FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS does not get that there won’t be any students left in FFX county public schools next year, other than citizens:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-04-18/immigrants-self-deport-rather-than-risk-being-marched-out-like-criminals

Halt the presses, now!

By the time boundary changes are implemented, the democrats might control the White House. That could easily change the immigration situation.

How does your math work?

Rezoning is fall of 2026.

The next presidential election os 2028.

Maybe she meant “Congress” instead of “White House”.

Nope. She (me) had a temporary synapse malfunction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yay! It’s thesaurus day on DCUM!!

Anything to counteract the upcoming illogical boundary moves which are a bad solution to an undefined problem.

We still haven’t heard what problems we are actually solving, though we have heard that we are going to postpone solving some real problems because we want the changes to be comprehensive.

DEI is driving the whole think.

The secrecy, the mandatory NDAs, the hand-picked committees: this is all just cover for what the SB and Reid have been scheming since the process started:

- a DEI-driven realignment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of the county has a house that is walkable to the trifecta of elementary middle and high school? Much less than 1%, right, if any?

Everyone else is just gambling on their house? Gtfo.

I summo but greater than 1%. We can walk to all three of ours. Terraset(?)-Hughes-SLHS are adjacent and walkable for many.

Can someone identify this poster’s logical fallacy/fallacies? There is definitely a name for it, I just can’t recall at the moment.

I think enough people have chimed in about walking distance.

I think it might be “confirmation bias”, but the funny thing is you can easily verify that a lot of the claimed trifecta walking areas are not really walkable to all three schools.

For instance, there may be a student who could hypothetically walk 1.25 miles on average to dranesville elementary or Herndon middle, but nobody closer, since the schools are 2.5 miles apart.

Turns out, there really are only few and far between areas, where you could live close enough to all 3 schools to be safe, and I don’t even think that is completely safe. I bet less than a thousand students fit into that category, perhaps far less.

The MFGA crowd is going to drive away our tax base with its us-vs-the supposed rich mentality. They might as well go support the orange Demi-God if they are going to advocate for short sighted boundary changes.

You’re so full of it. My kids are are at HES and have friends at Clearview and Dranesville. In middle school they and their friends regularly WALKED directly from HMS to friends’ house near Clearview and Dranesville. Sometimes just is they could grab a snack or a slice of pizza in the little business district. On the weekends they bike between all three areas. Their friend groups were not the only ones. Heck, they even bike to RTC. They visit friends at nearby pyramids now that they are in high school.

It is really strange that children will be irreparably harmed by moving to a neighboring school. It is really a wonder that any of them will be able to cope going to college or moving out of mom and dad’s home 🏡 one day.

Change the boundaries or don’t, but evaluate the situation every five to ten years. That should be non-negotiable.

Foolish me. I thought there was an annual capacity review tied to a rolling 5-year capital improvement plan. Why isn’t that enough? What are you trying to fix that can’t be fixed with studies and reviews flagged in the CIP like Parklawn and Coates? Wouldn’t that give families and communities stability and notice?

It sounds like you have a great community. What are you looking to adjust? If those Langley folks don’t want to join your community, who cares? You don’t need them, do you?

The advantage of the targeted studies was that they addressed the situations where there was a serious need, yet students were grandfathered because we weren’t trying to do too many things at once.

Now we’re getting this total nonsense, where some consultants who clearly don’t know the county play around with a software tool to generate boundary changes that will be highly disruptive, have minimal benefits in most cases, and are large enough in scale that grandfathering will be virtually impossible.

But it’s not fair to blame the consultants when the real blame lies with the current school board, which is totally lacking in anything approaching common sense or any sense of restraint or humility.

Thru was selected and paid $500k as a way for FCPS to “blame” them on boundary recommendations that will inevitably upset many.

Attendance islands are just the start and the most obvious changes to make. Things are about to explode once split feeders come out and capacity adjustments will be the final cannon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of the county has a house that is walkable to the trifecta of elementary middle and high school? Much less than 1%, right, if any?

Everyone else is just gambling on their house? Gtfo.

I summo but greater than 1%. We can walk to all three of ours. Terraset(?)-Hughes-SLHS are adjacent and walkable for many.

Can someone identify this poster’s logical fallacy/fallacies? There is definitely a name for it, I just can’t recall at the moment.

I think enough people have chimed in about walking distance.

I think it might be “confirmation bias”, but the funny thing is you can easily verify that a lot of the claimed trifecta walking areas are not really walkable to all three schools.

For instance, there may be a student who could hypothetically walk 1.25 miles on average to dranesville elementary or Herndon middle, but nobody closer, since the schools are 2.5 miles apart.

