FCPS High School Poverty and Enrollment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting: in the two years since Lee was renamed to Lewis, the demographics at Lewis have changed quite a bit. Not only have the percentages changed, but the numbers of changed.

There are fewer Black, white and Asian kids there now than two years ago. There is a significant increase (more than 100) of Hispanic students.

Maybe, the coming social justice academy is not as appealing as our SB thought it would be.

Of course there is a significant increase in Hispanic students. The border has been wide open for the past three years and these students are coming to live amongst their families who are already settled in the Lewis feeder neighborhoods.

Imagine how much lower enrollment at Lewis would be if FFX county had laws that were enforced about how many people could live per square foot of home.

Do you really want that much government control over your life?

Enforcing fire code violations is a problem? Which other safety laws would you like to ignore ?

You didn't say fire codes -- you said "had laws" which implies you want laws that do not yet exist (otherwise you would have just said "enforced laws").

Read it again. It says "had laws that were enforced"

Exactly--very awkward and unclear sentence construction. The clearer way to articulate that would be "FFX county enforced its laws..."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting: in the two years since Lee was renamed to Lewis, the demographics at Lewis have changed quite a bit. Not only have the percentages changed, but the numbers of changed.

There are fewer Black, white and Asian kids there now than two years ago. There is a significant increase (more than 100) of Hispanic students.

Maybe, the coming social justice academy is not as appealing as our SB thought it would be.

Of course there is a significant increase in Hispanic students. The border has been wide open for the past three years and these students are coming to live amongst their families who are already settled in the Lewis feeder neighborhoods.

Imagine how much lower enrollment at Lewis would be if FFX county had laws that were enforced about how many people could live per square foot of home.

Do you really want that much government control over your life?

Enforcing fire code violations is a problem? Which other safety laws would you like to ignore ?

You didn't say fire codes -- you said "had laws" which implies you want laws that do not yet exist (otherwise you would have just said "enforced laws").

Read it again. It says "had laws that were enforced"

Exactly--very awkward and unclear sentence construction. The clearer way to articulate that would be "FFX county enforced its laws..."

It was very clear that poster meant that FFX county is not enforcing it's laws. Hence having many households with more occupants than are allowed. Had FFX county enforced this Lewis wouldn't have such a high poverty rate because people would be forced to find other accomodations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting: in the two years since Lee was renamed to Lewis, the demographics at Lewis have changed quite a bit. Not only have the percentages changed, but the numbers of changed.

There are fewer Black, white and Asian kids there now than two years ago. There is a significant increase (more than 100) of Hispanic students.

Maybe, the coming social justice academy is not as appealing as our SB thought it would be.

Of course there is a significant increase in Hispanic students. The border has been wide open for the past three years and these students are coming to live amongst their families who are already settled in the Lewis feeder neighborhoods.

Imagine how much lower enrollment at Lewis would be if FFX county had laws that were enforced about how many people could live per square foot of home.

Do you really want that much government control over your life?

Enforcing fire code violations is a problem? Which other safety laws would you like to ignore ?

You didn't say fire codes -- you said "had laws" which implies you want laws that do not yet exist (otherwise you would have just said "enforced laws").

Read it again. It says "had laws that were enforced"

Exactly--very awkward and unclear sentence construction. The clearer way to articulate that would be "FFX county enforced its laws..."

It was very clear that poster meant that FFX county is not enforcing it's laws. Hence having many households with more occupants than are allowed. Had FFX county enforced this Lewis wouldn't have such a high poverty rate because people would be forced to find other accomodations.

If Lewis truly had an issue with too many families with kids living in a single residence, then Lewis would be one of the schools over capacity.

Instead, it has one of the highest vacancies in the county.

The fire code argument doesn't really apply here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting: in the two years since Lee was renamed to Lewis, the demographics at Lewis have changed quite a bit. Not only have the percentages changed, but the numbers of changed.

There are fewer Black, white and Asian kids there now than two years ago. There is a significant increase (more than 100) of Hispanic students.

Maybe, the coming social justice academy is not as appealing as our SB thought it would be.

