FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They could have avoided all this controversy if they revised 8130 to say:

A) A review will occur when a school building grows beyond 110% capacity.

B) The first step of the review process requires a full residency check of all students attending this school. Students shown to reside out of the school zone will be returned to their home school the following school year and the school population will be recounted with the accurate student enrollment.

C) All schools slated for rezoning must return student transfers to their base school before starting the rezoning process, so that the incoming transfer number is zero students. No incoming transfer students may be counted in the numbers used for rezoning. Only students residing in the base school zone may be counted for rezoning purposes.

D) All students enrolling in the transition years of kindergarten, 7th grade and 9th grade will be required to submit proof of residency to enroll in school.

E) All rezoning will allow grandfathering for any residency confirmed students currently enrolled at the school, with rezoning occuring when the student transitions to a new MS (7th) or HS (9th) school level.

F) FCPS is required to hold the rezoning information meetings at the schools directly impacted by rezoning.

Everyone wants to reverse engineer the policy to minimize their own chances of being redistricted.

They currently have, and should continue to have, the ability to consider boundary changes when schools are under-enrolled as well as over capacity.

I do agree they should hold information meetings at the schools potentially directly impacted by rezoning. They seem to be going out of their way to hold them at schools not impacted in order to make it as difficult as possible for some to comment in person. It's all of a piece with their limiting speaker time during SB meetings to two minutes (down from three) and not showing the faces of those who are speaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They could have avoided all this controversy if they revised 8130 to say:

A) A review will occur when a school building grows beyond 110% capacity.

B) The first step of the review process requires a full residency check of all students attending this school. Students shown to reside out of the school zone will be returned to their home school the following school year and the school population will be recounted with the accurate student enrollment.

C) All schools slated for rezoning must return student transfers to their base school before starting the rezoning process, so that the incoming transfer number is zero students. No incoming transfer students may be counted in the numbers used for rezoning. Only students residing in the base school zone may be counted for rezoning purposes.

D) All students enrolling in the transition years of kindergarten, 7th grade and 9th grade will be required to submit proof of residency to enroll in school.

E) All rezoning will allow grandfathering for any residency confirmed students currently enrolled at the school, with rezoning occuring when the student transitions to a new MS (7th) or HS (9th) school level.

F) FCPS is required to hold the rezoning information meetings at the schools directly impacted by rezoning.

B, C, D, and F totally agree. Would want a higher threshold for A and would want more grandfathering for E.

You should run for school board against Sandy or Kyle. I would vote for you!

Agree 100 percent. It's not too late for them to save face by putting this on hold after the next round of maps come back and they get feedback. The scenarios have already created a lot of "discussion" and SB members like Sandy Anderson are trying to put out fires as her constituents make their feelings known. Just imagine what it's going to look like when they have an actual county-wide proposed map.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They could have avoided all this controversy if they revised 8130 to say:

A) A review will occur when a school building grows beyond 110% capacity.

B) The first step of the review process requires a full residency check of all students attending this school. Students shown to reside out of the school zone will be returned to their home school the following school year and the school population will be recounted with the accurate student enrollment.

C) All schools slated for rezoning must return student transfers to their base school before starting the rezoning process, so that the incoming transfer number is zero students. No incoming transfer students may be counted in the numbers used for rezoning. Only students residing in the base school zone may be counted for rezoning purposes.

D) All students enrolling in the transition years of kindergarten, 7th grade and 9th grade will be required to submit proof of residency to enroll in school.

E) All rezoning will allow grandfathering for any residency confirmed students currently enrolled at the school, with rezoning occuring when the student transitions to a new MS (7th) or HS (9th) school level.

F) FCPS is required to hold the rezoning information meetings at the schools directly impacted by rezoning.

B, C, D, and F totally agree. Would want a higher threshold for A and would want more grandfathering for E.

You should run for school board against Sandy or Kyle. I would vote for you!

Agree 100 percent. It's not too late for them to save face by putting this on hold after the next round of maps come back and they get feedback. The scenarios have already created a lot of "discussion" and SB members like Sandy Anderson are trying to put out fires as her constituents make their feelings known. Just imagine what it's going to look like when they have an actual county-wide proposed map.

