FCPS High School Poverty and Enrollment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe electing more men to the School Board this fall will make a difference. The last time the School Board had any guts was when Stuart Gibson pushed through the boundary change in 2008 that moved kids to South Lakes.

Stu Gibson has so much guts he let the SL PTSA run the show and make the decisions. And, it was composed of IB moms.

They didn’t take the heat from the people insisting they had a God-given right to stay at their then-current schools. He did.

In comparison, current SB members are spineless ninnies.

They did not say that. If you had watched the public hearings and citizen participation--as I did--you would have seen the majority of parents begging for South Lakes to switch to AP. Many of those parents still feel that way.

Other parents were upset that this was their third switch in a very short period of time. Some parents ended up with kids who went to three different high schools--without moving.

And, if you really followed it, you would have seen the SLPTA postings on their website that outlined their plans. They took it down when the link was posted on FairfaxUnderground. But, they spelled out exactly what they wanted and did not want. They wanted NO poor neighborhoods. They made that perfectly clear. This was not about numbers, it was all about demographics. The SL PTA was a perfect example of "limousine liberals." They wanted to be at South Lakes so they could claim they were tolerant. They wanted to keep IB so they could be progressive and they wanted wealthier kids so their kids could remain isolated from the poor kids.

Of course it was also about numbers. South Lakes was at about 1400 kids at the time. Westfield had about 2900 back then.

So maybe Lewis has to lose a couple more hundred before some of these lazy SB members do something (though most of the schools had lower enrollments in 2008 so 1400 them is about like 1600-1700 now).

SL was saved from a potential "death spiral" where it would have lost its middle and upper middle class support in the surrounding neighborhoods. It is a robust and popular school today thanks to the parents who pushed for the boundary change to bring in more wealthy residential areas. However, the promised AP courses were never adopted, and that's on the school board. Regarding Lewis, I don't think the school board will do anything unless the Lewis PTA or parent groups make it an issue.

Saving one school from a death spiral doesn't make the kids you don't want at the school disappear. They end up concentrated and no schools want them and no parents want their neighborhoods zoned for those schools. But hooray for keeping poors out of South Lakes and allowing it to thrive.

What is stopping Lewis from thriving.

Look at the assessments

https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/lewis-high#fndtn-desktopTabs-assessments

50% of the school is farms, and fcps's own study has 40% as a tipping point past which a school can't really succeed.

But why is this? Why does FARMs mean no success?

It does not mean that. But, when you have hundreds of new students in a year who do not speak English and, perhaps, have not been in school at all, there is a problem. This problem will not be solved by adding more affluent neighborhoods to the boundary.

High-ESOL schools are not all-ESOL schools, and ESOL students can also progress to a level where they can benefit from additional challenges. Balancing enrollments so that schools can support both their ESOL and non-ESOL populations does not mean covering up the issues that the ESOL kids face.

How can you possibly 'balance" when there are schools with 100 new ESOL students in a year.

Go through the profiles and add up the numbers. I cannot find it for the whole division--perhaps someone else can.

However, in high schools alone, there are more 1000 new ESOL students this year. You will never be able to "balance" this. Are you going to take these kids and parcel them out school by school?

Lewis could be turned into an ESOL magnet school with language immersion classes, a civic class focused on the citizenship test, practical classes like personal finance and classes on geography, cultural competency (major US holidays, different regions of the US, driving safety such as using crosswalks and proper direction for biking, etc)

Have the usual arts, music programs. Give math classes in the native language, with bilingual or multi lingual teachers and aides.

Include a vibrant trades program along eith business classes and basic employment law classes (OSHA, work permits for younger kids/age limits for teen employment, etc) so these immigrants are not taken advantage of in the work force.

Provide county wide transportation.

Provide evening language, cultural and citizenship classes for the parents, perhaps with math and language enrichment for younger siblings and academic tutoring/clubs for high school students at the same time.

Offer sports and activities that the kids are interested in.

Rezone non ESOL Lewis kids to neighboring schools with space (Hayfield, LB, Edison and South County) with transportation, but allow them to place into farther out schools with space if they provide their own transportation.

This would be far better use of resources than a social justice politics magnet.

