FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only way to really fix under performing schools is to pool them with a much larger population. Like pooling the entire populations of Lewis SoCo and WS. Something like that. Moving 350 kids will do nothing.

The pro rezoning posts just keep getting crazier and crazier.

It’s not pro or anti rezoning. It’s naked realism. One of these is true:

1) FCPS’s projections on student enrollment by SY 2028-2029 are true. In that case, WSHS will be at 117% whereas South County will be at 86, Lewis will be at 74, Mount Vernon will be at 67, Annandale will be at 84. What’s the point of keeping all of these buildings which are all under capacity in the same region? And these aren’t small affluent schools either.

2) FCPS’s projections on student enrollment are wrong in which case WSHS will likely continue at their current enrollment, more or less, of 110%. Probably less, as student enrollment everywhere remains lower after COVID. However, even the 110% figure does not match with the “boots on the ground” observations of empty classrooms at WSHS.

The school board projections for WSHS are grossly inflated based on the actual enrollment of WSHS, Irving, and the feeder elementary schools.

Class of 2028 is smaller than the class of 2024 that just graduated.

Class of 2029 is smaller than the rising seniors, class of 2025.

Class of 2030 is significantly smaller than the 720 plus class of 2026.

WSHS will slowly shrink over the next 2 graduating classes, and drop by perhaps 100 students or more when class of 2026 graduates.

There is no hard data that backs the school board's estimated projections of WSHS growing by hundreds of students to almost 3000 students over the next 2 years.

You have no hard data on the WSHS class of 2028 or later classes. You can make assumptions, just like FCPS, but until we see the fall enrollment numbers we won’t actually know the size of the class.

Well, you can.

The irving classes are all around 100 fewer students than the graduating high school classes they are replacing.

WSHS never gains 100 or more kids in a year between 8th and 9th. It is usually around 30 students max.

This past year there were 90 more freshmen at WS than there had been in 8th grade at Irving the prior year. And Irving had about 625 7th grade kids this past year so it points to sustained large enrollments at WS.

625 kids is smaller than the class they are replacing. 625 represents a shrinking enrollment.

Also, FCPS has not released the 2023-2024 school year enrollment numbers yet.

They published monthly membership enrollment numbers every month during the 2023-24 school year. You just need to know where to look for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t we all calm down and stop speculating until we see what is actually being planned.

It seems pretty clear what they are going to do imo. Look at the recent redistricting of the magistrate map.

They are going to break WSES 80/20 and RVES 80/20. The 20% of WSES closes to Irving MS are added to The 80% of RVES that stays in the WSHS pyramid. This meets the proximity and busing criteria in the new policy. The 20% of RVES that already goes to Key/Lewis are added to the 80% of WSES that is closest to Key/Lewis and added to Lewis pyramid. This is exactly what they did to the electoral map. And would have almost no political blow back because the upset families would not be in the Springfield District and the Franconia District would welcome the change and overwhelm the voices of the upset families (as we have seen on these boards).

Open question re whether they also move the HV neighborhood south of the parkway to Newington/SoCo. Or move the western KMES split feed to the LBHS pyramid. But maybe? Doing so frees up capacity between OHES and HVES to shuffle the overcrowding at those schools and/or capacity at KM to address overcrowding at CFES. But this is all in the Springfield district, so political consequences are possible.

So you think they'll ignore all their talk about eliminating split feeders and prioritize the "over-crowding" (which most of us think is BS) at WSHS? I think you're probably right, but I'm not happy about it.

What I outlined above would eliminate all the split feeders except Sangster, I think. Maybe they do that too?

Maybe I don’t get what you mean about RVES and WSES. I read that as keeping rolling valley as a split feeder and making WSES a split feeder by having Daventry go to key/lewis after WSES. Did you mean something different?

I think it makes more sense to free up even more space at Rolling valley by moving the kids who already go to key/lewis to Saratoga and use the space at rolling valley for Cardinal forest or orange hunt kids.

