How did Herndon/Westfield HS go from top to bottom?
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Anonymous
I still don't understand why you think it is Fairfax County Public Schools' job to care at all about anybody's real estate investments. FCPS is a taxpayer-funded educational institution which exists to educate our children, and not to maintain your retirement plan. Where do we draw the line? Why should some families be protected from having their real estate investments negatively affected, and other families get screwed? |
Anonymous
You are correct that this analysis assumes selling while the selling is good— have you seen what homes in Holly Knoll are going for these days? Those buying in will get a great deal and many will promptly turn around and send their kids to private school. |
Anonymous
I would think we’d draw the line at spending tens of millions in expanding a school when there’s one with plenty of space nearby. But West Potomac. |
Anonymous
The need for a new high school has been discussed for a long time. Its biggest proponents originally were from the Floris/Fox Mill/Oak Hill area. They knew that western Fairfax had fewer high schools than other parts of the county (compare the proximity of Herndon to Westfield with the proximity of Langley/McLean/Marshall in eastern Fairfax or the proximity of Madison/Oakton/Fairfax/Woodson in central Fairfax) and that this had led them to be redistricted more often than any other part of the county. The original goal of the high school was to accommodate future growth in western Fairfax and put an end at last to the frequent reshuffling. There were delays moving forward. In the interim, there was still growth in western Fairfax, including a big increase in low-income Hispanics in Herndon and higher-income Asians in Chantilly. And one of the potential sites for a new high school went away when the county sold a large tract in Herndon that is now the King Abdullah Academy. The need for the new school has not gone away; in fact, substantial additional growth is anticipated near the Silver Line extension. But the concern over how the boundaries might be adjusted if a new school were built has increased, with two groups of parents vocally trying to work behind the scenes to avoid any future reassignment, especially if the school were to be built near Hutchison ES: (1) some parents in the Floris/Oak Hill/Fox Mill areas, who oppose being reassigned to a new school with kids from Hutchison; and (2) some parents in Great Falls, who oppose being moved out of Langley to Herndon if part of Herndon is moved to the new school (let's call it "Western HS"). If, and it is still an "if" at this point, a new school were built near Hutchison, there are two competing approaches to assigning students to the new school. The first would prioritize moving the students who live closest to the new school, which would clearly entail moving students from Hutchison and Coates ES to the school, and might also encompass moving students from McNair, and some or all of Clearview, Dogwood, Floris, and/or Herndon. The second would prioritize moving students who in some cases live slightly further from Hutchison, but in more of the overcrowded pyramids. That might entail moving students from Hutchison, Coates, McNair, Fox Mill, Oak Hill, and part of Floris. Each of these approaches will be preferred by some and opposed by others. The first approach would concentrate poverty at Western HS from the school's inception, which is something FCPS has never done when opening a new high school. The FARMS rates at such a school would immediately be among the highest for a high school in the county. The school might struggle to remain accredited, and higher-income parents who had been comfortable sending their kids to Herndon, Westfield, and South Lakes might balk and quickly leave, driving the FARMS rates up higher. And, by pulling so many kids out of Herndon, this approach would ensure that both Forestville ES and Great Falls ES would be reassigned from Langley to Herndon, which would trigger opposition from some of the most well-financed political operatives in the county in Great Falls. The second approach, on the other hand, would be more balanced demographically. The students from Hutchison, Coates, McNair, and parts of Floris, Fox Mill, and Oak Hill would be attending a school closer to their homes than their current schools (Herndon, Westfield and South Lakes). In addition, the school likely would open as an AP school and offer Japanese language courses (as they were phased out at South Lakes with the Fox Mill reassignment). In addition, by moving less of Herndon to the new school, there would likely be fewer Langley students reassigned to Herndon, which would somewhat moderate the certain opposition of Great Falls parents to being reassigned. These reassignments might also facilitate the reassignment of other schools from Centreville to Westfield, and from Oakton to South Lakes, which might moderate overcrowding at those schools. On the other hand, some students would be reassigned to schools with more SES diversity than their current schools, and some (in particular, from the Oak Hill area) might have a slightly longer commute to Western HS than to Chantilly. Looking ahead, it is at least as likely the School Board will opt for the second approach as the first approach. They will not be want to be accused of concentrating poverty at a single school (it is one thing for them to fail to address concentrations of poverty that developed over time at schools like Lewis and Justice; it is another thing altogether to intentionally concentrate poverty at a school from the inception). Nor will they want to deal with the headache of worrying about a new school's retaining its accreditation almost from the day it opened. They may perceive some benefit in the first option because the parents in those feeders may be less likely to vocally oppose their decisions but, on balance, the adverse publicity that they would receive if a school board that has constantly touted its commitment to "equity" concentrated poor kids at a single high school at a much higher level than the surrounding schools is likely to outweigh the perceived benefit. If they selected the second option, they would, of course, need to be prepared to address the impact on other schools. They would still be in a position to reassign part of Langley to Herndon, which would provide students at Forestville ES (and, potentially, part of Great Falls) with a shorter commute and align with their equity goals. The impact on Westfield would likely be neutral. Pulling Fox Mill and part of Floris out of South Lakes would still leave South Lakes demographically balanced, with schools like Sunrise Valley, Forest Edge, Terraset, Hunter's