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:

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

DP. It sounded like a Marshall Plan of sorts to improve the academic offerings and environment at Lewis.

Do you just want to keep it low-performing and IB so you can pupil place to another school? That can't be a long-term strategy for success.

[Anonymous]

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

So you are fine with shifting other people's kids all over the county and out of the schools they like, just as long as you can pupil place your child where you like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

So you are fine with shifting other people's kids all over the county and out of the schools they like, just as long as you can pupil place your child where you like.

That certainly appears to be their motivation. They've figured out how to work the system but it's great if others who can't arrange for transportation end up captives to boundary changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

So you are fine with shifting other people's kids all over the county and out of the schools they like, just as long as you can pupil place your child where you like.

you seem to be fine with shifting kids back into failing schools. I guess as long as your kid goes to WSHS it's all godd?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

So you are fine with shifting other people's kids all over the county and out of the schools they like, just as long as you can pupil place your child where you like.

you seem to be fine with shifting kids back into failing schools. I guess as long as your kid goes to WSHS it's all godd?

DP - it’s absurd to shift boundaries without bringing kids within current boundaries back to home schools first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

So you are fine with shifting other people's kids all over the county and out of the schools they like, just as long as you can pupil place your child where you like.

you seem to be fine with shifting kids back into failing schools. I guess as long as your kid goes to WSHS it's all godd?

I'm the PP to whom you are responding. I am not a West Springfield parent. I live in a pyramid with a crowded school that is up for shifting neighborhoods. And, I would especially resent it if they continue to accept pupil placements while my neighborhood gets sent to a school that is further away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

So you are fine with shifting other people's kids all over the county and out of the schools they like, just as long as you can pupil place your child where you like.

you seem to be fine with shifting kids back into failing schools. I guess as long as your kid goes to WSHS it's all godd?

I'm the PP to whom you are responding. I am not a West Springfield parent. I live in a pyramid with a crowded school that is up for shifting neighborhoods. And, I would especially resent it if they continue to accept pupil placements while my neighborhood gets sent to a school that is further away.

The baseline for resentful people is the number of students sent to a handful of schools. In some cases, it may also be parents with kids in schools made markedly worse by moving students into failing schools. There is no way to fill Mt Vernon without either pulling from Hayfield or West Potomac. If they pull non FARMS students, then they school they pull from becomes much higher FARMS

[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.

Because people won’t accept that goal should be to have each child reach their full potential and recognize that as a result different outcomes will occur.

They instead work to achieve equal outcomes by dragging people down to the least common denominator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

So you are fine with shifting other people's kids all over the county and out of the schools they like, just as long as you can pupil place your child where you like.

you seem to be fine with shifting kids back into failing schools. I guess as long as your kid goes to WSHS it's all godd?

Your logic seems to be Lewis is irredeemable, so we should preserve the ability of Lewis parents to pupil place.

If it's truly irredeemable, it should be closed, but before doing either that or redistricting kids currently zoned to other schools there it makes sense to implement a clear plan to improve the academic environment there, as PP outlined. That hasn't happened to date; instead, Lewis got a silly "Leadership" program that was a vanity project of Karen Keys Gamarra, who was seeking to boost her eeputation in certain circles by promoting a program focused on advocacy for progressive causes, rather than academic excellence for college-bound students or career paths for others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

So you are fine with shifting other people's kids all over the county and out of the schools they like, just as long as you can pupil place your child where you like.

you seem to be fine with shifting kids back into failing schools. I guess as long as your kid goes to WSHS it's all godd?

Your logic seems to be Lewis is irredeemable, so we should preserve the ability of Lewis parents to pupil place.

If it's truly irredeemable, it should be closed, but before doing either that or redistricting kids currently zoned to other schools there it makes sense to implement a clear plan to improve the academic environment there, as PP outlined. That hasn't happened to date; instead, Lewis got a silly "Leadership" program that was a vanity project of Karen Keys Gamarra, who was seeking to boost her eeputation in certain circles by promoting a program focused on advocacy for progressive causes, rather than academic excellence for college-bound students or career paths for others.

That's basically it. Concentrated poverty has led to school so bad that students should be allowed to exit by right. I don't think there is any academic plan that could possibly make a school with Lewis's demographics acceptable by FCPS standards. Even cutting the pupil placement to zero still leave a school well past the tipping points identified by the study FCPS itself commissioned

[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.

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

Eliminating IB and switching to AP will immediately inprove AP scores at Lewis by a notable amount even if not a single student returns to Lewis. It might double them over one year, and again the following few years.

[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:

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.

AP is far cheaper than IB.

Getting rid of IB will be a money saver, except for the bonuses.

[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:

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

Eliminating IB and switching to AP will immediately inprove AP scores at Lewis by a notable amount even if not a single student returns to Lewis. It might double them over one year, and again the following few years.

+1. IB is a crappy program generally, and particularly ill-suited to a school like Lewis, but there's no reason why they can't get Lewis up to Falls Church or Hayfield levels with a commitment to AP. These schools may have lower ratings, but people believe that their own kids can get a good education 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:

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

Eliminating IB and switching to AP will immediately inprove AP scores at Lewis by a notable amount even if not a single student returns to Lewis. It might double them over one year, and again the following few years.

+1. IB is a crappy program generally, and particularly ill-suited to a school like Lewis, but there's no reason why they can't get Lewis up to Falls Church or Hayfield levels with a commitment to AP. These schools may have lower ratings, but people believe that their own kids can get a good education there.

Lewis is 63% FARMS, 53% Hispanic. Hayfield is 32% and 31%

[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:

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

Eliminating IB and switching to AP will immediately inprove AP scores at Lewis by a notable amount even if not a single student returns to Lewis. It might double them over one year, and again the following few years.

+1. IB is a crappy program generally, and particularly ill-suited to a school like Lewis, but there's no reason why they can't get Lewis up to Falls Church or Hayfield levels with a commitment to AP. These schools may have lower ratings, but people believe that their own kids can get a good education there.

Lewis is 63% FARMS, 53% Hispanic. Hayfield is 32% and 31%

Yes, and Falls Church is 64% FARMS and 61% Hispanic. Hayfield also has a significantly larger Black population than Lewis or Falls Church (28% vs. 10% at Lewis and 5% at Falls Church), and Black students historically score the lowest on standardized tests in FCPS along with Hispanic kids.

Yet, both Falls Church and Hayfield are known to have cohorts of high-achieving kids, while Lewis doesn't enjoy a similar reputation, due in large measure to its less attractive academic offerings.