What are the demographics of that area? If moving those kids from Rolling Valley would lower its FARM numbers, ain't gonna happen. They need a different demographic into Lewis.

[Anonymous]

The bolded suggestion would simply eliminate the split feeder situation at RVES and leave room at the school to move kids from the over-capacity elementary schools. It wouldn’t change anything at Lewis. Only about 15% of RVES goes to Lewis and for the most part they aren’t really geographically connected to the school.

I haven’t looked in a while but I think RVES has by far the highest FARMS rate and most diverse student population and lowest test scores of any of the WSHS feeders. I doubt the school board will look at RV if they are trying to “improve” Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t we all calm down and stop speculating until we see what is actually being planned.

It seems pretty clear what they are going to do imo. Look at the recent redistricting of the magistrate map.

They are going to break WSES 80/20 and RVES 80/20. The 20% of WSES closes to Irving MS are added to The 80% of RVES that stays in the WSHS pyramid. This meets the proximity and busing criteria in the new policy. The 20% of RVES that already goes to Key/Lewis are added to the 80% of WSES that is closest to Key/Lewis and added to Lewis pyramid. This is exactly what they did to the electoral map. And would have almost no political blow back because the upset families would not be in the Springfield District and the Franconia District would welcome the change and overwhelm the voices of the upset families (as we have seen on these boards).

Open question re whether they also move the HV neighborhood south of the parkway to Newington/SoCo. Or move the western KMES split feed to the LBHS pyramid. But maybe? Doing so frees up capacity between OHES and HVES to shuffle the overcrowding at those schools and/or capacity at KM to address overcrowding at CFES. But this is all in the Springfield district, so political consequences are possible.

So you think they'll ignore all their talk about eliminating split feeders and prioritize the "over-crowding" (which most of us think is BS) at WSHS? I think you're probably right, but I'm not happy about it.

What I outlined above would eliminate all the split feeders except Sangster, I think. Maybe they do that too?

Maybe I don’t get what you mean about RVES and WSES. I read that as keeping rolling valley as a split feeder and making WSES a split feeder by having Daventry go to key/lewis after WSES. Did you mean something different?

I think it makes more sense to free up even more space at Rolling valley by moving the kids who already go to key/lewis to Saratoga and use the space at rolling valley for Cardinal forest or orange hunt kids.

Fair enough. I’m probably not being clear.

I think they will take the 20% of RVES that already attends Key/Lewis and add it to WSES. Then take the 20% of WSES that is walking distance to Irving MS and add it to RVES. Effectively swapping kids between WSES and RVES.

Then 100% of the new/adjusted WSES goes to Key/Lewis. And 100% of the new/adjusted RVES goes to Irving/WSHS.

I agree this makes the most sense to solve WSHS/Lewis capacity, assuming there actually is a problem to solve at WSHS. As far as HVES south of the parkway, I think it makes sense to move some of that population to Newington Forest ES and feeding into South County, which frees up some space to move some of the Orange Hunt population over to Hunt Valley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2003
Lee - 2092 students
Roughly 23% F/R lunch, 42% white, medium ESL rate (17.3%)

WS - 2259 students
Roughly 7% F/R lunch, 64% white, low ESL rate (7.5%)

2024
Lewis - 1675 students
Roughly 63% F/R lunch, 12% white, high ESL rate (30%)

WS - 2761 students
Roughly 17% F/R lunch, 48% white, low ESL rate (5%)

In 2003 Lee was middle of the road in FCPS. What happened?

IB put into Lee and several other schools

IB actually enabled easier transfer out with the liberal pupil placement policy

Immigrants concentrated in certain schools

2005 boundary change - removed hundreds of students from Lee just as it was getting expanded - some to South County, some to West Springfield; students that departed were on the wealthier end of the spectrum. FCPS knew this was the case

Pupil placement accelerated - FCPS refuses to budge on dropping IB and Lee

2015 boundary change - removed Daventry students - a relatively wealthy neighborhood

In the middle of all of this Great Schools came along and created winners and losers - English speaking Americans, particularly white, just stopped choosing houses in the Lee/Lewis boundary

That is how we got here. Notice the total number of students in 2003 at the two schools. Only different by 167 students. Now in 2024 - different by 1086 students.

