Boundary Review Meetings

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I understand it's way too late to ask this...but what are the schools that are seriously overcrowded that necessitate this boundary review to begin with? Are there a few that need immediate addressing and the rest are tweaks "just because"? The SB keeps trumpeting this "first comprehensive boundary review in 40 years" stat that I can't imagine anyone cares about. Could the actual problems be fixed and leave mostly everyone else alone?

Again, I realize I'm really late to be asking this but only got involved in following this in the spring.

My theory is they were originally going to make much bigger changes to balance SES across schools. But then Trump got elected and they knew doing so w ou ils make them a target of the administration. Now to save face they still have to go through with it but it’s stupid because they are hardly solving any actual problems mostly just moving kids for no real reason.

No. The communities with power organized and mobilized. Some were the ones at the top of SB list to move. Local politics is what happened.

Maybe local politics, but the initiator was One Fairfax under the previous Board. But Trump and the Supremes made SES-driven changes problematic. Result was saving face/redoing 8130 to focus on distances/islands/etc. and stirring the pot every 5 years.

Yes, I am assuming that they will do very little this time around, but they got the every five year review policy change through, and they are hoping for a different administration when the next boundary review comes up.

Sigh. The uncertainty drives families to look elsewhere. The five year review policy is uber dumb.

I'm not sure it's "uber dumb." The main issue is whether there's adequate reason to change any boundaries, before any boundaries are changed. But there's always going to be some uncertainty, and they've changed boundaries to many schools on an ad hoc basis in the past. Regular reviews don't necessarily increase that uncertainty, and they could alleviate it for some people if they at least know that boundaries are going to be stable for the next five years.

But they aren't stable for five years.

This map building is a 2 year process. Then a year of people fighting the changes and flipping out, followed by the tremendous disruption of the actual rezoning.

It is guaranteeing over 4 years of continuous chaos and disruption, with the 5th year being everyone gearing up for the next fight.

The 5 year process is short sighted and horribly disruptive.

If they felt they must put a fixed timeline in mandatory rezoning, tge smartest way would be to mandate it every 10 years on the year following the census year.

Then, at least, we would have a stable timeline as well as actual data on growth patterns.

With a five-year review, you get stable boundaries for five-year periods, even if potential boundary adjustments are discussed within those increments.

It seems to be the 10-year model would only work if accompanied by the ability to make ad hoc adjustments if there are exigent circumstances. Otherwise waiting a full decade to fix a major problem seems too long.

And then if you allow for ad hoc changes to address exigent circumstances, you’re kind of conceding that the periodic adjustments can be for relatively unimportant reasons.

So, again, I don’t think the argument really ought to be over the frequency of the review so much as the threshold for making changes.

There's no reason at all to have added the County-wide 5 year review. They screw around with the CIP every year, ad hoc adjustments are in the policy and adjustments happen all the time.

I do think it’s more defensible to do ad hoc changes when truly needed than say we’ll do a county-wide review but only every 10 years.

+1 Bravo! So sensible.

This. Coates is a great example. Should have been done already, but we are 'waiting for the comprehensive boundary review. Stupid on so many levels. Meanwhile, the school is bursting at the seams and it is a very uncomfortable situation.

Boundary adjustments are disruptive to the community. To do a comprehensive one on a regular schedule is not needed. When schools are too crowded or underserved to make the curriculum suffer, there is a need for a change.

+1. I wouldn’t have chosen a house in the county if I knew that we’d have to run a boundary gauntlet three or four times with the schools. I just don’t get why they think that approach is okay?

It is not okay.

I am the one that said if they were going to do a set interval, at least spread it out 10 years after the census.

But really, they need to revert to the old 8130 where rezoning requests went bottoms up, from the principals to Gatehouse when schools got too crowded to manage, not this arbitrary 5 year schedule.

Honestly, I think the ideal policy would be once a school goes over 105% capacity, a full residency check should automatically occur, with all out of bound kids returned to their base schools. Then, if enforcing residency lowers enrollment, the school does not get rezoned.

This type of tripwire is totally unfair unless we’ve also first made sure all schools have or will have adequate capacity. 105% at a recently expanded school looks quite different than 105% at a neglected one.

Disagree.