They can only hide behind that talking point for so long. At some point, they’ll have proposed maps. And all hell will break loose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They could have avoided all this controversy if they revised 8130 to say:

A) A review will occur when a school building grows beyond 110% capacity.

B) The first step of the review process requires a full residency check of all students attending this school. Students shown to reside out of the school zone will be returned to their home school the following school year and the school population will be recounted with the accurate student enrollment.

C) All schools slated for rezoning must return student transfers to their base school before starting the rezoning process, so that the incoming transfer number is zero students. No incoming transfer students may be counted in the numbers used for rezoning. Only students residing in the base school zone may be counted for rezoning purposes.

D) All students enrolling in the transition years of kindergarten, 7th grade and 9th grade will be required to submit proof of residency to enroll in school.

E) All rezoning will allow grandfathering for any residency confirmed students currently enrolled at the school, with rezoning occuring when the student transitions to a new MS (7th) or HS (9th) school level.

F) FCPS is required to hold the rezoning information meetings at the schools directly impacted by rezoning.

B, C, D, and F totally agree. Would want a higher threshold for A and would want more grandfathering for E.

You should run for school board against Sandy or Kyle. I would vote for you!

Agree 100 percent. It's not too late for them to save face by putting this on hold after the next round of maps come back and they get feedback. The scenarios have already created a lot of "discussion" and SB members like Sandy Anderson are trying to put out fires as her constituents make their feelings known. Just imagine what it's going to look like when they have an actual county-wide proposed map.

Wasn't she one of the members who was originally the most eager for a county-wide boundary study and the least receptive to agreeing in advance to grandfather high school kids?

If she's having second thoughts now, it speaks to her inexperience and inability to reasonably foresee exactly what was going to happen when some outside third-party consultant was brought in.

Better late than never, but a lot of these School Board members should never have been elected in the first place. If she's getting nervous and sending out mixed signals now, just wait for the finger pointing and backtracking when they have "final" recommendations in October.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They could have avoided all this controversy if they revised 8130 to say:

A) A review will occur when a school building grows beyond 110% capacity.

B) The first step of the review process requires a full residency check of all students attending this school. Students shown to reside out of the school zone will be returned to their home school the following school year and the school population will be recounted with the accurate student enrollment.

C) All schools slated for rezoning must return student transfers to their base school before starting the rezoning process, so that the incoming transfer number is zero students. No incoming transfer students may be counted in the numbers used for rezoning. Only students residing in the base school zone may be counted for rezoning purposes.

D) All students enrolling in the transition years of kindergarten, 7th grade and 9th grade will be required to submit proof of residency to enroll in school.

E) All rezoning will allow grandfathering for any residency confirmed students currently enrolled at the school, with rezoning occuring when the student transitions to a new MS (7th) or HS (9th) school level.

F) FCPS is required to hold the rezoning information meetings at the schools directly impacted by rezoning.

B, C, D, and F totally agree. Would want a higher threshold for A and would want more grandfathering for E.

You should run for school board against Sandy or Kyle. I would vote for you!

Agree 100 percent. It's not too late for them to save face by putting this on hold after the next round of maps come back and they get feedback. The scenarios have already created a lot of "discussion" and SB members like Sandy Anderson are trying to put out fires as her constituents make their feelings known. Just imagine what it's going to look like when they have an actual county-wide proposed map.

Wasn't she one of the members who was originally the most eager for a county-wide boundary study and the least receptive to agreeing in advance to grandfather high school kids?

If she's having second thoughts now, it speaks to her inexperience and inability to reasonably foresee exactly what was going to happen when some outside third-party consultant was brought in.

Better late than never, but a lot of these School Board members should never have been elected in the first place. If she's getting nervous and sending out mixed signals now, just wait for the finger pointing and backtracking when they have "final" recommendations in October.

I’m pro-choice, but access to safe and legal terminations are the primary, unrelated, reason these Board members won.

