FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB floated three proposals in the latest draft. Do a comprehensive review 1) every 5 years, 2) every 5 years but not until 2035, and 3) every 10 years.

They shouldn't be worrying about the frequency yet. They should see if they can pull it off just once.

And start with the most obvious one - moving 400 kids out of crowded West Springfield to Lewis (which now only has about 1650 kids).

They can see how well that trial balloon goes and then start making the other changes they are salivating to make, like moving 1/2 of Great Falls to Herndon.

It's no skin off Kyle McDaniel's back, since he's zoned for recently expanded and renovated Oakton. But his old boss Pat Herrity might want to have a word or two with him.

The fact that some SB member is or isn’t at a renovated school is independent of boundary changes. The schools are what they are when looking at balancing student numbers. Some school or another will be older than others any time a study is done.

DP. I completely disagree with you. McDaniel wouldn’t be pushing for boundary changes if his kids would be significantly impacted. He’s only interested in messing with his constituents’ kids, not his own.

In fact, I’d be willing to bet every board member’s kids end up in the same school or better than their original ones as part of this process.

Again, that has nothing to do with whether he lives in a zone with a recently updated or expanded school.

Really? Why do you think he moved into that area to begin with?

But he’s an at-large member, so he can easily move into the Lee or Mount Vernon district and keep his seat. He can be the change he wants to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it me or does it feel like we are getting a spate of threads about boundaries the past couple of months?

I said the same thing when this thread started. There were a few in fairly quick succession. They seemed aimed at provoking discussion to discuss how McLean was not getting expanded/rennovated soon enough and the reason was anti-rich people sentiment on the part of the SB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it me or does it feel like we are getting a spate of threads about boundaries the past couple of months?

I said the same thing when this thread started. There were a few in fairly quick succession. They seemed aimed at provoking discussion to discuss how McLean was not getting expanded/rennovated soon enough and the reason was anti-rich people sentiment on the part of the SB.

Sure, that, or the fact that they are redoing the boundary policy and talking about doing county-wide redistricting. Perhaps that also has something to do with it?

Look, I’d love to talk about anything else, but McDaniel and his cronies believe they have a mandate to destroy this county and are well on their way down this path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it me or does it feel like we are getting a spate of threads about boundaries the past couple of months?

I said the same thing when this thread started. There were a few in fairly quick succession. They seemed aimed at provoking discussion to discuss how McLean was not getting expanded/rennovated soon enough and the reason was anti-rich people sentiment on the part of the SB.

When you start touting upcoming county-wide boundary adjustments you get the attention of people in more than one pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just put those daventry kids back.

Didn’t that neighborhood try for quite some time to get their rezoning, and it was finally approved w/o public hearings since the impact on either high school was so minuscule. I don’t think they would take too kindly to your suggestion.

Well, the Daventry kids back to Lewis or the Sangster split feeder removed with the entire school sent to Lale Braddock makes the most sense.

Sangster to Lake Braddock would be completely non controversial with almost zero complaints. Property values would not be impacted, schools are very equivalent by every metric, kids would stay with their friends since LB and WS have so much overlap already. It wouldn't even be a blip on the radar for anyone, especially not the students.

Daventry to Lewis would create a shit storm, especially since their property values jumped significantly when they were rezoned to WS (6 figure increases almost overnight). They would lose around $100,000 in equity instantly. Messing with people's nest eggs and biggest investment like that , in the interest of social engineering, would be really crappy and underhanded.

Just a side note, the Daventry switch brought over WAY more students than the data used to rezone them indicated. I believe the figure used was fewer than 20 students. However, they did not take intl account that Daventry is PACKED with kids.

When Daventry was zoned for Lewis (then Lee) many high school students went to Catholic school or home schooled, or they pupil placed to Lake Braddock for Japanese, West Springfield for German, or other schools for AP.. The younger families had Catholic/home schooling/pupil placement within FCPS as their plan for high school, with no intention of sending their kids to Lewis.

All of those families sending their kids elsewhere for high school immediately returned to their local high school once they were rezoned for WS, and more families tried to buy in that neighborhood because of the high school.

If Daventry is rezoned back to Lewis, the same thing will happen in reverse, and it will be only 3 or 4 kids per grade making the switch just like before, instead of the dozens of kids from Daventry who currently attend WSHS.

