FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

I'd argue that once the test scores fall below a certain number, transfer out should be a matter of right. Let the schools focus on the students who need help, but don't use that as an excuse to sacrifice other students' educations

So the answer would be to redistrict other neighborhoods to go to a school and sacrifice their educations? The School Board needs to find a way to bring up the test scores/graduation percent/etc at the low ranked schools so that students there will receive a better education and not want to transfer out of the schools.

Any ideas? How do you make a high poverty, high ell school on par with even Hayfield or Edison let alone WSHS or Langley

They don't need to be "on par" with WSHS or Langley. The school board should be working on graduation rates and helping children raise their test scores.

They can make the schools closer together in test scores and graduation rates by shifting children around. That doesn't help students learn and achieve more, but why should the school board care about actual people when they can spend time worrying about stats attached to different school buildings?

again, any ideas?

DP. We’re paying a lot of administrators a lot of money to answer that question, but instead the school board is lazily trying to paper over poor performing schools by dragging all others down.

Shame on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

Robyn Lady said that all FCPS schools are good. Why are they doing this?

If you’re talking about Robyn Lady, I’m going to assume you’re a Langley parent asking why kids transfer out of Herndon. A big reason is that Hughes MS is the AAP center for kids zoned to Herndon MS, just like Lake Braddock is the AAP center for kids zoned to Robinson. Lots of Robinson kids also pupil place to Lake Braddock for 9-12 to stay with their AAP friends, and a lot of Herndon kids transfer to South Lakes for the same reason.

They could make HMS an AAP center and there would be fewer transfers at the HS level, but then you’ll come back and say if HMS had more kids it shouldn’t take on kids from Cooper MS.

A lot of this comes back to distortions due to AAP and misaligned MS/HS feeders. AAP centers distort school boundaries and enrollments. But the middle schools should be able to handle an enrollment half the size of the high schools, and the high schools should be able to handle an enrollment twice the size of the high schools. FCPS planning has been inept, so they often can’t.

[Anonymous]

^ twice the size of the middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

Robyn Lady said that all FCPS schools are good. Why are they doing this?

If you’re talking about Robyn Lady, I’m going to assume you’re a Langley parent asking why kids transfer out of Herndon. A big reason is that Hughes MS is the AAP center for kids zoned to Herndon MS, just like Lake Braddock is the AAP center for kids zoned to Robinson. Lots of Robinson kids also pupil place to Lake Braddock for 9-12 to stay with their AAP friends, and a lot of Herndon kids transfer to South Lakes for the same reason.

They could make HMS an AAP center and there would be fewer transfers at the HS level, but then you’ll come back and say if HMS had more kids it shouldn’t take on kids from Cooper MS.

A lot of this comes back to distortions due to AAP and misaligned MS/HS feeders. AAP centers distort school boundaries and enrollments. But the middle schools should be able to handle an enrollment half the size of the high schools, and the high schools should be able to handle an enrollment twice the size of the high schools. FCPS planning has been inept, so they often can’t.

Get rid of AAP centers. They are not the same as GT centers and there is no law that requires it. They should be eliminated before moving high school boundaries.

[Anonymous]

How about summer school for kids who cannot speak English? Get a federal grant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

[b]The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education. [/b]

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

Show me a single press release praising academics at mount vernon. Just look at the things that make this school great posting every high school had to make and you can see that even principals don't think their schools provide a good education

As a parent of a recent Mount Vernon grad and current MVHS student, MVHS does provide a good education for college bound students. Yes, the numbers going to any college (CC or 4 year) are small. I believe that less than 40% of grads go onto any type of education. But for college bound students, I would argue that the education inside the IB/honors classrooms is identical to what you see in classrooms in the high performing schools. MVHS has grads currently enrolled at Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Stanford, Yale, UVA and W&M in addition to dozens of other colleges. MVHS sends more students to West Point than any high school in the country.