If anyone remembers: control of the Virginia house was the same ballot in an election which traditionally had extremely LOW turnout, but turnout that year was unusually high. The reason?

- pro choice voters like me wanted to make sure Youngkin was denied a majority needed to pass a ban on abortion after 20 weeks.

But, most choice-voters had no information on the School Board candidates, but voted anyway, and simply, blindly, followed the democrat sample ballots they were handed outside the polling places.

That is the primary reason we ended up with such truly horrible Board members.

The republicans hurt their own chances with 2 obviously unelectable School Board candidates (a guy raffling off a gun to raise funds, and someone who stood outside on the lawn at j6).

But here we are: this School Board is nearly as incompetent and ridiculously, harmfully-partisan as the last School Board. In particular, Frisch needs to go.

[Anonymous]

They currently have, and should continue to have, the ability to consider boundary changes when schools are under-enrolled as well as over capacity.

Only if they include the students who are Pupil Placed OUT.

It is not fair to take other neighborhoods and move them to a school that is losing students to pupil placement. That needs to be addressed first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone on here talk about Annandale High school. The school is close to capacity and projected to hit higher (with modulars) yet they are moving Lewis students and putting it above capacity.

Why would they do that? This seems to go against the whole point of this review and sets the school for failure when it is finally turning itself around.

1. They are only looking at September enrollments for capacity, not projections.
2. They are considering capacity with the modulars, not without.

So while there’s projected growth in Annandale, and the current capacity is perfect for phasing out the modulars, they’re going to fill them back up.

And, look at that, in the efforts to fix the Holmes to Annandale and Edison split feeder, they’ve created a Holmes to Annandale/Justice split feeder in the 4-11 presentation, slide 12 that’s never addressed!

Slide 12 of the 4/11 presentation addresses a Bull Run ES attendance island. I think you are referring to Slide 20 of the 4/25 presentation, which appears to show part of Holmes moving to Justice.

I doubt this was their intent, but Thru Consulting probably should be renamed Sloppy Consulting. I think they used the wrong map, and treated an area that they separately proposed to move from Parklawn ES to Columbia ES (see Slide 36 of the 4/11 presentation) as if that area was zoned for Justice rather than Annandale. That area currently attends Annandale and there would be no reason to move it to Justice, especially if they were moving it from Parklawn (currently a split feeder to Annandale and Justice) to Columbia (a 100% feeder to Annandale).

The whole Edison-to-Annandale move to eliminate the split feeder at Holmes looks like an exercise in rearranging deck chairs. In 2010-11 Annandale HS had an enrollment of slighly over 2500 and this was considered unacceptable. In response, the School Board moved the part of Wakefield Forest that had attended Poe/Annandale to Frost/Woodson and reassigned Bren Mar Park from Annandale to Edison while leaving it at Holmes. Now, because split feeders are being targeted, they are proposing to move Bren Mar Park back to Annandale, which would leave Annandale just shy of 2500 again.

I feel for that community. Some now in the Edsall Park area have to cross both 495 and 395 to get to Edison, but Annandale with 2500 kids is not going to be a great environment. It's an old building that, along with Lewis and McLean, got the cheapest "renovations" of any high schools in the early 2000s, and it currently has a 14-classroom modular. It also has a large ESOL/FARMS population, and 2500 kids at Annandale is a bigger challenge than, say, 2400 kids at McLean. On the other hand, Edison is currently at 107% capacity with no modular, so they thought they were dealing with two issues (split feeder at Holmes, overcrowding at Edison) by reassigning BMP back to Annandale. If you can install a modular at Annandale (28 acres), I'm not sure why they can't install a modular at Edison (43.5 acres).

We are newer to the area and live in that part of Wakefield Forest that was re-districted to Frost and Woodson back when you mentioned. I have heard from neighbors that the community was split on it and it was ugly. Lots of people wanted to stay at Annandale and were able to due to generous grandfathering policies.

My spouse and I went to one of the earlier boundary meetings at Annandale HS to see the school and hopefully talk to some families there, in the event that our neighborhood was sent back there. We chose the Frost and Woodson pyramid due to AP, marching band, and a few extracurricular clubs our kids are particularly interested in. We were/are not eager to have our kids move in high school but we took the opportunity to go and see the school during that presentation.

