FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Misplaced this statement in prior post:


If you go through past "anticipated" development, you will find that a lot of it never materialized. I am very doubtful about 8,000 units. I doubt there would ever be that much. There has been a lot of construction around the new Metro across Toll Road from Town of Herndon (Westfield; Coates) but 8000? I live in the nearby and I have NEVER heard that. It's possible that it included Loudoun development. There was also some more recent development in Reston that is South Lakes Boundary.
Where does that 8000 number come from?

Years ago there was. Rumor that the townhouses near Alabama Park would be razed and replaced by higher density units. I doubt 8k though. Also haven’t heard about razing that area in a long time either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it appears this GIS tool is designed to play around with boundaries on a map to "capture" the right amount of non-poor kids just outside of an existing low-SES HS boundary.

The options to make this whole thing work appear to be:
1) cut over entire high SES elementary schools to adjacent low-SES pyramid
pros: only affects a concentrated localized population
cons: maximum disruption to that population
2) adjust the majority of ES boundaries across multiple pyramids to 'equitize' two adjacent high schools
pros: maintains proximity, community, transportation
cons: highest level of disruption, potentially affects all not living a stone's throw from elementary school
3) low-SES high school pyramid captures adjacent high-SES high school student population,
pros: minimizes the breadth of population disruption within donor pyramids
cons: maximizes negative impact on that population (proximity, community, transportation)

The unspoken con for each of these options is that it results in papering up the low-SES high school to mask instead of help its failing student population.

I am in the WSHS pyramid and am thinking how terrible the consequences could be for a Hunt Valley family that is told either Saratoga is their new ES, or HVES is now cutover to Lewis.

But why? The fact that you turn your nose up at these schools is exactly why they need this boundary review.

[Anonymous]

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Question: Has any "suggestions" been made about particular moves? Or is everyone just confused?

Do we have theories on who would be moved?

So the starting point would be the schools that are severely overcrowded. Taking those schools and trying to shift those populations to schools not as crowded.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/Proposed-FCPS-FY-2025-29-CIP.pdf

Langley at 98% capacity and Herndon at 71% should have great falls worried

Nope. Westfield to Herndon first.

I say leave McLean, Westfield, and Chantilly alone.

McLean needs a renovation plan, not a boundary change. McLean kids deserve better than to be treated as a foil for moving Great Falls kids from Langley to Herndon.

The Westfield kids who would move to Herndon (Coates) would further drive up the poverty at HHS. That doesn’t seem too smart.

Chantilly kids can move, if necessary, after Centreville has been expanded.

Ummm, you realize the only pretext for moving Great Falls to HHS is if they move some of McLean to Langley? Langley is under capacity. McLean kids wouldn’t be the foil in any way shape or form.

Gotta get your facts straight before trying to stir up a hornets nest.

McLean kids do not want to go to Langley.

Kids already at McLean don't want to go to Langley. The schools are rivals.

But the families of the younger kids at Spring Hill ES, which is a split feeder to Langley/McLean, who are zoned for McLean now likely would be happy to get moved there. Those kids are in the Tysons "attendance island." Spring Hill splits about 65-70% to Langley and 30-35% to McLean now.

As to whether moving those kids to Cooper/Langley, considered in conjunction with the additional growth planned in that part of Tysons, would play into the SB's potentially moving part of
Great Falls from Langley to Herndon is a question best left to others.

Well, if we’re going to consider growth in Tyson’s shouldn’t we also factor in the many thousands of units coming online in Herndon over the coming years? Or are we just planning to alleviate overcrowding at McLean by overcrowding Herndon?

Comstock just pulled out of its planned development in Herndon. So you shouldn’t count it.

Comstock pulled out of a plan to develop 200 residences. There are over 8,000 anticipated housing units for Herndon in the coming years.

Where will 8k units fit in TOH? Is this the county deciding to concentrate poverty in that area? Most of the development has been outside TOH limits. Don’t think for one moment the county isn’t picking winners and losers.

TRG, HTOC, and Fairbrook. All zoned to Herndon pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it appears this GIS tool is designed to play around with boundaries on a map to "capture" the right amount of non-poor kids just outside of an existing low-SES HS boundary.

The options to make this whole thing work appear to be:
1) cut over entire high SES elementary schools to adjacent low-SES pyramid
pros: only affects a concentrated localized population
cons: maximum disruption to that population
2) adjust the majority of ES boundaries across multiple pyramids to 'equitize' two adjacent high schools
pros: maintains proximity, community, transportation
cons: highest level of disruption, potentially affects all not living a stone's throw from elementary school
3) low-SES high school pyramid captures adjacent high-SES high school student population,
pros: minimizes the breadth of population disruption within donor pyramids
cons: maximizes negative impact on that population (proximity, community, transportation)

The unspoken con for each of these options is that it results in papering up the low-SES high school to mask instead of help its failing student population.

