Fall 2022 Over/Under-Enrollment at FCPS High Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

When you look at Marshall’s numbers, it seems clear that an infusion of neighborhoods from WSHS would catalyze Lee’s IB participation and performance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

When you look at Marshall’s numbers, it seems clear that an infusion of neighborhoods from WSHS would catalyze Lee’s IB participation and performance.

No one at WSHS has even the slightest interest in IB.

They would all pupil place tl Lake Braddock for AP. Or back to West Springfield for German.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

When you look at Marshall’s numbers, it seems clear that an infusion of neighborhoods from WSHS would catalyze Lee’s IB participation and performance.

Lee only had 4 seniors graduate with an IB diploma...

[Anonymous]

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.

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.

It makes perfect sense. The issue being a split feeder. You can either solve that at the low end (elementary school) or the high end (high school). Since WS is at capacity it makes sense to make the switch at the elementary level. And Saratoga has plenty of room.

[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?

Parents are the only reason Lewis has some AP classes now. The School Board just won't admit that IB has been a failure at Lewis and switch it back to AP. Or should we assume they keep IB there by design so students can pupil place out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The IB diploma is an excellent metric for the utility of IB, but a poor metric for student performance.

Since at lower cost students could take individual AP classes, just like individual IB classes, extremely low IB diploma numbers demonstrate that IB provides no incremental value, yet costs more.

Lewis parents should be asking FCPS to restore AP since they'd have access to more courses and would stop losing families who currently have an option to place to other AP schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The IB diploma is an excellent metric for the utility of IB, but a poor metric for student performance.

Since at lower cost students could take individual AP classes, just like individual IB classes, extremely low IB diploma numbers demonstrate that IB provides no incremental value, yet costs more.

Lewis parents should be asking FCPS to restore AP since they'd have access to more courses and would stop losing families who currently have an option to place to other AP schools.

It has been tried.

[Anonymous]

Some of my kid's classes at Chantilly have over 50 kids. Over 50. This is what our ridiculous property taxes pay for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of my kid's classes at Chantilly have over 50 kids. Over 50. This is what our ridiculous property taxes pay for.

Do you mean like band, or core academic subjects? That is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of my kid's classes at Chantilly have over 50 kids. Over 50. This is what our ridiculous property taxes pay for.

Do you mean like band, or core academic subjects? That is insane.

Core academic subjects. I mean, these are interesting classes that kids want to take. But still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of my kid's classes at Chantilly have over 50 kids. Over 50. This is what our ridiculous property taxes pay for.

Strangely enough, Lewis parents would kill for those class sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of my kid's classes at Chantilly have over 50 kids. Over 50. This is what our ridiculous property taxes pay for.

Strangely enough, Lewis parents would kill for those class sizes.

You have to be a special breed of a-hole to post something like that. Lewis parents might question whether the Chantilly course is even available at Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of my kid's classes at Chantilly have over 50 kids. Over 50. This is what our ridiculous property taxes pay for.

Strangely enough, Lewis parents would kill for those class sizes.

What class sizes do they have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

When you look at Marshall’s numbers, it seems clear that an infusion of neighborhoods from WSHS would catalyze Lee’s IB participation and performance.

Lee only had 4 seniors graduate with an IB diploma...

that’s pretty impressive for a place that no longer exists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:



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.

My post with the actual IB senior. A later poster said students can take IB classes without being potential diploma candidates. The fact is each IB class costs more per student in fees and IB requires extra staff for the programme. There is no justification for spending more $ per student. Just like some other stuff in the program budget- any Title 1 school should be screaming to the 3 at large SB members about the wad going to any low load immersion class and the 2 magnet schools and IB. Not to mention costs of trailers etc because the fools woom't use acual brocks + mortar buildings.