I have no idea what the classroom environment is like in the general education classrooms. I would imagine that those classrooms are where an average student will not have the same experience as students at Langley or Woodson or Madison. I know alot of parents want their child to have a large cohort of motivated classmates. At Mount Vernon, that cohort is very small but it does exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

[b]The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education. [/b]

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

Show me a single press release praising academics at mount vernon. Just look at the things that make this school great posting every high school had to make and you can see that even principals don't think their schools provide a good education

As a parent of a recent Mount Vernon grad and current MVHS student, MVHS does provide a good education for college bound students. Yes, the numbers going to any college (CC or 4 year) are small. I believe that less than 40% of grads go onto any type of education. But for college bound students, I would argue that the education inside the IB/honors classrooms is identical to what you see in classrooms in the high performing schools. MVHS has grads currently enrolled at Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Stanford, Yale, UVA and W&M in addition to dozens of other colleges. MVHS sends more students to West Point than any high school in the country.

I have no idea what the classroom environment is like in the general education classrooms. I would imagine that those classrooms are where an average student will not have the same experience as students at Langley or Woodson or Madison. I know alot of parents want their child to have a large cohort of motivated classmates. At Mount Vernon, that cohort is very small but it does exist.

Thank you. That is an interesting post. My DD-a grad of one of the two "top" state schools"- had a roommate who was an IB grad of Mt. Vernon. I do have to add that she told DD that she would have preferred AP. She felt that she did not get the credit hours upon entry that the AP students received. (DD was an academic sophomore on entry.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

[b]The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education. [/b]

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

Show me a single press release praising academics at mount vernon. Just look at the things that make this school great posting every high school had to make and you can see that even principals don't think their schools provide a good education

As a parent of a recent Mount Vernon grad and current MVHS student, MVHS does provide a good education for college bound students. Yes, the numbers going to any college (CC or 4 year) are small. I believe that less than 40% of grads go onto any type of education. But for college bound students, I would argue that the education inside the IB/honors classrooms is identical to what you see in classrooms in the high performing schools. MVHS has grads currently enrolled at Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Stanford, Yale, UVA and W&M in addition to dozens of other colleges. MVHS sends more students to West Point than any high school in the country.

I have no idea what the classroom environment is like in the general education classrooms. I would imagine that those classrooms are where an average student will not have the same experience as students at Langley or Woodson or Madison. I know alot of parents want their child to have a large cohort of motivated classmates. At Mount Vernon, that cohort is very small but it does exist.

Thank you. That is an interesting post. My DD-a grad of one of the two "top" state schools"- had a roommate who was an IB grad of Mt. Vernon. I do have to add that she told DD that she would have preferred AP. She felt that she did not get the credit hours upon entry that the AP students received. (DD was an academic sophomore on entry.)

How long ago was this? Colleges have been catching up in terms of awarding credits for IB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

[b]The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education. [/b]

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

Show me a single press release praising academics at mount vernon. Just look at the things that make this school great posting every high school had to make and you can see that even principals don't think their schools provide a good education

As a parent of a recent Mount Vernon grad and current MVHS student, MVHS does provide a good education for college bound students. Yes, the numbers going to any college (CC or 4 year) are small. I believe that less than 40% of grads go onto any type of education. But for college bound students, I would argue that the education inside the IB/honors classrooms is identical to what you see in classrooms in the high performing schools. MVHS has grads currently enrolled at Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Stanford, Yale, UVA and W&M in addition to dozens of other colleges. MVHS sends more students to West Point than any high school in the country.

I have no idea what the classroom environment is like in the general education classrooms. I would imagine that those classrooms are where an average student will not have the same experience as students at Langley or Woodson or Madison. I know alot of parents want their child to have a large cohort of motivated classmates. At Mount Vernon, that cohort is very small but it does exist.

