Boundary Review Meetings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. I am a little skeptical about how many are abusing the system. I am confident that some are--but I doubt it is a significant number--although, it is fraud and any fraud is too much.

As for checking, I think it would be ridiculous to have a staff checking every student. However, the schools should be responsible for reporting any situations that they question. That is where it would be found. If other parents are reporting it to the school, the school should report it for investigation.

One person should be enough.

Interesting...$4 billion dollar FCPS budget and 1 person doing residency checks...doesn't make much sense to me

Arlington now does checks at the beginning of middle and high school. It isn’t that hard and started with their last rezoning.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Do you think school board will amend with new changes from Reid’s proposal or just remove some of her changes? I hope nothing new - maybe just add to list of things to look at in future?

They might put some of the Map 4 changes back into play (WSHS comes to mind)

There are some very upset Cardinal Forest families at Reid's last minute changes that switched that Keene Mill island down near White Oaks, Shannon Station, from getting rezoned to White Oaks elementary and Lake Braddock in Map 4, to Reid rezoning them to Cardinal Forest, putting Cardinal Forest well over capacity, and also rezoning walkable Cardinal Forest neighborhoods from Cardinal Forest to farther away Keene Mill elementary.

Moving Shannon Station to White Oaks in Map 4 eliminated an attendance island and decreased West Springfield High School by around 100 students. It also lowered transportation costs by sending them to a closer school, and sent Shannon Station to equivalent schools with the same programs. The Shannon Station move was low hanging fruit and met every last one of the four rezoning mandates given to the BRAC committee by the school board.

Reid's map keeps everyone at WSHS. Reid keeps the recommendation from Map 4 to move two SPAs from Rolling Valley to Saratoga, but leaves one Rolling Valley SPA from the Parkway area at status quo (Rolling Valley > Key > Lewis), which means that instead of being a roughly 60/40 split feeder between WSHS and Lewis, Rolling Valley is now less than 10% split going to Lewis.

What Reid did to the WSHS maps by keeping Emerald Chase at WSHS and rezoning Rolling Valley the way that she did, puts a huge target on WSHS for mid cycle rezoning in the next year or two.

Sandy Anderson openly stated this at the school board meeting last week. Anderson's term goes through 2028. Rezoning WSHS has been her consistent, stated goal since soon after she was sworn in. If she can find a way to rezone neighborhoods out of WSHS in an off cycle rezoning before her term ends, and move RV into WSHS, then she will definitely try.

If you know the history and follow the process, it is clear that Reid's map, trying to keep everyone happy, is the worst case scenario for WSHS as it means continuous, mid cycle rezoning.

I sincerely hope that the school board adopts Map 4 for WSHS, for at least Shannon Station. Or, if they leave Shannon Station at WSHS, then I hope they rezone SPA 8922 along the Parkway to Saratoga, along with the rest of the Rolling Valley Lewis schools.

In my opinion, that is the best way to protect WSHS from mid cycle rezoning.

One correction to my post.

School board elections are odd years in FairfaxCounty, 2019, 2023, 2027...

The term ends in January 2028, while the election is November 2027, roughly 22 months from now.

This school board has roughly 2 years to continue to make their mark on our kids' education. I think they are counting on voters completely forgetting about this rezoning mess by the next election.

Hard to do that when Sandy Anderson promised that this is just the start and they’re planning to continue looking at a variety of schools starting in January from the superintendent’s list.

Is anyone familiar with her origin story? I’m genuinely curious why she’s so singularly focused on WSHS. How does someone wake up one day and decide that rezoning this one school becomes their life’s mission?

Some people just think they know best. They claim to "care more" than you do. "Savior" mentality.

A white suburban woman knows what is good for poor black, Latino and Asian children than their own parents. These women are the real racists.

Correct.

Those two white women who argued for more boundary changes are just trying to get more kids like theirs in their classrooms. I question their motives. The only one who seemed to be truly crunchy was the elderly woman with short hair who clearly doesn’t have kids in the school district, but even her children probably benefited from the system she is now trying to change.

So some FCPS schools are designated for black, Latino, and Asian students? That is what you can read from your statement.

Lewis is closing in on only 1500 students this year and will almost certainly start next year around 1450 if nothing is done. It is not like the other FCPS schools simply in the NUMBER of students, be they white, black, Latino, Asian, or other.

But they are doing something. They’re looking at stopping transfers out by adding programming. That’s what Reid said.

And it looks like they are going to add Bren Mar Park elementary before the 5 year review. Which also helps relieve capacity issues at Edison so is a good change.

