FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

But this is the pyramid that has schools that the school board is using to justify rezoning. I am sure they did not expect that the Lewis parents would be just as much against the disruptions of rezoning and just as strongly wanting to keep their kids in their neighborhood schools, as all of the other parents at other schools

I am not surprised, but I bet the school board was surprised, along with some of the pro rezoning non parents who post here regularly.

Empty nester here who went through four boundary redistrictings--two for middle, two for high school.

The first meeting I went to with a friend. It was telling. She commented to me as we were leaving--"even the parents at schools that we think of as "less than" want to stay where they are." In every boundary study we went through, I found this to be true. No one wants to move. Not to a "new" school or to a "different" school.

You may find parents who want to take kids from other schools--but you rarely find any family that wants to leave their current --or upcoming- school.

There are so many things that FCPS could do to avoid this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

But this is the pyramid that has schools that the school board is using to justify rezoning. I am sure they did not expect that the Lewis parents would be just as much against the disruptions of rezoning and just as strongly wanting to keep their kids in their neighborhood schools, as all of the other parents at other schools

I am not surprised, but I bet the school board was surprised, along with some of the pro rezoning non parents who post here regularly.

Empty nester here who went through four boundary redistrictings--two for middle, two for high school.

The first meeting I went to with a friend. It was telling. She commented to me as we were leaving--"even the parents at schools that we think of as "less than" want to stay where they are." In every boundary study we went through, I found this to be true. No one wants to move. Not to a "new" school or to a "different" school.

You may find parents who want to take kids from other schools--but you rarely find any family that wants to leave their current --or upcoming- school.

There are so many things that FCPS could do to avoid this.

Thank you. I got a similar feeling from yesterday’s meeting. And that was potentially the most friendly for them. Maybe they should pause and reflect?

[Anonymous]

I hope they do actually listen and make the changes that really make sense - like fixing elementary school attendance islands, fixing some of the split feeders where it's desired by parents, and looking at limiting pupil placement and making the home school most desirable. Eliminate IB.

It sounds like they are overwhelmingly hearing that that is where they should start in this first look.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Lots of upset parents tonight at the boundary meeting. I wonder if the school board is getting the message when they keep hearing from parents over and over again that they don’t want the boundary changes.

Upset parents wanting rezoning? Or against rezoning?

If the vibe was against rezoning, I ber they were caught off guard.

Parents against rezoning.

I’m sure the SB was NOT caught off guard by parents against rezoning.

Normally, yes.

But this is the pyramid that has schools that the school board is using to justify rezoning. I am sure they did not expect that the Lewis parents would be just as much against the disruptions of rezoning and just as strongly wanting to keep their kids in their neighborhood schools, as all of the other parents at other schools

I am not surprised, but I bet the school board was surprised, along with some of the pro rezoning non parents who post here regularly.

The Mount Vernon HS meeting with lots of Lewis folks was back on Monday, and the parents there were generally supportive of making changes and having saner boundaries than some of the craziness of the current setup.

Tonight's meeting was at Annandale, and the feedback was most uniformly supportive of changes that would allow more equitable access to programming, and specifically access for students WITHIN THEIR PYRAMID. Saying you can technically "access" a program but to do so you have to be bussed over to some other pyramid doesn't count. This seems mainly about local AAP and also the AP/IB split. But overall folks seemed more concerned about this programming issue than the boundary lines, but also understood that one could impact the other.

There was also some incongruent feedback, for example one table emphasized making sure that when they do this that they make purposeful changes that actually have an impact, don't just bow to the fear of "making the fewest people upset about changes". But on the other hand the most common phrase was "minimize disruptions", yet in the same breath many of those same groups were also supportive of some changes, especially pertaining to islands and split feeders. So minimize disruptions =/= no disruptions, it seems... basically, "only disruptions that I personally think are reasonable".

Finally, some requested looking at "more creative" changes than boundary adjustments, and one said that overcrowding wasn't the worst thing, a sense of school community is more important, and different communities want different things.

Really one sided summary. At my table, and from the reporters, the responses to the boundary changes was very negative.

There was a table who asked to make sure that each school has a similar composition of race. Definitely illegal, but curious that there are people who still think like that.

There is a lot of negativity on the boundary changes. No one wanted them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope they do actually listen and make the changes that really make sense - like fixing elementary school attendance islands, fixing some of the split feeders where it's desired by parents, and looking at limiting pupil placement and making the home school most desirable. Eliminate IB.

