FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my neighborhood untouched. It would be so disruptive for my rising junior to have to switch high schools. I feel so bad for all freshman right now.

My neighborhood wasn’t touched either, but I still want to attend the community meeting. I think the grandfathering that was covered in the boundary policy (rising seniors only) is awful for kids.

I am also concerned about what ‘next steps” will be and if they will come up with and if other wild scenarios will replace these maps. I will say I think this was vastly reduced because of community pushback (and perhaps the regime change on the federal level) and they were at least able to listen to community input.
So props to the school board for that! Hopefully they will continue to listen.

Don’t expect the Hunt Valley families to give props to the School Board.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why are we assuming Hunt Valley will be a split feeder? They could reshuffle the other ES’s feeding into SCMS. Duds like Saratoga could take more kids. Newington is packed but they could reshuffle the south side of that zone.

Yep. Saratoga currently at 75% can take whatever excess from the neighboring newington. Easy peasy.

But Saratoga is already taking that RV split feeder, which surprisingly had over 100 students in it. I hadnt realized that area was so large. That puts Saratoga at 91% per their calculations. They could take a few more students, but not enough to put all or most of HV south of the Parkway at Newington Forest. Especially with NFES projected at 101% after they get ~40 from the Sangster island.

Halley has capacity after dumping their island to Lorton Station/Hayfield - but it’s quite a bit further away.

All of you HV to Newington people are not recognizing that Hunt Valley's enrollment is going to drop dramatically over the next couple of years, just like every other school in FCPS.

The subsequent classes after 6th grade are 20-30 students fewer than the 6th grade class.

The kindergarten class is 50 students fewer than the 6th grade class.

Rezoning Hunt Valley to SoCo is a long term disruption to a problem that needs a very short term fix.

FCPS should just add a modular class building to WSHS to bridge the gap instead of rezoning.

The capacity problem fixes itself in a couple years, without rezoning.

I realize this is a newbie question, forgive me; but why are class sizes dropping across the board? Is that just the broader declining birth rate or something else I’m not aware of?

General drop off in birth rate nation-wide.

Economic factors driving people out of Fairfax County.

Big drop in FCPS enrollment since Covid with uneven recovery in enrollments since then (although HVES is one of the schools whose enrollment is back to pre-Covid levels and WSHS enrollment hit an all-time high this year).

All of the West Springfield pyramid elementary enrollment starts to drop after the current 6th graders, and significantly drops with the early grades.

The numbers are all there in the individual school dashboards.

This is a very short term issue for WSHS.

It starts to resolve itself when the first rezoned class (current 6th graders) are the first WSHS freshmen attending SoCo.

This rezoning of Hunt Valley should not happen. Enrollment numbers long term do not support rezoning.

Hunt Valley families should be grateful they’re being rezoned to South County and not Lewis. Mind you, the Hagel Circle attendance island is also being rezoned out of Halley Elementary and also out of South County. That’s without a doubt the worst neighborhood in Lorton. South County FARMS rate will drop and it will be an even better school. I don’t think anyone from Hunt Valley should complain given the alternatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are we assuming Hunt Valley will be a split feeder? They could reshuffle the other ES’s feeding into SCMS. Duds like Saratoga could take more kids. Newington is packed but they could reshuffle the south side of that zone.

Yep. Saratoga currently at 75% can take whatever excess from the neighboring newington. Easy peasy.

But Saratoga is already taking that RV split feeder, which surprisingly had over 100 students in it. I hadnt realized that area was so large. That puts Saratoga at 91% per their calculations. They could take a few more students, but not enough to put all or most of HV south of the Parkway at Newington Forest. Especially with NFES projected at 101% after they get ~40 from the Sangster island.

Halley has capacity after dumping their island to Lorton Station/Hayfield - but it’s quite a bit further away.

All of you HV to Newington people are not recognizing that Hunt Valley's enrollment is going to drop dramatically over the next couple of years, just like every other school in FCPS.

The subsequent classes after 6th grade are 20-30 students fewer than the 6th grade class.

The kindergarten class is 50 students fewer than the 6th grade class.

Rezoning Hunt Valley to SoCo is a long term disruption to a problem that needs a very short term fix.

FCPS should just add a modular class building to WSHS to bridge the gap instead of rezoning.

The capacity problem fixes itself in a couple years, without rezoning.

I realize this is a newbie question, forgive me; but why are class sizes dropping across the board? Is that just the broader declining birth rate or something else I’m not aware of?

General drop off in birth rate nation-wide.

Economic factors driving people out of Fairfax County.

Big drop in FCPS enrollment since Covid with uneven recovery in enrollments since then (although HVES is one of the schools whose enrollment is back to pre-Covid levels and WSHS enrollment hit an all-time high this year).

