School Board Forum on "Boundary and Capacity"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

So what? A poorly performing district can still get lots of money per student and pay its school board and superintendent very well. They can use that money to send their own children to private school.

I’m sorry, I thought that the primary motive for your redistricting agenda was to couple the poors with the rich kids. If the rich all leave, then you’ll just have poors and deflated property values which will hurt the whole system.

It’s funny, I feel like I would have a sliver of sympathy for you if you truly cared about the downtrodden, but it’s pretty clear by now that you just really don’t like that some of your neighbors aren’t poor.

I'm a DP, but yes that's my primary motive. I grew up very poor and went to an equally poor high school. But I'm one of the lucky ones that ended up in grad school despite having parents that didn't know anything.

Anyway, I've seen the significant negative effects of concentrating all the poor kids in a few places. I appreciate wealthy families and respect the effort they put into their communities. They have the luxury of time that poor parents simply don't. Teachers and principals at the poor schools really do try hard to create community but it always lacks in comparison to a healthy PTSA. FCPS has suggested they will make efforts to give funds to schools with weak community donations but we have yet to see that roll out. It's not just money but also clubs and activities. So yes, I think sending poor kids to wealthy high schools has plenty of benefits.

Yeah, to your Herndon property values.

I actually agree with PP to a large extent, having looked into this issue. The problem is that to maintain a high- performing school, you have to keep the percentage of children from poorer families pretty low.

FCPS might well be able to bring some benefit to a certain number of poorer children with a boundary change, but it could only do so with a limited number of schools. (Because of the high percentage of poorer students that it now has— see the tipping point study)

Picture the uproar if they changed boundaries in the top ten pyramids and those schools remained strong while the others statistically performed even worse than before.

It could prove untenable politically.
Imagine the bitterness of the parents whose children did not luck into one of the high performing schools.

On the other hand, it could well be counter balanced by the parents who were reboundaried to a higher-ranking school.

And imagine if you are totally wrong, and all the schools end up awful. I, for one, am not interested in finding out whether your agenda would work in practice. And I don’t want my kids being your Guinea pigs.

Chill out.
#1– I have no interest in advocating for such a thing
#2–neither does the board (of which I am quite happily not a member.)

Ironically, the kids would not be guinea pigs as this has been studied (by FCPS, among others) and FCPS has the proof. The percentage of poor children, if maintained below 20%, does not affect overall school performance.

The issue is that FCPS as a whole is WELL above this (34%) so the board would be in the position of actively and consciously choosing some schools to boost or leave unaffected in performance while leaving others to languish or get worse.
It would be a whole, entire sh*t storm that could sink every board member politically because they would get hit from all sides.
They cannot make all the schools have an equal or close to equal percentage of poorer children without dragging the entire system down academically. That WOULD kill every member’s political career.

Not even just the school board, also the board of supervisors’ political career too. And rightly so in this instance.

[Anonymous]

They aren't supposed to be politicians. Just saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the bigger issue is that the high needs populations at FCPS have grown dramatically in just several years. The system as a whole is at a tipping point.

Joe Biden. Democrats. Including your local representatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They aren't supposed to be politicians. Just saying.

Yeah but they are and they absolutely should be accountable to citizens.

There’s something else they could do if they wanted to “fix” poverty and academic performances at many schools: dedicate several elementary and 3 or 4 middle and high schools to ESOL programming.

Once you get the percentages of ELL we have in certain schools the benefits of mixing native speakers with those who are at the beginning levels disappears.

They may as well open ELL centers in different areas of the county, of course having extra curriculars/sports as the mainstream schools do. Yearly testing for English proficiency and then the child goes to the zoned school.

They will stop losing as many middle class students to private and home schools and lessen the numbers stretching their budgets trying to move in bounds for a higher performing school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the bigger issue is that the high needs populations at FCPS have grown dramatically in just several years. The system as a whole is at a tipping point.

Joe Biden. Democrats. Including your local representatives.

Weird response. This change started long before Joe Biden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the bigger issue is that the high needs populations at FCPS have grown dramatically in just several years. The system as a whole is at a tipping point.

Joe Biden. Democrats. Including your local representatives.

Weird response. This change started long before Joe Biden.