I am in the WSHS pyramid and am thinking how terrible the consequences could be for a Hunt Valley family that is told either Saratoga is their new ES, or HVES is now cutover to Lewis.

But why? The fact that you turn your nose up at these schools is exactly why they need this boundary review.

Really?

https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/lewis-high#fndtn-desktopTabs-climate

Choose between Assessments, College Readiness, and Learning Climate. Any of the three is a great reason to turn your nose up at the school

[Anonymous]

https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/09/26/herndon-van-buren-office-park-redevelopment-proposed/
400 units

https://m.mountvernongazette.com/news/2023/sep/13/900-apartments-coming-to-the-town-of-herndon/
from 2023 900

HTOC: projection 2035 under 700

total: PROJECTION less than 2000

And, this may never happen in some cases.

So, it may not be wise to send more kids to Herndon High.

[Anonymous]

I would suggest they work on fixing Lewis before sending more kids there.

Chronic absenteeism is a serious problem. New kids won't help that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest they work on fixing Lewis before sending more kids there.

Chronic absenteeism is a serious problem. New kids won't help that.

Lewis isn't the only school with chronic absenteeism.

I bet Hunt Valley mom is more panicked now than ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest they work on fixing Lewis before sending more kids there.

Chronic absenteeism is a serious problem. New kids won't help that.

Yes, it will. It's all a percentage. In fact, it will help it. And then you can look at absenteeism by race and see "oh, it's just the Hispanic kids".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it appears this GIS tool is designed to play around with boundaries on a map to "capture" the right amount of non-poor kids just outside of an existing low-SES HS boundary.

The options to make this whole thing work appear to be:
1) cut over entire high SES elementary schools to adjacent low-SES pyramid
pros: only affects a concentrated localized population
cons: maximum disruption to that population
2) adjust the majority of ES boundaries across multiple pyramids to 'equitize' two adjacent high schools
pros: maintains proximity, community, transportation
cons: highest level of disruption, potentially affects all not living a stone's throw from elementary school
3) low-SES high school pyramid captures adjacent high-SES high school student population,
pros: minimizes the breadth of population disruption within donor pyramids
cons: maximizes negative impact on that population (proximity, community, transportation)

The unspoken con for each of these options is that it results in papering up the low-SES high school to mask instead of help its failing student population.

I am in the WSHS pyramid and am thinking how terrible the consequences could be for a Hunt Valley family that is told either Saratoga is their new ES, or HVES is now cutover to Lewis.

This just made it more obvious that HVES will shift to Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it appears this GIS tool is designed to play around with boundaries on a map to "capture" the right amount of non-poor kids just outside of an existing low-SES HS boundary.

The options to make this whole thing work appear to be:
1) cut over entire high SES elementary schools to adjacent low-SES pyramid
pros: only affects a concentrated localized population
cons: maximum disruption to that population
2) adjust the majority of ES boundaries across multiple pyramids to 'equitize' two adjacent high schools
pros: maintains proximity, community, transportation
cons: highest level of disruption, potentially affects all not living a stone's throw from elementary school
3) low-SES high school pyramid captures adjacent high-SES high school student population,
pros: minimizes the breadth of population disruption within donor pyramids
cons: maximizes negative impact on that population (proximity, community, transportation)

The unspoken con for each of these options is that it results in papering up the low-SES high school to mask instead of help its failing student population.

I am in the WSHS pyramid and am thinking how terrible the consequences could be for a Hunt Valley family that is told either Saratoga is their new ES, or HVES is now cutover to Lewis.

This just made it more obvious that HVES will shift to Lewis.

Didn’t HVES go to Lewis before South County opened, or at least a portion of it? I was researching the redistricting that occurred when South County was built and HV had been pushing to be included in South County. It was ultimately decided that Mason Neck would be zoned to South County instead because the kids had close to an hour long one way bus ride to get to Hayfield and South County is much closer geographically to Mason Neck. However, as a compromise to HV (either the whole school or a neighborhood- they were rezoned from Lewis to WSHS.) This situation has been created over the past 20 years by continuing to move middle class areas out of Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it appears this GIS tool is designed to play around with boundaries on a map to "capture" the right amount of non-poor kids just outside of an existing low-SES HS boundary.

