Boundary Review Meetings
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Anonymous
Found it: https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/maps/2024-2026-boundary-review/community-meetings-phase-2-part-2-fall-2025 They're exploring options for Hagel Circle. |
Anonymous
I just checked their FB page and found this in the comments: “I'll email to slides to the PTO email list (are you on it?) but the school board shared several scenarios where 140 new students will shift from Halley ES to Lorton Station ES, which would put us at 99% capacity. I didn't see any scenarios where shifting the 140 students to other elementary schools is being considered - we weren't able to determine why only our school was in consideration. There were also scenarios for Lorton Station ES kids to shift from Hayfield to South County.” I’m sure this goes back to the “where is Hagel Circle ending up” debate. I don’t know why they’d shift LSES kids to South County - LSES is a pretty large school and wouldn’t necessarily suffer like a smaller elementary if it were to become a split feeder, but maybe this is just to add more students to SCMS/HS if Hagel Circle ends up at LSES and Hayfield. The original scenarios created by the SB and BRAC before Thru’s scenarios did have Hagel Cir. At Lorton Station and Hayfield - it was only when Thru got involved that they tried to shift them to Gunston and keep them at South County. There was speculation here that the influential Mason Neck group would get involved to ensure no more students were added to Gunston and that may have been what happened. |
Anonymous
It’s extra hilarious that they didn’t even hold this meeting at Halley, where Hagel Circle attends now. Do those families even have any idea that they’re slated to move? |
Anonymous
Well, they will find out on Jan. 8 and will have TWO WHOLE DAYS to provide feedback to the school board. |
Anonymous
| Also, am I seeing right that one of the proposals is to make Lorton Station elementary a South County feeder and put both the middle and the HS well over 105% while Hayfield sits in the low 80s? These people aren’t serious … |
Anonymous
Exactly this. They did say some were for German immersion, which violates FCPS own policy on language transfers. If a school is closed to transfers like WSHS for over a decade, then the kids requesting language transfers are supposed to attend the next closest school offering the language, with parents providing their own transportation, or take the language online. I don't know what other high schools offer German, but zero students should be approved for transferring into WSHS for German, based on FCPS own long standing language transfer policiy. And to the parent saying WSHS parents are "crying wolf" what they have been saying for years is that once class on 2026 graduates, WSHS enrollment will drop steadily, since class of 2026 is around 130 students larger than the replacement class of 8th graders, class of 2027 is much larger than the replacement 7th grade class, and 2028/2029 much larger than the current 5th and 6th grade classes. Both Irving and WSHS will see drops in the next 1-4 years that will put WSHS just slightly over full capacity, with zero need for rezoning. If WSHS sends most of the 50-60 transfer students back to their neighborhood high schools, and starts to enforce the closed to transfers rule as written by FCPS, then WSHS would not need any rezoning as there are more transfers into WSHS than Sangster kids who are part of the neighborhood, getting kicked out by FCPS. |
Anonymous
99% capacity makes sense, especially if it brings a poor neighborhood with limited transportation options back to their closest neighborhood school. |
Anonymous
Come on. You jnow those poor Hagel Circle kids should never have been bussed 4 elementary schools away, crossing I95, all the way to Halley. |
Anonymous
You’re right and they should move, but the question is do they have any idea they are moving and where to? |
Anonymous
They could get it slightly wrong and WSHS would still have a huge enrollment. This school is regularly given preferential treatment and treated with kid gloves. |
Anonymous
Oh please. It's a middle class school. We aren't talking about Langley or McLean here. |
Anonymous
This is a very silly post. WSHS does not get preferential treatment nor is it treated with kid gloves. A more accurate description is that it functions really well with less money per pupil, much larger teacher to student classroom ratios than most other FCPS high schools, and very little attention needed from Gatehouse. Wshs also brings in the most impact aide money of all the pyramids, that can be put in the general fund and distributed to schools that don't bring in much impact aide and are not part of that WSHS- LBSS -SoCo- Hayfield corridor. FCPS gets a LOT of bang for their buck from the large schools like WSHS, Centerville, Lake Braddock and Chantilly, where they can spend very little per pupil compared to a lot of the other high schools, have much larger class sizes than lower performing smaller schools, get good results that make FCPS look better, with minimal expense or effort from FCPS. |
Anonymous
Renovation of WSHS was moved up in the queue as part of the brokered deal to close Clifton ES. Renovation and expansion was bigger than other schools built in the mid-60s (Facilities head at the time was a WSHS graduate). If WA had only been expanded to the size of an Edison or Marshall kids would already have been moved out of WSHS. There’s never been a proposal to move WSHS kids to adjacent Lewis, despite the obvious imbalance in enrollments. It’s more favorable treatment than Langley gets and far more favorable treatment than McLean gets. |
Anonymous
That's absolutely untrue. Kids have moved from WSHS to Lewis (or then Lee HS) over the years. Despite what the school board says, there have been boundary changes throughout the last 40 years. And maybe WSHS moved up in the queue, but the school's condition had deteriorated to the point where you could see the first floor from the second floor in some of the classrooms. There are plenty of complaints that can be made about how they manage the renovation list. |
Anonymous
You’re not really denying the favorable treatment that West Springfield has received from FCPS, only rationalizing it. And do let us know the last time anyone was moved from West Springfield to Lee/Lewis. We’ll wait. |