could West Potomac become a Marshall in 10 years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe West Po could use expansion even without kids transferring in from other HSs. I doubt they're the sole cause of overcrowding. I will definitely vote yes on the bond, as someone with kids in West Po area.

Perhaps it could, but why should taxpayers be asked to pay for an expansion while there are hundreds of empty seats nearby at Mount Vernon (and perhaps more at Hayfield as well)?

And why should taxpayers pay for bonds that will be used to turn high schools like Madison into mega-schools with over 2500 kids when FCPS has previously claimed 2100 is the ideal size for a high school and ostensibly has plans to build another high school in western Fairfax?

I don't think they've come close to making the case that they are building wisely and will vote against the 2017 bonds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe West Po could use expansion even without kids transferring in from other HSs. I doubt they're the sole cause of overcrowding. I will definitely vote yes on the bond, as someone with kids in West Po area.

Yes, WestPo could probably use the expansion even without the out of bound students. But as a parent with a child in the school, you should be angry that they keep letting out of bound students into the school. Until students who want out of Mount Vernon have to go to Hayfield for AP or Latin, I will vote NO for the bond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe West Po could use expansion even without kids transferring in from other HSs. I doubt they're the sole cause of overcrowding. I will definitely vote yes on the bond, as someone with kids in West Po area.

Yes, WestPo could probably use the expansion even without the out of bound students. But as a parent with a child in the school, you should be angry that they keep letting out of bound students into the school. Until students who want out of Mount Vernon have to go to Hayfield for AP or Latin, I will vote NO for the bond.

Uh huh. That makes sense. /s

[Anonymous]

I just want to see another high school built first instead of all of these expansions. Another high school has been planned for years. Why isn't it being implemented? Our high schools are already very large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want to see another high school built first instead of all of these expansions. Another high school has been planned for years. Why isn't it being implemented? Our high schools are already very large.

It isn't being expedited because the growth has moderated since it was first added to the CIP and FCPS wants to preserve the less expensive option of expanding existing schools. It is effectively deciding it's OK if South Lakes, Oskton and Madison all end up as big as schools like Chantilly and Westfield (or Battlefield and Patriot in Prince William). Meanwhile Loudoun keeps building new schools because they don't want high schools with more than 1700-1800 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't Marshall a wealthy school just like all of the other fcps high schools minus the Lee/Stewart/Mt. Vernon type schools?

This is a very affluent area and almost all of the high schools are overflowing with upper middle class kids.

FARMS Percentages at FCPS High Schools (Virginia DOE stats for October 2016)/# of $1.0 million property sales over past 12 months.

Langley 1.4 (350)
TJHSST 1.8 (n/a)
McLean 8.5 (267)
Madison 9.2 (169)
Robinson 9.2 (30)
West Springfield 10.8 (0)
Woodson 10.9 (17)
Oakton 11.7 (88)
Lake Braddock 13.8 (12)
South County 16.7 (17)
Chantilly 17.1 (6)
Marshall 17.3 (103)
Westfield 22.9 (10)
Fairfax 23.3 (17)
Centreville 24.2 (11)
South Lakes 27.9 (34)
Hayfield 28.3 (0)
Edison 34.4 (0)
Herndon 38.1 (8)
West Potomac 38.6 (32)
Falls Church 49.6 (8)
Mount Vernon 50.5 (12)
Lee 52.6 (0)
Annandale 53.7 (6)
Stuart 59.1 (20)

Langley and TJ are the outliers in terms of almost no poverty; Falls Church, Mount Vernon, Lee, Annandale and Stuart are the five schools with the most poverty. In terms of high-end property sales, however, there are five school districts with the lion's share; Langley, McLean, Madison, Marshall and Oakton. There's also another subset of schools with little poverty, but also few super-expensive neighborhoods, West Springfield being the prime example.

Marshall may roughly be in the middle of FCPS schools in terms of the percentage of lower-income students, but it's now 4 out of 25 in terms of the number of $1.0M-plus property sales. West Potomac won't "become a Marshall in 10 years" unless Route 1 becomes another Tysons, and there's next to no prospect of that happening.

Thanks a lot for this information. I have always thought south lakes is like a little Marshall and this information confirms it. Like Marshall, SLHS has a relatively high FARMS with a sizable number of wealthy families. Both are IB schools too. Maybe South Lakes will become a Marshall in 10 years.

[Anonymous]

Side topic, but how could the school board redistrict to make Woodson a school with a 10% FARMS and Annandale a 54% FARMS rate, 2nd lowest in the county???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Side topic, but how could the school board redistrict to make Woodson a school with a 10% FARMS and Annandale a 54% FARMS rate, 2nd lowest in the county???