This suggestion might not be legal. Don't know for sure. You can't segregate by race. Can you segregate because of language differences? Maybe as long as the students eventually had an option to go to a regular school once their English has improved.

it isn't remotely legal

"School districts generally may not segregate students on the basis of national origin or EL status. Although certain EL programs may be designed to require that EL students receive separate instruction for a limited portion of the day or period of time, school districts and states are expected to carry out their chosen program in the least segregative manner consistent with achieving the program’s stated educational goals."

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/dcl-factsheet-el-students-201501.pdf

Thanks for pointing that out. But I think PP's goal was never to propose a viable option, but only to suggest that ESOL kids should be housed in the educational equivalent of a concentration camp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe electing more men to the School Board this fall will make a difference. The last time the School Board had any guts was when Stuart Gibson pushed through the boundary change in 2008 that moved kids to South Lakes.

Stu Gibson has so much guts he let the SL PTSA run the show and make the decisions. And, it was composed of IB moms.

They didn’t take the heat from the people insisting they had a God-given right to stay at their then-current schools. He did.

In comparison, current SB members are spineless ninnies.

They did not say that. If you had watched the public hearings and citizen participation--as I did--you would have seen the majority of parents begging for South Lakes to switch to AP. Many of those parents still feel that way.

Other parents were upset that this was their third switch in a very short period of time. Some parents ended up with kids who went to three different high schools--without moving.

And, if you really followed it, you would have seen the SLPTA postings on their website that outlined their plans. They took it down when the link was posted on FairfaxUnderground. But, they spelled out exactly what they wanted and did not want. They wanted NO poor neighborhoods. They made that perfectly clear. This was not about numbers, it was all about demographics. The SL PTA was a perfect example of "limousine liberals." They wanted to be at South Lakes so they could claim they were tolerant. They wanted to keep IB so they could be progressive and they wanted wealthier kids so their kids could remain isolated from the poor kids.

Of course it was also about numbers. South Lakes was at about 1400 kids at the time. Westfield had about 2900 back then.

So maybe Lewis has to lose a couple more hundred before some of these lazy SB members do something (though most of the schools had lower enrollments in 2008 so 1400 them is about like 1600-1700 now).

SL was saved from a potential "death spiral" where it would have lost its middle and upper middle class support in the surrounding neighborhoods. It is a robust and popular school today thanks to the parents who pushed for the boundary change to bring in more wealthy residential areas. However, the promised AP courses were never adopted, and that's on the school board. Regarding Lewis, I don't think the school board will do anything unless the Lewis PTA or parent groups make it an issue.

Saving one school from a death spiral doesn't make the kids you don't want at the school disappear. They end up concentrated and no schools want them and no parents want their neighborhoods zoned for those schools. But hooray for keeping poors out of South Lakes and allowing it to thrive.

What is stopping Lewis from thriving.

Look at the assessments

https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/lewis-high#fndtn-desktopTabs-assessments

50% of the school is farms, and fcps's own study has 40% as a tipping point past which a school can't really succeed.

But why is this? Why does FARMs mean no success?

It does not mean that. But, when you have hundreds of new students in a year who do not speak English and, perhaps, have not been in school at all, there is a problem. This problem will not be solved by adding more affluent neighborhoods to the boundary.

High-ESOL schools are not all-ESOL schools, and ESOL students can also progress to a level where they can benefit from additional challenges. Balancing enrollments so that schools can support both their ESOL and non-ESOL populations does not mean covering up the issues that the ESOL kids face.

How can you possibly 'balance" when there are schools with 100 new ESOL students in a year.

Go through the profiles and add up the numbers. I cannot find it for the whole division--perhaps someone else can.

However, in high schools alone, there are more 1000 new ESOL students this year. You will never be able to "balance" this. Are you going to take these kids and parcel them out school by school?

Lewis could be turned into an ESOL magnet school with language immersion classes, a civic class focused on the citizenship test, practical classes like personal finance and classes on geography, cultural competency (major US holidays, different regions of the US, driving safety such as using crosswalks and proper direction for biking, etc)

Have the usual arts, music programs. Give math classes in the native language, with bilingual or multi lingual teachers and aides.

Include a vibrant trades program along eith business classes and basic employment law classes (OSHA, work permits for younger kids/age limits for teen employment, etc) so these immigrants are not taken advantage of in the work force.

Provide county wide transportation.

Provide evening language, cultural and citizenship classes for the parents, perhaps with math and language enrichment for younger siblings and academic tutoring/clubs for high school students at the same time.