We met countless parents who loved the school and didn’t want to be zoned OUT of it. They had kids who loved the IB program and have a stellar Arabic teacher, apparently. They described what happened when our particular area was routed out of Annandale and to Woodson and it was really interesting to hear. They said the parent and community involvement plummeted at the middle and high schools there and never really recovered - at least not to the original level. Again, we are new to the area and totally unfamiliar with what has happened in the past here. That’s just what we were told. It was good perspective to help us better appreciate what can happen when school boundaries are changed and communities are moved to other areas. It sounds like it was a net negative for Annandale, and while I’d prefer my kids to stay at Woodson and continue to have stability there, I really feel for our neighboring school and community and hope they don’t continue to have such unrest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They currently have, and should continue to have, the ability to consider boundary changes when schools are under-enrolled as well as over capacity.

Only if they include the students who are Pupil Placed OUT.

It is not fair to take other neighborhoods and move them to a school that is losing students to pupil placement. That needs to be addressed first.

It’s also not fair to curtail pupil placements out of some schools but not others.

But I do agree that, with under-enrolled schools, they should look at the root causes of the under-enrollment first and consider potential program changes before resorting to boundary changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They could have avoided all this controversy if they revised 8130 to say:

A) A review will occur when a school building grows beyond 110% capacity.

B) The first step of the review process requires a full residency check of all students attending this school. Students shown to reside out of the school zone will be returned to their home school the following school year and the school population will be recounted with the accurate student enrollment.

C) All schools slated for rezoning must return student transfers to their base school before starting the rezoning process, so that the incoming transfer number is zero students. No incoming transfer students may be counted in the numbers used for rezoning. Only students residing in the base school zone may be counted for rezoning purposes.

D) All students enrolling in the transition years of kindergarten, 7th grade and 9th grade will be required to submit proof of residency to enroll in school.

E) All rezoning will allow grandfathering for any residency confirmed students currently enrolled at the school, with rezoning occuring when the student transitions to a new MS (7th) or HS (9th) school level.

F) FCPS is required to hold the rezoning information meetings at the schools directly impacted by rezoning.

Everyone wants to reverse engineer the policy to minimize their own chances of being redistricted.

They currently have, and should continue to have, the ability to consider boundary changes when schools are under-enrolled as well as over capacity.

I do agree they should hold information meetings at the schools potentially directly impacted by rezoning. They seem to be going out of their way to hold them at schools not impacted in order to make it as difficult as possible for some to comment in person. It's all of a piece with their limiting speaker time during SB meetings to two minutes (down from three) and not showing the faces of those who are speaking.

I actually live close enough to the schools that rezoning is not an issue for my family.

I stand by my suggestions.

Creating a policy with a set, concrete policy that makes sense, has measurable metrics, prioritizes the families who purchased homes in zone over families pupil placing into schools or lying about residency, and prioritizes stability, with a transparent and accessible feedback process for affected families are the only changes FCPS should have made to policy 8130.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They could have avoided all this controversy if they revised 8130 to say:

A) A review will occur when a school building grows beyond 110% capacity.

B) The first step of the review process requires a full residency check of all students attending this school. Students shown to reside out of the school zone will be returned to their home school the following school year and the school population will be recounted with the accurate student enrollment.

C) All schools slated for rezoning must return student transfers to their base school before starting the rezoning process, so that the incoming transfer number is zero students. No incoming transfer students may be counted in the numbers used for rezoning. Only students residing in the base school zone may be counted for rezoning purposes.

D) All students enrolling in the transition years of kindergarten, 7th grade and 9th grade will be required to submit proof of residency to enroll in school.

E) All rezoning will allow grandfathering for any residency confirmed students currently enrolled at the school, with rezoning occuring when the student transitions to a new MS (7th) or HS (9th) school level.

F) FCPS is required to hold the rezoning information meetings at the schools directly impacted by rezoning.

B, C, D, and F totally agree. Would want a higher threshold for A and would want more grandfathering for E.