I have no idea why we’re suddenly bringing up a NYT podcast from an entirely different cultural era … definitely not a relevant piece of media in these extremely different times.

It’s not clear it’s a good change. It quickly got tabled for this cycle whereas they went ahead with the other last-minute changes to move kids out of Glasgow/Justice to Poe/Falls Church and Holmes/Annandale. They ended up getting a lot of push back from the Beech Tree families, but they hadn’t tabled those changes like they had with Bren Mar Park.

It isn’t a change that is being proposed to add kids to Lewis - rather, it is to take kids out of Edison. Edison needs to get rid of some students in order to accommodate growth in the region - they’ve already broken ground on a large neighborhood in Kingstowne where the old Top Golf used to be and that area will for sure be zoned for Edison. Never mind when the Franconia government center gets redeveloped in a few years. I know BMP would like to end up back at Annandale but Annandale also can’t accommodate more students at this point.

All of Bren Mar Park went to Annandale before 2011. Bren Mar Park ES used to be two different schools - Edsall Park ES covered the area north of the Beltway and west of 395, and Bren Mar Park ES the area north of the Beltway an east of 395. One area is Springfield and the other Alexandria. They closed Edsall Park decades ago. To get to Edison now, the Edsall Park area has to cross both 395 and the Beltway. The Bren Mar area just has to cross the Beltway.

Annandale has capacity to take back the Edsall Park area, and that area would no longer have to cross either the Beltway or 395. The Bren Mar area is better served by Edison. None of these folks want to go to Lewis, and they should not be moved there just to give West Springfield families comfort that someone else is getting moved instead.

So you propose making a split feeder out of BMP and sending some to Annandale and keeping some at Edison? It’s not a bad idea on paper and does get some kids out of Edison - but not sure if it’s enough kids to accommodate the new neighborhoods. And then you run into the K-5/K-6 school problems as BMP is currently a K-5 school whereas the rest of Edison and all of Lewis have K-6 elementaries.

And again - this is not about adding kids to Lewis to prop it up, it’s about reducing enrollment at Edison. I would agree if Annandale could pick up all of BMP, that is where they should go. But they can’t at this point without worsening the crowding there and then creating a spillover effect into Justice, Falls Church, Woodson etc. From a purely logistical standpoint and affecting the smallest number of schools, BMP to Lewis makes sense right now.

The CIP now has West Springfield at 114% this fall and Edison at 103%. Any future adjustments should be based on updated numbers.

Annandale could probably pick up all of BMP if needed but it’s those from west of 395 who would be most receptive to that move.

Their starting point with Lewis needs to be replacing IB with AP, which would curtail transfers. As for Edison, they can monitor enrollments to see if the projected increase in students materializes. They have Edison at 109% in 2030, but that still well below West Springfield’s current and projected capacity utilization.

Some of the elementary feeders into WSHS are heading down to below 90% capacity. All of the feeders are smaller than the classes they are replacing, some significantly like class of 2030 being 150 fewer students than graduating class of 2026.

Yet FCPS continues to show growth at WSHS in spite of the WSHS feeder schools steadily losing enrollment each year.

Either the CIP math ain't mathing at WSHS, or there is something really fishy happening with transfers into WSHS, and possible widespread residency fraud.

WSHS needs a residency check and transfer into the school frozen.

What West Springfield needs is for the parents who are so insecure about being redistricted some day to stop pitching alternative scenarios that move around other people’s kids at other schools instead. It only serves to call renewed attention to which high school FCPS currently considers and projects to be the most overcrowded in the county: WSHS.

How about you mind your business and just give those WSHS parents credit. I didn't hear them advocating for kicking or moving anyone out. They did their freaking homework, they understood the assignment, and they pushed back hard. Do the residency checks, keep limiting transfers, keep watching the declining numbers. Improving programing before you start playing ping-ponging kids around.

Some of them are pushing for Bren Mar Park to get moved to Lewis. Try to keep up.

“Them” Oh you mean the BRAC and Thru who proposed the move and then quickly took it back … I’m sure WS parents wish they were that powerful though, LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. I am a little skeptical about how many are abusing the system. I am confident that some are--but I doubt it is a significant number--although, it is fraud and any fraud is too much.

As for checking, I think it would be ridiculous to have a staff checking every student. However, the schools should be responsible for reporting any situations that they question. That is where it would be found. If other parents are reporting it to the school, the school should report it for investigation.

One person should be enough.