[Anonymous]

Very interesting about Daventry, PP. My sister lives there and as you said, that neighborhood is PACKED full of kids.

We’re in the Hunt Valley neighborhood, and I’ve heard that some of those families would’ve been zoned for Lee/Lewis in the past. Do you know which neighborhoods that would’ve been? I think we’re squarely in the WS zone as we live near Hunt Valley pool. In any case, I have 8th and 10th graders so I’m guessing my kids will be gone before any boundary change happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very interesting about Daventry, PP. My sister lives there and as you said, that neighborhood is PACKED full of kids.

We’re in the Hunt Valley neighborhood, and I’ve heard that some of those families would’ve been zoned for Lee/Lewis in the past. Do you know which neighborhoods that would’ve been? I think we’re squarely in the WS zone as we live near Hunt Valley pool. In any case, I have 8th and 10th graders so I’m guessing my kids will be gone before any boundary change happened.

The Gambrill neighborhoods outside the parkway.

That rezoning happened long ago, before any current Lewis or WS pyramid students were in school and before most of them were even born, back when south county was built. The current eeniors were either not yeat born oe newborn infants when that HV neighborhood was rezoned to WS (2005) to give you some perspective of how long ago that was.

The story as I understand it was that when that rezoning happened to accomodate the new high school, Saratoga families fought tooth and nail to remain at Lee (Lewis) instead of transferring to nearby South County only a few minutes from their houses. They were successful, but it did not turn out the way they had hoped in the long term as they were the only neighborhood successful at staying at Lee/Lewis.

There was a very unhappy Saratoga mom who posted about it for years here. That is where I got this background story, so there might be some holes in it. That Saratoga person posted regularly in any rezoning thread very angrily about West Springfield, and specifically that Hunt Valley (the farthest out WS elementary school from Lewis and the farthest out school rezoned to the much closer WS) needs to be rezoned to Lewis. The only justification to their arguments is that part of HV outside the parkway used to be zoned for Lee 20 years ago.

It is a weird story that you would not know if you moved here in the past 2 decades, or if you don't often visit these message boards. That person's kids must have long graduated fcps by now, but suspect that they still posts in threads advocating to rezone WS based on the tone and arguments of some of those posts.

Really, except for the Sangster neighborhoods, HV is the farthest away from Lewis and makes the least sense to rezone to Lewis out of all the WS neighborhoods. The one that makes the most sense out of all the elementary schools geographically is Keene Mill, which would also bring an AAP center to the Lewis pyramid.

But really, if the school board wants to rezone WSHS without a headache, Sangster split feeder to Lake Braddock makes the most sense. At most, they will get a few resigned sighs from families that are generational West Springfield families, but the complaints, appeals and push back would be minimal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very interesting about Daventry, PP. My sister lives there and as you said, that neighborhood is PACKED full of kids.

We’re in the Hunt Valley neighborhood, and I’ve heard that some of those families would’ve been zoned for Lee/Lewis in the past. Do you know which neighborhoods that would’ve been? I think we’re squarely in the WS zone as we live near Hunt Valley pool. In any case, I have 8th and 10th graders so I’m guessing my kids will be gone before any boundary change happened.

The Gambrill neighborhoods outside the parkway.

That rezoning happened long ago, before any current Lewis or WS pyramid students were in school and before most of them were even born, back when south county was built. The current eeniors were either not yeat born oe newborn infants when that HV neighborhood was rezoned to WS (2005) to give you some perspective of how long ago that was.

The story as I understand it was that when that rezoning happened to accomodate the new high school, Saratoga families fought tooth and nail to remain at Lee (Lewis) instead of transferring to nearby South County only a few minutes from their houses. They were successful, but it did not turn out the way they had hoped in the long term as they were the only neighborhood successful at staying at Lee/Lewis.

There was a very unhappy Saratoga mom who posted about it for years here. That is where I got this background story, so there might be some holes in it. That Saratoga person posted regularly in any rezoning thread very angrily about West Springfield, and specifically that Hunt Valley (the farthest out WS elementary school from Lewis and the farthest out school rezoned to the much closer WS) needs to be rezoned to Lewis. The only justification to their arguments is that part of HV outside the parkway used to be zoned for Lee 20 years ago.