True. The border hasn't been under control in years. What you seen in Fairfax is the result.

[Anonymous]

High needs also included special education- are they flooding across the border?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

So what? A poorly performing district can still get lots of money per student and pay its school board and superintendent very well. They can use that money to send their own children to private school.

I’m sorry, I thought that the primary motive for your redistricting agenda was to couple the poors with the rich kids. If the rich all leave, then you’ll just have poors and deflated property values which will hurt the whole system.

It’s funny, I feel like I would have a sliver of sympathy for you if you truly cared about the downtrodden, but it’s pretty clear by now that you just really don’t like that some of your neighbors aren’t poor.

I'm a DP, but yes that's my primary motive. I grew up very poor and went to an equally poor high school. But I'm one of the lucky ones that ended up in grad school despite having parents that didn't know anything.

Anyway, I've seen the significant negative effects of concentrating all the poor kids in a few places. I appreciate wealthy families and respect the effort they put into their communities. They have the luxury of time that poor parents simply don't. Teachers and principals at the poor schools really do try hard to create community but it always lacks in comparison to a healthy PTSA. FCPS has suggested they will make efforts to give funds to schools with weak community donations but we have yet to see that roll out. It's not just money but also clubs and activities. So yes, I think sending poor kids to wealthy high schools has plenty of benefits.

Yeah, to your Herndon property values.

I actually agree with PP to a large extent, having looked into this issue. The problem is that to maintain a high- performing school, you have to keep the percentage of children from poorer families pretty low.

FCPS might well be able to bring some benefit to a certain number of poorer children with a boundary change, but it could only do so with a limited number of schools. (Because of the high percentage of poorer students that it now has— see the tipping point study)

Picture the uproar if they changed boundaries in the top ten pyramids and those schools remained strong while the others statistically performed even worse than before.

It could prove untenable politically.
Imagine the bitterness of the parents whose children did not luck into one of the high performing schools.

On the other hand, it could well be counter balanced by the parents who were reboundaried to a higher-ranking school.

And imagine if you are totally wrong, and all the schools end up awful. I, for one, am not interested in finding out whether your agenda would work in practice. And I don’t want my kids being your Guinea pigs.

Hypothetically if a redistricting went through that was perfectly "equitable" and distributed kids at each pyramid to represent the true demographics of FCPS, we'd have schools that are 37% White, 28% Hispanic, 20% Asian, and 10% Black, the rest Other. And 33% FARMs. That's Fairfax County.

Coincidentally, Fairfax HS matches that demographic and FARMs split very closely. So, if every school in FCPS was a replica of Fairfax HS would that be "awful" and a deal-breaker for everyone to up and leave? Of course not. Now that's only a thought experiment, but the melodrama about terrible schools is unwarranted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

So what? A poorly performing district can still get lots of money per student and pay its school board and superintendent very well. They can use that money to send their own children to private school.

I’m sorry, I thought that the primary motive for your redistricting agenda was to couple the poors with the rich kids. If the rich all leave, then you’ll just have poors and deflated property values which will hurt the whole system.

It’s funny, I feel like I would have a sliver of sympathy for you if you truly cared about the downtrodden, but it’s pretty clear by now that you just really don’t like that some of your neighbors aren’t poor.

I'm a DP, but yes that's my primary motive. I grew up very poor and went to an equally poor high school. But I'm one of the lucky ones that ended up in grad school despite having parents that didn't know anything.

Anyway, I've seen the significant negative effects of concentrating all the poor kids in a few places. I appreciate wealthy families and respect the effort they put into their communities. They have the luxury of time that poor parents simply don't. Teachers and principals at the poor schools really do try hard to create community but it always lacks in comparison to a healthy PTSA. FCPS has suggested they will make efforts to give funds to schools with weak community donations but we have yet to see that roll out. It's not just money but also clubs and activities. So yes, I think sending poor kids to wealthy high schools has plenty of benefits.

Yeah, to your Herndon property values.

I actually agree with PP to a large extent, having looked into this issue. The problem is that to maintain a high- performing school, you have to keep the percentage of children from poorer families pretty low.