Turns out, there really are only few and far between areas, where you could live close enough to all 3 schools to be safe, and I don’t even think that is completely safe. I bet less than a thousand students fit into that category, perhaps far less.

The MFGA crowd is going to drive away our tax base with its us-vs-the supposed rich mentality. They might as well go support the orange Demi-God if they are going to advocate for short sighted boundary changes.

You’re so full of it. My kids are are at HES and have friends at Clearview and Dranesville. In middle school they and their friends regularly WALKED directly from HMS to friends’ house near Clearview and Dranesville. Sometimes just is they could grab a snack or a slice of pizza in the little business district. On the weekends they bike between all three areas. Their friend groups were not the only ones. Heck, they even bike to RTC. They visit friends at nearby pyramids now that they are in high school.

It is really strange that children will be irreparably harmed by moving to a neighboring school. It is really a wonder that any of them will be able to cope going to college or moving out of mom and dad’s home 🏡 one day.

Change the boundaries or don’t, but evaluate the situation every five to ten years. That should be non-negotiable.

Foolish me. I thought there was an annual capacity review tied to a rolling 5-year capital improvement plan. Why isn’t that enough? What are you trying to fix that can’t be fixed with studies and reviews flagged in the CIP like Parklawn and Coates? Wouldn’t that give families and communities stability and notice?

It sounds like you have a great community. What are you looking to adjust? If those Langley folks don’t want to join your community, who cares? You don’t need them, do you?

The advantage of the targeted studies was that they addressed the situations where there was a serious need, yet students were grandfathered because we weren’t trying to do too many things at once.

Now we’re getting this total nonsense, where some consultants who clearly don’t know the county play around with a software tool to generate boundary changes that will be highly disruptive, have minimal benefits in most cases, and are large enough in scale that grandfathering will be virtually impossible.

But it’s not fair to blame the consultants when the real blame lies with the current school board, which is totally lacking in anything approaching common sense or any sense of restraint or humility.

Thru was selected and paid $500k as a way for FCPS to “blame” them on boundary recommendations that will inevitably upset many.

Attendance islands are just the start and the most obvious changes to make. Things are about to explode once split feeders come out and capacity adjustments will be the final cannon.

The goal of Thru’s incremental approach (attendance islands, followed by split feeders, followed by capacity adjustments) is to make the process so complicated that it will be virtually impossible to address even the most ridiculous changes. Instead, we’ll be told it’s beneficial overall and the School Board will vote up or down on the total package.

For example, the changes to address attendance islands create new split feeders, new capacity imbalances among neighboring schools, and longer commutes. The session on split feeders may or may not deal with the new split feeders. And the remaining capacity changes may or may not reflect the changes to address attendance islands, the new split feeders, and the longer commutes. And then they’ll just dump one big set of changes on the public and claim it reflects everyone’s best efforts.

It’s every bit as incompetent as the shit the Trump Administration is doing. These people should never be elected to anything for the rest of their lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of the county has a house that is walkable to the trifecta of elementary middle and high school? Much less than 1%, right, if any?

Everyone else is just gambling on their house? Gtfo.

I summo but greater than 1%. We can walk to all three of ours. Terraset(?)-Hughes-SLHS are adjacent and walkable for many.

Can someone identify this poster’s logical fallacy/fallacies? There is definitely a name for it, I just can’t recall at the moment.

I think enough people have chimed in about walking distance.

I think it might be “confirmation bias”, but the funny thing is you can easily verify that a lot of the claimed trifecta walking areas are not really walkable to all three schools.

For instance, there may be a student who could hypothetically walk 1.25 miles on average to dranesville elementary or Herndon middle, but nobody closer, since the schools are 2.5 miles apart.

Turns out, there really are only few and far between areas, where you could live close enough to all 3 schools to be safe, and I don’t even think that is completely safe. I bet less than a thousand students fit into that category, perhaps far less.

The MFGA crowd is going to drive away our tax base with its us-vs-the supposed rich mentality. They might as well go support the orange Demi-God if they are going to advocate for short sighted boundary changes.

You’re so full of it. My kids are are at HES and have friends at Clearview and Dranesville. In middle school they and their friends regularly WALKED directly from HMS to friends’ house near Clearview and Dranesville. Sometimes just is they could grab a snack or a slice of pizza in the little business district. On the weekends they bike between all three areas. Their friend groups were not the only ones. Heck, they even bike to RTC. They visit friends at nearby pyramids now that they are in high school.

It is really strange that children will be irreparably harmed by moving to a neighboring school. It is really a wonder that any of them will be able to cope going to college or moving out of mom and dad’s home 🏡 one day.