Lewis is much smaller, much poorer, and has many more ESL students. The ESL rate at WS actually went down over the years.

The quality of the school (teachers, admin) is not necessarily different or subpar, but the demographics of the students is much different.

How should this be resolved? Long time homeowner wants to know.

This is an unpopular reality to bring up: there is a relationship between the foreign born population and academic performance of an area. And fairfax county has grown its immigrant population over the past 25 years at a per capita rate that exceeds NYC. Lewis #s over 20 years are an example of this. FCPS has failed this population over time and now wants to shuffle kids around to see if it treats the symptoms of high immigrant areas. Living here means accepting that the county will continue to import a (mostly) disadvantaged immigrant population and concentrate it in pockets that need extra resources to be successful. FCPS’ position is that your children are the those resources that will fix that population.

Um there are tons of “foreign born” people who have bought houses in high-performing school districts. Many of us in this “immigrant population” also don’t want our hard-earned resources and home equity redistributed elsewhere. People who were lucky enough to be born here have not cornered the market on success. Please consider your word choice - over-broad brush strokes are not helpful to the conversation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2003
Lee - 2092 students
Roughly 23% F/R lunch, 42% white, medium ESL rate (17.3%)

WS - 2259 students
Roughly 7% F/R lunch, 64% white, low ESL rate (7.5%)

2024
Lewis - 1675 students
Roughly 63% F/R lunch, 12% white, high ESL rate (30%)

WS - 2761 students
Roughly 17% F/R lunch, 48% white, low ESL rate (5%)

In 2003 Lee was middle of the road in FCPS. What happened?

IB put into Lee and several other schools

IB actually enabled easier transfer out with the liberal pupil placement policy

Immigrants concentrated in certain schools

2005 boundary change - removed hundreds of students from Lee just as it was getting expanded - some to South County, some to West Springfield; students that departed were on the wealthier end of the spectrum. FCPS knew this was the case

Pupil placement accelerated - FCPS refuses to budge on dropping IB and Lee

2015 boundary change - removed Daventry students - a relatively wealthy neighborhood

In the middle of all of this Great Schools came along and created winners and losers - English speaking Americans, particularly white, just stopped choosing houses in the Lee/Lewis boundary

That is how we got here. Notice the total number of students in 2003 at the two schools. Only different by 167 students. Now in 2024 - different by 1086 students.

Lewis is much smaller, much poorer, and has many more ESL students. The ESL rate at WS actually went down over the years.

The quality of the school (teachers, admin) is not necessarily different or subpar, but the demographics of the students is much different.

How should this be resolved? Long time homeowner wants to know.

This is an unpopular reality to bring up: there is a relationship between the foreign born population and academic performance of an area. And fairfax county has grown its immigrant population over the past 25 years at a per capita rate that exceeds NYC. Lewis #s over 20 years are an example of this. FCPS has failed this population over time and now wants to shuffle kids around to see if it treats the symptoms of high immigrant areas. Living here means accepting that the county will continue to import a (mostly) disadvantaged immigrant population and concentrate it in pockets that need extra resources to be successful. FCPS’ position is that your children are the those resources that will fix that population.

Um there are tons of “foreign born” people who have bought houses in high-performing school districts. Many of us in this “immigrant population” also don’t want our hard-earned resources and home equity redistributed elsewhere. People who were lucky enough to be born here have not cornered the market on success. Please consider your word choice - over-broad brush strokes are not helpful to the conversation.

you are not wrong, but the fact remains that for every immigrant family that bought in a high-performing school district there are several immigrant families that are renting and buying in urbanized district and dragging down school performance #s.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why don’t we all calm down and stop speculating until we see what is actually being planned.[/quote]

It seems pretty clear what they are going to do imo. Look at the recent redistricting of the magistrate map.