You should run for school board against Sandy or Kyle. I would vote for you!

Agree 100 percent. It's not too late for them to save face by putting this on hold after the next round of maps come back and they get feedback. The scenarios have already created a lot of "discussion" and SB members like Sandy Anderson are trying to put out fires as her constituents make their feelings known. Just imagine what it's going to look like when they have an actual county-wide proposed map.

Wasn't she one of the members who was originally the most eager for a county-wide boundary study and the least receptive to agreeing in advance to grandfather high school kids?

If she's having second thoughts now, it speaks to her inexperience and inability to reasonably foresee exactly what was going to happen when some outside third-party consultant was brought in.

Better late than never, but a lot of these School Board members should never have been elected in the first place. If she's getting nervous and sending out mixed signals now, just wait for the finger pointing and backtracking when they have "final" recommendations in October.

Correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They could have avoided all this controversy if they revised 8130 to say:

A) A review will occur when a school building grows beyond 110% capacity.

B) The first step of the review process requires a full residency check of all students attending this school. Students shown to reside out of the school zone will be returned to their home school the following school year and the school population will be recounted with the accurate student enrollment.

C) All schools slated for rezoning must return student transfers to their base school before starting the rezoning process, so that the incoming transfer number is zero students. No incoming transfer students may be counted in the numbers used for rezoning. Only students residing in the base school zone may be counted for rezoning purposes.

D) All students enrolling in the transition years of kindergarten, 7th grade and 9th grade will be required to submit proof of residency to enroll in school.

E) All rezoning will allow grandfathering for any residency confirmed students currently enrolled at the school, with rezoning occuring when the student transitions to a new MS (7th) or HS (9th) school level.

F) FCPS is required to hold the rezoning information meetings at the schools directly impacted by rezoning.

Everyone wants to reverse engineer the policy to minimize their own chances of being redistricted.

They currently have, and should continue to have, the ability to consider boundary changes when schools are under-enrolled as well as over capacity.

I do agree they should hold information meetings at the schools potentially directly impacted by rezoning. They seem to be going out of their way to hold them at schools not impacted in order to make it as difficult as possible for some to comment in person. It's all of a piece with their limiting speaker time during SB meetings to two minutes (down from three) and not showing the faces of those who are speaking.

I actually live close enough to the schools that rezoning is not an issue for my family.

I stand by my suggestions.

Creating a policy with a set, concrete policy that makes sense, has measurable metrics, prioritizes the families who purchased homes in zone over families pupil placing into schools or lying about residency, and prioritizes stability, with a transparent and accessible feedback process for affected families are the only changes FCPS should have made to policy 8130.

They aren’t going to revise Policy 8130 along the lines you’ve suggested but you can propose whatever you want. You’ll get a few likes here from folks who’d like to limit the school board’s discretion and that’s all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone on here talk about Annandale High school. The school is close to capacity and projected to hit higher (with modulars) yet they are moving Lewis students and putting it above capacity.

Why would they do that? This seems to go against the whole point of this review and sets the school for failure when it is finally turning itself around.

1. They are only looking at September enrollments for capacity, not projections.
2. They are considering capacity with the modulars, not without.

So while there’s projected growth in Annandale, and the current capacity is perfect for phasing out the modulars, they’re going to fill them back up.

And, look at that, in the efforts to fix the Holmes to Annandale and Edison split feeder, they’ve created a Holmes to Annandale/Justice split feeder in the 4-11 presentation, slide 12 that’s never addressed!

Slide 12 of the 4/11 presentation addresses a Bull Run ES attendance island. I think you are referring to Slide 20 of the 4/25 presentation, which appears to show part of Holmes moving to Justice.

I doubt this was their intent, but Thru Consulting probably should be renamed Sloppy Consulting. I think they used the wrong map, and treated an area that they separately proposed to move from Parklawn ES to Columbia ES (see Slide 36 of the 4/11 presentation) as if that area was zoned for Justice rather than Annandale. That area currently attends Annandale and there would be no reason to move it to Justice, especially if they were moving it from Parklawn (currently a split feeder to Annandale and Justice) to Columbia (a 100% feeder to Annandale).