It sounds like they are overwhelmingly hearing that that is where they should start in this first look.

Why eliminate IB? Resource sucker? By that logic, TJ should be returned to a neighborhood HS. We need more High Schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they do actually listen and make the changes that really make sense - like fixing elementary school attendance islands, fixing some of the split feeders where it's desired by parents, and looking at limiting pupil placement and making the home school most desirable. Eliminate IB.

It sounds like they are overwhelmingly hearing that that is where they should start in this first look.

Why eliminate IB? Resource sucker? By that logic, TJ should be returned to a neighborhood HS. We need more High Schools.

Eliminate IB because many students use this to pupil place at neighboring AP schools. Plus, a lot of the schools that have IB would really be better serving their student population with AP. IB is sort of all or nothing, from what I've heard. You have to be an all around good student with particularly strong writing and language skills. Offering a wide variety of AP classes lets students take AP in the subjects they are strong in and stay in honors/general for those they aren't. Having IB at a school like Lewis is only serving a small minority of the student body and shutting out a lot of kids from advanced learning in targeted subjects. Plus, AP classes can lead to college credit which kids at our lower income schools probably really need to help afford college.

I think IB works ok at a school like Robinson. I know lots of families with kids who have completed it. But at the same time, they almost all wish they were an AP school.

[Anonymous]

Still no Boundary Review Advisory Committee member list.

The delay is right on brand for the school board’s approach to “transparency.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they do actually listen and make the changes that really make sense - like fixing elementary school attendance islands, fixing some of the split feeders where it's desired by parents, and looking at limiting pupil placement and making the home school most desirable. Eliminate IB.

It sounds like they are overwhelmingly hearing that that is where they should start in this first look.

Why eliminate IB? Resource sucker? By that logic, TJ should be returned to a neighborhood HS. We need more High Schools.

Eliminate IB because many students use this to pupil place at neighboring AP schools. Plus, a lot of the schools that have IB would really be better serving their student population with AP. IB is sort of all or nothing, from what I've heard. You have to be an all around good student with particularly strong writing and language skills. Offering a wide variety of AP classes lets students take AP in the subjects they are strong in and stay in honors/general for those they aren't. Having IB at a school like Lewis is only serving a small minority of the student body and shutting out a lot of kids from advanced learning in targeted subjects. Plus, AP classes can lead to college credit which kids at our lower income schools probably really need to help afford college.

I think IB works ok at a school like Robinson. I know lots of families with kids who have completed it. But at the same time, they almost all wish they were an AP school.

When people say eliminate IB, they are almost entirely talking about Lewis/Justice and not Marshall/Robinson.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:https://mvonthemove.com/fcps-engages-with-families-from-region-3-on-school-boundary-review/

12/9/24 Region 3 - Edison, West Potomac, Mount Vernon. 300 attendees. Far different than Reid 's orchestration for Region 5. Note Reid + Dunne sticking in a new program only available for West Potomac pyramid rather than changing boundaries. https://mvonthemove.com/bucknell-elementary-decides-to-add-montessori-program-option-after-all/

Am I reading this right in that both community reps come from Mt. Vernon and one of them no longer has kids in school??? Wowwwwww.

I think it’s appropriate for people without children in the system to take part. We pay taxes too - we should have a say too.

Oh, interesting that there are non parents on this fcps thread.
Agree you should have a say, but the interests may be very skewed.

in what way would it be skewed?

Asking out of genuine curiosity - do you have any links to the school system? Teacher?

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.

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.

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.

You should not be given a designated parent slot if you are not a parent.

There are separate community spots. You should be eligible for one of those but not for one of the two slots per pyramid that are specifically allocated for parents by Dr. Reid and the school board in multiple emails.

They are designated parent/caregiver/community member slots per pyramid, as illustrated by the Mt. Vernon reps at their regional meeting.

There were supposed to be 2 per pyramid of just parents/caregivers. So 48 reps. The committee is 80. The rest were to be community members, teachers, people on other committees etc. and fairly certain the 32 other members were hand picked by Reid/the school board based on some names that have come out. People who don’t even live in Fairfax county and have not had kids in the system

Nope. It was two reps in each of the 24 pyramids who could be parents, caregivers, or community members. The others are largely staff and past/current members of other FCPS committees.

Community members were not listed in the parent/caregiver spots.

Community members were listed in the staff/community spots.