Is it large enough to give enough sections of classes for kids to have choices? I know the kids going to Sandberg for AA do everything to not transfer back, but is there even a math offering senior year for the ones starting Algebra II as Freshman? Are their high level history and science classes outside of the prescribed IB classes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

I'd argue that once the test scores fall below a certain number, transfer out should be a matter of right. Let the schools focus on the students who need help, but don't use that as an excuse to sacrifice other students' educations

So the answer would be to redistrict other neighborhoods to go to a school and sacrifice their educations? The School Board needs to find a way to bring up the test scores/graduation percent/etc at the low ranked schools so that students there will receive a better education and not want to transfer out of the schools.

Any ideas? How do you make a high poverty, high ell school on par with even Hayfield or Edison let alone WSHS or Langley

They don't need to be "on par" with WSHS or Langley. The school board should be working on graduation rates and helping children raise their test scores.

They can make the schools closer together in test scores and graduation rates by shifting children around. That doesn't help students learn and achieve more, but why should the school board care about actual people when they can spend time worrying about stats attached to different school buildings?

again, any ideas?

DP. We’re paying a lot of administrators a lot of money to answer that question, but instead the school board is lazily trying to paper over poor performing schools by dragging all others down.

Shame on them.

Start kicking kids out of school if they aren’t showing up. Will help chronic absenteeism numbers and test scores for the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

I'd argue that once the test scores fall below a certain number, transfer out should be a matter of right. Let the schools focus on the students who need help, but don't use that as an excuse to sacrifice other students' educations

So the answer would be to redistrict other neighborhoods to go to a school and sacrifice their educations? The School Board needs to find a way to bring up the test scores/graduation percent/etc at the low ranked schools so that students there will receive a better education and not want to transfer out of the schools.

Any ideas? How do you make a high poverty, high ell school on par with even Hayfield or Edison let alone WSHS or Langley

They don't need to be "on par" with WSHS or Langley. The school board should be working on graduation rates and helping children raise their test scores.

They can make the schools closer together in test scores and graduation rates by shifting children around. That doesn't help students learn and achieve more, but why should the school board care about actual people when they can spend time worrying about stats attached to different school buildings?

again, any ideas?

Sure.

Eliminate IB at Lewis.

Switch to all AP. This will bring back perhaps 150-200 high performing students or more to Lewis, who will presumably take AP classes. It will also return the Lewis enrollment to somewhere in the 90% capacity range, which eliminates the physical justification for rezoning.

The returning transfers and high performing kids at Lewis will now be taking all AP classes instead of IB or transferring to AP schools.

Since these IB to AP transfers and kids taking IB classes at Lewis are presumably the higher performing, middle class kids with engaged parents, the AP scores at Lewis will jump significantly from the low teens for a pass rate to something more respectable. Maybe it will be round SoCo or Hayfield's level. Maybe a little lower to start. But definitely, it will be higher than the current 15 percent AP pass rate displayed on the FCPS profile for Lewis asian students and a low of under 7 percent for hispanic kids.

That immediate jump in scores that right now are so low that they scare everyone away, especially high performing hispanic and AA kids who see the scores of their demographic at neighboring school 4x to 5x higher than at Lewis (around 9x higher for hispanics at WSHS.)

It doesn't matter who they transfer to Lewis from neighboring high schools if the AP pass rates are in the single digits to low teens.

It doesn't matter what IB looks like there (not great, but much better than AP scores at Lewis) because no one wants IB in that area and no one wants an AP school with pass rates hovering around 10%

Remove IB.

This closes the IB to AP transfer loophole.

Focus on giving the advanced kids every possible support to raise the AP scores at Lewis. Recruit great teachers. Pay them a bonus for increasing the scores to specific goals, like on par with Hayfield and SoCo. Make the classes as small as necessary to offer the advanced AP classes, even if that means only 5 kids in AP multivariable or 8 kids in AP chem.

The score average will go up to a pass rate that is not as abominable as the current pass rates.

Raising AP pass rates to a respectable level will make the bleeding stop and make the school less undesireable to parents.

Lewis no longer being the school to avoid will raise the pride level of the student body, which will benefit the school across the board.

Coupled with a full renovation, and Lewis can turn around to a respectable level of acceptability in just a few years.