The whole Edison-to-Annandale move to eliminate the split feeder at Holmes looks like an exercise in rearranging deck chairs. In 2010-11 Annandale HS had an enrollment of slighly over 2500 and this was considered unacceptable. In response, the School Board moved the part of Wakefield Forest that had attended Poe/Annandale to Frost/Woodson and reassigned Bren Mar Park from Annandale to Edison while leaving it at Holmes. Now, because split feeders are being targeted, they are proposing to move Bren Mar Park back to Annandale, which would leave Annandale just shy of 2500 again.

I feel for that community. Some now in the Edsall Park area have to cross both 495 and 395 to get to Edison, but Annandale with 2500 kids is not going to be a great environment. It's an old building that, along with Lewis and McLean, got the cheapest "renovations" of any high schools in the early 2000s, and it currently has a 14-classroom modular. It also has a large ESOL/FARMS population, and 2500 kids at Annandale is a bigger challenge than, say, 2400 kids at McLean. On the other hand, Edison is currently at 107% capacity with no modular, so they thought they were dealing with two issues (split feeder at Holmes, overcrowding at Edison) by reassigning BMP back to Annandale. If you can install a modular at Annandale (28 acres), I'm not sure why they can't install a modular at Edison (43.5 acres).

We are newer to the area and live in that part of Wakefield Forest that was re-districted to Frost and Woodson back when you mentioned. I have heard from neighbors that the community was split on it and it was ugly. Lots of people wanted to stay at Annandale and were able to due to generous grandfathering policies.

My spouse and I went to one of the earlier boundary meetings at Annandale HS to see the school and hopefully talk to some families there, in the event that our neighborhood was sent back there. We chose the Frost and Woodson pyramid due to AP, marching band, and a few extracurricular clubs our kids are particularly interested in. We were/are not eager to have our kids move in high school but we took the opportunity to go and see the school during that presentation.

We met countless parents who loved the school and didn’t want to be zoned OUT of it. They had kids who loved the IB program and have a stellar Arabic teacher, apparently. They described what happened when our particular area was routed out of Annandale and to Woodson and it was really interesting to hear. They said the parent and community involvement plummeted at the middle and high schools there and never really recovered - at least not to the original level. Again, we are new to the area and totally unfamiliar with what has happened in the past here. That’s just what we were told. It was good perspective to help us better appreciate what can happen when school boundaries are changed and communities are moved to other areas. It sounds like it was a net negative for Annandale, and while I’d prefer my kids to stay at Woodson and continue to have stability there, I really feel for our neighboring school and community and hope they don’t continue to have such unrest.

Some others in this forum in years past have posted how FCPS really botched that boundary move with Annandale. The former principal warned against moving Annandale’s higher income outside-the-beltway neighborhoods from Annandale to Woodson, Robinson, etc. He was harshly criticized for comments that were construed to be belittling of the inside the beltway neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone on here talk about Annandale High school. The school is close to capacity and projected to hit higher (with modulars) yet they are moving Lewis students and putting it above capacity.

Why would they do that? This seems to go against the whole point of this review and sets the school for failure when it is finally turning itself around.

1. They are only looking at September enrollments for capacity, not projections.
2. They are considering capacity with the modulars, not without.

So while there’s projected growth in Annandale, and the current capacity is perfect for phasing out the modulars, they’re going to fill them back up.

And, look at that, in the efforts to fix the Holmes to Annandale and Edison split feeder, they’ve created a Holmes to Annandale/Justice split feeder in the 4-11 presentation, slide 12 that’s never addressed!

Slide 12 of the 4/11 presentation addresses a Bull Run ES attendance island. I think you are referring to Slide 20 of the 4/25 presentation, which appears to show part of Holmes moving to Justice.