FCPS might well be able to bring some benefit to a certain number of poorer children with a boundary change, but it could only do so with a limited number of schools. (Because of the high percentage of poorer students that it now has— see the tipping point study)

Picture the uproar if they changed boundaries in the top ten pyramids and those schools remained strong while the others statistically performed even worse than before.

It could prove untenable politically.
Imagine the bitterness of the parents whose children did not luck into one of the high performing schools.

On the other hand, it could well be counter balanced by the parents who were reboundaried to a higher-ranking school.

And imagine if you are totally wrong, and all the schools end up awful. I, for one, am not interested in finding out whether your agenda would work in practice. And I don’t want my kids being your Guinea pigs.

Hypothetically if a redistricting went through that was perfectly "equitable" and distributed kids at each pyramid to represent the true demographics of FCPS, we'd have schools that are 37% White, 28% Hispanic, 20% Asian, and 10% Black, the rest Other. And 33% FARMs. That's Fairfax County.

Coincidentally, Fairfax HS matches that demographic and FARMs split very closely. So, if every school in FCPS was a replica of Fairfax HS would that be "awful" and a deal-breaker for everyone to up and leave? Of course not. Now that's only a thought experiment, but the melodrama about terrible schools is unwarranted.

You're right about Fairfax HS currently most closely approximating the demographics of FCPS. Not that long ago it would have been Lake Braddock, whose demographics are somewhat more affluent than Fairfax.

I suspect if you try to mess around with the boundaries too much it won't be long before the county demographics as a whole will look more like Edison HS. And then you'll be wanting to reshuffle everyone again to create Edison replicas.

Fairfax works because it's the only game in town for Fairfax City students and there aren't really private school options for most of the people who live in the Fairfax attendance island in the county further west (even though a lot of those families would prefer to be zoned to closer Chantilly or Centreville).

[Anonymous]

Fairfax is a very congested county.

Families will support their kids traveling long distances to TJ because it's a STEM magnet with a specialized program. Families will also fight hard to keep their kids at Langley, even though some travel over 10 miles, because of its academic reputation and standing within FCPS.

Tell people their kids are getting bused over 8-10 miles to attend just about any other school and all bets are off. We've already seen how FCPS can quickly shed 10,000 kids by responding to Covid in a manner that left people questioning FCPS's commitment to students. Start changing boundaries to schools that parents expected their kids to attend - whether to achieve some target demographics or based on a purported desire to use vacant seats at some schools - and the 10,000-student decline prompted by FCPS's response to Covid may seem like just the warm-up act.

The newbies on the School Board may not get this yet, but they will learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax is a very congested county.

Families will support their kids traveling long distances to TJ because it's a STEM magnet with a specialized program. Families will also fight hard to keep their kids at Langley, even though some travel over 10 miles, because of its academic reputation and standing within FCPS.

Tell people their kids are getting bused over 8-10 miles to attend just about any other school and all bets are off. We've already seen how FCPS can quickly shed 10,000 kids by responding to Covid in a manner that left people questioning FCPS's commitment to students. Start changing boundaries to schools that parents expected their kids to attend - whether to achieve some target demographics or based on a purported desire to use vacant seats at some schools - and the 10,000-student decline prompted by FCPS's response to Covid may seem like just the warm-up act.

The newbies on the School Board may not get this yet, but they will learn.

Very well stated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

So what? A poorly performing district can still get lots of money per student and pay its school board and superintendent very well. They can use that money to send their own children to private school.

I’m sorry, I thought that the primary motive for your redistricting agenda was to couple the poors with the rich kids. If the rich all leave, then you’ll just have poors and deflated property values which will hurt the whole system.

It’s funny, I feel like I would have a sliver of sympathy for you if you truly cared about the downtrodden, but it’s pretty clear by now that you just really don’t like that some of your neighbors aren’t poor.

I'm a DP, but yes that's my primary motive. I grew up very poor and went to an equally poor high school. But I'm one of the lucky ones that ended up in grad school despite having parents that didn't know anything.

Anyway, I've seen the significant negative effects of concentrating all the poor kids in a few places. I appreciate wealthy families and respect the effort they put into their communities. They have the luxury of time that poor parents simply don't. Teachers and principals at the poor schools really do try hard to create community but it always lacks in comparison to a healthy PTSA. FCPS has suggested they will make efforts to give funds to schools with weak community donations but we have yet to see that roll out. It's not just money but also clubs and activities. So yes, I think sending poor kids to wealthy high schools has plenty of benefits.