Interesting...$4 billion dollar FCPS budget and 1 person doing residency checks...doesn't make much sense to me

Arlington now does checks at the beginning of middle and high school. It isn’t that hard and started with their last rezoning.

They should definitely check at the beginning of middle and HS. Those are natural transition times. They could have parents bring documents to the school over the summer or even upload them through SIS.

I don’t think residency fraud is a huge problem overall, but there are some schools where it’s happening a lot. There are a lot of Maryland license plates at Edison and West Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP. I am a little skeptical about how many are abusing the system. I am confident that some are--but I doubt it is a significant number--although, it is fraud and any fraud is too much.

As for checking, I think it would be ridiculous to have a staff checking every student. However, the schools should be responsible for reporting any situations that they question. That is where it would be found. If other parents are reporting it to the school, the school should report it for investigation.

One person should be enough.

I suggested to multiple school board members that they consider a new rule saying at if a school hits a certain level of over-crowding, let's say 110 percent, it automatically triggers residency checks for incoming freshmen etc. That would really lessen the administrative burden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP. I am a little skeptical about how many are abusing the system. I am confident that some are--but I doubt it is a significant number--although, it is fraud and any fraud is too much.

As for checking, I think it would be ridiculous to have a staff checking every student. However, the schools should be responsible for reporting any situations that they question. That is where it would be found. If other parents are reporting it to the school, the school should report it for investigation.

One person should be enough.

I suggested to multiple school board members that they consider a new rule saying at if a school hits a certain level of over-crowding, let's say 110 percent, it automatically triggers residency checks for incoming freshmen etc. That would really lessen the administrative burden.

This is a great idea

[Anonymous]

Sandy tried to move a West Springfield neighborhood out that only had 18 sixth graders. I don't care if it's not a huge problem, but even if they found 18 kids who were illegally using a WSHS address it would mean not kicking out kids you rightly should be.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Do you think school board will amend with new changes from Reid’s proposal or just remove some of her changes? I hope nothing new - maybe just add to list of things to look at in future?

They might put some of the Map 4 changes back into play (WSHS comes to mind)

There are some very upset Cardinal Forest families at Reid's last minute changes that switched that Keene Mill island down near White Oaks, Shannon Station, from getting rezoned to White Oaks elementary and Lake Braddock in Map 4, to Reid rezoning them to Cardinal Forest, putting Cardinal Forest well over capacity, and also rezoning walkable Cardinal Forest neighborhoods from Cardinal Forest to farther away Keene Mill elementary.

Moving Shannon Station to White Oaks in Map 4 eliminated an attendance island and decreased West Springfield High School by around 100 students. It also lowered transportation costs by sending them to a closer school, and sent Shannon Station to equivalent schools with the same programs. The Shannon Station move was low hanging fruit and met every last one of the four rezoning mandates given to the BRAC committee by the school board.

Reid's map keeps everyone at WSHS. Reid keeps the recommendation from Map 4 to move two SPAs from Rolling Valley to Saratoga, but leaves one Rolling Valley SPA from the Parkway area at status quo (Rolling Valley > Key > Lewis), which means that instead of being a roughly 60/40 split feeder between WSHS and Lewis, Rolling Valley is now less than 10% split going to Lewis.

What Reid did to the WSHS maps by keeping Emerald Chase at WSHS and rezoning Rolling Valley the way that she did, puts a huge target on WSHS for mid cycle rezoning in the next year or two.

Sandy Anderson openly stated this at the school board meeting last week. Anderson's term goes through 2028. Rezoning WSHS has been her consistent, stated goal since soon after she was sworn in. If she can find a way to rezone neighborhoods out of WSHS in an off cycle rezoning before her term ends, and move RV into WSHS, then she will definitely try.

If you know the history and follow the process, it is clear that Reid's map, trying to keep everyone happy, is the worst case scenario for WSHS as it means continuous, mid cycle rezoning.

I sincerely hope that the school board adopts Map 4 for WSHS, for at least Shannon Station. Or, if they leave Shannon Station at WSHS, then I hope they rezone SPA 8922 along the Parkway to Saratoga, along with the rest of the Rolling Valley Lewis schools.

In my opinion, that is the best way to protect WSHS from mid cycle rezoning.

One correction to my post.

School board elections are odd years in FairfaxCounty, 2019, 2023, 2027...

The term ends in January 2028, while the election is November 2027, roughly 22 months from now.

This school board has roughly 2 years to continue to make their mark on our kids' education. I think they are counting on voters completely forgetting about this rezoning mess by the next election.