If FCPS refuses to check residency as a matter of practice, then they must check it when a school goes over capacity and before rezoning. Any kids who don't live in the school zone need to be sent back and the enrollment recalculated, before any rezoning is even considered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand it's way too late to ask this...but what are the schools that are seriously overcrowded that necessitate this boundary review to begin with? Are there a few that need immediate addressing and the rest are tweaks "just because"? The SB keeps trumpeting this "first comprehensive boundary review in 40 years" stat that I can't imagine anyone cares about. Could the actual problems be fixed and leave mostly everyone else alone?

Again, I realize I'm really late to be asking this but only got involved in following this in the spring.

My theory is they were originally going to make much bigger changes to balance SES across schools. But then Trump got elected and they knew doing so w ou ils make them a target of the administration. Now to save face they still have to go through with it but it’s stupid because they are hardly solving any actual problems mostly just moving kids for no real reason.

No. The communities with power organized and mobilized. Some were the ones at the top of SB list to move. Local politics is what happened.

Maybe local politics, but the initiator was One Fairfax under the previous Board. But Trump and the Supremes made SES-driven changes problematic. Result was saving face/redoing 8130 to focus on distances/islands/etc. and stirring the pot every 5 years.

Yes, I am assuming that they will do very little this time around, but they got the every five year review policy change through, and they are hoping for a different administration when the next boundary review comes up.

Sigh. The uncertainty drives families to look elsewhere. The five year review policy is uber dumb.

I'm not sure it's "uber dumb." The main issue is whether there's adequate reason to change any boundaries, before any boundaries are changed. But there's always going to be some uncertainty, and they've changed boundaries to many schools on an ad hoc basis in the past. Regular reviews don't necessarily increase that uncertainty, and they could alleviate it for some people if they at least know that boundaries are going to be stable for the next five years.

But they aren't stable for five years.

This map building is a 2 year process. Then a year of people fighting the changes and flipping out, followed by the tremendous disruption of the actual rezoning.

It is guaranteeing over 4 years of continuous chaos and disruption, with the 5th year being everyone gearing up for the next fight.

The 5 year process is short sighted and horribly disruptive.

If they felt they must put a fixed timeline in mandatory rezoning, tge smartest way would be to mandate it every 10 years on the year following the census year.

Then, at least, we would have a stable timeline as well as actual data on growth patterns.

With a five-year review, you get stable boundaries for five-year periods, even if potential boundary adjustments are discussed within those increments.

It seems to be the 10-year model would only work if accompanied by the ability to make ad hoc adjustments if there are exigent circumstances. Otherwise waiting a full decade to fix a major problem seems too long.

And then if you allow for ad hoc changes to address exigent circumstances, you’re kind of conceding that the periodic adjustments can be for relatively unimportant reasons.

So, again, I don’t think the argument really ought to be over the frequency of the review so much as the threshold for making changes.

There's no reason at all to have added the County-wide 5 year review. They screw around with the CIP every year, ad hoc adjustments are in the policy and adjustments happen all the time.

I do think it’s more defensible to do ad hoc changes when truly needed than say we’ll do a county-wide review but only every 10 years.

+1 Bravo! So sensible.

This. Coates is a great example. Should have been done already, but we are 'waiting for the comprehensive boundary review. Stupid on so many levels. Meanwhile, the school is bursting at the seams and it is a very uncomfortable situation.

Boundary adjustments are disruptive to the community. To do a comprehensive one on a regular schedule is not needed. When schools are too crowded or underserved to make the curriculum suffer, there is a need for a change.

+1. I wouldn’t have chosen a house in the county if I knew that we’d have to run a boundary gauntlet three or four times with the schools. I just don’t get why they think that approach is okay?

It is not okay.

I am the one that said if they were going to do a set interval, at least spread it out 10 years after the census.

But really, they need to revert to the old 8130 where rezoning requests went bottoms up, from the principals to Gatehouse when schools got too crowded to manage, not this arbitrary 5 year schedule.

Honestly, I think the ideal policy would be once a school goes over 105% capacity, a full residency check should automatically occur, with all out of bound kids returned to their base schools. Then, if enforcing residency lowers enrollment, the school does not get rezoned.

This type of tripwire is totally unfair unless we’ve also first made sure all schools have or will have adequate capacity. 105% at a recently expanded school looks quite different than 105% at a neglected one.

Disagree.