The changes at Annandale started when FCPS turned Thomas Jefferson into a magnet school and sent everyone who'd previously been at Jefferson to Annandale. That meant Annandale ended up overcrowded and with two concentrations of low-income apartments off Route 236: one west of Landmark that had gone to Jefferson and another right inside the Beltway that had always been at Annandale. Then, to deal with the overcrowding, FCPS started moving other single-family neighborhoods to other schools: Falls Church, Lake Braddock, Woodson and Edison. It still has some single-family areas, but they don't have as many kids as the apartments. Meanwhile, Woodson, to the west, has always had almost exclusively single-family neighborhoods, although it's become somewhat more diverse since FCPS moved the Fairfax Villa area from Fairfax HS there a few years ago. Add to the mix the fact that AHS is IB, so kids can pupil place out to Woodson and other AP schools, and you end up with two schools that are close to each other but have very different demographics.

[Anonymous]

I remember back in the late 80's a friend of my parents bragging about how great Woodson was, because it didn't have any townhomes zoned into it.
We went to a different school and my mother thought that was a really disgusting attitude.
Now the ratings are right on the real Estate sites and everything has gone down hill.

[Anonymous]

The stats posted for WestPo are very interesting. It has a very high FARMS rate but also a lot of expensive homes. I'm pretty sure most of those high income families do private which skews the student body even more.

We chose West Springfield over West Potomac and have been very, very happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Side topic, but how could the school board redistrict to make Woodson a school with a 10% FARMS and Annandale a 54% FARMS rate, 2nd lowest in the county???

The changes at Annandale started when FCPS turned Thomas Jefferson into a magnet school and sent everyone who'd previously been at Jefferson to Annandale. That meant Annandale ended up overcrowded and with two concentrations of low-income apartments off Route 236: one west of Landmark that had gone to Jefferson and another right inside the Beltway that had always been at Annandale. Then, to deal with the overcrowding, FCPS started moving other single-family neighborhoods to other schools: Falls Church, Lake Braddock, Woodson and Edison. It still has some single-family areas, but they don't have as many kids as the apartments. Meanwhile, Woodson, to the west, has always had almost exclusively single-family neighborhoods, although it's become somewhat more diverse since FCPS moved the Fairfax Villa area from Fairfax HS there a few years ago. Add to the mix the fact that AHS is IB, so kids can pupil place out to Woodson and other AP schools, and you end up with two schools that are close to each other but have very different demographics.

It just feels like FCPS and even the supervisors are moving in the opposite direction of diversity of income within each school district. Shouldn't they be trying to even the demographics and incomes up between high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The stats posted for WestPo are very interesting. It has a very high FARMS rate but also a lot of expensive homes. I'm pretty sure most of those high income families do private which skews the student body even more.

We chose West Springfield over West Potomac and have been very, very happy.

WestPo is the definitive case study in FCPS on merging a low FARMS school (Fort Hunt) and a high FARMS school (Groveton), which took place in the mid-80s. You end up with a merged school that, over time, looks more like the high FARMS school than the low FARMS school because a significant number of the higher-income families go private or move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't Marshall a wealthy school just like all of the other fcps high schools minus the Lee/Stewart/Mt. Vernon type schools?

This is a very affluent area and almost all of the high schools are overflowing with upper middle class kids.

FARMS Percentages at FCPS High Schools (Virginia DOE stats for October 2016)/# of $1.0 million property sales over past 12 months.

Langley 1.4 (350)
TJHSST 1.8 (n/a)
McLean 8.5 (267)
Madison 9.2 (169)
Robinson 9.2 (30)
West Springfield 10.8 (0)
Woodson 10.9 (17)
Oakton 11.7 (88)
Lake Braddock 13.8 (12)
South County 16.7 (17)
Chantilly 17.1 (6)
Marshall 17.3 (103)
Westfield 22.9 (10)
Fairfax 23.3 (17)
Centreville 24.2 (11)
South Lakes 27.9 (34)
Hayfield 28.3 (0)
Edison 34.4 (0)
Herndon 38.1 (8)
West Potomac 38.6 (32)
Falls Church 49.6 (8)
Mount Vernon 50.5 (12)
Lee 52.6 (0)
Annandale 53.7 (6)
Stuart 59.1 (20)

Langley and TJ are the outliers in terms of almost no poverty; Falls Church, Mount Vernon, Lee, Annandale and Stuart are the five schools with the most poverty. In terms of high-end property sales, however, there are five school districts with the lion's share; Langley, McLean, Madison, Marshall and Oakton. There's also another subset of schools with little poverty, but also few super-expensive neighborhoods, West Springfield being the prime example.

Marshall may roughly be in the middle of FCPS schools in terms of the percentage of lower-income students, but it's now 4 out of 25 in terms of the number of $1.0M-plus property sales. West Potomac won't "become a Marshall in 10 years" unless Route 1 becomes another Tysons, and there's next to no prospect of that happening.

