Amendments to Policy 8130 re Grandfathering of Current Students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's great, sounds like they are being responsive to parents.

I don't think it is so much the school board being responsive to parents, as it is Dunn finally getting through to all the reps with higher political aspirations that they are committing political suicide by pushing through an unnecessary, unpopular and unwanted social engineering rezoning, without allowing existing high school students to be grandfathered.

Dunn is the only school board rep communicating with and advocating for constituents and FCPS families, and the only school board rep with an ounce of sense or moderation. This change to grandfather and protect high school students from disruptive rezoning has Dunn's leadership all over it.

None of the others seem to care about FCPS students when it comes to this rezoning process.

Sorry, but Matt Dunne is not all that.

He was a big fan of the county-wide review at the start. He also approaches these issues from a place of privilege, since he's zoned to a school (West Potomac) that got a massive addition. He's big on claiming they should eliminate all trailers and modulars, but that isn't what the parents at other schools that rely on modulars and haven't seen the big investment that West Potomac received want.

He has one small group of parents who are upset at the prospect of getting rezoned out of Hollin Meadows/Sandburg/West Potomac into Riverside/Whitman/Mount Vernon as part of a plan to include Whitman within its attendance area, and he's said he'll try to make sure they aren't redistricted. But that only underscores that his initial decision to push ahead with the county-wide review was an error. If they are going to leave schools like Whitman outside their attendance areas, they shouldn't be pretending the elimination of attendance islands is a big problem crying out for relief, either.

Most of these proposals are solutions in search of a problem, and some additional flexibility when it comes to grandfathering (at least if you can swing your own transportation) won't change the fact that the larger project is unnecessary and is being poorly carried out.

[Anonymous]

All the school board members except Mcelveen are extremists and should never hold higher office again.

Shame on them for their cavalier boundary shenanigans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's great, sounds like they are being responsive to parents.

A small percentage of parents, that is. Congratulations for being in that small percentage.

A small percentage wants grandfathering for high school students? I get that you don’t want changes, ever, but whether there are boundary adjustments with this review or not, leaving the policy for grandfathering vague was a mistake. This amendment will codify grandfathering high school students, which has nearly always been granted in previous boundary adjustments anyway.

Save a class or two, screw the rest.

Again, I’m for liberal grandfathering, but just pointing out that the real win comes when the school board realizes that it shouldn’t make unnecessary boundary changes in the first place. Otherwise, you were the fortunate family to get on a Titanic lifeboat while your neighbors did not.

There are plenty of us happy that all our out-of-pyramid split feeder nonsense of a school district will be fixed before our younger kids have to go through it. I get you aren't happy with your new high school assignment, but you don't speak for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's great, sounds like they are being responsive to parents.

A small percentage of parents, that is. Congratulations for being in that small percentage.

A small percentage wants grandfathering for high school students? I get that you don’t want changes, ever, but whether there are boundary adjustments with this review or not, leaving the policy for grandfathering vague was a mistake. This amendment will codify grandfathering high school students, which has nearly always been granted in previous boundary adjustments anyway.

Save a class or two, screw the rest.

Again, I’m for liberal grandfathering, but just pointing out that the real win comes when the school board realizes that it shouldn’t make unnecessary boundary changes in the first place. Otherwise, you were the fortunate family to get on a Titanic lifeboat while your neighbors did not.

There are plenty of us happy that all our out-of-pyramid split feeder nonsense of a school district will be fixed before our younger kids have to go through it. I get you aren't happy with your new high school assignment, but you don't speak for everyone.

DP. If there were particular groups of parents unhappy with a split feeder, they could have raised this with their individual School Board members. There are just as many people unhappy with the split feeder "fixes" that may be imposed on them as there are who welcome the changes. And that will become particularly clear if they change boundaries without providing transportation to any supposedly "grandfathered" kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's great, sounds like they are being responsive to parents.

A small percentage of parents, that is. Congratulations for being in that small percentage.

A small percentage wants grandfathering for high school students? I get that you don’t want changes, ever, but whether there are boundary adjustments with this review or not, leaving the policy for grandfathering vague was a mistake. This amendment will codify grandfathering high school students, which has nearly always been granted in previous boundary adjustments anyway.