Yeah, to your Herndon property values.

I actually agree with PP to a large extent, having looked into this issue. The problem is that to maintain a high- performing school, you have to keep the percentage of children from poorer families pretty low.

FCPS might well be able to bring some benefit to a certain number of poorer children with a boundary change, but it could only do so with a limited number of schools. (Because of the high percentage of poorer students that it now has— see the tipping point study)

Picture the uproar if they changed boundaries in the top ten pyramids and those schools remained strong while the others statistically performed even worse than before.

It could prove untenable politically.
Imagine the bitterness of the parents whose children did not luck into one of the high performing schools.

On the other hand, it could well be counter balanced by the parents who were reboundaried to a higher-ranking school.

And imagine if you are totally wrong, and all the schools end up awful. I, for one, am not interested in finding out whether your agenda would work in practice. And I don’t want my kids being your Guinea pigs.

Hypothetically if a redistricting went through that was perfectly "equitable" and distributed kids at each pyramid to represent the true demographics of FCPS, we'd have schools that are 37% White, 28% Hispanic, 20% Asian, and 10% Black, the rest Other. And 33% FARMs. That's Fairfax County.

Coincidentally, Fairfax HS matches that demographic and FARMs split very closely. So, if every school in FCPS was a replica of Fairfax HS would that be "awful" and a deal-breaker for everyone to up and leave? Of course not. Now that's only a thought experiment, but the melodrama about terrible schools is unwarranted.

Yes, let’s talk about impossible hypotheticals rather than reality.

Hypothetically, if we all had a billion dollars, then we could genetically engineer unicorns that fart rainbows.

Or maybe we should just stick to the reality we have. Namely, that redistricting would be a horrible, disruptive idea that would likely exacerbate the counties problems and hurt students, and poor students in particular.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

So what? A poorly performing district can still get lots of money per student and pay its school board and superintendent very well. They can use that money to send their own children to private school.

I’m sorry, I thought that the primary motive for your redistricting agenda was to couple the poors with the rich kids. If the rich all leave, then you’ll just have poors and deflated property values which will hurt the whole system.

It’s funny, I feel like I would have a sliver of sympathy for you if you truly cared about the downtrodden, but it’s pretty clear by now that you just really don’t like that some of your neighbors aren’t poor.

I'm a DP, but yes that's my primary motive. I grew up very poor and went to an equally poor high school. But I'm one of the lucky ones that ended up in grad school despite having parents that didn't know anything.

Anyway, I've seen the significant negative effects of concentrating all the poor kids in a few places. I appreciate wealthy families and respect the effort they put into their communities. They have the luxury of time that poor parents simply don't. Teachers and principals at the poor schools really do try hard to create community but it always lacks in comparison to a healthy PTSA. FCPS has suggested they will make efforts to give funds to schools with weak community donations but we have yet to see that roll out. It's not just money but also clubs and activities. So yes, I think sending poor kids to wealthy high schools has plenty of benefits.

Yeah, to your Herndon property values.

I actually agree with PP to a large extent, having looked into this issue. The problem is that to maintain a high- performing school, you have to keep the percentage of children from poorer families pretty low.

FCPS might well be able to bring some benefit to a certain number of poorer children with a boundary change, but it could only do so with a limited number of schools. (Because of the high percentage of poorer students that it now has— see the tipping point study)

Picture the uproar if they changed boundaries in the top ten pyramids and those schools remained strong while the others statistically performed even worse than before.

It could prove untenable politically.
Imagine the bitterness of the parents whose children did not luck into one of the high performing schools.

On the other hand, it could well be counter balanced by the parents who were reboundaried to a higher-ranking school.

And imagine if you are totally wrong, and all the schools end up awful. I, for one, am not interested in finding out whether your agenda would work in practice. And I don’t want my kids being your Guinea pigs.

Hypothetically if a redistricting went through that was perfectly "equitable" and distributed kids at each pyramid to represent the true demographics of FCPS, we'd have schools that are 37% White, 28% Hispanic, 20% Asian, and 10% Black, the rest Other. And 33% FARMs. That's Fairfax County.