I doubt this was their intent, but Thru Consulting probably should be renamed Sloppy Consulting. I think they used the wrong map, and treated an area that they separately proposed to move from Parklawn ES to Columbia ES (see Slide 36 of the 4/11 presentation) as if that area was zoned for Justice rather than Annandale. That area currently attends Annandale and there would be no reason to move it to Justice, especially if they were moving it from Parklawn (currently a split feeder to Annandale and Justice) to Columbia (a 100% feeder to Annandale).

The whole Edison-to-Annandale move to eliminate the split feeder at Holmes looks like an exercise in rearranging deck chairs. In 2010-11 Annandale HS had an enrollment of slighly over 2500 and this was considered unacceptable. In response, the School Board moved the part of Wakefield Forest that had attended Poe/Annandale to Frost/Woodson and reassigned Bren Mar Park from Annandale to Edison while leaving it at Holmes. Now, because split feeders are being targeted, they are proposing to move Bren Mar Park back to Annandale, which would leave Annandale just shy of 2500 again.

I feel for that community. Some now in the Edsall Park area have to cross both 495 and 395 to get to Edison, but Annandale with 2500 kids is not going to be a great environment. It's an old building that, along with Lewis and McLean, got the cheapest "renovations" of any high schools in the early 2000s, and it currently has a 14-classroom modular. It also has a large ESOL/FARMS population, and 2500 kids at Annandale is a bigger challenge than, say, 2400 kids at McLean. On the other hand, Edison is currently at 107% capacity with no modular, so they thought they were dealing with two issues (split feeder at Holmes, overcrowding at Edison) by reassigning BMP back to Annandale. If you can install a modular at Annandale (28 acres), I'm not sure why they can't install a modular at Edison (43.5 acres).

We are newer to the area and live in that part of Wakefield Forest that was re-districted to Frost and Woodson back when you mentioned. I have heard from neighbors that the community was split on it and it was ugly. Lots of people wanted to stay at Annandale and were able to due to generous grandfathering policies.

My spouse and I went to one of the earlier boundary meetings at Annandale HS to see the school and hopefully talk to some families there, in the event that our neighborhood was sent back there. We chose the Frost and Woodson pyramid due to AP, marching band, and a few extracurricular clubs our kids are particularly interested in. We were/are not eager to have our kids move in high school but we took the opportunity to go and see the school during that presentation.

We met countless parents who loved the school and didn’t want to be zoned OUT of it. They had kids who loved the IB program and have a stellar Arabic teacher, apparently. They described what happened when our particular area was routed out of Annandale and to Woodson and it was really interesting to hear. They said the parent and community involvement plummeted at the middle and high schools there and never really recovered - at least not to the original level. Again, we are new to the area and totally unfamiliar with what has happened in the past here. That’s just what we were told. It was good perspective to help us better appreciate what can happen when school boundaries are changed and communities are moved to other areas. It sounds like it was a net negative for Annandale, and while I’d prefer my kids to stay at Woodson and continue to have stability there, I really feel for our neighboring school and community and hope they don’t continue to have such unrest.

Some others in this forum in years past have posted how FCPS really botched that boundary move with Annandale. The former principal warned against moving Annandale’s higher income outside-the-beltway neighborhoods from Annandale to Woodson, Robinson, etc. He was harshly criticized for comments that were construed to be belittling of the inside the beltway neighborhoods.

Yep. The issues with Annandale go back to the decision in the mid-1980s to convert Jefferson HS to a STEM magnet. Initially, all "legacy" Jefferson families were told their kids could attend Annandale, but two things happened. First, Annandale ended up with the poverty along two parts of Route 236 (right inside the Beltway near the high school and also the area near Landmark that had gone to Jefferson) rather than one. Second, Annandale soon ended up overcrowded. As a result, between 1990 and 2010, FCPS redistricted single-family neighborhoods from Annandale to both Falls Church and Justice (the Columbia Pines area) and then later to Lake Braddock (part of Ravensworth). And then, in 2011, they further redistricted single-family Wakefield Forest to Woodson and more diverse Bren Mar Park to Edison.