It all starts with getting rid of IB, before rezoning.

Secondarily, give Key middle school AAP. This should have happened years ago after the successful stand up of AAP at Irving. Every middle school should have AAP with no transfers between pyramids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

I'd argue that once the test scores fall below a certain number, transfer out should be a matter of right. Let the schools focus on the students who need help, but don't use that as an excuse to sacrifice other students' educations

So the answer would be to redistrict other neighborhoods to go to a school and sacrifice their educations? The School Board needs to find a way to bring up the test scores/graduation percent/etc at the low ranked schools so that students there will receive a better education and not want to transfer out of the schools.

Any ideas? How do you make a high poverty, high ell school on par with even Hayfield or Edison let alone WSHS or Langley

They don't need to be "on par" with WSHS or Langley. The school board should be working on graduation rates and helping children raise their test scores.

They can make the schools closer together in test scores and graduation rates by shifting children around. That doesn't help students learn and achieve more, but why should the school board care about actual people when they can spend time worrying about stats attached to different school buildings?

again, any ideas?

Sure.

Eliminate IB at Lewis.

Switch to all AP. This will bring back perhaps 150-200 high performing students or more to Lewis, who will presumably take AP classes. It will also return the Lewis enrollment to somewhere in the 90% capacity range, which eliminates the physical justification for rezoning.

The returning transfers and high performing kids at Lewis will now be taking all AP classes instead of IB or transferring to AP schools.

Since these IB to AP transfers and kids taking IB classes at Lewis are presumably the higher performing, middle class kids with engaged parents, the AP scores at Lewis will jump significantly from the low teens for a pass rate to something more respectable. Maybe it will be round SoCo or Hayfield's level. Maybe a little lower to start. But definitely, it will be higher than the current 15 percent AP pass rate displayed on the FCPS profile for Lewis asian students and a low of under 7 percent for hispanic kids.

That immediate jump in scores that right now are so low that they scare everyone away, especially high performing hispanic and AA kids who see the scores of their demographic at neighboring school 4x to 5x higher than at Lewis (around 9x higher for hispanics at WSHS.)

It doesn't matter who they transfer to Lewis from neighboring high schools if the AP pass rates are in the single digits to low teens.

It doesn't matter what IB looks like there (not great, but much better than AP scores at Lewis) because no one wants IB in that area and no one wants an AP school with pass rates hovering around 10%

Remove IB.

This closes the IB to AP transfer loophole.

Focus on giving the advanced kids every possible support to raise the AP scores at Lewis. Recruit great teachers. Pay them a bonus for increasing the scores to specific goals, like on par with Hayfield and SoCo. Make the classes as small as necessary to offer the advanced AP classes, even if that means only 5 kids in AP multivariable or 8 kids in AP chem.

The score average will go up to a pass rate that is not as abominable as the current pass rates.

Raising AP pass rates to a respectable level will make the bleeding stop and make the school less undesireable to parents.

Lewis no longer being the school to avoid will raise the pride level of the student body, which will benefit the school across the board.

Coupled with a full renovation, and Lewis can turn around to a respectable level of acceptability in just a few years.

It all starts with getting rid of IB, before rezoning.

Secondarily, give Key middle school AAP. This should have happened years ago after the successful stand up of AAP at Irving. Every middle school should have AAP with no transfers between pyramids.

Good post. She didn’t want you to respond, she likes to pretend there are no other solutions than to redistrict.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

I'd argue that once the test scores fall below a certain number, transfer out should be a matter of right. Let the schools focus on the students who need help, but don't use that as an excuse to sacrifice other students' educations

So the answer would be to redistrict other neighborhoods to go to a school and sacrifice their educations? The School Board needs to find a way to bring up the test scores/graduation percent/etc at the low ranked schools so that students there will receive a better education and not want to transfer out of the schools.

Any ideas? How do you make a high poverty, high ell school on par with even Hayfield or Edison let alone WSHS or Langley

They don't need to be "on par" with WSHS or Langley. The school board should be working on graduation rates and helping children raise their test scores.