All of the West Springfield pyramid elementary enrollment starts to drop after the current 6th graders, and significantly drops with the early grades.

The numbers are all there in the individual school dashboards.

This is a very short term issue for WSHS.

It starts to resolve itself when the first rezoned class (current 6th graders) are the first WSHS freshmen attending SoCo.

This rezoning of Hunt Valley should not happen. Enrollment numbers long term do not support rezoning.

Hunt Valley families should be grateful they’re being rezoned to South County and not Lewis. Mind you, the Hagel Circle attendance island is also being rezoned out of Halley Elementary and also out of South County. That’s without a doubt the worst neighborhood in Lorton. South County FARMS rate will drop and it will be an even better school. I don’t think anyone from Hunt Valley should complain given the alternatives.

I know, like F#$&$@ Lewis, am I right?

[Anonymous]

I’m a South County parent and just feel bad that they’re making this change when I doubt it will be needed in 5-10 years. It seems short sighted.

[Anonymous]

Rising sophomores, juniors and seniors should be grandfathered.

[Anonymous]

I do appreciate that the proposed changes do not seem to consider “equitable access to programming.” Thru actually provided mostly common sense proposals that considered geography and proximity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a South County parent and just feel bad that they’re making this change when I doubt it will be needed in 5-10 years. It seems short sighted.

Don’t act like you feel bad that Hagel Circle is getting moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are we assuming Hunt Valley will be a split feeder? They could reshuffle the other ES’s feeding into SCMS. Duds like Saratoga could take more kids. Newington is packed but they could reshuffle the south side of that zone.

Yep. Saratoga currently at 75% can take whatever excess from the neighboring newington. Easy peasy.

But Saratoga is already taking that RV split feeder, which surprisingly had over 100 students in it. I hadnt realized that area was so large. That puts Saratoga at 91% per their calculations. They could take a few more students, but not enough to put all or most of HV south of the Parkway at Newington Forest. Especially with NFES projected at 101% after they get ~40 from the Sangster island.

Halley has capacity after dumping their island to Lorton Station/Hayfield - but it’s quite a bit further away.

All of you HV to Newington people are not recognizing that Hunt Valley's enrollment is going to drop dramatically over the next couple of years, just like every other school in FCPS.

The subsequent classes after 6th grade are 20-30 students fewer than the 6th grade class.

The kindergarten class is 50 students fewer than the 6th grade class.

Rezoning Hunt Valley to SoCo is a long term disruption to a problem that needs a very short term fix.

FCPS should just add a modular class building to WSHS to bridge the gap instead of rezoning.

The capacity problem fixes itself in a couple years, without rezoning.

I realize this is a newbie question, forgive me; but why are class sizes dropping across the board? Is that just the broader declining birth rate or something else I’m not aware of?

General drop off in birth rate nation-wide.

Economic factors driving people out of Fairfax County.

Big drop in FCPS enrollment since Covid with uneven recovery in enrollments since then (although HVES is one of the schools whose enrollment is back to pre-Covid levels and WSHS enrollment hit an all-time high this year).

All of the West Springfield pyramid elementary enrollment starts to drop after the current 6th graders, and significantly drops with the early grades.

The numbers are all there in the individual school dashboards.

This is a very short term issue for WSHS.

It starts to resolve itself when the first rezoned class (current 6th graders) are the first WSHS freshmen attending SoCo.

This rezoning of Hunt Valley should not happen. Enrollment numbers long term do not support rezoning.

Hunt Valley families should be grateful they’re being rezoned to South County and not Lewis. Mind you, the Hagel Circle attendance island is also being rezoned out of Halley Elementary and also out of South County. That’s without a doubt the worst neighborhood in Lorton. South County FARMS rate will drop and it will be an even better school. I don’t think anyone from Hunt Valley should complain given the alternatives.

What is Hegel Circle? We’re one of the families being moved. We know nothing about South County or Newington Forest. That’s not our community. We know no one there. Stop pretending like we’re being done a favor. There’s no reason to move us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a South County parent and just feel bad that they’re making this change when I doubt it will be needed in 5-10 years. It seems short sighted.

Don’t act like you feel bad that Hagel Circle is getting moved.

There aren’t too many Hagel Circle students at the high school as far as I know. They’re mostly elementary students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do appreciate that the proposed changes do not seem to consider “equitable access to programming.” Thru actually provided mostly common sense proposals that considered geography and proximity.

In our pyramid, most of the proposals were flawed. Several would create lopsided new split feeders that didn’t exist previously. Another would rezone students living next door to an ES to a different ES. They seemed to ignore the new problems they were creating while purporting to “fix” an attendance island or split feeder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rising sophomores, juniors and seniors should be grandfathered.