Of course there is a significant increase in Hispanic students. The border has been wide open for the past three years and these students are coming to live amongst their families who are already settled in the Lewis feeder neighborhoods.

Imagine how much lower enrollment at Lewis would be if FFX county had laws that were enforced about how many people could live per square foot of home.

Do you really want that much government control over your life?

Enforcing fire code violations is a problem? Which other safety laws would you like to ignore ?

You didn't say fire codes -- you said "had laws" which implies you want laws that do not yet exist (otherwise you would have just said "enforced laws").

Read it again. It says "had laws that were enforced"

Exactly--very awkward and unclear sentence construction. The clearer way to articulate that would be "FFX county enforced its laws..."

It was very clear that poster meant that FFX county is not enforcing it's laws. Hence having many households with more occupants than are allowed. Had FFX county enforced this Lewis wouldn't have such a high poverty rate because people would be forced to find other accomodations.

Consider not commenting on grammar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting: in the two years since Lee was renamed to Lewis, the demographics at Lewis have changed quite a bit. Not only have the percentages changed, but the numbers of changed.

There are fewer Black, white and Asian kids there now than two years ago. There is a significant increase (more than 100) of Hispanic students.

Maybe, the coming social justice academy is not as appealing as our SB thought it would be.

Of course there is a significant increase in Hispanic students. The border has been wide open for the past three years and these students are coming to live amongst their families who are already settled in the Lewis feeder neighborhoods.

Imagine how much lower enrollment at Lewis would be if FFX county had laws that were enforced about how many people could live per square foot of home.

Do you really want that much government control over your life?

Enforcing fire code violations is a problem? Which other safety laws would you like to ignore ?

You didn't say fire codes -- you said "had laws" which implies you want laws that do not yet exist (otherwise you would have just said "enforced laws").

Read it again. It says "had laws that were enforced"

Exactly--very awkward and unclear sentence construction. The clearer way to articulate that would be "FFX county enforced its laws..."

It was very clear that poster meant that FFX county is not enforcing it's laws. Hence having many households with more occupants than are allowed. Had FFX county enforced this Lewis wouldn't have such a high poverty rate because people would be forced to find other accomodations.

If Lewis truly had an issue with too many families with kids living in a single residence, then Lewis would be one of the schools over capacity.

Instead, it has one of the highest vacancies in the county.

The fire code argument doesn't really apply here.

Don't try to fit logic into people's biases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are are also white, Asian and Black kids at Lewis, and Hispanic kids at West Springfield. Balancing the enrollments at the two schools is overdue, despite the suggestion of the WS poster that Lewis’s unique function is to serve Hispanic ESOL kids.

If getting rid of IB makes Lewis more palatable get rid of IB there.

Balancing the enrollment will not help the struggling students.

Not every student at Lewis is struggling and they deserve equal opportunities to their peers at other schools. And concentrating poverty in certain schools hurts the struggling students as well, as FCPS already knows.

The poverty concentrates itself. It is not up to other neighborhoods to bail it out.

It kind of is. Maybe not on the microscale you're thinking of because your concerns are about your kid interacting with poor kids. But the larger picture is that we should strive and want to build a better Fairfax County for everyone. I don't think we should, in general, allow the free-falling decay of certain areas a mile away. How does that bode well for our future?

1. You are assuming something that is very wrong. FWIW, I don't live in West Springfield district and my kids interact with plenty of poor kids. However, I would be very upset if my children were cherry picked to go "save" other kids. That is your suggestion.

2. You are suggesting that we move people around on a chess board to suit your view of the world.

I can only assume that you are a Lewis parent who is upset with Lewis. So, you have a choice. Move or act to make things better at Lewis. Are you the one who is upset because there was no baseball team at Lewis? Not a very good reason to go and grab other people's kids.

DP. Your rhetoric is way over the top.

Basically, you suggest that FCPS can’t do what it did for many years - change boundaries between nearby schools when one school was under-enrolled and another had a huge enrollment - because in this case it can be negatively portrayed as an effort to “save” or “bail out” Lewis.