They are going to break WSES 80/20 and RVES 80/20. The 20% of WSES closes to Irving MS are added to The 80% of RVES that stays in the WSHS pyramid. This meets the proximity and busing criteria in the new policy. The 20% of RVES that already goes to Key/Lewis are added to the 80% of WSES that is closest to Key/Lewis and added to Lewis pyramid. This is exactly what they did to the electoral map. And would have almost no political blow back because the upset families would not be in the Springfield District and the Franconia District would welcome the change and overwhelm the voices of the upset families (as we have seen on these boards).

Open question re whether they also move the HV neighborhood south of the parkway to Newington/SoCo. Or move the western KMES split feed to the LBHS pyramid. But maybe? Doing so frees up capacity between OHES and HVES to shuffle the overcrowding at those schools and/or capacity at KM to address overcrowding at CFES. But this is all in the Springfield district, so political consequences are possible. [/quote]

So you think they'll ignore all their talk about eliminating split feeders and prioritize the "over-crowding" (which most of us think is BS) at WSHS? I think you're probably right, but I'm not happy about it. [/quote]

What I outlined above would eliminate all the split feeders except Sangster, I think. Maybe they do that too?[/quote]

Maybe I don’t get what you mean about RVES and WSES. I read that as keeping rolling valley as a split feeder and making WSES a split feeder by having Daventry go to key/lewis after WSES. Did you mean something different?

I think it makes more sense to free up even more space at Rolling valley by moving the kids who already go to key/lewis to Saratoga and use the space at rolling valley for Cardinal forest or orange hunt kids.
[/quote]

Fair enough. I’m probably not being clear.

I think they will take the 20% of RVES that already attends Key/Lewis and add it to WSES. Then take the 20% of WSES that is walking distance to Irving MS and add it to RVES. Effectively swapping kids between WSES and RVES.

Then 100% of the new/adjusted WSES goes to Key/Lewis. And 100% of the new/adjusted RVES goes to Irving/WSHS. [/quote]

I agree this makes the most sense to solve WSHS/Lewis capacity, assuming there actually is a problem to solve at WSHS. As far as HVES south of the parkway, I think it makes sense to move some of that population to Newington Forest ES and feeding into South County, which frees up some space to move some of the Orange Hunt population over to Hunt Valley. [/quote]

Maybe? RVES is second to KMES for diversity feeding into WSHS so I’m not sure this is what they will end up doing. It disrupts many schools. I think the “hidden” diversity agenda will be the most important thing.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why don’t we all calm down and stop speculating until we see what is actually being planned.[/quote]

It seems pretty clear what they are going to do imo. Look at the recent redistricting of the magistrate map.

They are going to break WSES 80/20 and RVES 80/20. The 20% of WSES closes to Irving MS are added to The 80% of RVES that stays in the WSHS pyramid. This meets the proximity and busing criteria in the new policy. The 20% of RVES that already goes to Key/Lewis are added to the 80% of WSES that is closest to Key/Lewis and added to Lewis pyramid. This is exactly what they did to the electoral map. And would have almost no political blow back because the upset families would not be in the Springfield District and the Franconia District would welcome the change and overwhelm the voices of the upset families (as we have seen on these boards).

Open question re whether they also move the HV neighborhood south of the parkway to Newington/SoCo. Or move the western KMES split feed to the LBHS pyramid. But maybe? Doing so frees up capacity between OHES and HVES to shuffle the overcrowding at those schools and/or capacity at KM to address overcrowding at CFES. But this is all in the Springfield district, so political consequences are possible. [/quote]

So you think they'll ignore all their talk about eliminating split feeders and prioritize the "over-crowding" (which most of us think is BS) at WSHS? I think you're probably right, but I'm not happy about it. [/quote]

What I outlined above would eliminate all the split feeders except Sangster, I think. Maybe they do that too?[/quote]

Maybe I don’t get what you mean about RVES and WSES. I read that as keeping rolling valley as a split feeder and making WSES a split feeder by having Daventry go to key/lewis after WSES. Did you mean something different?

