for a quality education
- When you pull the rug from under their feet with a switcheroo -- guess what, the same folks vote with their wallets and their feet.
- Don't expect folks to put up with their kids academics being ducked with to not have any political and financial repercussions.

If I’m remembering correctly, the CIP numbers showed the percentage of school age kids being opted out of FCPS increased from about 10% to 25% during COVID. Given the magnitude of the event, that was a smaller change than I honestly expected. I don’t think people will join you in opting into private at nearly the rate you would hope, and hardly enough to make a huge dent. And if they do, we still get their property tax dollars anyway.

If you and your neighbors move en masse, maybe we see a slight decrease in your home’s price when you sell. Then someone slightly less wealthy, who sees where the school boundary is and doesn’t mind, will buy it. Incremental wealth redistribution and better neighbors all in one go 👍

So you don’t think removing 25% of likely umc students had or will have an effect on the rest of the kids? Because all I hear about from your comrades is that high farms supposedly really cripples opportunities for those schools.

At some point you’re arguing for a system that is equitized at really high farms level. The SJWs and the far right have gone so far extreme that they have now joined together at the other end of the circle. I wish you luck in that system, but you’ll lose a lot of us along the way, and don’t expect us to support taking more of our resources to realize your equity vision.