FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/04/15/fairfax-school-board-tackles-overcrowding-with-boundary-policy-overhaul/

The thing that makes me furious, is that McDaniel never mentioned redistricting when he ran for the board.

In fact, none of them mentioned it, despite this being the obvious end goal for many of them. It’s about to do immense damage to the Fairfax democrat brand. What an unforced error.

You gave yourself away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kyle seems like quite the attention whore always trying to get in the press. Makes sense because he doesn’t care about the schools, just advancing his political career.

And if they didn’t talk to the media you’d accuse them of hiding things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/04/15/fairfax-school-board-tackles-overcrowding-with-boundary-policy-overhaul/

Until they formally put Dunn Loring ES on ice until there's a demonstrated need for that school, I can't take anything that Kyle McDaniel or other School Board members have to say on the topic of school boundaries seriously. It's an $80M boondoggle and the new SB members haven't done squat to revisit it. If they want to show that they are being fiscally prudent, and responsive to the schools that are actually overcrowded, there's no better decision they could make than to cancel Dunn Loring and reallocate that money.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/04/15/fairfax-school-board-tackles-overcrowding-with-boundary-policy-overhaul/

The thing that makes me furious, is that McDaniel never mentioned redistricting when he ran for the board.

In fact, none of them mentioned it, despite this being the obvious end goal for many of them. It’s about to do immense damage to the Fairfax democrat brand. What an unforced error.

You gave yourself away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)

Believe what you will. I’ve only voted for a Republican once in my life. That’ll likely change though based on what I’m seeing with this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/04/15/fairfax-school-board-tackles-overcrowding-with-boundary-policy-overhaul/

The thing that makes me furious, is that McDaniel never mentioned redistricting when he ran for the board.

In fact, none of them mentioned it, despite this being the obvious end goal for many of them. It’s about to do immense damage to the Fairfax democrat brand. What an unforced error.

You gave yourself away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)

DP. How so? The PP said, "the Fairfax democrat brand." One could say, "the Fairfax Republican brand." This is not the gotcha you seem to think it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kyle seems like quite the attention whore always trying to get in the press. Makes sense because he doesn’t care about the schools, just advancing his political career.

If you don’t know much about FCPS, a politician saying boundary decisions should be left to “staff experts, not politicians” sounds great.

If you know anything about FCPS, however, you’ll know these “staff experts” are few and far between, and that they will only do what they think the politicians - their overseers - already want.

So at the end of the day, it’s the School Board that will have to own these decisions, even if they try to pretend they are being made by staff, and any major changes will hit a big wave of opposition. None of these people ran on a platform of changing boundaries. It may have been relatively easy to change boundaries 40 years ago when schools had similar academic programs and profiles. It won’t be so easy now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kyle seems like quite the attention whore always trying to get in the press. Makes sense because he doesn’t care about the schools, just advancing his political career.

If you don’t know much about FCPS, a politician saying boundary decisions should be left to “staff experts, not politicians” sounds great.

If you know anything about FCPS, however, you’ll know these “staff experts” are few and far between, and that they will only do what they think the politicians - their overseers - already want.

So at the end of the day, it’s the School Board that will have to own these decisions, even if they try to pretend they are being made by staff, and any major changes will hit a big wave of opposition. None of these people ran on a platform of changing boundaries. It may have been relatively easy to change boundaries 40 years ago when schools had similar academic programs and profiles. It won’t be so easy now.

Ah so it's like we're back in the 1960s and socioeconomic integration is going to be forced upon citizens as they protest and cry foul.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you know anything about FCPS, however, you’ll know these “staff experts” are few and far between, and that they will only do what they think the politicians - their overseers - already want.

It's not even that. It's that the staff at Gatehouse are all dyed-in-the-wool leftist activists. The board has their leftist leanings, sure, but they are colluding with a staff of radicals that will push things even further than the board will, given half a chance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah so it's like we're back in the 1960s and socioeconomic integration is going to be forced upon citizens as they protest and cry foul.

Nobody was talking about socioeconomic integration in the 60's, it was all about racial integration. Then in the 70s and 80s they tried bussing, which was and still is a complete disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah so it's like we're back in the 1960s and socioeconomic integration is going to be forced upon citizens as they protest and cry foul.

