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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
FCPS comprehensive boundary review
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Anonymous
The children in my neighborhood attend the schools. My children attended the schools - they are in their upper 20’s. One of my children had an IEP from 2nd to 12th grade and I have done a fair bit of advocacy surrounding their issues and trying to make sure things were better than what he experienced. I like to see how that is going. I am part of this community. |
Anonymous
it would deter volunteers- who wants to be inundated with crazy parent emails and be doxed because they have a different perspective on an issue. |
Anonymous
My post above. 2 persons whose residences show up as Mount Vernon HS on the boundary locator is not the relevant thing in this post. The article on the Dunne Montesorri Magnet is primary-removes a major portion of Bucknell from the boundary process, magnet for West Potomac Pyramid only, grant money expires. FCPS received grant $ when it established some elementary magnets and immersion. Now the costs are from local taxes/operating fund. Program budget costs for the 2[3] elementary magnets just for transportaion are 2024 $579,930 and 2025 $523,090. So anyone willing to have their tax dollars going to transporting West Potomac K-6 to a Montessori Magnet? That estimate is not given but might e similar to what is actually spent on the 2 current magnets. Extra staff and transfers in: Bailey 2 (less than 10), Baileys Upper 3 (less than 10) , Hunters Woods 2 (251 transfer in). That magnet program is basically a staffing bump for the Bailey's but works like a magnet at Hunters Woods. Like Bucknell they were set up to avoid base school boundary changes. |
Anonymous
They literally signed up to represent their pyramid. Don’t be dense. And they aren’t going to be doxxed, that’s absurd. |
Anonymous
It sounds like you have a lot of facts, but your presentation is very incoherent. If you are trying to get folks on board, then it would be helpful if your post was a little more clear. |
Anonymous
DP. Just do a search for the magnet Montessori program now planned at Bucknell, a long-underenrolled ES in the West Potomac pyramid. PP’s point is that this seems to carve the school out of the current county-wide study and that, at a time when FCPS is supposedly looking for transportation savings, it is creating a new program at Bucknell that students all over the large West Potomac pyramid could end up attending rather than their base schools. PP also referred to some other ES with magnet programs to make the point that they historically were created to try to shore up the enrollments at those schools and/or attract kids from higher-income families. Does that help? |
Anonymous
Here is a question: If you were on the committee, would you vote to protect your own neighborhood or the one that is a few miles away? I think we already saw an example of what appears to be a committee member protecting her own neighborhood. Here is a solution: Get rid of IB. For elementary schools, put AAP in every school and quit busing those kids. And, magnet schools should be closely examined for need. |
Anonymous
That is wonderful that you are so involved in your community. However, my concern is that someone who is ten years removed from FCPS probably does not have enough current understanding of the school system to be an effective advocate in a designated parent/caregiver committee role. For example, I was recently speaking with a very pro rezoning empty nester about rezoning. She had very strong opinions in support about rezoning and lots of information about the district, in particular schools outside her neighborhood, that were not in alignment with fact. A lot of what this person stated seemed to come from this website or reddit. Several "facts" stated about my kids zoned schools were blatantly false, to the point of being laughable. At least two of these "facts" has been posted here on this site. If this person was hypothetically selected for the committee, they would be pushing for rezoning decisions that affect a lot of kids, as an expert in information that was inaccurate and based of anonymous discussion forums, not real, current FCPS experience. Having someone who has been out of the FCPS schools for over a decade or more appointed as the allocated parent representative takes away a critical voice from.the community being represented. So much has changed in the schools since covid, which makes an even stronger case that no parent slots should be given to anyone who has not had a kid in the FCPS system since covid. I appreciate and applaud anyone who volunteered their time on this committee, and do not fault the empty nester who volunteered. But I am very disappointed if FCPS has given one of the precious parent slots to an empty nester who has no kids involved in FCPS and hasn't had students in a decade or more. On the note of the article in question, is it possible that the parent rep in question simply did not mention their kid's schools over concerns of doxxing? They are maming a sacrifice of time and privacy to be on the committee. I imagine that they want to keep as much privacy for their families as possible. |
Anonymous
Bucknell was expanded based on the county telling the FCPS that there would be massive residential growth along the route 1 corridor within Bucknell's boundary as part of a redevelopment plan. That growth still hasn't materialized. Rather than let the building sit mostly empty, at least the county is trying to fill it. |
Anonymous
I can see a scenario where parents who live near a particular school would support rezoning kids who live much further away, and the parents in the far-away area doing everything they could to persuade those parents otherwise and, failing that, publicly harassing them. |
Anonymous
Once the maps come out, if it turns out that the representative's houses benefit, I'd assume that the privacy will end. Personally, I hope they whole process stays in the dark because violations of open meeting laws are one of the most common ways to derail local government action |
Anonymous
How lovely. Elsewhere in the county they don’t address actual growth with new schools or capacity enhancements but Alexandria got a new school based on potential development. Was this before they expanded West Potomac to 3000 when Mount Vernon had empty seats? The incompetence really has been over the top. |
Anonymous
So you can have current parents who know next to nothing about any schools outside their pyramid and also have misunderstandings based on reading this forum, FB (the FairFACTS site is full of false claims), or chatter with neighbors. Some just wanted to limit potential BRAC members to current parents to increase their own chances of being selected. They may have more skin in the game, but aren’t necessarily more knowledgeable. |
Anonymous
I am not your empty nest neighbor. We are not all the same. I do think people who do not have children in FCPS are part of the community be they empty nesters, parents of children under 5, never had children or private school parents. We need them to be engaged and support the public school system for it to work. They pay for more than half of the budget - they need to have a say. Can you give a few examples of what “wrong facts” your neighbor had? |
Anonymous
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I am an "empty nester" who went through a boundary reshuffling. I don't want to be on the committee--but people like me could share the experience of how awful this can be to the school system.
It sounds so simple: just "balance" things out. But, they take no consideration of how disruptive it is to real families and students. And, there are always winners and losers. For example, a school that was rated very high lost students to a school that was rated very low. The result: the very highly rated school is no longer highly rated. And, years later, the families are still not very happy with the redistricting. |