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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
FCPS comprehensive boundary review
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Anonymous
Langley was properly in the 2008 queue because it hadn’t had a major renovation since it was built in the mid-60s. But other schools got additions outside the queue. They should be investing in the schools that most need attention regardless of the magisterial district and avoiding massive expansions of schools for which there is apparently no need. Karl Frisch has hundreds of McLean HS kids living in the Providence District and he is budgeting over $80M for a new ES in Vienna that is totally unnecessary. |
Anonymous
Notice how Irving goes up by 4% while WSHS goes up by 8% over the same time period. |
Anonymous
Aren’t these neighborhoods built out? With the general decline in the K-12 population on the horizon why should either be expecting increases? Are people doubling up in West Springfield townhouses now? |
Anonymous
Irving has students pupil placing for AAP. Most of those students return to WSHS for high school. The net transfers are higher at Irving for 2 grades than they are at WSHS over 4 grades. |
Anonymous
Think about it. People on this site describe certain FCPS high schools as not viable. People are avoiding those schools (can you say Great Schools). Families with kids are squeezing into fewer high schools. The percentage of homes with kids in the WSHS boundary is getting higher and higher. I think the predictions for both Lewis and WS are off a bit. Lewis won't shrink as much and WS won't grow as much as they think. There is, however, already an 1150 student difference in those two schools. Could that grow to 1300-1350 (and not the 1500 projected)? Certainly. |
Anonymous
Those transfers should be baked in already. Kids do this already, more are not going to do that in the next 10 years. In fact, Irving currently has 3 classes of AAP kids who stay there and go on to WSHS. |
Anonymous
I am thinking about it, but FCPS is projecting enrollment declines at multiple schools with even stronger academic reputations than West Springfield, but continued growth at WSHS even though it’s built out and there’s basically no new residential development there. Maybe it relates to the relative affordability of the WSHS area but it’s not that much less expensive than, say, the Chantilly HS area. |
Anonymous
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The membership #s are best guesses, but more likely deliberately manipulated.
Irving MS membership peaked two years ago and currently has 577 (class of 2030) and 634 (class of 2029). Yet WSHS is projected to continue growing? So there are 100+ students each grade level who transfer in or are moving from private to public or are committing residency fraud. Which means ~500, or 20% of the population should be at a different school. The more I objectively look at this, the more I can see it's not about addressing over capacity at WSHS, it's about saving Lewis. The elementary school populations are in a YoY decline, so it makes more sense to begin planning a high school shutdown now versus changing boundaries only to have multiple HS at 60-70% capacity in 10 years. Here's the tableau dashboard for the membership #s: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/fcps.fts/viz/SY2024-25StudentMembershipDashboard/ReadMe? |
Anonymous
Look at the raw numbers too. None of it is accurate. This is an example of FCPS,manufacturing fake number to justify a pre determined outcome. |
Anonymous
Class of 2030 (Irving 7th grade) is almost 150 fewer students than the class of 2026 (WSHS juniors) they are replacing. A class of 577 students replacing a graduating class of 722 students and FCPS is projecting an increase in WSHS enrollment? That is not mathematically possible, even if they stop AAP placement and bring back all of the Irving zoned AAP kids back (around 50 per grade go to LB for AAP). Those CIP numbers re completely fabricated. FCPS must look at residency before rezoning. |
Anonymous
Irving only has around 50 students per grade who go to LB for AAP. Most of them (double the amount that go to LB) stay at Irving. The CIP might be using the pre 2014 transfer formula for AAP students returning from LB, and not the actual number of Irving kids who attend LB for AAP. I bet the formula they are using is old snd using flawed projections. |
Anonymous
Yes. WSHS is one of the only areas in that part of the county with zero new home development. Lewis, Edison, Hayfield, and SoCo sll have new development. WSHS has zero new development and hasn't for years. |
Anonymous
Irving has more than double the number of AAP kids staying there than going to LB and returning for high school. There are only a couple dozen students now in each grade that go to LB and return to WSHS, since many of the zoned kids either take Japanese to stay at LB, with a few going to TJ. I bet if you looked at the LB Japanese classes, nearly the entire program will WSHS zoned kids who went to LB for AAP and wanted to stay, and Lewis kids fleeing Lewis. |
Anonymous
How embarrassing for the county that laypeople are pointing out mistakes. Yes, I know they don't care. |
Anonymous
It's scary that they will be making decisions about boundary changes based on flawed forecasts, just like they make decisions about capital allocation for facilities based on an ancient queue developed in 2008 that doesn't take years of later development into account. Classic case of garbage in, garbage out. Gatehouse is full of people who aren't up to the task of dealing with a school system of FCPS's size and complexity, and the School Board is a bunch of flaky political hacks who only look out for themselves. People rightly ask to just be left the hell alone, knowing that Gatehouse and the SB are only capable of doing harm. |