If FCPS refuses to check residency as a matter of practice, then they must check it when a school goes over capacity and before rezoning. Any kids who don't live in the school zone need to be sent back and the enrollment recalculated, before any rezoning is even considered.

+1. FCPS needs to start getting serious about residency. A lot of the middle and high schools are in constant hot water over attendance issues. What do they expect when kids are attending schools out of boundary? Clean up that problem first and solve two problems at once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand it's way too late to ask this...but what are the schools that are seriously overcrowded that necessitate this boundary review to begin with? Are there a few that need immediate addressing and the rest are tweaks "just because"? The SB keeps trumpeting this "first comprehensive boundary review in 40 years" stat that I can't imagine anyone cares about. Could the actual problems be fixed and leave mostly everyone else alone?

Again, I realize I'm really late to be asking this but only got involved in following this in the spring.

My theory is they were originally going to make much bigger changes to balance SES across schools. But then Trump got elected and they knew doing so w ou ils make them a target of the administration. Now to save face they still have to go through with it but it’s stupid because they are hardly solving any actual problems mostly just moving kids for no real reason.

No. The communities with power organized and mobilized. Some were the ones at the top of SB list to move. Local politics is what happened.

Maybe local politics, but the initiator was One Fairfax under the previous Board. But Trump and the Supremes made SES-driven changes problematic. Result was saving face/redoing 8130 to focus on distances/islands/etc. and stirring the pot every 5 years.

Yes, I am assuming that they will do very little this time around, but they got the every five year review policy change through, and they are hoping for a different administration when the next boundary review comes up.

Sigh. The uncertainty drives families to look elsewhere. The five year review policy is uber dumb.

I'm not sure it's "uber dumb." The main issue is whether there's adequate reason to change any boundaries, before any boundaries are changed. But there's always going to be some uncertainty, and they've changed boundaries to many schools on an ad hoc basis in the past. Regular reviews don't necessarily increase that uncertainty, and they could alleviate it for some people if they at least know that boundaries are going to be stable for the next five years.

But they aren't stable for five years.

This map building is a 2 year process. Then a year of people fighting the changes and flipping out, followed by the tremendous disruption of the actual rezoning.

It is guaranteeing over 4 years of continuous chaos and disruption, with the 5th year being everyone gearing up for the next fight.

The 5 year process is short sighted and horribly disruptive.

If they felt they must put a fixed timeline in mandatory rezoning, tge smartest way would be to mandate it every 10 years on the year following the census year.

Then, at least, we would have a stable timeline as well as actual data on growth patterns.

With a five-year review, you get stable boundaries for five-year periods, even if potential boundary adjustments are discussed within those increments.

It seems to be the 10-year model would only work if accompanied by the ability to make ad hoc adjustments if there are exigent circumstances. Otherwise waiting a full decade to fix a major problem seems too long.

And then if you allow for ad hoc changes to address exigent circumstances, you’re kind of conceding that the periodic adjustments can be for relatively unimportant reasons.

So, again, I don’t think the argument really ought to be over the frequency of the review so much as the threshold for making changes.

There's no reason at all to have added the County-wide 5 year review. They screw around with the CIP every year, ad hoc adjustments are in the policy and adjustments happen all the time.

I do think it’s more defensible to do ad hoc changes when truly needed than say we’ll do a county-wide review but only every 10 years.

+1 Bravo! So sensible.

This. Coates is a great example. Should have been done already, but we are 'waiting for the comprehensive boundary review. Stupid on so many levels. Meanwhile, the school is bursting at the seams and it is a very uncomfortable situation.

Boundary adjustments are disruptive to the community. To do a comprehensive one on a regular schedule is not needed. When schools are too crowded or underserved to make the curriculum suffer, there is a need for a change.

+1. I wouldn’t have chosen a house in the county if I knew that we’d have to run a boundary gauntlet three or four times with the schools. I just don’t get why they think that approach is okay?

It is not okay.

I am the one that said if they were going to do a set interval, at least spread it out 10 years after the census.

But really, they need to revert to the old 8130 where rezoning requests went bottoms up, from the principals to Gatehouse when schools got too crowded to manage, not this arbitrary 5 year schedule.

Honestly, I think the ideal policy would be once a school goes over 105% capacity, a full residency check should automatically occur, with all out of bound kids returned to their base schools. Then, if enforcing residency lowers enrollment, the school does not get rezoned.