Thank you for pulling this together, very interesting. We live in Falls Church pyramid and I went to West Springfield. I have a two year old. It's crazy to me that I need to worry if I am setting up my child to have a "worse" education than I had living 5 miles from my childhood home in the same school district. Such is the state of the American education and it makes no sense to me, we need more integration. There just shouldn't be these disparities in FARMS, it's shameful that most of us think its ok.

Most white parents, even those who self-identifty as liberal, would prefer to send their kids to a school that is low on FARMS and minority enrollments. In Georgia, white parents even pupil place their students into a poorer performing but predominantly white school rather than send them to a higher performing school with larger numbers of minorities. I don't understand it. You see it in places like NYC too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Side topic, but how could the school board redistrict to make Woodson a school with a 10% FARMS and Annandale a 54% FARMS rate, 2nd lowest in the county???

The changes at Annandale started when FCPS turned Thomas Jefferson into a magnet school and sent everyone who'd previously been at Jefferson to Annandale. That meant Annandale ended up overcrowded and with two concentrations of low-income apartments off Route 236: one west of Landmark that had gone to Jefferson and another right inside the Beltway that had always been at Annandale. Then, to deal with the overcrowding, FCPS started moving other single-family neighborhoods to other schools: Falls Church, Lake Braddock, Woodson and Edison. It still has some single-family areas, but they don't have as many kids as the apartments. Meanwhile, Woodson, to the west, has always had almost exclusively single-family neighborhoods, although it's become somewhat more diverse since FCPS moved the Fairfax Villa area from Fairfax HS there a few years ago. Add to the mix the fact that AHS is IB, so kids can pupil place out to Woodson and other AP schools, and you end up with two schools that are close to each other but have very different demographics.

It just feels like FCPS and even the supervisors are moving in the opposite direction of diversity of income within each school district. Shouldn't they be trying to even the demographics and incomes up between high schools.

And it is a very liberal, one sided school board doing this too.

They talk a good talk, but are happy to distract people by school names in the name of benevolence while they purposefully shuffle the same kids off to a segregated, low achievement school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Side topic, but how could the school board redistrict to make Woodson a school with a 10% FARMS and Annandale a 54% FARMS rate, 2nd lowest in the county???

The changes at Annandale started when FCPS turned Thomas Jefferson into a magnet school and sent everyone who'd previously been at Jefferson to Annandale. That meant Annandale ended up overcrowded and with two concentrations of low-income apartments off Route 236: one west of Landmark that had gone to Jefferson and another right inside the Beltway that had always been at Annandale. Then, to deal with the overcrowding, FCPS started moving other single-family neighborhoods to other schools: Falls Church, Lake Braddock, Woodson and Edison. It still has some single-family areas, but they don't have as many kids as the apartments. Meanwhile, Woodson, to the west, has always had almost exclusively single-family neighborhoods, although it's become somewhat more diverse since FCPS moved the Fairfax Villa area from Fairfax HS there a few years ago. Add to the mix the fact that AHS is IB, so kids can pupil place out to Woodson and other AP schools, and you end up with two schools that are close to each other but have very different demographics.

It just feels like FCPS and even the supervisors are moving in the opposite direction of diversity of income within each school district. Shouldn't they be trying to even the demographics and incomes up between high schools.

And it is a very liberal, one sided school board doing this too.

They talk a good talk, but are happy to distract people by school names in the name of benevolence while they purposefully shuffle the same kids off to a segregated, low achievement school.

The stratification of American society is something that has happened under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and while both Republicans and Democrats have controlled the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

As to recent FCPS school boards controlled by Democrats, there have been situations where the School Board has made a very deliberate decision to change boundaries to increase the number of higher SES students at certain schools (see South Lakes HS in 2008) and other situations where, through inattention and a series of decisions over time, they have changed the boundaries in ways that have concentrated lower SES students in certain schools (see Annandale HS and Poe MS).

You would be hard pressed to argue that the discussion about school names was an effort by the School Board to divert attention from such matters. That matter was raised by students and community members in the first instance, not by School Board members. Sandy Evans took it up eventually, but she is also one of the School Board members who opposed redistricting Annandale students to Woodson precisely because of the anticipated effects on Annandale and Poe.

If you believe that more conservative School Board members would lead to schools in FCPS with more balanced demographics, it's easy enough to test that hypothesis. Ask Elizabeth Schultz, who represents the Springfield District, to advocate for redrawing the West Springfield HS and Lee HS boundaries. West Springfield is in her district, so other members would undoubtedly listen to her arguments in favor of reducing the FARMS percentages at Lee by moving part of Lee to West Springfield and vice versa.