They can make the schools closer together in test scores and graduation rates by shifting children around. That doesn't help students learn and achieve more, but why should the school board care about actual people when they can spend time worrying about stats attached to different school buildings?

again, any ideas?

Sure.

Eliminate IB at Lewis.

Switch to all AP. This will bring back perhaps 150-200 high performing students or more to Lewis, who will presumably take AP classes. It will also return the Lewis enrollment to somewhere in the 90% capacity range, which eliminates the physical justification for rezoning.

The returning transfers and high performing kids at Lewis will now be taking all AP classes instead of IB or transferring to AP schools.

Since these IB to AP transfers and kids taking IB classes at Lewis are presumably the higher performing, middle class kids with engaged parents, the AP scores at Lewis will jump significantly from the low teens for a pass rate to something more respectable. Maybe it will be round SoCo or Hayfield's level. Maybe a little lower to start. But definitely, it will be higher than the current 15 percent AP pass rate displayed on the FCPS profile for Lewis asian students and a low of under 7 percent for hispanic kids.

That immediate jump in scores that right now are so low that they scare everyone away, especially high performing hispanic and AA kids who see the scores of their demographic at neighboring school 4x to 5x higher than at Lewis (around 9x higher for hispanics at WSHS.)

It doesn't matter who they transfer to Lewis from neighboring high schools if the AP pass rates are in the single digits to low teens.

It doesn't matter what IB looks like there (not great, but much better than AP scores at Lewis) because no one wants IB in that area and no one wants an AP school with pass rates hovering around 10%

Remove IB.

This closes the IB to AP transfer loophole.

Focus on giving the advanced kids every possible support to raise the AP scores at Lewis. Recruit great teachers. Pay them a bonus for increasing the scores to specific goals, like on par with Hayfield and SoCo. Make the classes as small as necessary to offer the advanced AP classes, even if that means only 5 kids in AP multivariable or 8 kids in AP chem.

The score average will go up to a pass rate that is not as abominable as the current pass rates.

Raising AP pass rates to a respectable level will make the bleeding stop and make the school less undesireable to parents.

Lewis no longer being the school to avoid will raise the pride level of the student body, which will benefit the school across the board.

Coupled with a full renovation, and Lewis can turn around to a respectable level of acceptability in just a few years.

It all starts with getting rid of IB, before rezoning.

Secondarily, give Key middle school AAP. This should have happened years ago after the successful stand up of AAP at Irving. Every middle school should have AAP with no transfers between pyramids.

Annandale (1954) and McLean (1955) are older than Lewis (1958) and should be renovated earlier. Each received cheap renovations in the early 00s that, in inflation-adjusted terms, cost much less than the renovations of schools built in the 1960s and thereafter. Poor performance should not be rewarded with an earlier renovation, although Lewis should not be penalized in the next renovation queue (as Falls Church was under the 2008 queue) with a delayed renovation because of its lower enrollment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

I'd argue that once the test scores fall below a certain number, transfer out should be a matter of right. Let the schools focus on the students who need help, but don't use that as an excuse to sacrifice other students' educations

So the answer would be to redistrict other neighborhoods to go to a school and sacrifice their educations? The School Board needs to find a way to bring up the test scores/graduation percent/etc at the low ranked schools so that students there will receive a better education and not want to transfer out of the schools.

Any ideas? How do you make a high poverty, high ell school on par with even Hayfield or Edison let alone WSHS or Langley

They don't need to be "on par" with WSHS or Langley. The school board should be working on graduation rates and helping children raise their test scores.

They can make the schools closer together in test scores and graduation rates by shifting children around. That doesn't help students learn and achieve more, but why should the school board care about actual people when they can spend time worrying about stats attached to different school buildings?

again, any ideas?

Sure.

Eliminate IB at Lewis.

Switch to all AP. This will bring back perhaps 150-200 high performing students or more to Lewis, who will presumably take AP classes. It will also return the Lewis enrollment to somewhere in the 90% capacity range, which eliminates the physical justification for rezoning.