Coincidentally, Fairfax HS matches that demographic and FARMs split very closely. So, if every school in FCPS was a replica of Fairfax HS would that be "awful" and a deal-breaker for everyone to up and leave? Of course not. Now that's only a thought experiment, but the melodrama about terrible schools is unwarranted.

Yes, let’s talk about impossible hypotheticals rather than reality.

Hypothetically, if we all had a billion dollars, then we could genetically engineer unicorns that fart rainbows.

Or maybe we should just stick to the reality we have. Namely, that redistricting would be a horrible, disruptive idea that would likely exacerbate the counties problems and hurt students, and poor students in particular.

How would moving some students from West Springfield to Lewis hurt the poor students? More classes would likely be available. They might be able to field teams in every sport. Sounds terrible.

[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:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

So what? A poorly performing district can still get lots of money per student and pay its school board and superintendent very well. They can use that money to send their own children to private school.

I’m sorry, I thought that the primary motive for your redistricting agenda was to couple the poors with the rich kids. If the rich all leave, then you’ll just have poors and deflated property values which will hurt the whole system.

It’s funny, I feel like I would have a sliver of sympathy for you if you truly cared about the downtrodden, but it’s pretty clear by now that you just really don’t like that some of your neighbors aren’t poor.

I'm a DP, but yes that's my primary motive. I grew up very poor and went to an equally poor high school. But I'm one of the lucky ones that ended up in grad school despite having parents that didn't know anything.

Anyway, I've seen the significant negative effects of concentrating all the poor kids in a few places. I appreciate wealthy families and respect the effort they put into their communities. They have the luxury of time that poor parents simply don't. Teachers and principals at the poor schools really do try hard to create community but it always lacks in comparison to a healthy PTSA. FCPS has suggested they will make efforts to give funds to schools with weak community donations but we have yet to see that roll out. It's not just money but also clubs and activities. So yes, I think sending poor kids to wealthy high schools has plenty of benefits.

Yeah, to your Herndon property values.

I actually agree with PP to a large extent, having looked into this issue. The problem is that to maintain a high- performing school, you have to keep the percentage of children from poorer families pretty low.

FCPS might well be able to bring some benefit to a certain number of poorer children with a boundary change, but it could only do so with a limited number of schools. (Because of the high percentage of poorer students that it now has— see the tipping point study)

Picture the uproar if they changed boundaries in the top ten pyramids and those schools remained strong while the others statistically performed even worse than before.

It could prove untenable politically.
Imagine the bitterness of the parents whose children did not luck into one of the high performing schools.

On the other hand, it could well be counter balanced by the parents who were reboundaried to a higher-ranking school.

And imagine if you are totally wrong, and all the schools end up awful. I, for one, am not interested in finding out whether your agenda would work in practice. And I don’t want my kids being your Guinea pigs.

Hypothetically if a redistricting went through that was perfectly "equitable" and distributed kids at each pyramid to represent the true demographics of FCPS, we'd have schools that are 37% White, 28% Hispanic, 20% Asian, and 10% Black, the rest Other. And 33% FARMs. That's Fairfax County.

Coincidentally, Fairfax HS matches that demographic and FARMs split very closely. So, if every school in FCPS was a replica of Fairfax HS would that be "awful" and a deal-breaker for everyone to up and leave? Of course not. Now that's only a thought experiment, but the melodrama about terrible schools is unwarranted.

Yes, let’s talk about impossible hypotheticals rather than reality.

Hypothetically, if we all had a billion dollars, then we could genetically engineer unicorns that fart rainbows.

Or maybe we should just stick to the reality we have. Namely, that redistricting would be a horrible, disruptive idea that would likely exacerbate the counties problems and hurt students, and poor students in particular.

How would moving some students from West Springfield to Lewis hurt the poor students? More classes would likely be available. They might be able to field teams in every sport. Sounds terrible.

I don’t know enough about those schools to weigh in on your first question, but the school board member who brought up the study said the conclusion was that redistricting clearly hurts students and poor students in particular.

I’m not sure that your aspirational benefits are based on a study or not (I’m guessing not) but as I’ve said before, kids shouldn’t be Guinea pigs for your social experiment, especially given the catalogued risk of harm here.