So, apparently, because someone might claim it’s “social engineering” rather than business as usual, the only acceptable response is to do nothing and see if Lewis’s enrollment drops further. It doesn’t matter to you if Lewis kids are denied opportunities available to kids at other schools, because Lewis should just thank its lucky stars it’s part of a larger system and not totally dependent on tax revenues generated from within its current boundaries,
right?

It’s just kind of gross, honestly, that you advance specious arguments all because you hate the idea of anything that might even temporarily require adjustments on the part of UMC families to balance enrollments with a school with a larger low-income population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are are also white, Asian and Black kids at Lewis, and Hispanic kids at West Springfield. Balancing the enrollments at the two schools is overdue, despite the suggestion of the WS poster that Lewis’s unique function is to serve Hispanic ESOL kids.

If getting rid of IB makes Lewis more palatable get rid of IB there.

Balancing the enrollment will not help the struggling students.

Not every student at Lewis is struggling and they deserve equal opportunities to their peers at other schools. And concentrating poverty in certain schools hurts the struggling students as well, as FCPS already knows.

The poverty concentrates itself. It is not up to other neighborhoods to bail it out.

It kind of is. Maybe not on the microscale you're thinking of because your concerns are about your kid interacting with poor kids. But the larger picture is that we should strive and want to build a better Fairfax County for everyone. I don't think we should, in general, allow the free-falling decay of certain areas a mile away. How does that bode well for our future?

1. You are assuming something that is very wrong. FWIW, I don't live in West Springfield district and my kids interact with plenty of poor kids. However, I would be very upset if my children were cherry picked to go "save" other kids. That is your suggestion.

2. You are suggesting that we move people around on a chess board to suit your view of the world.

I can only assume that you are a Lewis parent who is upset with Lewis. So, you have a choice. Move or act to make things better at Lewis. Are you the one who is upset because there was no baseball team at Lewis? Not a very good reason to go and grab other people's kids.

DP. Your rhetoric is way over the top.

Basically, you suggest that FCPS can’t do what it did for many years - change boundaries between nearby schools when one school was under-enrolled and another had a huge enrollment - because in this case it can be negatively portrayed as an effort to “save” or “bail out” Lewis.

So, apparently, because someone might claim it’s “social engineering” rather than business as usual, the only acceptable response is to do nothing and see if Lewis’s enrollment drops further. It doesn’t matter to you if Lewis kids are denied opportunities available to kids at other schools, because Lewis should just thank its lucky stars it’s part of a larger system and not totally dependent on tax revenues generated from within its current boundaries,
right?

It’s just kind of gross, honestly, that you advance specious arguments all because you hate the idea of anything that might even temporarily require adjustments on the part of UMC families to balance enrollments with a school with a larger low-income population.

You don't tear communities apart because a nearby school is struggling. It's not struggling because it is underenrolled.

[Anonymous]

Anyone moving to Springfield shouldn't be surprised when boundaries are adjusted, with the underenrolled and overcrowded schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are are also white, Asian and Black kids at Lewis, and Hispanic kids at West Springfield. Balancing the enrollments at the two schools is overdue, despite the suggestion of the WS poster that Lewis’s unique function is to serve Hispanic ESOL kids.

If getting rid of IB makes Lewis more palatable get rid of IB there.

Balancing the enrollment will not help the struggling students.

Not every student at Lewis is struggling and they deserve equal opportunities to their peers at other schools. And concentrating poverty in certain schools hurts the struggling students as well, as FCPS already knows.

The poverty concentrates itself. It is not up to other neighborhoods to bail it out.

It kind of is. Maybe not on the microscale you're thinking of because your concerns are about your kid interacting with poor kids. But the larger picture is that we should strive and want to build a better Fairfax County for everyone. I don't think we should, in general, allow the free-falling decay of certain areas a mile away. How does that bode well for our future?

1. You are assuming something that is very wrong. FWIW, I don't live in West Springfield district and my kids interact with plenty of poor kids. However, I would be very upset if my children were cherry picked to go "save" other kids. That is your suggestion.

2. You are suggesting that we move people around on a chess board to suit your view of the world.

I can only assume that you are a Lewis parent who is upset with Lewis. So, you have a choice. Move or act to make things better at Lewis. Are you the one who is upset because there was no baseball team at Lewis? Not a very good reason to go and grab other people's kids.