Offer sports and activities that the kids are interested in.

Rezone non ESOL Lewis kids to neighboring schools with space (Hayfield, LB, Edison and South County) with transportation, but allow them to place into farther out schools with space if they provide their own transportation.

This would be far better use of resources than a social justice politics magnet.

This suggestion might not be legal. Don't know for sure. You can't segregate by race. Can you segregate because of language differences? Maybe as long as the students eventually had an option to go to a regular school once their English has improved.

it isn't remotely legal

"School districts generally may not segregate students on the basis of national origin or EL status. Although certain EL programs may be designed to require that EL students receive separate instruction for a limited portion of the day or period of time, school districts and states are expected to carry out their chosen program in the least segregative manner consistent with achieving the program’s stated educational goals."

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/dcl-factsheet-el-students-201501.pdf

Thanks for pointing that out. But I think PP's goal was never to propose a viable option, but only to suggest that ESOL kids should be housed in the educational equivalent of a concentration camp.

Not PP, but I think she/he was just trying to come up with a solution and an alternative for a situation that has been presented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe electing more men to the School Board this fall will make a difference. The last time the School Board had any guts was when Stuart Gibson pushed through the boundary change in 2008 that moved kids to South Lakes.

Stu Gibson has so much guts he let the SL PTSA run the show and make the decisions. And, it was composed of IB moms.

They didn’t take the heat from the people insisting they had a God-given right to stay at their then-current schools. He did.

In comparison, current SB members are spineless ninnies.

They did not say that. If you had watched the public hearings and citizen participation--as I did--you would have seen the majority of parents begging for South Lakes to switch to AP. Many of those parents still feel that way.

Other parents were upset that this was their third switch in a very short period of time. Some parents ended up with kids who went to three different high schools--without moving.

And, if you really followed it, you would have seen the SLPTA postings on their website that outlined their plans. They took it down when the link was posted on FairfaxUnderground. But, they spelled out exactly what they wanted and did not want. They wanted NO poor neighborhoods. They made that perfectly clear. This was not about numbers, it was all about demographics. The SL PTA was a perfect example of "limousine liberals." They wanted to be at South Lakes so they could claim they were tolerant. They wanted to keep IB so they could be progressive and they wanted wealthier kids so their kids could remain isolated from the poor kids.

Of course it was also about numbers. South Lakes was at about 1400 kids at the time. Westfield had about 2900 back then.

So maybe Lewis has to lose a couple more hundred before some of these lazy SB members do something (though most of the schools had lower enrollments in 2008 so 1400 them is about like 1600-1700 now).

SL was saved from a potential "death spiral" where it would have lost its middle and upper middle class support in the surrounding neighborhoods. It is a robust and popular school today thanks to the parents who pushed for the boundary change to bring in more wealthy residential areas. However, the promised AP courses were never adopted, and that's on the school board. Regarding Lewis, I don't think the school board will do anything unless the Lewis PTA or parent groups make it an issue.

Saving one school from a death spiral doesn't make the kids you don't want at the school disappear. They end up concentrated and no schools want them and no parents want their neighborhoods zoned for those schools. But hooray for keeping poors out of South Lakes and allowing it to thrive.

What is stopping Lewis from thriving.

Look at the assessments

https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/lewis-high#fndtn-desktopTabs-assessments

50% of the school is farms, and fcps's own study has 40% as a tipping point past which a school can't really succeed.

But why is this? Why does FARMs mean no success?

It does not mean that. But, when you have hundreds of new students in a year who do not speak English and, perhaps, have not been in school at all, there is a problem. This problem will not be solved by adding more affluent neighborhoods to the boundary.

High-ESOL schools are not all-ESOL schools, and ESOL students can also progress to a level where they can benefit from additional challenges. Balancing enrollments so that schools can support both their ESOL and non-ESOL populations does not mean covering up the issues that the ESOL kids face.

How can you possibly 'balance" when there are schools with 100 new ESOL students in a year.

Go through the profiles and add up the numbers. I cannot find it for the whole division--perhaps someone else can.

However, in high schools alone, there are more 1000 new ESOL students this year. You will never be able to "balance" this. Are you going to take these kids and parcel them out school by school?