It is a weird story that you would not know if you moved here in the past 2 decades, or if you don't often visit these message boards. That person's kids must have long graduated fcps by now, but suspect that they still posts in threads advocating to rezone WS based on the tone and arguments of some of those posts.

Really, except for the Sangster neighborhoods, HV is the farthest away from Lewis and makes the least sense to rezone to Lewis out of all the WS neighborhoods. The one that makes the most sense out of all the elementary schools geographically is Keene Mill, which would also bring an AAP center to the Lewis pyramid.

But really, if the school board wants to rezone WSHS without a headache, Sangster split feeder to Lake Braddock makes the most sense. At most, they will get a few resigned sighs from families that are generational West Springfield families, but the complaints, appeals and push back would be minimal.

It wouldn't make any geographic sense to redistrict the Gambrill Road neighborhoods to Lewis. Mostly they're split now between South County (about 4.4 miles away-ish) and West Springfield (4.6 miles away-ish). Lewis is 5.8 miles away and you'd have to take busier roads to get there. But I know that won't stop that poster who seems obsessed about getting various WS neighborhoods redistricted to Lewis.

[Anonymous]

NP. Not obsessed about moving WS neighborhoods to Lewis, but I don't know what you think a "holistic" county-wide redistricting is going to entail if it doesn't involve moving kids to Lewis. The latest CIP has Lewis at barely over 1400 students in 2028 and West Springfield at over 2900 kids. And you think their approach is going to be to reassign a few WSHS kids to Lake Braddock?

I think they ought to focus on the underlying reasons why Lewis can't retain kids in the pyramid and look to strengthen the school, not just move kids around fungible widgets. But you elected these people, and now they're telling you what they want to do. You can gear up now to oppose it or get blind-sided in a year or two.

This isn't the only example of a likely upcoming boundary change that they're doing everything they can now to set the stage for. Just look at how some of the projected enrollments in the latest CIP vary widely from the projections in earlier CIPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB floated three proposals in the latest draft. Do a comprehensive review 1) every 5 years, 2) every 5 years but not until 2035, and 3) every 10 years.

They shouldn't be worrying about the frequency yet. They should see if they can pull it off just once.

And start with the most obvious one - moving 400 kids out of crowded West Springfield to Lewis (which now only has about 1650 kids).

They can see how well that trial balloon goes and then start making the other changes they are salivating to make, like moving 1/2 of Great Falls to Herndon.

It's no skin off Kyle McDaniel's back, since he's zoned for recently expanded and renovated Oakton. But his old boss Pat Herrity might want to have a word or two with him.

The fact that some SB member is or isn’t at a renovated school is independent of boundary changes. The schools are what they are when looking at balancing student numbers. Some school or another will be older than others any time a study is done.

The draft proposed boundary policy recommended by County staff seems like common sense.

The major updates to the new policy mandate that the superintendent adhere to a specific set of criteria when drawing school boundary lines and require a county-wide review of school boundaries every five years.

The revised policy retains elements of the existing one, such as assigning students to schools based on proximity to their homes. However, under the proposed changes, when establishing new boundaries, the superintendent must ensure that schools have sufficient capacity for future students; avoid splitting students from the same neighborhood among different schools; minimize student travel times; and provide equal access to programming.

https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/04/19/fairfax-school-board-to-review-initial-draft-of-new-boundary-adjustment-policy-next-month/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB floated three proposals in the latest draft. Do a comprehensive review 1) every 5 years, 2) every 5 years but not until 2035, and 3) every 10 years.

They shouldn't be worrying about the frequency yet. They should see if they can pull it off just once.

And start with the most obvious one - moving 400 kids out of crowded West Springfield to Lewis (which now only has about 1650 kids).

They can see how well that trial balloon goes and then start making the other changes they are salivating to make, like moving 1/2 of Great Falls to Herndon.

It's no skin off Kyle McDaniel's back, since he's zoned for recently expanded and renovated Oakton. But his old boss Pat Herrity might want to have a word or two with him.

The fact that some SB member is or isn’t at a renovated school is independent of boundary changes. The schools are what they are when looking at balancing student numbers. Some school or another will be older than others any time a study is done.

The draft proposed boundary policy recommended by County staff seems like common sense.

The major updates to the new policy mandate that the superintendent adhere to a specific set of criteria when drawing school boundary lines and require a county-wide review of school boundaries every five years.