Nobody was talking about socioeconomic integration in the 60's, it was all about racial integration. Then in the 70s and 80s they tried bussing, which was and still is a complete disaster.

Most bussing in this region was reversed in the 1980s or 1990s. Prince George’s County, Arlington, etc., all stopped bussing by race, which remained controversial through the end, for all involved. With the recent supreme court rulings, fear of lawsuits, etc., no school district will draw boundaries just for socio-economic reasons, which may have intentional or unintentional effects on the racial make-up of schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah so it's like we're back in the 1960s and socioeconomic integration is going to be forced upon citizens as they protest and cry foul.

Nobody was talking about socioeconomic integration in the 60's, it was all about racial integration. Then in the 70s and 80s they tried bussing, which was and still is a complete disaster.

Most bussing in this region was reversed in the 1980s or 1990s. Prince George’s County, Arlington, etc., all stopped bussing by race, which remained controversial through the end, for all involved. With the recent supreme court rulings, fear of lawsuits, etc., no school district will draw boundaries just for socio-economic reasons, which may have intentional or unintentional effects on the racial make-up of schools.

Agreed. They may do it to balance student seats rather than build or expand unnecessarily or because they do not anticipate having the funds to do them. However, some will believe otherwise or claim they don’t believe that is the case if their boundary changes. You will never change their minds.

[Anonymous]

Why do they need a boundary policy change to redraw boundaries for capacity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah so it's like we're back in the 1960s and socioeconomic integration is going to be forced upon citizens as they protest and cry foul.

Nobody was talking about socioeconomic integration in the 60's, it was all about racial integration. Then in the 70s and 80s they tried bussing, which was and still is a complete disaster.

Most bussing in this region was reversed in the 1980s or 1990s. Prince George’s County, Arlington, etc., all stopped bussing by race, which remained controversial through the end, for all involved. With the recent supreme court rulings, fear of lawsuits, etc., no school district will draw boundaries just for socio-economic reasons, which may have intentional or unintentional effects on the racial make-up of schools.

Agreed. They may do it to balance student seats rather than build or expand unnecessarily or because they do not anticipate having the funds to do them. However, some will believe otherwise or claim they don’t believe that is the case if their boundary changes. You will never change their minds.

We know a few things.

First, we know that, in general, FCPS and the School Board have not been penny-pinchers. They ask for big increases in the FCPS budget every year, and they’ve supported fancy renovations at schools like Oakton, Herndon, and Falls Church, additions to schools that aren’t seriously overcrowded like Madison, and even a brand-new elementary school that will cost over $80M and for which there is no compelling justification (Dunn Loring).

Second, we know that, when FCPS and the School Board decided that TJHSST did not have enough Black and Hispanic students, they concluded that creating geographic quotas by middle school would be the safest way to promote greater socioeconomic diversity without inviting a successful legal challenge that they were discriminating against other students on the basis of race.

So when they now suggest they want to conduct a “holistic” county-wide boundary study in the name of efficiency, it’s fair to question whether efficiency is indeed their new religion, or instead whether they’ve concluded the best way to accomplish their social objectives is to do so under the guise of fiscal prudence. If they were really engaging in a “holistic” review, they’d be looking at the root causes of under-enrolled and overcrowded schools, including the different academic programs offered at different schools, and also taking a fresh look at a renovation queue that is now over 15 years old and does not take subsequent county planning decisions and residential development into account. Instead, all it appears they want to do is change some particular boundaries - as recommended by staff that will clearly take their cue from the SB - and then claim it’s the outcome of an objective, apolitical process.

Again, good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do they need a boundary policy change to redraw boundaries for capacity?

Because they do not want to redraw boundaries solely to address capacity issues. They have a different agenda. You can see it in the draft policy they tried to pass. They want to redraw boundaries to address socioeconomic issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do they need a boundary policy change to redraw boundaries for capacity?

Because they do not want to redraw boundaries solely to address capacity issues. They have a different agenda. You can see it in the draft policy they tried to pass. They want to redraw boundaries to address socioeconomic issues.

They could absolutely do that under the current policy. However, they want to pretend that a new policy will create an algorithm that will just happen to spit out the boundary changes that they are keen to make but for which they would prefer to avoid responsibility.