Lewis could be turned into an ESOL magnet school with language immersion classes, a civic class focused on the citizenship test, practical classes like personal finance and classes on geography, cultural competency (major US holidays, different regions of the US, driving safety such as using crosswalks and proper direction for biking, etc)

Have the usual arts, music programs. Give math classes in the native language, with bilingual or multi lingual teachers and aides.

Include a vibrant trades program along eith business classes and basic employment law classes (OSHA, work permits for younger kids/age limits for teen employment, etc) so these immigrants are not taken advantage of in the work force.

Provide county wide transportation.

Provide evening language, cultural and citizenship classes for the parents, perhaps with math and language enrichment for younger siblings and academic tutoring/clubs for high school students at the same time.

Offer sports and activities that the kids are interested in.

Rezone non ESOL Lewis kids to neighboring schools with space (Hayfield, LB, Edison and South County) with transportation, but allow them to place into farther out schools with space if they provide their own transportation.

This would be far better use of resources than a social justice politics magnet.

This suggestion might not be legal. Don't know for sure. You can't segregate by race. Can you segregate because of language differences? Maybe as long as the students eventually had an option to go to a regular school once their English has improved.

it isn't remotely legal

"School districts generally may not segregate students on the basis of national origin or EL status. Although certain EL programs may be designed to require that EL students receive separate instruction for a limited portion of the day or period of time, school districts and states are expected to carry out their chosen program in the least segregative manner consistent with achieving the program’s stated educational goals."

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/dcl-factsheet-el-students-201501.pdf

Thanks for pointing that out. But I think PP's goal was never to propose a viable option, but only to suggest that ESOL kids should be housed in the educational equivalent of a concentration camp.

Not PP, but I think she/he was just trying to come up with a solution and an alternative for a situation that has been presented.

+1

DP. Thinking of possible solutions is constructive discussion - accusing posters of desiring concentration camps is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe electing more men to the School Board this fall will make a difference. The last time the School Board had any guts was when Stuart Gibson pushed through the boundary change in 2008 that moved kids to South Lakes.

Stu Gibson has so much guts he let the SL PTSA run the show and make the decisions. And, it was composed of IB moms.

They didn’t take the heat from the people insisting they had a God-given right to stay at their then-current schools. He did.

In comparison, current SB members are spineless ninnies.

They did not say that. If you had watched the public hearings and citizen participation--as I did--you would have seen the majority of parents begging for South Lakes to switch to AP. Many of those parents still feel that way.

Other parents were upset that this was their third switch in a very short period of time. Some parents ended up with kids who went to three different high schools--without moving.

And, if you really followed it, you would have seen the SLPTA postings on their website that outlined their plans. They took it down when the link was posted on FairfaxUnderground. But, they spelled out exactly what they wanted and did not want. They wanted NO poor neighborhoods. They made that perfectly clear. This was not about numbers, it was all about demographics. The SL PTA was a perfect example of "limousine liberals." They wanted to be at South Lakes so they could claim they were tolerant. They wanted to keep IB so they could be progressive and they wanted wealthier kids so their kids could remain isolated from the poor kids.

Of course it was also about numbers. South Lakes was at about 1400 kids at the time. Westfield had about 2900 back then.

So maybe Lewis has to lose a couple more hundred before some of these lazy SB members do something (though most of the schools had lower enrollments in 2008 so 1400 them is about like 1600-1700 now).

SL was saved from a potential "death spiral" where it would have lost its middle and upper middle class support in the surrounding neighborhoods. It is a robust and popular school today thanks to the parents who pushed for the boundary change to bring in more wealthy residential areas. However, the promised AP courses were never adopted, and that's on the school board. Regarding Lewis, I don't think the school board will do anything unless the Lewis PTA or parent groups make it an issue.

Saving one school from a death spiral doesn't make the kids you don't want at the school disappear. They end up concentrated and no schools want them and no parents want their neighborhoods zoned for those schools. But hooray for keeping poors out of South Lakes and allowing it to thrive.

What is stopping Lewis from thriving.

Look at the assessments

https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/lewis-high#fndtn-desktopTabs-assessments

50% of the school is farms, and fcps's own study has 40% as a tipping point past which a school can't really succeed.

But why is this? Why does FARMs mean no success?

It does not mean that. But, when you have hundreds of new students in a year who do not speak English and, perhaps, have not been in school at all, there is a problem. This problem will not be solved by adding more affluent neighborhoods to the boundary.