This type of tripwire is totally unfair unless we’ve also first made sure all schools have or will have adequate capacity. 105% at a recently expanded school looks quite different than 105% at a neglected one.

Disagree.

If FCPS refuses to check residency as a matter of practice, then they must check it when a school goes over capacity and before rezoning. Any kids who don't live in the school zone need to be sent back and the enrollment recalculated, before any rezoning is even considered.

+1. FCPS needs to start getting serious about residency. A lot of the middle and high schools are in constant hot water over attendance issues. What do they expect when kids are attending schools out of boundary? Clean up that problem first and solve two problems at once.

DP. Totally agree. This keeps coming up and those who don’t support it will say that it’s not that many kids and it won’t make that much of a difference. But we don’t know that if there are never residency checks done after a kid starts school. Even periodic residency checks, every two or three years, would give taxpayers more confidence that the kids are attending schools they are zoned for.

[Anonymous]

My kid goes to an overcrowded HS. We personally know 4 kids who should not be there. (Live in other counties, used a fwke address etc)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand it's way too late to ask this...but what are the schools that are seriously overcrowded that necessitate this boundary review to begin with? Are there a few that need immediate addressing and the rest are tweaks "just because"? The SB keeps trumpeting this "first comprehensive boundary review in 40 years" stat that I can't imagine anyone cares about. Could the actual problems be fixed and leave mostly everyone else alone?

Again, I realize I'm really late to be asking this but only got involved in following this in the spring.

My theory is they were originally going to make much bigger changes to balance SES across schools. But then Trump got elected and they knew doing so w ou ils make them a target of the administration. Now to save face they still have to go through with it but it’s stupid because they are hardly solving any actual problems mostly just moving kids for no real reason.

No. The communities with power organized and mobilized. Some were the ones at the top of SB list to move. Local politics is what happened.

Maybe local politics, but the initiator was One Fairfax under the previous Board. But Trump and the Supremes made SES-driven changes problematic. Result was saving face/redoing 8130 to focus on distances/islands/etc. and stirring the pot every 5 years.

Yes, I am assuming that they will do very little this time around, but they got the every five year review policy change through, and they are hoping for a different administration when the next boundary review comes up.

Sigh. The uncertainty drives families to look elsewhere. The five year review policy is uber dumb.

I'm not sure it's "uber dumb." The main issue is whether there's adequate reason to change any boundaries, before any boundaries are changed. But there's always going to be some uncertainty, and they've changed boundaries to many schools on an ad hoc basis in the past. Regular reviews don't necessarily increase that uncertainty, and they could alleviate it for some people if they at least know that boundaries are going to be stable for the next five years.

But they aren't stable for five years.

This map building is a 2 year process. Then a year of people fighting the changes and flipping out, followed by the tremendous disruption of the actual rezoning.

It is guaranteeing over 4 years of continuous chaos and disruption, with the 5th year being everyone gearing up for the next fight.

The 5 year process is short sighted and horribly disruptive.

If they felt they must put a fixed timeline in mandatory rezoning, tge smartest way would be to mandate it every 10 years on the year following the census year.

Then, at least, we would have a stable timeline as well as actual data on growth patterns.

With a five-year review, you get stable boundaries for five-year periods, even if potential boundary adjustments are discussed within those increments.

It seems to be the 10-year model would only work if accompanied by the ability to make ad hoc adjustments if there are exigent circumstances. Otherwise waiting a full decade to fix a major problem seems too long.

And then if you allow for ad hoc changes to address exigent circumstances, you’re kind of conceding that the periodic adjustments can be for relatively unimportant reasons.

So, again, I don’t think the argument really ought to be over the frequency of the review so much as the threshold for making changes.

There's no reason at all to have added the County-wide 5 year review. They screw around with the CIP every year, ad hoc adjustments are in the policy and adjustments happen all the time.

I do think it’s more defensible to do ad hoc changes when truly needed than say we’ll do a county-wide review but only every 10 years.

+1 Bravo! So sensible.

This. Coates is a great example. Should have been done already, but we are 'waiting for the comprehensive boundary review. Stupid on so many levels. Meanwhile, the school is bursting at the seams and it is a very uncomfortable situation.

Boundary adjustments are disruptive to the community. To do a comprehensive one on a regular schedule is not needed. When schools are too crowded or underserved to make the curriculum suffer, there is a need for a change.