Hard to do that when Sandy Anderson promised that this is just the start and they’re planning to continue looking at a variety of schools starting in January from the superintendent’s list.

Is anyone familiar with her origin story? I’m genuinely curious why she’s so singularly focused on WSHS. How does someone wake up one day and decide that rezoning this one school becomes their life’s mission?

Some people just think they know best. They claim to "care more" than you do. "Savior" mentality.

A white suburban woman knows what is good for poor black, Latino and Asian children than their own parents. These women are the real racists.

Correct.

Those two white women who argued for more boundary changes are just trying to get more kids like theirs in their classrooms. I question their motives. The only one who seemed to be truly crunchy was the elderly woman with short hair who clearly doesn’t have kids in the school district, but even her children probably benefited from the system she is now trying to change.

So some FCPS schools are designated for black, Latino, and Asian students? That is what you can read from your statement.

Lewis is closing in on only 1500 students this year and will almost certainly start next year around 1450 if nothing is done. It is not like the other FCPS schools simply in the NUMBER of students, be they white, black, Latino, Asian, or other.

But they are doing something. They’re looking at stopping transfers out by adding programming. That’s what Reid said.

And it looks like they are going to add Bren Mar Park elementary before the 5 year review. Which also helps relieve capacity issues at Edison so is a good change.

I have no idea why we’re suddenly bringing up a NYT podcast from an entirely different cultural era … definitely not a relevant piece of media in these extremely different times.

It’s not clear it’s a good change. It quickly got tabled for this cycle whereas they went ahead with the other last-minute changes to move kids out of Glasgow/Justice to Poe/Falls Church and Holmes/Annandale. They ended up getting a lot of push back from the Beech Tree families, but they hadn’t tabled those changes like they had with Bren Mar Park.

It isn’t a change that is being proposed to add kids to Lewis - rather, it is to take kids out of Edison. Edison needs to get rid of some students in order to accommodate growth in the region - they’ve already broken ground on a large neighborhood in Kingstowne where the old Top Golf used to be and that area will for sure be zoned for Edison. Never mind when the Franconia government center gets redeveloped in a few years. I know BMP would like to end up back at Annandale but Annandale also can’t accommodate more students at this point.

All of Bren Mar Park went to Annandale before 2011. Bren Mar Park ES used to be two different schools - Edsall Park ES covered the area north of the Beltway and west of 395, and Bren Mar Park ES the area north of the Beltway an east of 395. One area is Springfield and the other Alexandria. They closed Edsall Park decades ago. To get to Edison now, the Edsall Park area has to cross both 395 and the Beltway. The Bren Mar area just has to cross the Beltway.

Annandale has capacity to take back the Edsall Park area, and that area would no longer have to cross either the Beltway or 395. The Bren Mar area is better served by Edison. None of these folks want to go to Lewis, and they should not be moved there just to give West Springfield families comfort that someone else is getting moved instead.

So you propose making a split feeder out of BMP and sending some to Annandale and keeping some at Edison? It’s not a bad idea on paper and does get some kids out of Edison - but not sure if it’s enough kids to accommodate the new neighborhoods. And then you run into the K-5/K-6 school problems as BMP is currently a K-5 school whereas the rest of Edison and all of Lewis have K-6 elementaries.

And again - this is not about adding kids to Lewis to prop it up, it’s about reducing enrollment at Edison. I would agree if Annandale could pick up all of BMP, that is where they should go. But they can’t at this point without worsening the crowding there and then creating a spillover effect into Justice, Falls Church, Woodson etc. From a purely logistical standpoint and affecting the smallest number of schools, BMP to Lewis makes sense right now.

The CIP now has West Springfield at 114% this fall and Edison at 103%. Any future adjustments should be based on updated numbers.

Annandale could probably pick up all of BMP if needed but it’s those from west of 395 who would be most receptive to that move.

Their starting point with Lewis needs to be replacing IB with AP, which would curtail transfers. As for Edison, they can monitor enrollments to see if the projected increase in students materializes. They have Edison at 109% in 2030, but that still well below West Springfield’s current and projected capacity utilization.

Some of the elementary feeders into WSHS are heading down to below 90% capacity. All of the feeders are smaller than the classes they are replacing, some significantly like class of 2030 being 150 fewer students than graduating class of 2026.

Yet FCPS continues to show growth at WSHS in spite of the WSHS feeder schools steadily losing enrollment each year.

Either the CIP math ain't mathing at WSHS, or there is something really fishy happening with transfers into WSHS, and possible widespread residency fraud.

WSHS needs a residency check and transfer into the school frozen.