They should be, but with this volume of changes affecting so many schools I wouldn’t count on it, even for rising seniors. Where do all the extra buses come from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Can they point to anything they’ve proposed that would actually help ensure equitable access to programs or minimize travel time for students?

All they’ve really done is punch down and propose to make some random changes to replace one ugly map with another ugly map. I mean, look at the proposed new Chantilly boundaries - they look absurd.

They clearly don’t have the courage to do what they originally set out to do and should just call the whole thing off.

It’s clear that they’ve considered those factors. There is a difference between having considered those factors vs. having considered them with the lens that you want to apply them.

NP.


Only one lens matters here:

Equity.

Everything else discussed will be ignored; the meetings and discussions are merely to provide a fig-leaf covering what the SB and Reid ordered Thru to come up with originally: equity, diversity, and inclusion.

But that’s not what these maps are doing. It’s a bunch of tinkering around the edges for little benefit in most cases. I can imagine what a full “equity” nuke of the maps would look like (to an extent - there’s not much you can do with how the poverty areas are concentrated in our county) and it doesn’t look like what they came up with.

We’ll never know if a full “equity” redrawing of the boundaries really was on the table. Was it planned and then scrapped due to public outcry, or due to the changing of presidential administrations putting a lot of diversity-related programs under a microscope? I personally think there was probably some advocates for a “nuclear option” on boundaries, but overall that wasn’t supported by the school board and important stakeholders in transportation and facilities who advocated for smaller changes due to logistical reasons. Sizemore and Anderson seemed asleep at the wheel at the WS PTSA virtual meeting and not even aware of the maps that were already released to the public.

Hunt Valley parents are completely disappointed with Anderson after her lackluster, disinterested performance at the WSHS PTA meeting last night.

I think it’s part of their act to appear ignorant right now. That way they can take credit if they “find out along with everyone else” what Thru has proposed and blame Thru and Reid if people object strongly.

But it also sounds like Anderson made some comments about Rolling Valley that were affirmatively misleading - that they’d rezone the Lewis part of RV to West Springfield HS rather than rezone it to Saratoga and keep it at Lewis. There’s no excuse for that.

She said what about Rolling Valley? Was that something she was going to suggest/fight for or was she just misunderstanding the map. I thought it was pretty clear. She's the one who keeps insisting some neighborhoods are going to have to leave WSHS to address capacity - why would she say they were going to add some, and from Lewis of all places??

There are going to be a lot of furious constituents if Hunt Valley gets zoned out of WSHS under the guise of overcrowding, and Anderson moves Rolling Valley Lewis students into their place.

That’s not going to happen, the Rolling Valley split feeder was resolved in one of the earlier maps by sending those neighborhoods to Saratoga so they stay at a Lewis-feeding school throughout.

The SB members clearly had no idea in advance what was going on with these maps and the proposals and they all seemed surprised that we, the public, even cared so much. Mateo Dunne was yammering about fixing the split feeder at Gunston by sending them all to South County, but the majority of the area lives quite close to Gunston ES and thus is much closer to Hayfield. Not every split feeder can be resolved.

Yes, but Anderson supposedly had a recrnt meeting with Rolling Valley parents after Truu pegged the the Lewis zoned families to get rezoned to Saratoga.

The things she said, about it being 10% of RV students that get sent to Lewis, then that if the Lewis RV kids get moved to West Springfield there is no space to grandfather current WSHS students sounds suspiciously like

A) She is repeating Rolling Valley family talking points from her meeting with them. What she said are exactly the arguments I eould make if I were a Rolling Valley family zoned for Lewis and was arguing the case to be kept at Rolling Valley and moved to Irving/WSHS, instead of being kept at Key and Lewis and rezoned yo Saratoga

And

B) I think she is either working behind the scenes for Rolling Valley parents and let the plans of replacing Irving/WSHS zoned Hunt Valley kids with Key/Lewis zoned Rolling Valley kids

OR

C) I seriously considering this plan to disallow WSHS/Irving Hunt Valley kids from grandfathering so she can make Key/Lewis to WSHS work for the Rolling Valley families, and accidentally let her inner debate come out of her mouth when asked about grandfathering, because she came to the meeting last night unprepared, and it is easier to spill the beans when you are not prepared.

Hunt Valley families need to get an in person meeting with Sandy Anderson to get her support for not moving anyone into WSHS, so there is space to grandfather current WSHS and Irving families.

I 100% think the no grandfathering because Rolling Valley kids will have those spots was a slip of the tongue about an in progress plan Andersin is considering pushing for WSHS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can they point to anything they’ve proposed that would actually help ensure equitable access to programs or minimize travel time for students?