[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:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

So what? A poorly performing district can still get lots of money per student and pay its school board and superintendent very well. They can use that money to send their own children to private school.

I’m sorry, I thought that the primary motive for your redistricting agenda was to couple the poors with the rich kids. If the rich all leave, then you’ll just have poors and deflated property values which will hurt the whole system.

It’s funny, I feel like I would have a sliver of sympathy for you if you truly cared about the downtrodden, but it’s pretty clear by now that you just really don’t like that some of your neighbors aren’t poor.

I'm a DP, but yes that's my primary motive. I grew up very poor and went to an equally poor high school. But I'm one of the lucky ones that ended up in grad school despite having parents that didn't know anything.

Anyway, I've seen the significant negative effects of concentrating all the poor kids in a few places. I appreciate wealthy families and respect the effort they put into their communities. They have the luxury of time that poor parents simply don't. Teachers and principals at the poor schools really do try hard to create community but it always lacks in comparison to a healthy PTSA. FCPS has suggested they will make efforts to give funds to schools with weak community donations but we have yet to see that roll out. It's not just money but also clubs and activities. So yes, I think sending poor kids to wealthy high schools has plenty of benefits.

Yeah, to your Herndon property values.

I actually agree with PP to a large extent, having looked into this issue. The problem is that to maintain a high- performing school, you have to keep the percentage of children from poorer families pretty low.

FCPS might well be able to bring some benefit to a certain number of poorer children with a boundary change, but it could only do so with a limited number of schools. (Because of the high percentage of poorer students that it now has— see the tipping point study)

Picture the uproar if they changed boundaries in the top ten pyramids and those schools remained strong while the others statistically performed even worse than before.

It could prove untenable politically.
Imagine the bitterness of the parents whose children did not luck into one of the high performing schools.

On the other hand, it could well be counter balanced by the parents who were reboundaried to a higher-ranking school.

And imagine if you are totally wrong, and all the schools end up awful. I, for one, am not interested in finding out whether your agenda would work in practice. And I don’t want my kids being your Guinea pigs.

Hypothetically if a redistricting went through that was perfectly "equitable" and distributed kids at each pyramid to represent the true demographics of FCPS, we'd have schools that are 37% White, 28% Hispanic, 20% Asian, and 10% Black, the rest Other. And 33% FARMs. That's Fairfax County.

Coincidentally, Fairfax HS matches that demographic and FARMs split very closely. So, if every school in FCPS was a replica of Fairfax HS would that be "awful" and a deal-breaker for everyone to up and leave? Of course not. Now that's only a thought experiment, but the melodrama about terrible schools is unwarranted.

Yes, let’s talk about impossible hypotheticals rather than reality.

Hypothetically, if we all had a billion dollars, then we could genetically engineer unicorns that fart rainbows.

Or maybe we should just stick to the reality we have. Namely, that redistricting would be a horrible, disruptive idea that would likely exacerbate the counties problems and hurt students, and poor students in particular.

How would moving some students from West Springfield to Lewis hurt the poor students? More classes would likely be available. They might be able to field teams in every sport. Sounds terrible.

Is that the one we're really talking about?

Moving some students from West Springfield wouldn't hurt the poor students there. The questions needs to be asked, however, whether it would help them.

It's not like Lewis doesn't serve a fairly dense area with a lot of kids. It also has six elementary schools that feed entirely to Lewis, as well as part of a seventh school that is a split feeder. It seems like that ought to be a big enough pool to have a fairly large high school, yet it seems like kids are peeling off to privates and other schools.

So take a hard look at Lewis's issues. The silly "social justice" academy championed by Karen Keys Gamarra was a personal vanity project that she undertook because she wanted to be personally compared to John Lewis as some social justice warrior. It's not going to do much to shore up Lewis or attract kids from other pyramids. On the other hand, replacing one of the county's weakest IB programs with AP courses would make a difference, as might Academy courses that focused on STEM rather than social activism.

Strengthen Lewis and its enrollment will stabilize. Move West Springfield kids there just to change the demographics and Lewis is going to remain a sieve. You can push people in, and they will still find a way out. And then, maybe then, if West Springfield were over 110% capacity (which people can live with), you might consider moving kids to Lewis. But not before then.