What West Springfield needs is for the parents who are so insecure about being redistricted some day to stop pitching alternative scenarios that move around other people’s kids at other schools instead. It only serves to call renewed attention to which high school FCPS currently considers and projects to be the most overcrowded in the county: WSHS.

How about you mind your business and just give those WSHS parents credit. I didn't hear them advocating for kicking or moving anyone out. They did their freaking homework, they understood the assignment, and they pushed back hard. Do the residency checks, keep limiting transfers, keep watching the declining numbers. Improving programing before you start playing ping-ponging kids around.

Some of them are pushing for Bren Mar Park to get moved to Lewis. Try to keep up.

“Them” Oh you mean the BRAC and Thru who proposed the move and then quickly took it back … I’m sure WS parents wish they were that powerful though, LOL.

The Springfield BRAC members did not have anything to do with this Bren Mar situation.

Not to be snide, but no one in the WSHS pyramid has ever heard of the school and could not locate on a map.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sandy tried to move a West Springfield neighborhood out that only had 18 sixth graders. I don't care if it's not a huge problem, but even if they found 18 kids who were illegally using a WSHS address it would mean not kicking out kids you rightly should be.

Supposedly, that Rolling Valley SPA 8922 that attends Lewis has around a half dozen kids per grade.

That is around 1/3 of the student transfers into WSHS. And surely they can find an equal number of out of bound residency fraud cases if they did a residency check.

If the Springfield rep truly wants to make room at WSHS for SPA 8922 Rolling avalley, then she should start with a full residency check, and enforce FCPS transfer policy.

At the last in person BRAC meeting, it was stated that the transfers into WSHS are mostly students from surtounding schools taking German. Per FCPS own policy, those students are not allowed to transfer into closed WSHS for German. They are required to go to the next closest school with a German program.

Close WSHS to transfers. Not just "closed but fcps will give you a waiver" but actually closed.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Do you think school board will amend with new changes from Reid’s proposal or just remove some of her changes? I hope nothing new - maybe just add to list of things to look at in future?

They might put some of the Map 4 changes back into play (WSHS comes to mind)

There are some very upset Cardinal Forest families at Reid's last minute changes that switched that Keene Mill island down near White Oaks, Shannon Station, from getting rezoned to White Oaks elementary and Lake Braddock in Map 4, to Reid rezoning them to Cardinal Forest, putting Cardinal Forest well over capacity, and also rezoning walkable Cardinal Forest neighborhoods from Cardinal Forest to farther away Keene Mill elementary.

Moving Shannon Station to White Oaks in Map 4 eliminated an attendance island and decreased West Springfield High School by around 100 students. It also lowered transportation costs by sending them to a closer school, and sent Shannon Station to equivalent schools with the same programs. The Shannon Station move was low hanging fruit and met every last one of the four rezoning mandates given to the BRAC committee by the school board.

Reid's map keeps everyone at WSHS. Reid keeps the recommendation from Map 4 to move two SPAs from Rolling Valley to Saratoga, but leaves one Rolling Valley SPA from the Parkway area at status quo (Rolling Valley > Key > Lewis), which means that instead of being a roughly 60/40 split feeder between WSHS and Lewis, Rolling Valley is now less than 10% split going to Lewis.

What Reid did to the WSHS maps by keeping Emerald Chase at WSHS and rezoning Rolling Valley the way that she did, puts a huge target on WSHS for mid cycle rezoning in the next year or two.

Sandy Anderson openly stated this at the school board meeting last week. Anderson's term goes through 2028. Rezoning WSHS has been her consistent, stated goal since soon after she was sworn in. If she can find a way to rezone neighborhoods out of WSHS in an off cycle rezoning before her term ends, and move RV into WSHS, then she will definitely try.

If you know the history and follow the process, it is clear that Reid's map, trying to keep everyone happy, is the worst case scenario for WSHS as it means continuous, mid cycle rezoning.

I sincerely hope that the school board adopts Map 4 for WSHS, for at least Shannon Station. Or, if they leave Shannon Station at WSHS, then I hope they rezone SPA 8922 along the Parkway to Saratoga, along with the rest of the Rolling Valley Lewis schools.

In my opinion, that is the best way to protect WSHS from mid cycle rezoning.

One correction to my post.

School board elections are odd years in FairfaxCounty, 2019, 2023, 2027...

The term ends in January 2028, while the election is November 2027, roughly 22 months from now.

This school board has roughly 2 years to continue to make their mark on our kids' education. I think they are counting on voters completely forgetting about this rezoning mess by the next election.