The returning transfers and high performing kids at Lewis will now be taking all AP classes instead of IB or transferring to AP schools.

Since these IB to AP transfers and kids taking IB classes at Lewis are presumably the higher performing, middle class kids with engaged parents, the AP scores at Lewis will jump significantly from the low teens for a pass rate to something more respectable. Maybe it will be round SoCo or Hayfield's level. Maybe a little lower to start. But definitely, it will be higher than the current 15 percent AP pass rate displayed on the FCPS profile for Lewis asian students and a low of under 7 percent for hispanic kids.

That immediate jump in scores that right now are so low that they scare everyone away, especially high performing hispanic and AA kids who see the scores of their demographic at neighboring school 4x to 5x higher than at Lewis (around 9x higher for hispanics at WSHS.)

It doesn't matter who they transfer to Lewis from neighboring high schools if the AP pass rates are in the single digits to low teens.

It doesn't matter what IB looks like there (not great, but much better than AP scores at Lewis) because no one wants IB in that area and no one wants an AP school with pass rates hovering around 10%

Remove IB.

This closes the IB to AP transfer loophole.

Focus on giving the advanced kids every possible support to raise the AP scores at Lewis. Recruit great teachers. Pay them a bonus for increasing the scores to specific goals, like on par with Hayfield and SoCo. Make the classes as small as necessary to offer the advanced AP classes, even if that means only 5 kids in AP multivariable or 8 kids in AP chem.

The score average will go up to a pass rate that is not as abominable as the current pass rates.

Raising AP pass rates to a respectable level will make the bleeding stop and make the school less undesireable to parents.

Lewis no longer being the school to avoid will raise the pride level of the student body, which will benefit the school across the board.

Coupled with a full renovation, and Lewis can turn around to a respectable level of acceptability in just a few years.

It all starts with getting rid of IB, before rezoning.

Secondarily, give Key middle school AAP. This should have happened years ago after the successful stand up of AAP at Irving. Every middle school should have AAP with no transfers between pyramids.

So the plan is to bring kids back. How does that improve the scores for kids already there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022 data:

https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-high-schools-ranked-among-best-virginia-and-nation-us-news-and-world-report

There is a reason that parents with students at the top of this list don’t want their children to be redistricted to schools at the bottom of the list. It has nothing to do with racism. Why would any parent welcome a boundary adjustment from one of the top high schools in the county/country to one of high schools on the bottom of this list?

Lower-ranked school has space, was more recently renovated, may offer more opportunities for kids to make teams or get certain positions in plays or in bands, may be perceived as friendlier, etc. Reactions could also depend on whether families know each other from existing split feeders.

The numbers don’t support this:

Transfers out of school 2024-2025 School Year:
Herndon 309
Lewis 251
Mount Vernon 367
West Potomac 189

Current Capacity/Capacity if students stayed at zoned school:
Herndon 81%/92.4%
Lewis 87%/99.8%
Mount Vernon 75%/90%
West Potomac 92%/98%

The school board really needs to look at the schools that are over and under capacity and limit the number of transfers out of low capacity schools and into high capacity schools.

While I agree that looking at transfers is a good place to start, the numbers above are somewhat misleading. You would need to have more details on the number of voluntary pupil placements. I believe some of the numbers above represent students not transferring voluntarily, but for special education purposes or perhaps disciplinary reasons.

Still agree that FCPS needs to do as much as possible to eliminate the voluntary pupil placements.

I consider this the lowest hanging fruit for basically each of the 8130 categories. It’s the easiest first step in this process, and as PP points out, would almost instantly fix capacity issues.

So the fix is to ruin the ability of hundreds of kids to get a decent education?

The school board thinks every high school will provide a decent education.

Some transfers will still need to be allowed (TJ, special education, students in language immersion programs in elementary school that are continuing the language through high school, and transfers to one of the academies for specialized programming.)

