Boundary Review Meetings
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Anonymous
| For the upcoming Sizemore Heizer replacement vote, have any of the candidates articulated their stance on the perpetual five year comprehensive review note required by policy 8130? If you’re in that district you should for sure ask them for that info. |
Anonymous
I have no skin in this game, but the AAP center feeder patterns in that region do not make sense. Lorton Station is in the Hayfield pyramid, yet all its AAP feeders come from South County (and Saratoga) while Hayfield sends all of their kids to Springfield Estates. South County needs its own AAP center for elementary and Hayfield and Lewis should swap their feeders around so they all stay in pyramid. |
Anonymous
Kicking out the Saratoga AAP has nothing to do with capacity at Lorton Station. They have capacity as it is. This relates to cleaning up the feeder patterns in the area. Why is Saratoga the only Lewis feeding ES who has AAP at Lorton Station and Lake Braddock? People are rightfully pointing out that it creates a backdoor out of Lewis for people who are in an area zoned for Lewis. That shouldn’t be allowed. They should be at Springfield Estates and Twain Middle (until they start MS AAP at all MS) like the rest of their pyramid. Really Lorton Station should be the AAP center for its own pyramid - Hayfield. But that would definitely overcrowd the school at this point, Hagel Circle or no. And they should have added an AAP center to Halley when they booted out Hagel Circle, but instead it’s going to get a language immersion program no one asked for. |
Anonymous
AAP feeder patterns and many MS feeder patterns make no sense across much of the county. The reality is that when some ES groups are moved to different HS, they normally don't adjust the AAP or MS boundary to match the new HS. Fox Mill ES was moved to SLHS but kept at Carson. Carson is supposed to be the Oakton MS. Fox Mill should have been moved to Hughes when it was moved to SLHS. It probably should have had it's AAP program shifted from Oak Hill to Sunrise Valley. But that would have further angered the parents who didn't want their kids moved from Oakton to SLHS in the first place. Shifting the MS and AAP would have really angered people. The county is afraid of angering parents. The current boundary moves show that. They will listen to the loudest voices saying they don't want to move, regardless of how much sense it might make. Very few people want to move so the smaller groups that meet the base requirements that FCPS needs get moved because there are fewer lost votes. Making the move make the most sense, adjusting AAP Centers and MS at the same time only anger people more. The end product is this bizarre mish mash of schools and feeder patterns. If the county made moves that made sense, ie based on distance and not on balancing equities, then it would suck but make sense. Since FCPS seems to be determined to make things about equity, the proposed moves don't make sense and they don't make the changes make any sense. Only move the kids at over crowded schools. Move the kids to near by schools and shift as needed. It sucks to move but the move makes sense. Don't turn it into a who screams the loudest gets to stay where they want when it makes no sense. |
Anonymous
For part 1 of your response, what’s wrong with Lewis? Why would someone want to backdoor out of there? Part 2, how do you know a language immersion program wasn’t requested? Just because you don’t want Hagel Circle at Gunston, you are calling moves done by a school stupid. |
Anonymous
Well if you have no skin in the game, leave the Lorton parents affected by the change speak |
Anonymous
What’s wrong with Lewis??? Are you dense? Read the hundreds of pages in this thread and other threads. Look at the history over the past 20+ years of neighborhoods being rezoned out of Lewis. It’s one of the primary reasons for this whole boundary review. |
Anonymous
It may have been one of the primary reasons for the boundary review but they aren’t doing anything about it. Michele Reid is incompetent and Sandy Anderson is a hypocrite. |
Anonymous
You can at least summarize what is wrong with Lewis high school. I had friends that went there many years ago and they are successful. What are the staff their incompetent? Are they not able to teach the subject? Is Fairfax County under resourcing them? |
Anonymous
The problem is that they originally stated that they wanted to rebalance based on equities and not just starting with the overcrowded schools. Had they started with "we are reviewing the boundaries of all schools that are over capacity" and then laid out plans to move kids to schools that had space then there would have been push back but less outrage. This started as an opportunity to try and decrease FARMs rates at schools, which make sense except that no one wants to the group sent to shore up tests scores and decrease the FARMs rate. That is doubly so when you are being moved to an IB program. |
Anonymous
I have my disagreements with Dr. Reid, but I do believe that there is nothing sinister going on here. What the community needs to do is get their voice out there with legitimate complaints and requests. The problem is that you have parents pushing the school board and committee members in a way with requests which may be inappropriate. For example, the whole Hagle circle issue. We all know the real reason why Gunston parents are trying to push hagel Circle out of “they’re” school. Then you have parents who have requests to have boundaries corrected because of changes to the community. Some schools in the county are operating over 130% and Modular’s are required. Best to have students in a building, vs trailers. But because of those parents with inappropriate complaints, the legitimate complaints are not heard. It’s not right to call Dr. Reid and committee members names. They look at different factors and if you study it a little more, you’ll understand why. |
Anonymous
You’re putting your own spin on equities. That is not right, here is what FCPS posted on their website: “Equity in the boundary review process is focused on ensuring that all students have fair and inclusive access to quality educational opportunities, specialized programs, well-maintained facilities, and resources that support their academic success and well-being regardless of their background or where they live. This includes addressing disparities in enrollment, resources, and program availability across schools to create a more balanced and equitable system.” It continues on and explains what is meant by each point. Please don’t spin it that way to demonize FCPS. |
Anonymous
Under-enrollment is an issue just like overcrowding. The South Lakes boundary review in 2007-08 was conducted because of the under-enrollment there, not overcrowding. Current FCPS leadership under Reid is completely incompetent, and the School Board is mostly a collection of cowards and liars. |
Anonymous
Blah blah blah. They don’t abide by their own policies and principles. They play favorites at every single juncture. |
Anonymous
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No, Reid and comp are incompetent and it clearly shows.
Case in point, Western Fairfax needed a new HS to deal with overcrowding at 2 schools and 3 schools that were at capacity. The County did the right thing buying KAA. Cool. After that, they have completely mishandled the purchase and changes. They had two options. 1) Wait a year to open the school while dealing with construction to modify the school and give them time to establish clear boundaries. 2) Open the school with construction but set clear boundaries. They went with option 3: Open the school with 2 classes of kids and no clear boundaries. Instead, tell kids that they can opt in to the school without knowing if there was going to be any transportation and wait until the summer to find out what the final boundaries look like. That is plain and simple incompetence. Now the boundaries for the new school are falling into the same chaos as the rest of the redistricting with some parents screaming that they don't want to go to the new school, for example RIO. Others want to move but their school board member doesn't want them to go, Fox Mill. Meren has sent out false information in 2 different emails that she has had to retract and still refused to meet with the Fox Mill PTA. Others don't want to move b ut know it is a losing battle, Oak Hill. The County should have identified all the schools that are overcrowded and completed boundary shifts to deal with those schools. Instead, the board and Reid wanted a "comprehensive redistricting" so they could move kids from schools that were not overcrowded but have low FARMs rates into schools that were not overcrowded but have high FARMs rates. Shockingly enough, this was seen as a bad idea. Moving kids for no reason other than balancing FARMs rate was met with resistance. Which then flowed over to shifting the boundaries at schools that were overcrowded because now the moves were not seen as dealing with overcrowding but part of the county wide FARMs rebalancing. The language shifted after the outcome of the Presidential election and now we have a county wide shouting match to avoid moving with the communities having the smallest voices, due to money and population size, losing. |