Hard to do that when Sandy Anderson promised that this is just the start and they’re planning to continue looking at a variety of schools starting in January from the superintendent’s list.

Is anyone familiar with her origin story? I’m genuinely curious why she’s so singularly focused on WSHS. How does someone wake up one day and decide that rezoning this one school becomes their life’s mission?

Some people just think they know best. They claim to "care more" than you do. "Savior" mentality.

A white suburban woman knows what is good for poor black, Latino and Asian children than their own parents. These women are the real racists.

Correct.

Those two white women who argued for more boundary changes are just trying to get more kids like theirs in their classrooms. I question their motives. The only one who seemed to be truly crunchy was the elderly woman with short hair who clearly doesn’t have kids in the school district, but even her children probably benefited from the system she is now trying to change.

So some FCPS schools are designated for black, Latino, and Asian students? That is what you can read from your statement.

Lewis is closing in on only 1500 students this year and will almost certainly start next year around 1450 if nothing is done. It is not like the other FCPS schools simply in the NUMBER of students, be they white, black, Latino, Asian, or other.

But they are doing something. They’re looking at stopping transfers out by adding programming. That’s what Reid said.

And it looks like they are going to add Bren Mar Park elementary before the 5 year review. Which also helps relieve capacity issues at Edison so is a good change.

I have no idea why we’re suddenly bringing up a NYT podcast from an entirely different cultural era … definitely not a relevant piece of media in these extremely different times.

It’s not clear it’s a good change. It quickly got tabled for this cycle whereas they went ahead with the other last-minute changes to move kids out of Glasgow/Justice to Poe/Falls Church and Holmes/Annandale. They ended up getting a lot of push back from the Beech Tree families, but they hadn’t tabled those changes like they had with Bren Mar Park.

It isn’t a change that is being proposed to add kids to Lewis - rather, it is to take kids out of Edison. Edison needs to get rid of some students in order to accommodate growth in the region - they’ve already broken ground on a large neighborhood in Kingstowne where the old Top Golf used to be and that area will for sure be zoned for Edison. Never mind when the Franconia government center gets redeveloped in a few years. I know BMP would like to end up back at Annandale but Annandale also can’t accommodate more students at this point.

All of Bren Mar Park went to Annandale before 2011. Bren Mar Park ES used to be two different schools - Edsall Park ES covered the area north of the Beltway and west of 395, and Bren Mar Park ES the area north of the Beltway an east of 395. One area is Springfield and the other Alexandria. They closed Edsall Park decades ago. To get to Edison now, the Edsall Park area has to cross both 395 and the Beltway. The Bren Mar area just has to cross the Beltway.

Annandale has capacity to take back the Edsall Park area, and that area would no longer have to cross either the Beltway or 395. The Bren Mar area is better served by Edison. None of these folks want to go to Lewis, and they should not be moved there just to give West Springfield families comfort that someone else is getting moved instead.

So you propose making a split feeder out of BMP and sending some to Annandale and keeping some at Edison? It’s not a bad idea on paper and does get some kids out of Edison - but not sure if it’s enough kids to accommodate the new neighborhoods. And then you run into the K-5/K-6 school problems as BMP is currently a K-5 school whereas the rest of Edison and all of Lewis have K-6 elementaries.

And again - this is not about adding kids to Lewis to prop it up, it’s about reducing enrollment at Edison. I would agree if Annandale could pick up all of BMP, that is where they should go. But they can’t at this point without worsening the crowding there and then creating a spillover effect into Justice, Falls Church, Woodson etc. From a purely logistical standpoint and affecting the smallest number of schools, BMP to Lewis makes sense right now.

The CIP now has West Springfield at 114% this fall and Edison at 103%. Any future adjustments should be based on updated numbers.

Annandale could probably pick up all of BMP if needed but it’s those from west of 395 who would be most receptive to that move.

Their starting point with Lewis needs to be replacing IB with AP, which would curtail transfers. As for Edison, they can monitor enrollments to see if the projected increase in students materializes. They have Edison at 109% in 2030, but that still well below West Springfield’s current and projected capacity utilization.

Some of the elementary feeders into WSHS are heading down to below 90% capacity. All of the feeders are smaller than the classes they are replacing, some significantly like class of 2030 being 150 fewer students than graduating class of 2026.

Yet FCPS continues to show growth at WSHS in spite of the WSHS feeder schools steadily losing enrollment each year.

Either the CIP math ain't mathing at WSHS, or there is something really fishy happening with transfers into WSHS, and possible widespread residency fraud.