Transfers for other reasons should be made on a case by case basis and need to be applied for each year. If the high school is over capacity, then they shouldn’t allow transfers.

I'd argue that once the test scores fall below a certain number, transfer out should be a matter of right. Let the schools focus on the students who need help, but don't use that as an excuse to sacrifice other students' educations

So the answer would be to redistrict other neighborhoods to go to a school and sacrifice their educations? The School Board needs to find a way to bring up the test scores/graduation percent/etc at the low ranked schools so that students there will receive a better education and not want to transfer out of the schools.

Any ideas? How do you make a high poverty, high ell school on par with even Hayfield or Edison let alone WSHS or Langley

They don't need to be "on par" with WSHS or Langley. The school board should be working on graduation rates and helping children raise their test scores.

They can make the schools closer together in test scores and graduation rates by shifting children around. That doesn't help students learn and achieve more, but why should the school board care about actual people when they can spend time worrying about stats attached to different school buildings?

again, any ideas?

Sure.

Eliminate IB at Lewis.

Switch to all AP. This will bring back perhaps 150-200 high performing students or more to Lewis, who will presumably take AP classes. It will also return the Lewis enrollment to somewhere in the 90% capacity range, which eliminates the physical justification for rezoning.

The returning transfers and high performing kids at Lewis will now be taking all AP classes instead of IB or transferring to AP schools.

Since these IB to AP transfers and kids taking IB classes at Lewis are presumably the higher performing, middle class kids with engaged parents, the AP scores at Lewis will jump significantly from the low teens for a pass rate to something more respectable. Maybe it will be round SoCo or Hayfield's level. Maybe a little lower to start. But definitely, it will be higher than the current 15 percent AP pass rate displayed on the FCPS profile for Lewis asian students and a low of under 7 percent for hispanic kids.

That immediate jump in scores that right now are so low that they scare everyone away, especially high performing hispanic and AA kids who see the scores of their demographic at neighboring school 4x to 5x higher than at Lewis (around 9x higher for hispanics at WSHS.)

It doesn't matter who they transfer to Lewis from neighboring high schools if the AP pass rates are in the single digits to low teens.

It doesn't matter what IB looks like there (not great, but much better than AP scores at Lewis) because no one wants IB in that area and no one wants an AP school with pass rates hovering around 10%

Remove IB.

This closes the IB to AP transfer loophole.

Focus on giving the advanced kids every possible support to raise the AP scores at Lewis. Recruit great teachers. Pay them a bonus for increasing the scores to specific goals, like on par with Hayfield and SoCo. Make the classes as small as necessary to offer the advanced AP classes, even if that means only 5 kids in AP multivariable or 8 kids in AP chem.

The score average will go up to a pass rate that is not as abominable as the current pass rates.

Raising AP pass rates to a respectable level will make the bleeding stop and make the school less undesireable to parents.

Lewis no longer being the school to avoid will raise the pride level of the student body, which will benefit the school across the board.

Coupled with a full renovation, and Lewis can turn around to a respectable level of acceptability in just a few years.

It all starts with getting rid of IB, before rezoning.

Secondarily, give Key middle school AAP. This should have happened years ago after the successful stand up of AAP at Irving. Every middle school should have AAP with no transfers between pyramids.

Annandale (1954) and McLean (1955) are older than Lewis (1958) and should be renovated earlier. Each received cheap renovations in the early 00s that, in inflation-adjusted terms, cost much less than the renovations of schools built in the 1960s and thereafter. Poor performance should not be rewarded with an earlier renovation, although Lewis should not be penalized in the next renovation queue (as Falls Church was under the 2008 queue) with a delayed renovation because of its lower enrollment.

By the way, I think the other suggestions are good, although people should understand these things cost money, so if we're going to spend additional money at Lewis people at Langley, McLean, Oakton, Madison, Woodson, West Springfield, etc. should understand it's coming out of their budgets. Fewer electives, even larger classes, etc., to fund this type of restructuring and investment in Lewis's academic programs.