The options to make this whole thing work appear to be:
1) cut over entire high SES elementary schools to adjacent low-SES pyramid
pros: only affects a concentrated localized population
cons: maximum disruption to that population
2) adjust the majority of ES boundaries across multiple pyramids to 'equitize' two adjacent high schools
pros: maintains proximity, community, transportation
cons: highest level of disruption, potentially affects all not living a stone's throw from elementary school
3) low-SES high school pyramid captures adjacent high-SES high school student population,
pros: minimizes the breadth of population disruption within donor pyramids
cons: maximizes negative impact on that population (proximity, community, transportation)

The unspoken con for each of these options is that it results in papering up the low-SES high school to mask instead of help its failing student population.

I am in the WSHS pyramid and am thinking how terrible the consequences could be for a Hunt Valley family that is told either Saratoga is their new ES, or HVES is now cutover to Lewis.

This just made it more obvious that HVES will shift to Lewis.

Didn’t HVES go to Lewis before South County opened, or at least a portion of it? I was researching the redistricting that occurred when South County was built and HV had been pushing to be included in South County. It was ultimately decided that Mason Neck would be zoned to South County instead because the kids had close to an hour long one way bus ride to get to Hayfield and South County is much closer geographically to Mason Neck. However, as a compromise to HV (either the whole school or a neighborhood- they were rezoned from Lewis to WSHS.) This situation has been created over the past 20 years by continuing to move middle class areas out of Lewis.

Parts of HVES (a few neighborhoods south of the parkway, NOT the whole school) were zoned for HV, Key, Lewis. The rest were zoned for Irving and WSHS, so HVES at the time was a split feeder. I don’t think the neighborhoods south of the parkway were clamoring to go to the, at the time, new South County HS one way or another - I’ve heard some people say they were trying to avoid it but I don’t think that was the case. The original plan was to continue HVES as a split feeder but to send those neighborhoods to Lake Braddock instead, which had lost some students to SC when it opened. However the families in the few south of the parkway HV neighborhoods complained about the length of the commute, and they were instead reassigned to WSHS to fix the split feeder. You can see the vestige of the Lake Braddock vs WSHS decision with the fact that the neighborhood at the top of Pohick Rd right by the parkway goes to Sangster and Lake Braddock.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest they work on fixing Lewis before sending more kids there.

Chronic absenteeism is a serious problem. New kids won't help that.

Yes, it will. It's all a percentage. In fact, it will help it. And then you can look at absenteeism by race and see "oh, it's just the Hispanic kids".

So, you only care of what is on paper. Got it. Are you on the School Board? Sounds like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it appears this GIS tool is designed to play around with boundaries on a map to "capture" the right amount of non-poor kids just outside of an existing low-SES HS boundary.

The options to make this whole thing work appear to be:
1) cut over entire high SES elementary schools to adjacent low-SES pyramid
pros: only affects a concentrated localized population
cons: maximum disruption to that population
2) adjust the majority of ES boundaries across multiple pyramids to 'equitize' two adjacent high schools
pros: maintains proximity, community, transportation
cons: highest level of disruption, potentially affects all not living a stone's throw from elementary school
3) low-SES high school pyramid captures adjacent high-SES high school student population,
pros: minimizes the breadth of population disruption within donor pyramids
cons: maximizes negative impact on that population (proximity, community, transportation)

The unspoken con for each of these options is that it results in papering up the low-SES high school to mask instead of help its failing student population.

I am in the WSHS pyramid and am thinking how terrible the consequences could be for a Hunt Valley family that is told either Saratoga is their new ES, or HVES is now cutover to Lewis.

This just made it more obvious that HVES will shift to Lewis.

Didn’t HVES go to Lewis before South County opened, or at least a portion of it? I was researching the redistricting that occurred when South County was built and HV had been pushing to be included in South County. It was ultimately decided that Mason Neck would be zoned to South County instead because the kids had close to an hour long one way bus ride to get to Hayfield and South County is much closer geographically to Mason Neck. However, as a compromise to HV (either the whole school or a neighborhood- they were rezoned from Lewis to WSHS.) This situation has been created over the past 20 years by continuing to move middle class areas out of Lewis.

Parts of HVES (a few neighborhoods south of the parkway, NOT the whole school) were zoned for HV, Key, Lewis. The rest were zoned for Irving and WSHS, so HVES at the time was a split feeder. I don’t think the neighborhoods south of the parkway were clamoring to go to the, at the time, new South County HS one way or another - I’ve heard some people say they were trying to avoid it but I don’t think that was the case. The original plan was to continue HVES as a split feeder but to send those neighborhoods to Lake Braddock instead, which had lost some students to SC when it opened. However the families in the few south of the parkway HV neighborhoods complained about the length of the commute, and they were instead reassigned to WSHS to fix the split feeder. You can see the vestige of the Lake Braddock vs WSHS decision with the fact that the neighborhood at the top of Pohick Rd right by the parkway goes to Sangster and Lake Braddock.