Change the boundaries or don’t, but evaluate the situation every five to ten years. That should be non-negotiable.

Foolish me. I thought there was an annual capacity review tied to a rolling 5-year capital improvement plan. Why isn’t that enough? What are you trying to fix that can’t be fixed with studies and reviews flagged in the CIP like Parklawn and Coates? Wouldn’t that give families and communities stability and notice?

It sounds like you have a great community. What are you looking to adjust? If those Langley folks don’t want to join your community, who cares? You don’t need them, do you?

The advantage of the targeted studies was that they addressed the situations where there was a serious need, yet students were grandfathered because we weren’t trying to do too many things at once.

Now we’re getting this total nonsense, where some consultants who clearly don’t know the county play around with a software tool to generate boundary changes that will be highly disruptive, have minimal benefits in most cases, and are large enough in scale that grandfathering will be virtually impossible.

But it’s not fair to blame the consultants when the real blame lies with the current school board, which is totally lacking in anything approaching common sense or any sense of restraint or humility.

Thru was selected and paid $500k as a way for FCPS to “blame” them on boundary recommendations that will inevitably upset many.

Attendance islands are just the start and the most obvious changes to make. Things are about to explode once split feeders come out and capacity adjustments will be the final cannon.

Oddly, few would be upset if they focused on the issues at Coates, Parklawn, and Glasgow that actually warrant prompt attention.

Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that those in favor of the adjustment cannot give good, valid reasons why it is needed. FCPS will spend buckets of money on this.

A)Some schools are over capacity.
B)Some schools are under capacity.
Schools A and B share boundaries.
The end.

Maybe a school is over capacity because FCPS planning sucks and we have School Board members like Karl Frisch ignoring it while wasting tens of millions on an unnecessary new elementary school in Dunn Loring.

I want smarter planning and capital investments, not kids moved around like widgets to cover up their incompetence and inattention to detail.

This really is the major point.

FCPS isn't trusted to make good faith decisions, decisions ACTUALLY taken to benefit the students and community and based on accurate data. All appearances are that they will waste money budgeted for the system for the sake of advancing their political careers and make decisions for personal reasons rather than the good of the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of the county has a house that is walkable to the trifecta of elementary middle and high school? Much less than 1%, right, if any?

Everyone else is just gambling on their house? Gtfo.

I summo but greater than 1%. We can walk to all three of ours. Terraset(?)-Hughes-SLHS are adjacent and walkable for many.

Can someone identify this poster’s logical fallacy/fallacies? There is definitely a name for it, I just can’t recall at the moment.

I think enough people have chimed in about walking distance.

I think it might be “confirmation bias”, but the funny thing is you can easily verify that a lot of the claimed trifecta walking areas are not really walkable to all three schools.

For instance, there may be a student who could hypothetically walk 1.25 miles on average to dranesville elementary or Herndon middle, but nobody closer, since the schools are 2.5 miles apart.

Turns out, there really are only few and far between areas, where you could live close enough to all 3 schools to be safe, and I don’t even think that is completely safe. I bet less than a thousand students fit into that category, perhaps far less.

The MFGA crowd is going to drive away our tax base with its us-vs-the supposed rich mentality. They might as well go support the orange Demi-God if they are going to advocate for short sighted boundary changes.

You’re so full of it. My kids are are at HES and have friends at Clearview and Dranesville. In middle school they and their friends regularly WALKED directly from HMS to friends’ house near Clearview and Dranesville. Sometimes just is they could grab a snack or a slice of pizza in the little business district. On the weekends they bike between all three areas. Their friend groups were not the only ones. Heck, they even bike to RTC. They visit friends at nearby pyramids now that they are in high school.

It is really strange that children will be irreparably harmed by moving to a neighboring school. It is really a wonder that any of them will be able to cope going to college or moving out of mom and dad’s home 🏡 one day.

Change the boundaries or don’t, but evaluate the situation every five to ten years. That should be non-negotiable.

Foolish me. I thought there was an annual capacity review tied to a rolling 5-year capital improvement plan. Why isn’t that enough? What are you trying to fix that can’t be fixed with studies and reviews flagged in the CIP like Parklawn and Coates? Wouldn’t that give families and communities stability and notice?

It sounds like you have a great community. What are you looking to adjust? If those Langley folks don’t want to join your community, who cares? You don’t need them, do you?

The advantage of the targeted studies was that they addressed the situations where there was a serious need, yet students were grandfathered because we weren’t trying to do too many things at once.