+1. I wouldn’t have chosen a house in the county if I knew that we’d have to run a boundary gauntlet three or four times with the schools. I just don’t get why they think that approach is okay?

It is not okay.

I am the one that said if they were going to do a set interval, at least spread it out 10 years after the census.

But really, they need to revert to the old 8130 where rezoning requests went bottoms up, from the principals to Gatehouse when schools got too crowded to manage, not this arbitrary 5 year schedule.

Honestly, I think the ideal policy would be once a school goes over 105% capacity, a full residency check should automatically occur, with all out of bound kids returned to their base schools. Then, if enforcing residency lowers enrollment, the school does not get rezoned.

This type of tripwire is totally unfair unless we’ve also first made sure all schools have or will have adequate capacity. 105% at a recently expanded school looks quite different than 105% at a neglected one.

Disagree.

If FCPS refuses to check residency as a matter of practice, then they must check it when a school goes over capacity and before rezoning. Any kids who don't live in the school zone need to be sent back and the enrollment recalculated, before any rezoning is even considered.

+1. FCPS needs to start getting serious about residency. A lot of the middle and high schools are in constant hot water over attendance issues. What do they expect when kids are attending schools out of boundary? Clean up that problem first and solve two problems at once.

DP. Totally agree. This keeps coming up and those who don’t support it will say that it’s not that many kids and it won’t make that much of a difference. But we don’t know that if there are never residency checks done after a kid starts school. Even periodic residency checks, every two or three years, would give taxpayers more confidence that the kids are attending schools they are zoned for.

Another +1. It’s easy enough to do a residency check when kids are naturally switching schools (elementary to middle and middle to high). If people are forced to provide documentation again as they did when they first registered, maybe they won’t try it in the first place.

And I’d bet that at a big school like West Springfield, you could get 100 students who are attending from out of bounds. We’ll call WSHS’s enrollment 2800 at the moment. If they sent 100 students back to their real assigned schools that brings it down to 2700 students, or a drop of about 3.5%. That’s not nothing. I think you could have a similar percentage at other schools that are in situations where people might want to attend from out of bounds, like all the students allegedly from Maryland at Edison and West Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand it's way too late to ask this...but what are the schools that are seriously overcrowded that necessitate this boundary review to begin with? Are there a few that need immediate addressing and the rest are tweaks "just because"? The SB keeps trumpeting this "first comprehensive boundary review in 40 years" stat that I can't imagine anyone cares about. Could the actual problems be fixed and leave mostly everyone else alone?

Again, I realize I'm really late to be asking this but only got involved in following this in the spring.

My theory is they were originally going to make much bigger changes to balance SES across schools. But then Trump got elected and they knew doing so w ou ils make them a target of the administration. Now to save face they still have to go through with it but it’s stupid because they are hardly solving any actual problems mostly just moving kids for no real reason.

No. The communities with power organized and mobilized. Some were the ones at the top of SB list to move. Local politics is what happened.

Maybe local politics, but the initiator was One Fairfax under the previous Board. But Trump and the Supremes made SES-driven changes problematic. Result was saving face/redoing 8130 to focus on distances/islands/etc. and stirring the pot every 5 years.

Yes, I am assuming that they will do very little this time around, but they got the every five year review policy change through, and they are hoping for a different administration when the next boundary review comes up.

Sigh. The uncertainty drives families to look elsewhere. The five year review policy is uber dumb.

I'm not sure it's "uber dumb." The main issue is whether there's adequate reason to change any boundaries, before any boundaries are changed. But there's always going to be some uncertainty, and they've changed boundaries to many schools on an ad hoc basis in the past. Regular reviews don't necessarily increase that uncertainty, and they could alleviate it for some people if they at least know that boundaries are going to be stable for the next five years.

But they aren't stable for five years.

This map building is a 2 year process. Then a year of people fighting the changes and flipping out, followed by the tremendous disruption of the actual rezoning.

It is guaranteeing over 4 years of continuous chaos and disruption, with the 5th year being everyone gearing up for the next fight.

The 5 year process is short sighted and horribly disruptive.

If they felt they must put a fixed timeline in mandatory rezoning, tge smartest way would be to mandate it every 10 years on the year following the census year.

Then, at least, we would have a stable timeline as well as actual data on growth patterns.