That's actually incorrect. I researched this in our neighborhood's listserv archives and the issue back then wasn't with Lewis, which was then Lee HS. The neighborhoods originally were in the WSHS boundary but were assigned to Lee in the 1980s. But that meant that the Gambrill Road kids went to HVES, Irving and then Lee. When South County HS opened, the neighborhoods asked that the kids be returned to WSHS because the kids would lose all of their friends from ES and MS when they got to HS. The school board agreed. That was about 20 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it appears this GIS tool is designed to play around with boundaries on a map to "capture" the right amount of non-poor kids just outside of an existing low-SES HS boundary.

The options to make this whole thing work appear to be:
1) cut over entire high SES elementary schools to adjacent low-SES pyramid
pros: only affects a concentrated localized population
cons: maximum disruption to that population
2) adjust the majority of ES boundaries across multiple pyramids to 'equitize' two adjacent high schools
pros: maintains proximity, community, transportation
cons: highest level of disruption, potentially affects all not living a stone's throw from elementary school
3) low-SES high school pyramid captures adjacent high-SES high school student population,
pros: minimizes the breadth of population disruption within donor pyramids
cons: maximizes negative impact on that population (proximity, community, transportation)

The unspoken con for each of these options is that it results in papering up the low-SES high school to mask instead of help its failing student population.

I am in the WSHS pyramid and am thinking how terrible the consequences could be for a Hunt Valley family that is told either Saratoga is their new ES, or HVES is now cutover to Lewis.

This just made it more obvious that HVES will shift to Lewis.

Didn’t HVES go to Lewis before South County opened, or at least a portion of it? I was researching the redistricting that occurred when South County was built and HV had been pushing to be included in South County. It was ultimately decided that Mason Neck would be zoned to South County instead because the kids had close to an hour long one way bus ride to get to Hayfield and South County is much closer geographically to Mason Neck. However, as a compromise to HV (either the whole school or a neighborhood- they were rezoned from Lewis to WSHS.) This situation has been created over the past 20 years by continuing to move middle class areas out of Lewis.

Parts of HVES (a few neighborhoods south of the parkway, NOT the whole school) were zoned for HV, Key, Lewis. The rest were zoned for Irving and WSHS, so HVES at the time was a split feeder. I don’t think the neighborhoods south of the parkway were clamoring to go to the, at the time, new South County HS one way or another - I’ve heard some people say they were trying to avoid it but I don’t think that was the case. The original plan was to continue HVES as a split feeder but to send those neighborhoods to Lake Braddock instead, which had lost some students to SC when it opened. However the families in the few south of the parkway HV neighborhoods complained about the length of the commute, and they were instead reassigned to WSHS to fix the split feeder. You can see the vestige of the Lake Braddock vs WSHS decision with the fact that the neighborhood at the top of Pohick Rd right by the parkway goes to Sangster and Lake Braddock.

That's actually incorrect. I researched this in our neighborhood's listserv archives and the issue back then wasn't with Lewis, which was then Lee HS. The neighborhoods originally were in the WSHS boundary but were assigned to Lee in the 1980s. But that meant that the Gambrill Road kids went to HVES, Irving and then Lee. When South County HS opened, the neighborhoods asked that the kids be returned to WSHS because the kids would lose all of their friends from ES and MS when they got to HS. The school board agreed. That was about 20 years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2005/01/13/destination-of-south-hunt-valley-students-remains-in-flux/ac78799f-a654-4be5-abdc-ee104284ffec/

Students who live in South Hunt Valley, which straddles the Fairfax County Parkway and includes the Middle Valley, Scarborough and Burgoyne Forest neighborhoods, currently go to Lee High School. School staff members have recommended moving the students to Lake Braddock Secondary School, a shift many parents oppose because it would mean one-way bus rides of 45 or 50 minutes for their children.

Board member Daniel G. Storck (Mount Vernon) said that because there is not enough room at the south county school for the South Hunt Valley children, they should be sent to the second-closest school, West Springfield High School. The shift would allow those families to be part of a community school, he said, where children will attend classes with friends they meet through local sports leagues, community groups and churches.
"We need to address it now," Storck said during a Monday afternoon work session.

[Anonymous]

Committee members are up!

https://www.fcps.edu/members-superintendents-boundary-review-advisory-committee

Anyone see anything particularly interesting?