Now we’re getting this total nonsense, where some consultants who clearly don’t know the county play around with a software tool to generate boundary changes that will be highly disruptive, have minimal benefits in most cases, and are large enough in scale that grandfathering will be virtually impossible.

But it’s not fair to blame the consultants when the real blame lies with the current school board, which is totally lacking in anything approaching common sense or any sense of restraint or humility.

Thru was selected and paid $500k as a way for FCPS to “blame” them on boundary recommendations that will inevitably upset many.

Attendance islands are just the start and the most obvious changes to make. Things are about to explode once split feeders come out and capacity adjustments will be the final cannon.

Their proposals to eliminate attendance islands more often than not increase the capacity disparities between nearby schools. It seems like a recipe for repeated redistricting.

I know Thru has to do something to justify the $500K contract but, geez, what a mess. Textbook example of a solution in search of a problem.

[Anonymous]

The contractor was hired primarily so the board could blame someone else. The contractor is smart enough to ask the board what they want and then recommend that plan.

[Anonymous]

Yesterday I found a 2021 Mason district report on middle school grade configurations. Includes a spreadsheet on making schools K-6. Better than junk Thru put out.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/20211220_SixthGradeFacilityAnalysis.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For most middle class people, their home equity is their life savings. If they lose half of their life savings, it's not something they can just "get over."

It is incredible how out of touch the rich can be.

And here we go. It's all about your home equity, and not at all about the students.

Nobody is losing half of their home's value, by the way. We are in a house zoned to Oakton that could be shifted to South Lakes or Chantilly. I don't see our home losing that much value either way. The homes zoned to SLHS and Chantilly near us are similarly valued.

[Anonymous]

I think that out of all of the reasons for shifting boundaries, getting rid of attendance islands is the worst. So I'm looking forward to seeing what the next session, which I think is about split boundaries, brings, and the one after that, which I am HOPING is about actual capacity, brings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that out of all of the reasons for shifting boundaries, getting rid of attendance islands is the worst. So I'm looking forward to seeing what the next session, which I think is about split boundaries, brings, and the one after that, which I am HOPING is about actual capacity, brings.

Gotta getcha a handout from your neighbors, eh? Mooch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yesterday I found a 2021 Mason district report on middle school grade configurations. Includes a spreadsheet on making schools K-6. Better than junk Thru put out.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/20211220_SixthGradeFacilityAnalysis.pdf

It's depressing to compare the quality of the staff analysis from the early 90s (included with the later report) with the absolute garbage that Thru Consulting is now generating at a higher cost to taxpayers. It's a testament to just how much FCPS leadership and staff have declined since then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that those in favor of the adjustment cannot give good, valid reasons why it is needed. FCPS will spend buckets of money on this.

A)Some schools are over capacity.
B)Some schools are under capacity.
Schools A and B share boundaries.
The end.

Maybe a school is over capacity because FCPS planning sucks and we have School Board members like Karl Frisch ignoring it while wasting tens of millions on an unnecessary new elementary school in Dunn Loring.

I want smarter planning and capital investments, not kids moved around like widgets to cover up their incompetence and inattention to detail.

This really is the major point.

FCPS isn't trusted to make good faith decisions, decisions ACTUALLY taken to benefit the students and community and based on accurate data. All appearances are that they will waste money budgeted for the system for the sake of advancing their political careers and make decisions for personal reasons rather than the good of the system.

If FCPS is so terrible, please move to another school district. I have heard fabulous reviews of Howard County Public Schools and Arlington Public Schools. Nobody is forcing you to stay in fcps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that those in favor of the adjustment cannot give good, valid reasons why it is needed. FCPS will spend buckets of money on this.

A)Some schools are over capacity.
B)Some schools are under capacity.
Schools A and B share boundaries.
The end.

Maybe a school is over capacity because FCPS planning sucks and we have School Board members like Karl Frisch ignoring it while wasting tens of millions on an unnecessary new elementary school in Dunn Loring.

I want smarter planning and capital investments, not kids moved around like widgets to cover up their incompetence and inattention to detail.

This really is the major point.

FCPS isn't trusted to make good faith decisions, decisions ACTUALLY taken to benefit the students and community and based on accurate data. All appearances are that they will waste money budgeted for the system for the sake of advancing their political careers and make decisions for personal reasons rather than the good of the system.

If FCPS is so terrible, please move to another school district. I have heard fabulous reviews of Howard County Public Schools and Arlington Public Schools. Nobody is forcing you to stay in fcps.

DP, but you sound churlish, immature, and defensive.

It sounds like PP wants to stay in FCPS, but those running this school system and the consultants they have hired keep giving them reasons to look elsewhere. Driving engaged parents out of the system is not a good thing.