WSHS needs a residency check and transfer into the school frozen.

What West Springfield needs is for the parents who are so insecure about being redistricted some day to stop pitching alternative scenarios that move around other people’s kids at other schools instead. It only serves to call renewed attention to which high school FCPS currently considers and projects to be the most overcrowded in the county: WSHS.

How about you mind your business and just give those WSHS parents credit. I didn't hear them advocating for kicking or moving anyone out. They did their freaking homework, they understood the assignment, and they pushed back hard. Do the residency checks, keep limiting transfers, keep watching the declining numbers. Improving programing before you start playing ping-ponging kids around.

Residency checks are routinely done. This is a red herring.

I have not once been asked to resubmit residency information after 10 years in the FCPS system. It is very easy to use a previous address to stay at a school. Or to use someone else's address to enroll ... someone on this site asked about doing that just the other week!

Cool anecdotal evidence.

I'm not OP, but this is a fact. Residency checks outside of first registration do not happen. Reid herself said they have literally only one person's job to check for ALL of Fairfax country.

I was also told this at a meeting with a SB member. Residency checks just aren’t a priority & now they’re being called on it. We know people who use grandparents’ houses or rental properties that they own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sandy tried to move a West Springfield neighborhood out that only had 18 sixth graders. I don't care if it's not a huge problem, but even if they found 18 kids who were illegally using a WSHS address it would mean not kicking out kids you rightly should be.

Supposedly, that Rolling Valley SPA 8922 that attends Lewis has around a half dozen kids per grade.

That is around 1/3 of the student transfers into WSHS. And surely they can find an equal number of out of bound residency fraud cases if they did a residency check.

If the Springfield rep truly wants to make room at WSHS for SPA 8922 Rolling avalley, then she should start with a full residency check, and enforce FCPS transfer policy.

At the last in person BRAC meeting, it was stated that the transfers into WSHS are mostly students from surtounding schools taking German. Per FCPS own policy, those students are not allowed to transfer into closed WSHS for German. They are required to go to the next closest school with a German program.

Close WSHS to transfers. Not just "closed but fcps will give you a waiver" but actually closed.

Put those German classes at LBSS. They have more space. No one should be transferring into WSHS for German.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Do you think school board will amend with new changes from Reid’s proposal or just remove some of her changes? I hope nothing new - maybe just add to list of things to look at in future?

They might put some of the Map 4 changes back into play (WSHS comes to mind)

There are some very upset Cardinal Forest families at Reid's last minute changes that switched that Keene Mill island down near White Oaks, Shannon Station, from getting rezoned to White Oaks elementary and Lake Braddock in Map 4, to Reid rezoning them to Cardinal Forest, putting Cardinal Forest well over capacity, and also rezoning walkable Cardinal Forest neighborhoods from Cardinal Forest to farther away Keene Mill elementary.

Moving Shannon Station to White Oaks in Map 4 eliminated an attendance island and decreased West Springfield High School by around 100 students. It also lowered transportation costs by sending them to a closer school, and sent Shannon Station to equivalent schools with the same programs. The Shannon Station move was low hanging fruit and met every last one of the four rezoning mandates given to the BRAC committee by the school board.

Reid's map keeps everyone at WSHS. Reid keeps the recommendation from Map 4 to move two SPAs from Rolling Valley to Saratoga, but leaves one Rolling Valley SPA from the Parkway area at status quo (Rolling Valley > Key > Lewis), which means that instead of being a roughly 60/40 split feeder between WSHS and Lewis, Rolling Valley is now less than 10% split going to Lewis.

What Reid did to the WSHS maps by keeping Emerald Chase at WSHS and rezoning Rolling Valley the way that she did, puts a huge target on WSHS for mid cycle rezoning in the next year or two.

Sandy Anderson openly stated this at the school board meeting last week. Anderson's term goes through 2028. Rezoning WSHS has been her consistent, stated goal since soon after she was sworn in. If she can find a way to rezone neighborhoods out of WSHS in an off cycle rezoning before her term ends, and move RV into WSHS, then she will definitely try.

If you know the history and follow the process, it is clear that Reid's map, trying to keep everyone happy, is the worst case scenario for WSHS as it means continuous, mid cycle rezoning.

I sincerely hope that the school board adopts Map 4 for WSHS, for at least Shannon Station. Or, if they leave Shannon Station at WSHS, then I hope they rezone SPA 8922 along the Parkway to Saratoga, along with the rest of the Rolling Valley Lewis schools.