The revised policy retains elements of the existing one, such as assigning students to schools based on proximity to their homes. However, under the proposed changes, when establishing new boundaries, the superintendent must ensure that schools have sufficient capacity for future students; avoid splitting students from the same neighborhood among different schools; minimize student travel times; and provide equal access to programming.

https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/04/19/fairfax-school-board-to-review-initial-draft-of-new-boundary-adjustment-policy-next-month/

So basically some event, like opening a new school, building a huge new addition to an existing school, or closing an underutilized school, would have to trigger the boundary changes for the revised policy to take effect. So the Board isn't just going to willy nilly move the tiny number of students in Daventry back to Lewis/Lee. Another scenario is that all the future and planned growth in Tysons, both affordable and market rate, will necessitate boundary changes among the Marshall, McLean, and neighboring school pyramids. I wonder what the capacity at Marshall is since that school was recently renovated.

[Anonymous]

Common sense would be focusing on where students actually live and are expected to live in the future, and then making sure that the schools serving those areas have adequate seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Common sense would be focusing on where students actually live and are expected to live in the future, and then making sure that the schools serving those areas have adequate seats.

Common sense would be focusing on what principals and teachers at schools like West Springfield are doing right that are making the school so desirable that fqmilies are moving there in droves and happy to be in an overcrowded school.

In my opionion, the admin and community of West Springfield has done a fantastic job making balancing high achievement with fun and traditional high school experiences. The admin and staff generally, with only a few exceptions, work hard to keep things neutral and middle of the road, which attracts moderate, centrist and conservative families. They have very strong community involvement that makes the high school feel like a small town school. There are generational families there, including many teachers who were former students of WS. Old people in the community are involved in WS, and still consider it "their school" so they are very invested in the success of the school. And the military population gives it a unique character that is appealing to many, with students who are generalluly pro America and proud of their country.

Look at what they are doing right at making a huge school feel like a small town community school, and try to duplicate that.

When everyone around you is invested in the success of the school, it makes a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Common sense would be focusing on where students actually live and are expected to live in the future, and then making sure that the schools serving those areas have adequate seats.

Common sense would be focusing on what principals and teachers at schools like West Springfield are doing right that are making the school so desirable that fqmilies are moving there in droves and happy to be in an overcrowded school.

In my opionion, the admin and community of West Springfield has done a fantastic job making balancing high achievement with fun and traditional high school experiences. The admin and staff generally, with only a few exceptions, work hard to keep things neutral and middle of the road, which attracts moderate, centrist and conservative families. They have very strong community involvement that makes the high school feel like a small town school. There are generational families there, including many teachers who were former students of WS. Old people in the community are involved in WS, and still consider it "their school" so they are very invested in the success of the school. And the military population gives it a unique character that is appealing to many, with students who are generalluly pro America and proud of their country.

Look at what they are doing right at making a huge school feel like a small town community school, and try to duplicate that.

When everyone around you is invested in the success of the school, it makes a difference.

Are you the WSHS principal? There are many concerns about standards based grading there. It’s not utopia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Common sense would be focusing on where students actually live and are expected to live in the future, and then making sure that the schools serving those areas have adequate seats.

Common sense would be focusing on what principals and teachers at schools like West Springfield are doing right that are making the school so desirable that fqmilies are moving there in droves and happy to be in an overcrowded school.

In my opionion, the admin and community of West Springfield has done a fantastic job making balancing high achievement with fun and traditional high school experiences. The admin and staff generally, with only a few exceptions, work hard to keep things neutral and middle of the road, which attracts moderate, centrist and conservative families. They have very strong community involvement that makes the high school feel like a small town school. There are generational families there, including many teachers who were former students of WS. Old people in the community are involved in WS, and still consider it "their school" so they are very invested in the success of the school. And the military population gives it a unique character that is appealing to many, with students who are generalluly pro America and proud of their country.

Look at what they are doing right at making a huge school feel like a small town community school, and try to duplicate that.

When everyone around you is invested in the success of the school, it makes a difference.

People at other schools feel the same way, and we will all be ignored because 12 School Board members, none of whom ran on a platform of changing boundaries, have decided they are uniquely qualified to decide what's in the "common good." They'll tell FCPS staff behind the scenes how they want the new policy interpreted, the staff will make a "recommendation," and then the SB will claim they are just approving the staff's "expert" recommendation.