November 20 email: More than 1,600 parents/caregivers applied to participate in the Superintendent's Boundary Review Advisory Committee! Two parents/caregivers from each of FCPS' 24 high school pyramids have been invited to join the committee.

With 1600 applicants the fact that there are members who live outside of FCPS should be enough to get this board thrown out in the next election. They clearly don't value citizen input

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they do actually listen and make the changes that really make sense - like fixing elementary school attendance islands, fixing some of the split feeders where it's desired by parents, and looking at limiting pupil placement and making the home school most desirable. Eliminate IB.

It sounds like they are overwhelmingly hearing that that is where they should start in this first look.

Why eliminate IB? Resource sucker? By that logic, TJ should be returned to a neighborhood HS. We need more High Schools.

DP, if you are rezoning kids into IB with no grandfathering, your are preventing them from taking advantage of a school's top choice. IB has to be planned early, AP can be take a la carte. A sophomore or junior going from AP to IB will not be able to get an IB diploma. Worse, their math won't line up with the IB math track either. What do you tell a junior who was signed up for AP Calc BC when they are suddenly zoned for IB?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they do actually listen and make the changes that really make sense - like fixing elementary school attendance islands, fixing some of the split feeders where it's desired by parents, and looking at limiting pupil placement and making the home school most desirable. Eliminate IB.

It sounds like they are overwhelmingly hearing that that is where they should start in this first look.

Why eliminate IB? Resource sucker? By that logic, TJ should be returned to a neighborhood HS. We need more High Schools.

DP, if you are rezoning kids into IB with no grandfathering, your are preventing them from taking advantage of a school's top choice. IB has to be planned early, AP can be take a la carte. A sophomore or junior going from AP to IB will not be able to get an IB diploma. Worse, their math won't line up with the IB math track either. What do you tell a junior who was signed up for AP Calc BC when they are suddenly zoned for IB?

During the 2008 Boundary Study (South Lakes), the parents from the neighborhoods that had been redistricted from Westfield to South Lakes begged for AP classes. If it is still available, I suggest you find the video from those meetings. I saw a friend whose child goes there now--they still would prefer AP.

Currently, South Lakes is drawing kids from Herndon who are pupil placing there for IB. We all know that IB is not the attraction.

Eliminate IB and you went prevent a LOT of pupil placement. This works both ways. I don't know where the current information is on PP, but historically, PP for AP or IB is directly attributable to the socioeconomics of the losing school.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, my kids--now college grads--both had roommates who graduated from IB schools in Fairfax County. One from Mount Vernon and the other from Robinson. Both had IB diplomas. One male and one female.

Both said they wished their schools had AP instead of IB. They felt that AP gave more college credit, as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they do actually listen and make the changes that really make sense - like fixing elementary school attendance islands, fixing some of the split feeders where it's desired by parents, and looking at limiting pupil placement and making the home school most desirable. Eliminate IB.

It sounds like they are overwhelmingly hearing that that is where they should start in this first look.

Why eliminate IB? Resource sucker? By that logic, TJ should be returned to a neighborhood HS. We need more High Schools.

DP, if you are rezoning kids into IB with no grandfathering, your are preventing them from taking advantage of a school's top choice. IB has to be planned early, AP can be take a la carte. A sophomore or junior going from AP to IB will not be able to get an IB diploma. Worse, their math won't line up with the IB math track either. What do you tell a junior who was signed up for AP Calc BC when they are suddenly zoned for IB?

During the 2008 Boundary Study (South Lakes), the parents from the neighborhoods that had been redistricted from Westfield to South Lakes begged for AP classes. If it is still available, I suggest you find the video from those meetings. I saw a friend whose child goes there now--they still would prefer AP.

Currently, South Lakes is drawing kids from Herndon who are pupil placing there for IB. We all know that IB is not the attraction.

Eliminate IB and you went prevent a LOT of pupil placement. This works both ways. I don't know where the current information is on PP, but historically, PP for AP or IB is directly attributable to the socioeconomics of the losing school.

Many kids zoned for Herndon end up at South Lakes because they were in Spanish Immersion Program at Lake Anne ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they do actually listen and make the changes that really make sense - like fixing elementary school attendance islands, fixing some of the split feeders where it's desired by parents, and looking at limiting pupil placement and making the home school most desirable. Eliminate IB.

It sounds like they are overwhelmingly hearing that that is where they should start in this first look.

Why eliminate IB? Resource sucker? By that logic, TJ should be returned to a neighborhood HS. We need more High Schools.

