AnnaNdale HS study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Agree about Sandy listening to her constituents. Contrast that with Tina Hone who listens when it supports her personal agenda.

Tina's in a different position since she's an at-large member for the entire county.

She got a lot of good publicity for butting heads with FCPS staff during the last few redistrictings and for opposing the decision to close Clifton ES.

It's now gotten to the point where she just opposes staff so someone in the audience at the School Board meetings will cheer. And she doesn't care if she pisses off others, since she's not running for re-election.

I don't really know, though, why she'd take the laboring oar to keep the WFES students at AHS. It seems to me she ought to be standing up for the AHS students who don't want to go to school in an overcrowded facility, and giving the AHS administrators a message that there will be no excuses for not providing the remaining students the best possible education. Stuart HS has high FRL/ESOL, just like Annandale, and fewer students, and you don't hear people there claiming the school will fall apart unless it has over 2200 students. Instead, you have people in neighborhoods like Columbia Pines now asking to be reassigned from Falls Church HS to Stuart.

[Anonymous]

Does Tina have any interest in her legacy? If she were seen as a hero for finally solving or not solving the overcrowding issue would she care?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does Tina have any interest in her legacy? If she were seen as a hero for finally solving or not solving the overcrowding issue would she care?

Not sure what you mean. There were times when Tina argued in favor of a broader facilities study that would serve as a prelude to county-wide redistrictings, but she didn't follow through on that.

No one's going to be seen as a hero for what comes out of the Annandale boundary study. Some parents will be relieved with the final results, and others will be angry, but that's about it. And then life will go on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
No one's going to be seen as a hero for what comes out of the Annandale boundary study. Some parents will be relieved with the final results, and others will be angry, but that's about it. And then life will go on.

Agreed. Other boundary changes have occurred in the county, and life has gone on. No matter what, there will be a very different School Board come January.

[Anonymous]

Yes life will go on, we'll probably leave the WF area rather than send kids to such an over crowded school. No reason for it other than politics. it will take years to do another boudary committee study and the same politics will rise again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes life will go on, we'll probably leave the WF area rather than send kids to such an over crowded school. No reason for it other than politics. it will take years to do another boudary committee study and the same politics will rise again.

Doubt it will take years. A large number of FCPS schools will be significantly over capacity within the next five years, so there will surely be many more boundary studies to come.

[Anonymous]

"Doubt it will take years. A large number of FCPS schools will be significantly over capacity within the next five years, so there will surely be many more boundary studies to come."

That's certainly true. (And why the SB should refuse to move Columbia Pines to Glasgow/Stuart, as Glasgow is predicted to be very crowded very soon.) But whether another study will be done for AHS is less certain, I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Doubt it will take years. A large number of FCPS schools will be significantly over capacity within the next five years, so there will surely be many more boundary studies to come."

That's certainly true. (And why the SB should refuse to move Columbia Pines to Glasgow/Stuart, as Glasgow is predicted to be very crowded very soon.) But whether another study will be done for AHS is less certain, I think.

Glasgow is projected to be very crowded, but the projections may be wrong, and Columbia Pines probably will be moved.

There aren't many students affected, virtually all the families want to move to Glasgow/Stuart; many people dislike the idea of being assigned to Poe (which has a middle years IB program) and then Falls Church (an AP school); and it makes sense if Sleepy Hollow Woods is remaining at Glasgow/Stuart to do the same thing with Columbia Pines. Otherwise, only a small fraction of the Lacey students would feed into Glasgow/Stuart.

[Anonymous]

The Glasgow projections are for only a few years from now--they're not likely to be that far off.

Columbia Pines and Sleepy Hollow Woods have never had the same middle and high school assignments. The rest of the new schol will be going to Poe and Falls Church. Nothing about assigning Columbia Pines to Glasgow makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Glasgow projections are for only a few years from now--they're not likely to be that far off.

Columbia Pines and Sleepy Hollow Woods have never had the same middle and high school assignments. The rest of the new schol will be going to Poe and Falls Church. Nothing about assigning Columbia Pines to Glasgow makes sense.

The people who live there overwhelmingly want to be assigned to Glasgow/Stuart. It's not like the situation with Wakefield Forest, where the area currently assigned to Annandale is evenly split as to whether they favor reassignment to Woodson.

And, with the likely decision to vote for the amendment that would keep the Pine Spring attendance island at Jackson/Falls Church, rather than move it to Glasgow/Stuart, it will be a wash.

Evans is supporting what Columbia Pines wants, and Reed is supporting what City Park Homes favors, so both amendments likely will and should pass easily.

[Anonymous]

Glasgow is going to be overcrowded even without the Pines Spring students (so Lacey is going to be even further under capacity?). Columbia Pines should not be added. The Glasgow community wants to keep the AAP center, which is still at risk because these proposals do not address Glasgow's overcrowding.

[Anonymous]

I take back my comment about Lacey being further under capacity--I thought the Pine Springs island was being assigned to Lacey. They are assigned to Beech Tree under the staff recommendation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Glasgow is going to be overcrowded even without the Pines Spring students (so Lacey is going to be even further under capacity?). Columbia Pines should not be added. The Glasgow community wants to keep the AAP center, which is still at risk because these proposals do not address Glasgow's overcrowding.

Moving the handful of Columbia Pines kids to Glasgow/Stuart doesn't jeopardize keeping AAP at Glasgow. If people really want to keep the AAP center at Glasgow, it will stay there. Longfellow MS has a large AAP program and is substantially more above-capacity than Glasgow is projected to be, but the AAP center stays there because that's what parents want.

In the case of the Columbia Pines request, the School Board's agreeing to do what the parents want for a change, with the full support of the local School Board representative, makes a lot of sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I take back my comment about Lacey being further under capacity--I thought the Pine Springs island was being assigned to Lacey. They are assigned to Beech Tree under the staff recommendation.

That's right. Staff has subsequently agreed, however, that it appears to make sense to locate a needed autism program at Beech Tree, in which case Beech Tree could not absorb the Pine Springs students. It does not impact the Lacey numbers.

And, as noted, keeping the island at Jackson and Falls Church makes it easier to move the Columbia Pines neighborhood to Glasgow and Stuart. It's actually a win-win, unless people go out of their way to screw it up.

[Anonymous]

Longfellow is a very different school than Glasgow. The county says that moving the AAP center is still very much an option.

Just because some of the parents want this reassignment doesn't mean it's a sensible move for the school.