High-ESOL schools are not all-ESOL schools, and ESOL students can also progress to a level where they can benefit from additional challenges. Balancing enrollments so that schools can support both their ESOL and non-ESOL populations does not mean covering up the issues that the ESOL kids face.

How can you possibly 'balance" when there are schools with 100 new ESOL students in a year.

Go through the profiles and add up the numbers. I cannot find it for the whole division--perhaps someone else can.

However, in high schools alone, there are more 1000 new ESOL students this year. You will never be able to "balance" this. Are you going to take these kids and parcel them out school by school?

Lewis could be turned into an ESOL magnet school with language immersion classes, a civic class focused on the citizenship test, practical classes like personal finance and classes on geography, cultural competency (major US holidays, different regions of the US, driving safety such as using crosswalks and proper direction for biking, etc)

Have the usual arts, music programs. Give math classes in the native language, with bilingual or multi lingual teachers and aides.

Include a vibrant trades program along eith business classes and basic employment law classes (OSHA, work permits for younger kids/age limits for teen employment, etc) so these immigrants are not taken advantage of in the work force.

Provide county wide transportation.

Provide evening language, cultural and citizenship classes for the parents, perhaps with math and language enrichment for younger siblings and academic tutoring/clubs for high school students at the same time.

Offer sports and activities that the kids are interested in.

Rezone non ESOL Lewis kids to neighboring schools with space (Hayfield, LB, Edison and South County) with transportation, but allow them to place into farther out schools with space if they provide their own transportation.

This would be far better use of resources than a social justice politics magnet.

This suggestion might not be legal. Don't know for sure. You can't segregate by race. Can you segregate because of language differences? Maybe as long as the students eventually had an option to go to a regular school once their English has improved.

it isn't remotely legal

"School districts generally may not segregate students on the basis of national origin or EL status. Although certain EL programs may be designed to require that EL students receive separate instruction for a limited portion of the day or period of time, school districts and states are expected to carry out their chosen program in the least segregative manner consistent with achieving the program’s stated educational goals."

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/dcl-factsheet-el-students-201501.pdf

Thanks for pointing that out. But I think PP's goal was never to propose a viable option, but only to suggest that ESOL kids should be housed in the educational equivalent of a concentration camp.

What an asinine, racist statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're also assuming all of our ESOL kids speak Spanish - there are 37 different languages spoken at the West Springfield elementary school that my kids attend.

I never said Spanish.

I said an application magnet immersion program for ESOL recent immigrants who do not speak English.

Unsuprisingly, those of us from immigrant backgrounds see the value in something like this, while upper middle class non immigrants are using concentration camp slurs.

[Anonymous]

Bryant, Mountain View, and a few other non-traditional HS alternative programs already exist in FCPS that would be well-suited for many older ESOL kids. Contrary to popular belief, they are not solely for kids who were expelled from their HS. I have worked in the alternative schools and saw there are politics at play. Base schools are reluctant to refer their kids out to alternative programs - I assume because they want kids to be enrolled and graduate at their base school since that props up the numbers for the principal and increases funding for teacher jobs.

So, it's quite unfortunate that these kids are used as pawns for more money and accolades for school leadership when they might be better served at alternative programming. However it falls upon the student to find out these exist and to seek out the paperwork themselves because counselors are told not to bring it up.

[Anonymous]

Five-year demographic trends (2022-23 vs. 2018-19):

Schools with more Asian kids: Chantilly, Fairfax, TJ, Langley, Madison, McLean, Robinson, South County, West Springfield, Westfield, Woodson

Schools with more Black kids: Centreville, Fairfax, Hayfield, TJ, Justice, Lake Braddock, Langley, Marshall, McLean, Oakton, Robinson, South County, West Potomac, West Springfield, Westfield, Woodson

Schools with more White kids: Edison, Hayfield, TJ, West Springfield

Schools with more Hispanic kids: Annandale, Centreville, Chantilly, Edison, Fairfax, Falls Church, Hayfield, Herndon, TJ, Justice, Lake Braddock, Langley, Lewis, Madison, Marshall, McLean, Mount Vernon, Oakton, Robinson, South Lakes, West Potomac, West Springfield, Westfield, Woodson (in other words, every HS besides South County).