DP. Your rhetoric is way over the top.

Basically, you suggest that FCPS can’t do what it did for many years - change boundaries between nearby schools when one school was under-enrolled and another had a huge enrollment - because in this case it can be negatively portrayed as an effort to “save” or “bail out” Lewis.

So, apparently, because someone might claim it’s “social engineering” rather than business as usual, the only acceptable response is to do nothing and see if Lewis’s enrollment drops further. It doesn’t matter to you if Lewis kids are denied opportunities available to kids at other schools, because Lewis should just thank its lucky stars it’s part of a larger system and not totally dependent on tax revenues generated from within its current boundaries,
right?

It’s just kind of gross, honestly, that you advance specious arguments all because you hate the idea of anything that might even temporarily require adjustments on the part of UMC families to balance enrollments with a school with a larger low-income population.

You don't tear communities apart because a nearby school is struggling. It's not struggling because it is underenrolled.

Schools struggle when they are underenrolled. You don’t tear communities apart when you make simple boundary adjustments involving nearby schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are are also white, Asian and Black kids at Lewis, and Hispanic kids at West Springfield. Balancing the enrollments at the two schools is overdue, despite the suggestion of the WS poster that Lewis’s unique function is to serve Hispanic ESOL kids.

If getting rid of IB makes Lewis more palatable get rid of IB there.

Balancing the enrollment will not help the struggling students.

Not every student at Lewis is struggling and they deserve equal opportunities to their peers at other schools. And concentrating poverty in certain schools hurts the struggling students as well, as FCPS already knows.

The poverty concentrates itself. It is not up to other neighborhoods to bail it out.

It kind of is. Maybe not on the microscale you're thinking of because your concerns are about your kid interacting with poor kids. But the larger picture is that we should strive and want to build a better Fairfax County for everyone. I don't think we should, in general, allow the free-falling decay of certain areas a mile away. How does that bode well for our future?

1. You are assuming something that is very wrong. FWIW, I don't live in West Springfield district and my kids interact with plenty of poor kids. However, I would be very upset if my children were cherry picked to go "save" other kids. That is your suggestion.

2. You are suggesting that we move people around on a chess board to suit your view of the world.

I can only assume that you are a Lewis parent who is upset with Lewis. So, you have a choice. Move or act to make things better at Lewis. Are you the one who is upset because there was no baseball team at Lewis? Not a very good reason to go and grab other people's kids.

DP. Your rhetoric is way over the top.

Basically, you suggest that FCPS can’t do what it did for many years - change boundaries between nearby schools when one school was under-enrolled and another had a huge enrollment - because in this case it can be negatively portrayed as an effort to “save” or “bail out” Lewis.

So, apparently, because someone might claim it’s “social engineering” rather than business as usual, the only acceptable response is to do nothing and see if Lewis’s enrollment drops further. It doesn’t matter to you if Lewis kids are denied opportunities available to kids at other schools, because Lewis should just thank its lucky stars it’s part of a larger system and not totally dependent on tax revenues generated from within its current boundaries,
right?

It’s just kind of gross, honestly, that you advance specious arguments all because you hate the idea of anything that might even temporarily require adjustments on the part of UMC families to balance enrollments with a school with a larger low-income population.

Let's also point out that our teacher workforce is also segregated, especially at Lewis. The white parents won't tolerate sending their child to a mostly black and brown school. We all see the writing on the wall, if the current Dem-endorsed candidates win they will likely try to redistrict the boundaries to send more Asians to Lewis. The ones that should be worried are the ones living inside the beltway, along with those west of Backlick rd (https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-springfield-va/). All could be reminded that Fairfax County isn't technically a sanctuary city (and what that means) and that they should be grateful for quarters provided on the plantation. They could be reminded of the consequences of stepping out of line and, just because they don't enforce immigration laws, doesn't mean that they could not change their minds.