With a five-year review, you get stable boundaries for five-year periods, even if potential boundary adjustments are discussed within those increments.

It seems to be the 10-year model would only work if accompanied by the ability to make ad hoc adjustments if there are exigent circumstances. Otherwise waiting a full decade to fix a major problem seems too long.

And then if you allow for ad hoc changes to address exigent circumstances, you’re kind of conceding that the periodic adjustments can be for relatively unimportant reasons.

So, again, I don’t think the argument really ought to be over the frequency of the review so much as the threshold for making changes.

There's no reason at all to have added the County-wide 5 year review. They screw around with the CIP every year, ad hoc adjustments are in the policy and adjustments happen all the time.

I do think it’s more defensible to do ad hoc changes when truly needed than say we’ll do a county-wide review but only every 10 years.

+1 Bravo! So sensible.

This. Coates is a great example. Should have been done already, but we are 'waiting for the comprehensive boundary review. Stupid on so many levels. Meanwhile, the school is bursting at the seams and it is a very uncomfortable situation.

Boundary adjustments are disruptive to the community. To do a comprehensive one on a regular schedule is not needed. When schools are too crowded or underserved to make the curriculum suffer, there is a need for a change.

+1. I wouldn’t have chosen a house in the county if I knew that we’d have to run a boundary gauntlet three or four times with the schools. I just don’t get why they think that approach is okay?

It is not okay.

I am the one that said if they were going to do a set interval, at least spread it out 10 years after the census.

But really, they need to revert to the old 8130 where rezoning requests went bottoms up, from the principals to Gatehouse when schools got too crowded to manage, not this arbitrary 5 year schedule.

Honestly, I think the ideal policy would be once a school goes over 105% capacity, a full residency check should automatically occur, with all out of bound kids returned to their base schools. Then, if enforcing residency lowers enrollment, the school does not get rezoned.

This type of tripwire is totally unfair unless we’ve also first made sure all schools have or will have adequate capacity. 105% at a recently expanded school looks quite different than 105% at a neglected one.

Disagree.

If FCPS refuses to check residency as a matter of practice, then they must check it when a school goes over capacity and before rezoning. Any kids who don't live in the school zone need to be sent back and the enrollment recalculated, before any rezoning is even considered.

+1. FCPS needs to start getting serious about residency. A lot of the middle and high schools are in constant hot water over attendance issues. What do they expect when kids are attending schools out of boundary? Clean up that problem first and solve two problems at once.

DP. Totally agree. This keeps coming up and those who don’t support it will say that it’s not that many kids and it won’t make that much of a difference. But we don’t know that if there are never residency checks done after a kid starts school. Even periodic residency checks, every two or three years, would give taxpayers more confidence that the kids are attending schools they are zoned for.

Another +1. It’s easy enough to do a residency check when kids are naturally switching schools (elementary to middle and middle to high). If people are forced to provide documentation again as they did when they first registered, maybe they won’t try it in the first place.

And I’d bet that at a big school like West Springfield, you could get 100 students who are attending from out of bounds. We’ll call WSHS’s enrollment 2800 at the moment. If they sent 100 students back to their real assigned schools that brings it down to 2700 students, or a drop of about 3.5%. That’s not nothing. I think you could have a similar percentage at other schools that are in situations where people might want to attend from out of bounds, like all the students allegedly from Maryland at Edison and West Potomac.

If they did a residency check at WSHS, the school would likely not need one, if not both, of its trailers.

[Anonymous]

Residency check vastly preferable to unnecessary boundary change disruption.

Sometimes I wonder if the school board members are committing their own residency fraud.

[Anonymous]

It is well known that students from Loudoun have “aunties” in Fairfax and their addresses are used for registration in FCPS. Greenbriar is an example due to its proximity to GBW, Rocky Run and Chantilly. The children never live with the “aunties” and no one investigates. FCPS can and should do better!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Residency check vastly preferable to unnecessary boundary change disruption.

Sometimes I wonder if the school board members are committing their own residency fraud.

A residency check would be cheaper and faster too.

[Anonymous]

1. I think they should do more careful residency checks when registering.
2. Do random checks a couple of times a year.
3. When reported, take it seriously.

However, I really doubt that is the cause of overcrowding. Doesn't make it right, though.

People may not always know the back story. Example: how do you know the child is using "auntie" as the residence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. I think they should do more careful residency checks when registering.
2. Do random checks a couple of times a year.
3. When reported, take it seriously.