Schools with more Multi-Racial kids: Annandale, Centreville, Chantilly, Edison, Fairfax, Herndon, Lake Braddock, Langley, Madison, McLean, Mount Vernon, Oakton, Robinson, South County, South Lakes, West Potomac, West Springfield, Woodson

Schools where the biggest growth was Asian: Chantilly, Langley

Schools where the biggest growth was Black: Oakton, South County

Schools where the biggest growth was White: Hayfield, West Springfield

Schools where the biggest growth was Hispanic: Annandale, Centreville, Edison, Fairfax, Falls Church, Herndon, TJ, Justice, Lake Braddock, Lewis, Madison, Marshall, McLean, Mount Vernon, Robinson, South Lakes, West Potomac, Westfield

Schools where the biggest growth was Multi-Racial: Woodson

Increases in FARMS Rates Percentages Since 2011:

Herndon 20.9%
Lewis 20.9%
Mount Vernon 15.1%
Westfield 13.7%
Centreville 13.4%
West Potomac 11.6%
Fairfax 10.7%
Falls Church 10.2%
Annandale 9.5%
South County 8.9%
TJHSST 7.6%
Marshall 7.3%
Madison 6.0%
Oakton 5.6%
South Lakes 5.5%
Edison 5.2%
Hayfield 5.2%
West Springfield 4.6%
Chantilly 4.5%
Woodson 4.2%
McLean 3.1%
Lake Braddock 2.8%
Langley 2.6%
Robinson 1.7%
Justice -0.6% [only HS in FCPS with lower FARMS percentage in 2022-23 than 2011-12]

[Anonymous]

I think much of this has been a long troll.

Looking at Lewis numbers. The school is doing well. yes, it has high FARMs rates, but poverty is a reality and not an identity.

Graduation rate is relatively high. Scores are reasonable and IB participation seems fine. Id be OK with it going to AP, sure. But the 'oh poor lewis' tone in this thread is ridiculous.

Looks like a small portion of the hispanic pop needs some extra support but otherwise, the school is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe electing more men to the School Board this fall will make a difference. The last time the School Board had any guts was when Stuart Gibson pushed through the boundary change in 2008 that moved kids to South Lakes.

Stu Gibson has so much guts he let the SL PTSA run the show and make the decisions. And, it was composed of IB moms.

They didn’t take the heat from the people insisting they had a God-given right to stay at their then-current schools. He did.

In comparison, current SB members are spineless ninnies.

They did not say that. If you had watched the public hearings and citizen participation--as I did--you would have seen the majority of parents begging for South Lakes to switch to AP. Many of those parents still feel that way.

Other parents were upset that this was their third switch in a very short period of time. Some parents ended up with kids who went to three different high schools--without moving.

And, if you really followed it, you would have seen the SLPTA postings on their website that outlined their plans. They took it down when the link was posted on FairfaxUnderground. But, they spelled out exactly what they wanted and did not want. They wanted NO poor neighborhoods. They made that perfectly clear. This was not about numbers, it was all about demographics. The SL PTA was a perfect example of "limousine liberals." They wanted to be at South Lakes so they could claim they were tolerant. They wanted to keep IB so they could be progressive and they wanted wealthier kids so their kids could remain isolated from the poor kids.

Of course it was also about numbers. South Lakes was at about 1400 kids at the time. Westfield had about 2900 back then.

So maybe Lewis has to lose a couple more hundred before some of these lazy SB members do something (though most of the schools had lower enrollments in 2008 so 1400 them is about like 1600-1700 now).

SL was saved from a potential "death spiral" where it would have lost its middle and upper middle class support in the surrounding neighborhoods. It is a robust and popular school today thanks to the parents who pushed for the boundary change to bring in more wealthy residential areas. However, the promised AP courses were never adopted, and that's on the school board. Regarding Lewis, I don't think the school board will do anything unless the Lewis PTA or parent groups make it an issue.

Saving one school from a death spiral doesn't make the kids you don't want at the school disappear. They end up concentrated and no schools want them and no parents want their neighborhoods zoned for those schools. But hooray for keeping poors out of South Lakes and allowing it to thrive.

What is stopping Lewis from thriving.

Look at the assessments

https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/lewis-high#fndtn-desktopTabs-assessments

50% of the school is farms, and fcps's own study has 40% as a tipping point past which a school can't really succeed.