Save a class or two, screw the rest.

Again, I’m for liberal grandfathering, but just pointing out that the real win comes when the school board realizes that it shouldn’t make unnecessary boundary changes in the first place. Otherwise, you were the fortunate family to get on a Titanic lifeboat while your neighbors did not.

There are plenty of us happy that all our out-of-pyramid split feeder nonsense of a school district will be fixed before our younger kids have to go through it. I get you aren't happy with your new high school assignment, but you don't speak for everyone.

DP. If there were particular groups of parents unhappy with a split feeder, they could have raised this with their individual School Board members. There are just as many people unhappy with the split feeder "fixes" that may be imposed on them as there are who welcome the changes. And that will become particularly clear if they change boundaries without providing transportation to any supposedly "grandfathered" kids.

+1. The school board is just picking winners and losers, almost arbitrarily, with the boundary review.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's great, sounds like they are being responsive to parents.

A small percentage of parents, that is. Congratulations for being in that small percentage.

A small percentage wants grandfathering for high school students? I get that you don’t want changes, ever, but whether there are boundary adjustments with this review or not, leaving the policy for grandfathering vague was a mistake. This amendment will codify grandfathering high school students, which has nearly always been granted in previous boundary adjustments anyway.

I think the issue is less whether they agree to grandfather, and more whether they decide not to provide transportation. If they don't provide transportation, then it's up to families to arrange transportation for their kids, and that is a regressive policy that favors families where there's a stay-at-home parent who can provide transportation or a kid has their own wheels.

They were so damn keen to do a county-wide redistricting "that hadn't been done in 40 years." But they didn't do their research. Had they done so, they would have learned that, in those prior county-wide redistrictings, the School Board agreed in advance that students in grades 10-12 would be grandfathered, with transportation provided. That, in turn, served as a constraint on the volume of boundary changes.

These folks didn't educate themselves, so they didn't commit to grandfathering in advance, either with or without transportation. Now they seem poised, in anticipation of the pushback that otherwise would have occurred, to commit to grandfathering, but they are still unwilling to commit to providing transportation. This is what happens when you elect unqualified people who don't understand what they are taking on.

Most high schoolers drive, have friends who drive, or are old enough to safely bike or walk the 2 miles to their neighborhood school.

Majority of the areas being moved are more than 2 miles from their currently assigned high school.

Not in Chantilly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's great, sounds like they are being responsive to parents.

A small percentage of parents, that is. Congratulations for being in that small percentage.

A small percentage wants grandfathering for high school students? I get that you don’t want changes, ever, but whether there are boundary adjustments with this review or not, leaving the policy for grandfathering vague was a mistake. This amendment will codify grandfathering high school students, which has nearly always been granted in previous boundary adjustments anyway.

Save a class or two, screw the rest.

Again, I’m for liberal grandfathering, but just pointing out that the real win comes when the school board realizes that it shouldn’t make unnecessary boundary changes in the first place. Otherwise, you were the fortunate family to get on a Titanic lifeboat while your neighbors did not.

There are plenty of us happy that all our out-of-pyramid split feeder nonsense of a school district will be fixed before our younger kids have to go through it. I get you aren't happy with your new high school assignment, but you don't speak for everyone.

Great. Most of us having high schoolers facing it now and it sucks. And there is no guarantee if they say they will revisit this every 5 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. If there were particular groups of parents unhappy with a split feeder, they could have raised this with their individual School Board members. ...

We all did. Why else do you think fixing split feeders is so high up on the list of priorities the school board is trying to address with this boundary review.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's great, sounds like they are being responsive to parents.

A small percentage of parents, that is. Congratulations for being in that small percentage.

A small percentage wants grandfathering for high school students? I get that you don’t want changes, ever, but whether there are boundary adjustments with this review or not, leaving the policy for grandfathering vague was a mistake. This amendment will codify grandfathering high school students, which has nearly always been granted in previous boundary adjustments anyway.