However, I really doubt that is the cause of overcrowding. Doesn't make it right, though.

People may not always know the back story. Example: how do you know the child is using "auntie" as the residence?

I know because one of those kids lived in our neighborhood and moved 2 high schools away during middle school but graduated with my kid.

One of my kid's best friends did the same. I discovered it when I dropped my daughter off at their house for a party. When I asked my kid about it, they said that the family just moved into a big newer house, but kept their address the same so their kid could graduate from our (overcapacity) high school. The kid was open about it. This was 8th grade and the kid did graduate from our high school.

Another one is in my kid's friend group. They lives well into the zone for an undercapacity adjacent high school.

Another is friends with one of my very good friends. They know the family and know that they live in a house zoned for that same undercapacity school.

Shall I say more? I could list several more examples.

All of these people except possibly the last one moved sometime around middle school, but never changed their addresses and the school/FCPS doesn't check in 9th grade.

If they checked every student in 9th grade, false residency and over crowded high schools would be much less.

[Anonymous]

BRAC meeting tonight where they will show updated boundary proposals. Should be released to the public tomorrow by 5pm if patterns follow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. I think they should do more careful residency checks when registering.
2. Do random checks a couple of times a year.
3. When reported, take it seriously.

However, I really doubt that is the cause of overcrowding. Doesn't make it right, though.

People may not always know the back story. Example: how do you know the child is using "auntie" as the residence?

I know because one of those kids lived in our neighborhood and moved 2 high schools away during middle school but graduated with my kid.

One of my kid's best friends did the same. I discovered it when I dropped my daughter off at their house for a party. When I asked my kid about it, they said that the family just moved into a big newer house, but kept their address the same so their kid could graduate from our (overcapacity) high school. The kid was open about it. This was 8th grade and the kid did graduate from our high school.

Another one is in my kid's friend group. They lives well into the zone for an undercapacity adjacent high school.

Another is friends with one of my very good friends. They know the family and know that they live in a house zoned for that same undercapacity school.

Shall I say more? I could list several more examples.

All of these people except possibly the last one moved sometime around middle school, but never changed their addresses and the school/FCPS doesn't check in 9th grade.

If they checked every student in 9th grade, false residency and over crowded high schools would be much less.

It may be possible that some of these did it legally. DS had a friend who pupil placed for a bogus reason. No one challenged it. (He did this for sports. The reason the mom told me was ridiculous.)

I don't question that it is abused, but some of these may have pupil placed. To go to school four years with a fake address seems implausible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BRAC meeting tonight where they will show updated boundary proposals. Should be released to the public tomorrow by 5pm if patterns follow.

Where is this information? I didn't think that they were being put out until October.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. I think they should do more careful residency checks when registering.
2. Do random checks a couple of times a year.
3. When reported, take it seriously.

However, I really doubt that is the cause of overcrowding. Doesn't make it right, though.

People may not always know the back story. Example: how do you know the child is using "auntie" as the residence?

I know because one of those kids lived in our neighborhood and moved 2 high schools away during middle school but graduated with my kid.

One of my kid's best friends did the same. I discovered it when I dropped my daughter off at their house for a party. When I asked my kid about it, they said that the family just moved into a big newer house, but kept their address the same so their kid could graduate from our (overcapacity) high school. The kid was open about it. This was 8th grade and the kid did graduate from our high school.

Another one is in my kid's friend group. They lives well into the zone for an undercapacity adjacent high school.

Another is friends with one of my very good friends. They know the family and know that they live in a house zoned for that same undercapacity school.

Shall I say more? I could list several more examples.

All of these people except possibly the last one moved sometime around middle school, but never changed their addresses and the school/FCPS doesn't check in 9th grade.

If they checked every student in 9th grade, false residency and over crowded high schools would be much less.

It may be possible that some of these did it legally. DS had a friend who pupil placed for a bogus reason. No one challenged it. (He did this for sports. The reason the mom told me was ridiculous.)

I don't question that it is abused, but some of these may have pupil placed. To go to school four years with a fake address seems implausible.

The pupil placement can be a joke. I have known kids to pupil place to be part of a certain band (their home school had a band), for a particular sport (that they suddenly were invested in), etc. It iis a practice where parents are gaming the system.