But why is this? Why does FARMs mean no success?

It does not mean that. But, when you have hundreds of new students in a year who do not speak English and, perhaps, have not been in school at all, there is a problem. This problem will not be solved by adding more affluent neighborhoods to the boundary.

High-ESOL schools are not all-ESOL schools, and ESOL students can also progress to a level where they can benefit from additional challenges. Balancing enrollments so that schools can support both their ESOL and non-ESOL populations does not mean covering up the issues that the ESOL kids face.

How can you possibly 'balance" when there are schools with 100 new ESOL students in a year.

Go through the profiles and add up the numbers. I cannot find it for the whole division--perhaps someone else can.

However, in high schools alone, there are more 1000 new ESOL students this year. You will never be able to "balance" this. Are you going to take these kids and parcel them out school by school?

Lewis could be turned into an ESOL magnet school with language immersion classes, a civic class focused on the citizenship test, practical classes like personal finance and classes on geography, cultural competency (major US holidays, different regions of the US, driving safety such as using crosswalks and proper direction for biking, etc)

Have the usual arts, music programs. Give math classes in the native language, with bilingual or multi lingual teachers and aides.

Include a vibrant trades program along eith business classes and basic employment law classes (OSHA, work permits for younger kids/age limits for teen employment, etc) so these immigrants are not taken advantage of in the work force.

Provide county wide transportation.

Provide evening language, cultural and citizenship classes for the parents, perhaps with math and language enrichment for younger siblings and academic tutoring/clubs for high school students at the same time.

Offer sports and activities that the kids are interested in.

Rezone non ESOL Lewis kids to neighboring schools with space (Hayfield, LB, Edison and South County) with transportation, but allow them to place into farther out schools with space if they provide their own transportation.

This would be far better use of resources than a social justice politics magnet.

This suggestion might not be legal. Don't know for sure. You can't segregate by race. Can you segregate because of language differences? Maybe as long as the students eventually had an option to go to a regular school once their English has improved.

it isn't remotely legal

"School districts generally may not segregate students on the basis of national origin or EL status. Although certain EL programs may be designed to require that EL students receive separate instruction for a limited portion of the day or period of time, school districts and states are expected to carry out their chosen program in the least segregative manner consistent with achieving the program’s stated educational goals."

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/dcl-factsheet-el-students-201501.pdf

Thanks for pointing that out. But I think PP's goal was never to propose a viable option, but only to suggest that ESOL kids should be housed in the educational equivalent of a concentration camp.

Not PP, but I think she/he was just trying to come up with a solution and an alternative for a situation that has been presented.

If so, better to check the legality (or in this case illegality) of a proposal before suggesting it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think much of this has been a long troll.

Looking at Lewis numbers. The school is doing well. yes, it has high FARMs rates, but poverty is a reality and not an identity.

Graduation rate is relatively high. Scores are reasonable and IB participation seems fine. Id be OK with it going to AP, sure. But the 'oh poor lewis' tone in this thread is ridiculous.

Looks like a small portion of the hispanic pop needs some extra support but otherwise, the school is fine.

Not OP, but disagree (and without calling them "trolls" it's just as possible those claiming the school is "fine" are deflecting). The trends aren't great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think much of this has been a long troll.

Looking at Lewis numbers. The school is doing well. yes, it has high FARMs rates, but poverty is a reality and not an identity.

Graduation rate is relatively high. Scores are reasonable and IB participation seems fine. Id be OK with it going to AP, sure. But the 'oh poor lewis' tone in this thread is ridiculous.

Looks like a small portion of the hispanic pop needs some extra support but otherwise, the school is fine.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Edison HS, their larger and wealthier IB neighbor, has only 15% ELL versus 30% at Lewis and only 37% FARMs instead of 60% FARMs. Yet Lewis's IB pass rates are practically the same if not better considering the circumstances. Give or take, Lewis's college-bound kids do quite well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think much of this has been a long troll.

Looking at Lewis numbers. The school is doing well. yes, it has high FARMs rates, but poverty is a reality and not an identity.

Graduation rate is relatively high. Scores are reasonable and IB participation seems fine. Id be OK with it going to AP, sure. But the 'oh poor lewis' tone in this thread is ridiculous.