I think it makes more sense to free up even more space at Rolling valley by moving the kids who already go to key/lewis to Saratoga and use the space at rolling valley for Cardinal forest or orange hunt kids.
[/quote]

Fair enough. I’m probably not being clear.

I think they will take the 20% of RVES that already attends Key/Lewis and add it to WSES. Then take the 20% of WSES that is walking distance to Irving MS and add it to RVES. Effectively swapping kids between WSES and RVES.

Then 100% of the new/adjusted WSES goes to Key/Lewis. And 100% of the new/adjusted RVES goes to Irving/WSHS. [/quote]

I agree this makes the most sense to solve WSHS/Lewis capacity, assuming there actually is a problem to solve at WSHS. As far as HVES south of the parkway, I think it makes sense to move some of that population to Newington Forest ES and feeding into South County, which frees up some space to move some of the Orange Hunt population over to Hunt Valley. [/quote]

Maybe? RVES is second to KMES for diversity feeding into WSHS so I’m not sure this is what they will end up doing. It disrupts many schools. I think the “hidden” diversity agenda will be the most important thing. [/quote]

To clarify for the PP, no change to the RVES population that feeds WSHS. Just moving the existing split feeder RVES population that feeds Lewis over to WSES, and WSES feeds Lewis.

[Anonymous]

People keep asserting FCPS already has prepared new boundary maps that they'll unveil at some point, but that would be easy enough to FOIA if it were true. Seems like a conspiracy theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People keep asserting FCPS already has prepared new boundary maps that they'll unveil at some point, but that would be easy enough to FOIA if it were true. Seems like a conspiracy theory.

Oh yeah, they always produce documents under FOIA. They never ever try to bury the requester with costs.

Absurd post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People keep asserting FCPS already has prepared new boundary maps that they'll unveil at some point, but that would be easy enough to FOIA if it were true. Seems like a conspiracy theory.

Oh yeah, they always produce documents under FOIA. They never ever try to bury the requester with costs.

Absurd post.

It would be a specific request so any claims by FCPS of exorbitant production costs could be readily challenged. But thanks for confirming you prefer to wallow in conspiracy theories.

[Anonymous]

RVES and WSES switcheroo isn't going to happen. They need to move a HUGE school to Lewis....like Hunt Valley.

They will then move that small section of townhomes going to Lewis at RVES to WSHS, removing the split feeder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:RVES and WSES switcheroo isn't going to happen. They need to move a HUGE school to Lewis....like Hunt Valley.

They will then move that small section of townhomes going to Lewis at RVES to WSHS, removing the split feeder.

HVES: 733, WSES: 568

HV could make sense in a scenario where all ES boundaries are overhauled and HVES located at the northern end of its boundary. In the absence of a complete overhaul the WSES/RVES shuffle makes far more sense and solves the RVES split feeder. And as many others have pointed out WSES is already the only WSHS feeder that is zoned for the Franconia district. I wouldn't be surprised if the SB already has this in mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People keep asserting FCPS already has prepared new boundary maps that they'll unveil at some point, but that would be easy enough to FOIA if it were true. Seems like a conspiracy theory.

Oh yeah, they always produce documents under FOIA. They never ever try to bury the requester with costs.

Absurd post.

It would be a specific request so any claims by FCPS of exorbitant production costs could be readily challenged. But thanks for confirming you prefer to wallow in conspiracy theories.

I can’t tell if you are joking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People keep asserting FCPS already has prepared new boundary maps that they'll unveil at some point, but that would be easy enough to FOIA if it were true. Seems like a conspiracy theory.

Oh yeah, they always produce documents under FOIA. They never ever try to bury the requester with costs.

Absurd post.

It would be a specific request so any claims by FCPS of exorbitant production costs could be readily challenged. But thanks for confirming you prefer to wallow in conspiracy theories.

I can’t tell if you are joking.

No. I just find it weird when people claim they’ve already decided what they are going to do and have already drawn up the new maps. If that were the case we’d have seen them already.