[Anonymous]

Let's also point out that our teacher workforce is also segregated, especially at Lewis. The white parents won't tolerate sending their child to a mostly black and brown school. We all see the writing on the wall, if the current Dem-endorsed candidates win they will likely try to redistrict the boundaries to send more Asians to Lewis. The ones that should be worried are the ones living inside the beltway, along with those west of Backlick rd (https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-springfield-va/). All could be reminded that Fairfax County isn't technically a sanctuary city (and what that means) and that they should be grateful for quarters provided on the plantation. They could be reminded of the consequences of stepping out of line and, just because they don't enforce immigration laws, doesn't mean that they could not change their minds.

The Asian, Black, and White populations at Lewis have gone down significantly in numbers as well as percentages in the last two years. Why is that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting: in the two years since Lee was renamed to Lewis, the demographics at Lewis have changed quite a bit. Not only have the percentages changed, but the numbers of changed.

There are fewer Black, white and Asian kids there now than two years ago. There is a significant increase (more than 100) of Hispanic students.

Maybe, the coming social justice academy is not as appealing as our SB thought it would be.

Of course there is a significant increase in Hispanic students. The border has been wide open for the past three years and these students are coming to live amongst their families who are already settled in the Lewis feeder neighborhoods.

Imagine how much lower enrollment at Lewis would be if FFX county had laws that were enforced about how many people could live per square foot of home.

Do you really want that much government control over your life?

Enforcing fire code violations is a problem? Which other safety laws would you like to ignore ?

You didn't say fire codes -- you said "had laws" which implies you want laws that do not yet exist (otherwise you would have just said "enforced laws").

Read it again. It says "had laws that were enforced"

Exactly--very awkward and unclear sentence construction. The clearer way to articulate that would be "FFX county enforced its laws..."

It was very clear that poster meant that FFX county is not enforcing it's laws. Hence having many households with more occupants than are allowed. Had FFX county enforced this Lewis wouldn't have such a high poverty rate because people would be forced to find other accomodations.

If Lewis truly had an issue with too many families with kids living in a single residence, then Lewis would be one of the schools over capacity.

Instead, it has one of the highest vacancies in the county.

The fire code argument doesn't really apply here.

This thread is about the concentration of poverty impacting the students as well. It applies.

[Anonymous]

WSHS parent here. I’m reading all these comments and it struck me how funny it is that people are acting like WSHS and West Springfield are these amazing desirable places. DCUM likes to routinely shit on Springfield the community. We bought here because as two government workers, we were priced out of Arlington yet didn’t want to have a massive commute downtown.

And yes, the class of 2026 is enormous. One of my kids is in that class and there were all sorts of behavioral issues in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Let's also point out that our teacher workforce is also segregated, especially at Lewis. The white parents won't tolerate sending their child to a mostly black and brown school. We all see the writing on the wall, if the current Dem-endorsed candidates win they will likely try to redistrict the boundaries to send more Asians to Lewis. The ones that should be worried are the ones living inside the beltway, along with those west of Backlick rd (https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-springfield-va/). All could be reminded that Fairfax County isn't technically a sanctuary city (and what that means) and that they should be grateful for quarters provided on the plantation. They could be reminded of the consequences of stepping out of line and, just because they don't enforce immigration laws, doesn't mean that they could not change their minds.

The Asian, Black, and White populations at Lewis have gone down significantly in numbers as well as percentages in the last two years. Why is that?

Those drops are most likely natural attrition as they've aged and graduated through Lewis. Kids that graduated in the past couple years may have moved in 10+ years ago. In the early 2010s Lewis had relatively equally balanced demographics and average FARMs rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WSHS parent here. I’m reading all these comments and it struck me how funny it is that people are acting like WSHS and West Springfield are these amazing desirable places. DCUM likes to routinely shit on Springfield the community. We bought here because as two government workers, we were priced out of Arlington yet didn’t want to have a massive commute downtown.

And yes, the class of 2026 is enormous. One of my kids is in that class and there were all sorts of behavioral issues in middle school.

Class of 2026 is definitely enormous.

I can no longer find the gender breakdown on the FCPS school profile for WSHS, but I believe that WSHSs class of 2026 is also disproportionally male, like 54% male/46% female. I remember l99king up that info when the class of 2026 hit Irving and was having all those crazy discipline issues in 8th grade. Seeing that the class was so much larger than the other grades and majority male explained so much.