Looks like a small portion of the hispanic pop needs some extra support but otherwise, the school is fine.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Edison HS, their larger and wealthier IB neighbor, has only 15% ELL versus 30% at Lewis and only 37% FARMs instead of 60% FARMs. Yet Lewis's IB pass rates are practically the same if not better considering the circumstances. Give or take, Lewis's college-bound kids do quite well.

I think PP hit the nail on the head that these kids are receiving a much better education than their parents that this school is not some gangland HS out of a movie.

The results take time, as in generations, but all in all, Lewis is doing exactly what it should be. Its actually somewhat of a success story IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think much of this has been a long troll.

Looking at Lewis numbers. The school is doing well. yes, it has high FARMs rates, but poverty is a reality and not an identity.

Graduation rate is relatively high. Scores are reasonable and IB participation seems fine. Id be OK with it going to AP, sure. But the 'oh poor lewis' tone in this thread is ridiculous.

Looks like a small portion of the hispanic pop needs some extra support but otherwise, the school is fine.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Edison HS, their larger and wealthier IB neighbor, has only 15% ELL versus 30% at Lewis and only 37% FARMs instead of 60% FARMs. Yet Lewis's IB pass rates are practically the same if not better considering the circumstances. Give or take, Lewis's college-bound kids do quite well.

I think PP hit the nail on the head that these kids are receiving a much better education than their parents that this school is not some gangland HS out of a movie.

The results take time, as in generations, but all in all, Lewis is doing exactly what it should be. Its actually somewhat of a success story IMO.

It's not really a success story as a whole when a school has a declining enrollment and a big spike in the concentration of poverty. That doesn't mean there aren't individual success stories, as there clearly are, but FCPS can and should do better. The opportunities there simply aren't comparable to what they are at other high schools in the county and there's no point pretending otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think much of this has been a long troll.

Looking at Lewis numbers. The school is doing well. yes, it has high FARMs rates, but poverty is a reality and not an identity.

Graduation rate is relatively high. Scores are reasonable and IB participation seems fine. Id be OK with it going to AP, sure. But the 'oh poor lewis' tone in this thread is ridiculous.

Looks like a small portion of the hispanic pop needs some extra support but otherwise, the school is fine.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Edison HS, their larger and wealthier IB neighbor, has only 15% ELL versus 30% at Lewis and only 37% FARMs instead of 60% FARMs. Yet Lewis's IB pass rates are practically the same if not better considering the circumstances. Give or take, Lewis's college-bound kids do quite well.

I think PP hit the nail on the head that these kids are receiving a much better education than their parents that this school is not some gangland HS out of a movie.

The results take time, as in generations, but all in all, Lewis is doing exactly what it should be. Its actually somewhat of a success story IMO.

But isn't this essentially saying - hey, this school is primarily for non-English speakers who need just the basics; if you are an English speaker, you should seek out opportunities for advanced courses at other high schools. That certainly seems to be happening now as Black, Asian, and White numbers drop. I imagine the Department of Education could eventually find this defacto segregation as a problem if it was brought to their attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think much of this has been a long troll.

Looking at Lewis numbers. The school is doing well. yes, it has high FARMs rates, but poverty is a reality and not an identity.

Graduation rate is relatively high. Scores are reasonable and IB participation seems fine. Id be OK with it going to AP, sure. But the 'oh poor lewis' tone in this thread is ridiculous.

Looks like a small portion of the hispanic pop needs some extra support but otherwise, the school is fine.

I'm inclined to agree with you. Edison HS, their larger and wealthier IB neighbor, has only 15% ELL versus 30% at Lewis and only 37% FARMs instead of 60% FARMs. Yet Lewis's IB pass rates are practically the same if not better considering the circumstances. Give or take, Lewis's college-bound kids do quite well.

I think PP hit the nail on the head that these kids are receiving a much better education than their parents that this school is not some gangland HS out of a movie.

The results take time, as in generations, but all in all, Lewis is doing exactly what it should be. Its actually somewhat of a success story IMO.

But isn't this essentially saying - hey, this school is primarily for non-English speakers who need just the basics; if you are an English speaker, you should seek out opportunities for advanced courses at other high schools. That certainly seems to be happening now as Black, Asian, and White numbers drop. I imagine the Department of Education could eventually find this defacto segregation as a problem if it was brought to their attention.

These boundaries were set long ago. The Dept of Education should realize what this administration has done to make the situation what it is.