FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cooper will get overcrowded before Langley with the Spring Hill move that is already proposed but they will work the system in a few years to get modulars installed at Cooper and Langley to add more capacity.

Or they'll just deal with temporary overcrowding, knowing that student numbers will decline in the coming years. You poor thing.

DP, but moving that big chunk of Tysons to Cooper/Langley may be a game changer. That’s a growing area, unlike the aging single-family neighborhoods that have been losing school-age kids.

No idea why you’re so confrontational. Are you the scarecrow poster?

It will be interesting see how long it takes older neighborhoods to flip.

A nearby street used to have about ten high school kids getting off the bus a few years ago, now I see one or two. On the other hand, my street had only my school-aged kids for years and then suddenly 30% of the houses flipped to families with children, all of whom are sending them to FCPS.

Just to clarify, my neighborhood is in Great Falls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cooper will get overcrowded before Langley with the Spring Hill move that is already proposed but they will work the system in a few years to get modulars installed at Cooper and Langley to add more capacity.

Or they'll just deal with temporary overcrowding, knowing that student numbers will decline in the coming years. You poor thing.

DP, but moving that big chunk of Tysons to Cooper/Langley may be a game changer. That’s a growing area, unlike the aging single-family neighborhoods that have been losing school-age kids.

No idea why you’re so confrontational. Are you the scarecrow poster?

It will be interesting see how long it takes older neighborhoods to flip.

A nearby street used to have about ten high school kids getting off the bus a few years ago, now I see one or two. On the other hand, my street had only my school-aged kids for years and then suddenly 30% of the houses flipped to families with children, all of whom are sending them to FCPS.

Just to clarify, my neighborhood is in Langly pyramid on the western end.

[Anonymous]

Excited to see the interactive tool at the community meeting tonight

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Excited to see the interactive tool at the community meeting tonight

Why can't they just make this interactive tool publicly available now? When APS redistricted a few years ago, that's what it did.

Everything FCPS does seems intended to restrict access while pretending to encourage public participation. What I might notice in a 90-minute with this tool available could be different from what I might notice if I could access it remotely and not just during an FCPS session.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Excited to see the interactive tool at the community meeting tonight

Why can't they just make this interactive tool publicly available now? When APS redistricted a few years ago, that's what it did.

Everything FCPS does seems intended to restrict access while pretending to encourage public participation. What I might notice in a 90-minute with this tool available could be different from what I might notice if I could access it remotely and not just during an FCPS session.

I imagine they intended to release the tool before the community events occurred, otherwise Reid wouldn’t have announced it.

They should at the very least release PDF drafts showing the comprehensive final recommendations rather than forcing people to piece together various slides that are riddled with errors and don’t show consistent recommendations between presentations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Excited to see the interactive tool at the community meeting tonight

Why can't they just make this interactive tool publicly available now? When APS redistricted a few years ago, that's what it did.

Everything FCPS does seems intended to restrict access while pretending to encourage public participation. What I might notice in a 90-minute with this tool available could be different from what I might notice if I could access it remotely and not just during an FCPS session.

I imagine they intended to release the tool before the community events occurred, otherwise Reid wouldn’t have announced it.

They should at the very least release PDF drafts showing the comprehensive final recommendations rather than forcing people to piece together various slides that are riddled with errors and don’t show consistent recommendations between presentations.

Yes, as someone noted earlier, it seems like they are just inviting community members to point out some of the same flaws in Thru's sloppy recommendations as BRAC members already may have pointed out.

Would be more constructive to at least put together a composite map that reflects all of Thru's recommendations in one place if they can't actually address the obvious screws-ups in advance of these community meetings.

[Anonymous]

If the work of FCPS students was as half-assed as the crap that Thru Consulting is ponying up for $500,000, I'd hope they'd be given a failing grade.

And the same goes for Michelle Reid, who is clearly not up to the task of managing a school system this size or even retaining consultants who can come up with sensible recommendations.

[Anonymous]

So after the first meeting tonight, will the boundary tool be available on the Community Boundary Page for everyone to use?

I'm just really confused about how heavily they are going to rely on these initial maps from Thru. Is that what Reid and the school board will be working from, or are they planning to start from scratch on their own?

[Anonymous]

Well, someone on Nextdoor just posted that this is all a result of "redlining" years ago and that we need this study.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, someone on Nextdoor just posted that this is all a result of "redlining" years ago and that we need this study.

Link?

[Anonymous]

Just got this email because I'm registered for the Oakton meeting tonight. It sounds like you get to go and use the tool in person and talk to others at your table about it, but then the only feedback they take is from multiple choice Qs on an app? I have actual questions about the maps that have been released so far.

Meeting Format

Superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid will discuss FCPS’ mission, purpose of the comprehensive boundary review, and timeline.

A representative from Thru Consulting will talk about the boundary review process so far, introduce the three initial draft boundary scenarios, and demo the Boundary Explorer Tool.

Participants will divide into groups (in-person and on Zoom). They can then look up their address in the Boundary Explorer Tool, discover how the proposed draft scenarios might affect their school or neighborhood, and discuss the proposed boundary scenarios with their group.

The consultant will give participants a QR code or link to the Pigeonhole platform. Then, the consultant will ask questions to which participants will respond using Pigeonhole. Responses will appear on a screen for the entire group to view.

Dr. Reid will share next steps and close out the evening.

Note: If you are joining one of the community boundary review meetings via Zoom, we highly recommend you use a laptop for the best experience instead of a mobile device.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cooper will get overcrowded before Langley with the Spring Hill move that is already proposed but they will work the system in a few years to get modulars installed at Cooper and Langley to add more capacity.

Or they'll just deal with temporary overcrowding, knowing that student numbers will decline in the coming years. You poor thing.

DP, but moving that big chunk of Tysons to Cooper/Langley may be a game changer. That’s a growing area, unlike the aging single-family neighborhoods that have been losing school-age kids.

No idea why you’re so confrontational. Are you the scarecrow poster?

The troll is back again, calling anyone she disagrees with names. I have no idea what you're talking about, but you do indeed know exactly why I and others aren't interested in humoring you any longer. Once again, there may be a temporary influx of students, but that will abate in the future.

You may want to look at both the capacity and the residential development applications dashboards for further information on both recent enrollment trends and the potential student yields from additional development in the part of Tysons that Thru has proposed to move to Langley.

Birth rates can decline both nationally and locally, yet if growth is concentrated in a specific area school enrollments can still increase.

Try not to act so unhinged next time.

DP. You’re actually calling other people “unhinged”? After reading through your above posts, you may want to take a hard look in the mirror.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, someone on Nextdoor just posted that this is all a result of "redlining" years ago and that we need this study.

No doubt one of the same equity warriors on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, someone on Nextdoor just posted that this is all a result of "redlining" years ago and that we need this study.

Boundaries reflect a series of decisions over time. Claiming they are the result of “redlining” is mostly just agitprop.

If they make all the changes Thru has proposed we’ll still have schools with widely disparate demographics and weird-looking boundaries and anyone picking up the map without the background will still think the boundaries are gerrymandered.

[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.

I was looking to find old boundary map of which parts of WFES were originally going to Annandale but am unable to find it. If anyone can guide me in right direction, I would appreciate it.