DP, if you are rezoning kids into IB with no grandfathering, your are preventing them from taking advantage of a school's top choice. IB has to be planned early, AP can be take a la carte. A sophomore or junior going from AP to IB will not be able to get an IB diploma. Worse, their math won't line up with the IB math track either. What do you tell a junior who was signed up for AP Calc BC when they are suddenly zoned for IB?

During the 2008 Boundary Study (South Lakes), the parents from the neighborhoods that had been redistricted from Westfield to South Lakes begged for AP classes. If it is still available, I suggest you find the video from those meetings. I saw a friend whose child goes there now--they still would prefer AP.

Currently, South Lakes is drawing kids from Herndon who are pupil placing there for IB. We all know that IB is not the attraction.

Eliminate IB and you went prevent a LOT of pupil placement. This works both ways. I don't know where the current information is on PP, but historically, PP for AP or IB is directly attributable to the socioeconomics of the losing school.

Many kids zoned for Herndon end up at South Lakes because they were in Spanish Immersion Program at Lake Anne ES.

Or went to Forest Edge/Hughes for AAP. Out of pyramid programming at the ES and MS level results in kids wanting to stay with their cohort through HS.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Lots of upset parents tonight at the boundary meeting. I wonder if the school board is getting the message when they keep hearing from parents over and over again that they don’t want the boundary changes.

Upset parents wanting rezoning? Or against rezoning?

If the vibe was against rezoning, I ber they were caught off guard.

Parents against rezoning.

I’m sure the SB was NOT caught off guard by parents against rezoning.

Normally, yes.

But this is the pyramid that has schools that the school board is using to justify rezoning. I am sure they did not expect that the Lewis parents would be just as much against the disruptions of rezoning and just as strongly wanting to keep their kids in their neighborhood schools, as all of the other parents at other schools

I am not surprised, but I bet the school board was surprised, along with some of the pro rezoning non parents who post here regularly.

The Mount Vernon HS meeting with lots of Lewis folks was back on Monday, and the parents there were generally supportive of making changes and having saner boundaries than some of the craziness of the current setup.

Tonight's meeting was at Annandale, and the feedback was most uniformly supportive of changes that would allow more equitable access to programming, and specifically access for students WITHIN THEIR PYRAMID. Saying you can technically "access" a program but to do so you have to be bussed over to some other pyramid doesn't count. This seems mainly about local AAP and also the AP/IB split. But overall folks seemed more concerned about this programming issue than the boundary lines, but also understood that one could impact the other.

There was also some incongruent feedback, for example one table emphasized making sure that when they do this that they make purposeful changes that actually have an impact, don't just bow to the fear of "making the fewest people upset about changes". But on the other hand the most common phrase was "minimize disruptions", yet in the same breath many of those same groups were also supportive of some changes, especially pertaining to islands and split feeders. So minimize disruptions =/= no disruptions, it seems... basically, "only disruptions that I personally think are reasonable".

Finally, some requested looking at "more creative" changes than boundary adjustments, and one said that overcrowding wasn't the worst thing, a sense of school community is more important, and different communities want different things.

Really one sided summary. At my table, and from the reporters, the responses to the boundary changes was very negative.

There was a table who asked to make sure that each school has a similar composition of race. Definitely illegal, but curious that there are people who still think like that.

The one-sided-ness would be characterizing the feedback as "very negative". There may have been some negative elements, sure, but there were also some positive ones, and again moreso than at other meetings the emphasis was on access to programming with in the pyramid, which is a currently-related but potentially-independent issue from boundary changes (depending what programmatic changes they might make to equalize offerings across pyramids).

I think you are interpreting the consistent feedback of "minimize disruptions" as people being opposed to any changes, but that's not what I heard at my table or in the group readouts. There was only one person at our table who wanted no changes, of course driven by the fact they don't want changes for themselves and their individual child, and not thinking about the problem system-wide. Most people on the other hand are recognizing there need to be some adjustments made. Frankly, it's some reallly impressive mental gymnastics if you can look so much as glance at a feeder map and not quickly come to the same conclusion. People seem to be asking that the changes be kept to a minimum possible to achieve some of the understood goals (e.g. eliminating islands and split feeders, haven't heard a single person argue against rezoning for that purpose) and also emphasize neighborhoods/communities staying together. They don't want them to start from whole cloth and make changes just for the sake of it. But they're also not saying "no changes, period".