Wakefield Forest families were divided on the move at the time. Families with older kids already at Annandale tended to oppose the boundary change, whereas younger families with kids not yet at Poe and Annandale welcomed the elimination of the split feeder. When people pointed out that Wakefield Forest kids were disproportionately represented in leadership positions and on sports teams at Annandale, some pushed back and called them condescending. The Mason District member on the School Board at the time (Sandy Evans) got worried and tried to delay the boundary changes, but the rest of the School Board overruled her and changed the boundaries in 2011.

I have a good friend at Annandale and she raved about the IB program and the diversity there, but she also says that not many parents get involved with the PTSA and other school activities. The parents who do get involved tend to end up with "volunteer fatigue." FCPS assigned one of its top principals (Shawn DeRose) to Annandale, but it hasn't done anything to schedule another renovation of Annandale, which is showing its age. If they move the Bren Mar Park kids back to Annandale, and it ends up with 2500 or so kids again, it's going to put a further strain on the facilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s really funny to see the whining from the equity warriors right now because thru saw through their pretext and saw the naked equity attempt.

Glad that the school board and superintendent came to their senses on it. They saved the county tax base and the Fairfax county Democratic Party by not listening to the extreme left flank.

What are you talking about? Plenty of neighborhoods (including mine) are slated to get moved. Nothing has been decided yet.

It's just a Forestville, Great Falls, or even worse one of the "good" Herndon address homeowners doing a victory lap because they weren't moved. They don't care about you or your family, only that they got what they wanted.

DP. I belong in none of your odd "categories," but having followed this discussion for months, I am loving the fact that people like you got a metaphorical pie in the face. You've been insisting that one particular community be moved - because you hate them - and that didn't happen. But what do you know? YOUR kids are going to be moved. Sorry, that is karma in a nutshell.

I hope you learned your lesson. Worry about your own kids.

Nope. I bought after the 2008 boundary fiasco. Made sure to buy solidly inside our target school zone. Zero chance we get moved. I'm still allowed to point out the hypocrisy of posters here who hated Thru when they worried they would be move, but now sing their praises for making the "right" decisions (that didn't involve their boundary). It's so obvious.
So no pie in the face here. With the new wording of policy 8130 I don't see how anyone would consider paying the Langley premium for any Forestville home though. It's a foregone conclusion that as Tysons grows they will end up at Herndon eventually. All that stress every 5 years won't be fun.

Highly doubtful. As has been pointed out by several different people, both Herndon and Langley are currently under capacity and FCPS is not expected to grow - it will probably decline. So, just as there is no current need to move students from either of those schools, there will be even less of a reason to do so in the future. Sorry!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s really funny to see the whining from the equity warriors right now because thru saw through their pretext and saw the naked equity attempt.

Glad that the school board and superintendent came to their senses on it. They saved the county tax base and the Fairfax county Democratic Party by not listening to the extreme left flank.

What are you talking about? Plenty of neighborhoods (including mine) are slated to get moved. Nothing has been decided yet.

It's just a Forestville, Great Falls, or even worse one of the "good" Herndon address homeowners doing a victory lap because they weren't moved. They don't care about you or your family, only that they got what they wanted.

DP. I belong in none of your odd "categories," but having followed this discussion for months, I am loving the fact that people like you got a metaphorical pie in the face. You've been insisting that one particular community be moved - because you hate them - and that didn't happen. But what do you know? YOUR kids are going to be moved. Sorry, that is karma in a nutshell.

I hope you learned your lesson. Worry about your own kids.

Nope. I bought after the 2008 boundary fiasco. Made sure to buy solidly inside our target school zone. Zero chance we get moved. I'm still allowed to point out the hypocrisy of posters here who hated Thru when they worried they would be move, but now sing their praises for making the "right" decisions (that didn't involve their boundary). It's so obvious.
So no pie in the face here. With the new wording of policy 8130 I don't see how anyone would consider paying the Langley premium for any Forestville home though. It's a foregone conclusion that as Tysons grows they will end up at Herndon eventually. All that stress every 5 years won't be fun.

Serious question- at what point should we be concerned with your obsession? You spent hours yesterday on this discussion forum obsessing over a school not being moved as part of the boundary review, including posting in the wee hours of the morning.

+1
There's clearly some mental instability at play here.
DP