All they’ve really done is punch down and propose to make some random changes to replace one ugly map with another ugly map. I mean, look at the proposed new Chantilly boundaries - they look absurd.

They clearly don’t have the courage to do what they originally set out to do and should just call the whole thing off.

It’s clear that they’ve considered those factors. There is a difference between having considered those factors vs. having considered them with the lens that you want to apply them.

NP.


Only one lens matters here:

Equity.

Everything else discussed will be ignored; the meetings and discussions are merely to provide a fig-leaf covering what the SB and Reid ordered Thru to come up with originally: equity, diversity, and inclusion.

But that’s not what these maps are doing. It’s a bunch of tinkering around the edges for little benefit in most cases. I can imagine what a full “equity” nuke of the maps would look like (to an extent - there’s not much you can do with how the poverty areas are concentrated in our county) and it doesn’t look like what they came up with.

We’ll never know if a full “equity” redrawing of the boundaries really was on the table. Was it planned and then scrapped due to public outcry, or due to the changing of presidential administrations putting a lot of diversity-related programs under a microscope? I personally think there was probably some advocates for a “nuclear option” on boundaries, but overall that wasn’t supported by the school board and important stakeholders in transportation and facilities who advocated for smaller changes due to logistical reasons. Sizemore and Anderson seemed asleep at the wheel at the WS PTSA virtual meeting and not even aware of the maps that were already released to the public.

Hunt Valley parents are completely disappointed with Anderson after her lackluster, disinterested performance at the WSHS PTA meeting last night.

I think it’s part of their act to appear ignorant right now. That way they can take credit if they “find out along with everyone else” what Thru has proposed and blame Thru and Reid if people object strongly.

But it also sounds like Anderson made some comments about Rolling Valley that were affirmatively misleading - that they’d rezone the Lewis part of RV to West Springfield HS rather than rezone it to Saratoga and keep it at Lewis. There’s no excuse for that.

She said what about Rolling Valley? Was that something she was going to suggest/fight for or was she just misunderstanding the map. I thought it was pretty clear. She's the one who keeps insisting some neighborhoods are going to have to leave WSHS to address capacity - why would she say they were going to add some, and from Lewis of all places??

There are going to be a lot of furious constituents if Hunt Valley gets zoned out of WSHS under the guise of overcrowding, and Anderson moves Rolling Valley Lewis students into their place.

That’s not going to happen, the Rolling Valley split feeder was resolved in one of the earlier maps by sending those neighborhoods to Saratoga so they stay at a Lewis-feeding school throughout.

The SB members clearly had no idea in advance what was going on with these maps and the proposals and they all seemed surprised that we, the public, even cared so much. Mateo Dunne was yammering about fixing the split feeder at Gunston by sending them all to South County, but the majority of the area lives quite close to Gunston ES and thus is much closer to Hayfield. Not every split feeder can be resolved.

Yes, but Anderson supposedly had a recrnt meeting with Rolling Valley parents after Truu pegged the the Lewis zoned families to get rezoned to Saratoga.

The things she said, about it being 10% of RV students that get sent to Lewis, then that if the Lewis RV kids get moved to West Springfield there is no space to grandfather current WSHS students sounds suspiciously like

A) She is repeating Rolling Valley family talking points from her meeting with them. What she said are exactly the arguments I eould make if I were a Rolling Valley family zoned for Lewis and was arguing the case to be kept at Rolling Valley and moved to Irving/WSHS, instead of being kept at Key and Lewis and rezoned yo Saratoga

And

B) I think she is either working behind the scenes for Rolling Valley parents and let the plans of replacing Irving/WSHS zoned Hunt Valley kids with Key/Lewis zoned Rolling Valley kids

OR

C) I seriously considering this plan to disallow WSHS/Irving Hunt Valley kids from grandfathering so she can make Key/Lewis to WSHS work for the Rolling Valley families, and accidentally let her inner debate come out of her mouth when asked about grandfathering, because she came to the meeting last night unprepared, and it is easier to spill the beans when you are not prepared.

Hunt Valley families need to get an in person meeting with Sandy Anderson to get her support for not moving anyone into WSHS, so there is space to grandfather current WSHS and Irving families.

I 100% think the no grandfathering because Rolling Valley kids will have those spots was a slip of the tongue about an in progress plan Andersin is considering pushing for WSHS.

Sorry for the typos! What a mess of phone keyboard mistakes!

[Anonymous]

Where there new maps shared?

[Anonymous]

People seem to think that these maps are the final ones. They're not. Now that Thru has held the dog-and-pony show, the staff at gatehouse is going to do what they do best - the thing they were going to do anyway, but first they had to pretend to involve the community. We'll see new and potentially radically different maps, but probably it will be right before the school board votes to approve them.