I think the issue is less whether they agree to grandfather, and more whether they decide not to provide transportation. If they don't provide transportation, then it's up to families to arrange transportation for their kids, and that is a regressive policy that favors families where there's a stay-at-home parent who can provide transportation or a kid has their own wheels.

They were so damn keen to do a county-wide redistricting "that hadn't been done in 40 years." But they didn't do their research. Had they done so, they would have learned that, in those prior county-wide redistrictings, the School Board agreed in advance that students in grades 10-12 would be grandfathered, with transportation provided. That, in turn, served as a constraint on the volume of boundary changes.

These folks didn't educate themselves, so they didn't commit to grandfathering in advance, either with or without transportation. Now they seem poised, in anticipation of the pushback that otherwise would have occurred, to commit to grandfathering, but they are still unwilling to commit to providing transportation. This is what happens when you elect unqualified people who don't understand what they are taking on.

Most high schoolers drive, have friends who drive, or are old enough to safely bike or walk the 2 miles to their neighborhood school.

Well, not really, but good job pulling something out of your ass to justify the continued floundering of this School Board.

Are you an elementary school parent?

That statement is 100% accurate. Most high school atudents included in grandfathering (10th and above) have multiple ways to get to school that do not involve stay at home moms or school busses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. If there were particular groups of parents unhappy with a split feeder, they could have raised this with their individual School Board members. ...

We all did. Why else do you think fixing split feeders is so high up on the list of priorities the school board is trying to address with this boundary review.

So your families are responsible for the boundary review? Ugh, thanks a ton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. If there were particular groups of parents unhappy with a split feeder, they could have raised this with their individual School Board members. ...

We all did. Why else do you think fixing split feeders is so high up on the list of priorities the school board is trying to address with this boundary review.

It’s a fairly cosmetic fix that allows them to say they did something, but it’s not the case that everyone wants their split feeders eliminated. And the fix affects different neighborhoods differently.

[Anonymous]

Why should they include busing?

1. If I choose to keep my kid at their current school that is on me. Just like if I choose to pupil place my kid elsewhere for language, AP/IB, whatever, I am responsible for getting them there and back.

2. One of the biggest complaints I see on this board is how much time and money is wasted bussing AAP kids to center school. Why would FCPS spend even more time and money shuttling around kids that want to stay at their school. There isn't enough drivers or busses to make this happen or time in the day to accomodate this. Many of the bus drivers are already doing 3-4 runs each morning and doing it again the in afternoon. Now, you want to add another route to this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should they include busing?

1. If I choose to keep my kid at their current school that is on me. Just like if I choose to pupil place my kid elsewhere for language, AP/IB, whatever, I am responsible for getting them there and back.

2. One of the biggest complaints I see on this board is how much time and money is wasted bussing AAP kids to center school. Why would FCPS spend even more time and money shuttling around kids that want to stay at their school. There isn't enough drivers or busses to make this happen or time in the day to accomodate this. Many of the bus drivers are already doing 3-4 runs each morning and doing it again the in afternoon. Now, you want to add another route to this.

Agree.

Grandfathering without bussing is the fairest option.

[Anonymous]

Grandfathering with bussing has been the consistent policy in FCPS for boundary changes over the past 40 years. They have not treated the situations as analogous to those who are voluntarily pupil placing kids, in recognition of how disruptive moves to a different high school already in high school can be for kids.

If they don't provide bussing, they will be creating traffic messes around schools (coinciding with the implementation of heightened security policies that people already think are going to create crowds around school entrances).

And, rather than "fair," grandfathering without bussing advantages those with parents who can either drive them or have given them cars to drive themselves. That's a policy that favors wealthier kids and disadvantages others.

It will be interesting if this is where they land, because it will be a departure from past practice, and it will have implications for the political futures of all the current School Board members, including those like Moon and Sizemore-Heizer who are apparently contemplating runs for higher office.

[Anonymous]

This School Board really is a bunch of idiots. I hope Moon and Sizemore-Heizer get a wake-up call when they try to run for BOS and their stupidity when it comes to grandfathering and every other aspect of this boundary study comes back to bite them in the ass.