Woods, and potentially all of Crossfield, along with the higher levels of poverty at Dogwood and Lake Anne. And, of course, if there was simply too much difficulty finding land, or too much opposition to a new school, they could back out. In that case, the primary beneficiaries would be schools in other parts of the county that would benefit from earlier additions or renovations (Western HS, if built, would chew up much of the capital budget for several years), and those at high schools in western Fairfax might all face overcrowding at the same levels that Centreville, Chantilly, and McLean have been facing in recent years. Of course, some of the money that was freed up could be spent on schools in western Fairfax as well, but they'd run the risk that they were perceived as having kicked a gift horse (a new school) in the mouth, and therefore disfavored when it came to the reallocation of those funds. And, of course, neighborhoods in western Fairfax could still end up getting redistricted, but it would be to existing schools such as Westfield or Fairfax with some surplus capacity, rather than to a new one. |
Anonymous
| Speaking as a parent of a kid at South Lakes, we will move to private if our child is moved and we are not allowed to stay at South Lakes for IB. We like the idea of IB and I don't want my kid used in FCPS great equity reshuffle. Fox Mill was moved as part of the equity discussion already, pick another school to relocate. |
Anonymous
There's no school in FCPS that has ever benefitted from an "equity reshuffle" more than South Lakes, so that's a bit ironic. There were Oakton, Westfield, and Madison parents who preferred AP and didn't want to get moved to South Lakes by Stu Gibson. You can deal with it just like they did. |
Anonymous
| There are always people who don't go along with a redistricting, no matter what schools are involved. Hell, there were people who got moved to Cooper/Langley last year and still sold their homes so they could stay zoned to Longfellow/McLean. |
Anonymous
Thank you for this. Very informative. I have one comment and one question. Comment: I agree that two groups you mentioned oppose a new high school on the Hutchison site. I would like to add that there is also a group of people who really want to change the Langley boundary so that Langley can take some of poor kids. For them, making Langley more equitable is as important as, if not more, providing a relief to the Western Fairfax area. I also suspect at least one of board members share this view. Question: You didn’t mention a possibilty of building a new HS somewhere else, maybe somewhere in Southwestern area. I thought that’s a definite possibility given the latest CIP. What’s your opinion on that? |
Anonymous
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Everyone here once you read more closely into their arguments seems to suggest Hispanics = Bad. Some want them packed together at the expense of some lower middle class Asians living in townhouses in the vicinity. Those lower middle class Asians opposed want the more affluent Asians/Whites from SFH at Floris/Oak Hill to salvage Hutchison HS.
The Lines would look messy but just have all apartment kids zoned from Herndon, Clearview, Dranesville, McNair, Coates, Hutchison, Lake Anne, Forst Edge, terraset, Hunters Woods all be sent into Hutchison HS. 80 percent Hispanic and FARMS now. 3200+ kids too. The lower middle class Asians are just as happy as the upper middle class Asians now. /s |
Anonymous
| #stopasianhate |
Anonymous
Amen. Plus, GreatSchools scores are greatly flawed. I’ll keep our 2.something GS schools provide the same or better value than those in GF. |
Anonymous
I doubt an IB student has anything to fear. Kids from Herndon pyramid (especially kids at Hughes AAP center) do this a lot already. |
Anonymous
This is nicely written, and I shall respond as OP to the original comment. 1). FCPS has never needed to build a supermajority FARMs high school: True but only because you failed to take into consideration for the vast majority of Fairfax's history, we only had a ~15 percent FARMS rate dispersed relatively evenly in the county until the Financial Recession which has led to steady unchecked growth in economical disadvantaged kids, who are now a part of the ~30 percent FARMS we have today, with most of the growth being very unevenly distributed in areas such as Falls Church, Herndon, Annadale, due to the influx of low wage-earning Hispanics. It was quite difficult to create the supermajority poverty high schools back 20 years ago in Fairfax, but things but changed. The previous school board's failure to build a supermajority FARMS school was bound by the sufficient situations to do so, not their desire. 2). Additional stakeholders. Again, even the unmoved kids in the South Lakes pyramid are stakeholders, not just Oak Hill area kids. Why are you bumping them from 30 to 40 percent FARMS, and taking away their best students? This will not sit well with the middle-class Forest Edge/Sunrise Valley/Hunters Woods parents. And then you have the very powerful Mclean/Tyson parents. There is little room for additions at McLean/Marshall and when you have those schools reaching 130 percent capacity levels, they are going to push enormously hard to kick out kids from Langley to Herndon to accommodate themselves. Your second plan fails to do this in adequate numbers. A parity model still has Herndon at roughly 40 percent FARMS, versus around 20 in a proximity model. Neither may be acceptable for Great Falls parents as they might only tolerate a value of 10 percent. But 20 is sure a lot closer to 10 than 40. 3). The highest priced housing assigned to Hutchison as in option 1 would be the McNair townhouses at around 400k a piece. I wouldn't consider them to be "high income", in addition there is little mobility around to a significantly better high school when you have a budget of only 400k, as opposed to those with 800k housing in Floris/Oak Hill. 4). You do not understand Great Falls Citizen Assocation. They follow this saying to heart First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. You can't just take "some" of them to Herndon HS out from Langley, it is all or nothing, which further weakens the second point. They understand the strength of collective bargaining and power. You have to take the bullet and only consider a plan that takes them all out, not just a few. The first plan achieves this, while the second fails. |
Anonymous
| Somehow I’m not feeling that changing school boundaries is analogous to the Holocaust, but maybe that’s just me. |
Anonymous
There are houses just down the street on Parcher that sell for 600. One street over- summerfield- 800. In the end it sounds like underenrolled Langley will eventually bargain to improve Herndon... |