In my opinion, that is the best way to protect WSHS from mid cycle rezoning.

One correction to my post.

School board elections are odd years in FairfaxCounty, 2019, 2023, 2027...

The term ends in January 2028, while the election is November 2027, roughly 22 months from now.

This school board has roughly 2 years to continue to make their mark on our kids' education. I think they are counting on voters completely forgetting about this rezoning mess by the next election.

Hard to do that when Sandy Anderson promised that this is just the start and they’re planning to continue looking at a variety of schools starting in January from the superintendent’s list.

Is anyone familiar with her origin story? I’m genuinely curious why she’s so singularly focused on WSHS. How does someone wake up one day and decide that rezoning this one school becomes their life’s mission?

Some people just think they know best. They claim to "care more" than you do. "Savior" mentality.

A white suburban woman knows what is good for poor black, Latino and Asian children than their own parents. These women are the real racists.

Correct.

Those two white women who argued for more boundary changes are just trying to get more kids like theirs in their classrooms. I question their motives. The only one who seemed to be truly crunchy was the elderly woman with short hair who clearly doesn’t have kids in the school district, but even her children probably benefited from the system she is now trying to change.

So some FCPS schools are designated for black, Latino, and Asian students? That is what you can read from your statement.

Lewis is closing in on only 1500 students this year and will almost certainly start next year around 1450 if nothing is done. It is not like the other FCPS schools simply in the NUMBER of students, be they white, black, Latino, Asian, or other.

But they are doing something. They’re looking at stopping transfers out by adding programming. That’s what Reid said.

And it looks like they are going to add Bren Mar Park elementary before the 5 year review. Which also helps relieve capacity issues at Edison so is a good change.

I have no idea why we’re suddenly bringing up a NYT podcast from an entirely different cultural era … definitely not a relevant piece of media in these extremely different times.

It’s not clear it’s a good change. It quickly got tabled for this cycle whereas they went ahead with the other last-minute changes to move kids out of Glasgow/Justice to Poe/Falls Church and Holmes/Annandale. They ended up getting a lot of push back from the Beech Tree families, but they hadn’t tabled those changes like they had with Bren Mar Park.

It isn’t a change that is being proposed to add kids to Lewis - rather, it is to take kids out of Edison. Edison needs to get rid of some students in order to accommodate growth in the region - they’ve already broken ground on a large neighborhood in Kingstowne where the old Top Golf used to be and that area will for sure be zoned for Edison. Never mind when the Franconia government center gets redeveloped in a few years. I know BMP would like to end up back at Annandale but Annandale also can’t accommodate more students at this point.

All of Bren Mar Park went to Annandale before 2011. Bren Mar Park ES used to be two different schools - Edsall Park ES covered the area north of the Beltway and west of 395, and Bren Mar Park ES the area north of the Beltway an east of 395. One area is Springfield and the other Alexandria. They closed Edsall Park decades ago. To get to Edison now, the Edsall Park area has to cross both 395 and the Beltway. The Bren Mar area just has to cross the Beltway.

Annandale has capacity to take back the Edsall Park area, and that area would no longer have to cross either the Beltway or 395. The Bren Mar area is better served by Edison. None of these folks want to go to Lewis, and they should not be moved there just to give West Springfield families comfort that someone else is getting moved instead.

So you propose making a split feeder out of BMP and sending some to Annandale and keeping some at Edison? It’s not a bad idea on paper and does get some kids out of Edison - but not sure if it’s enough kids to accommodate the new neighborhoods. And then you run into the K-5/K-6 school problems as BMP is currently a K-5 school whereas the rest of Edison and all of Lewis have K-6 elementaries.

And again - this is not about adding kids to Lewis to prop it up, it’s about reducing enrollment at Edison. I would agree if Annandale could pick up all of BMP, that is where they should go. But they can’t at this point without worsening the crowding there and then creating a spillover effect into Justice, Falls Church, Woodson etc. From a purely logistical standpoint and affecting the smallest number of schools, BMP to Lewis makes sense right now.

The CIP now has West Springfield at 114% this fall and Edison at 103%. Any future adjustments should be based on updated numbers.

Annandale could probably pick up all of BMP if needed but it’s those from west of 395 who would be most receptive to that move.

Their starting point with Lewis needs to be replacing IB with AP, which would curtail transfers. As for Edison, they can monitor enrollments to see if the projected increase in students materializes. They have Edison at 109% in 2030, but that still well below West Springfield’s current and projected capacity utilization.

Some of the elementary feeders into WSHS are heading down to below 90% capacity. All of the feeders are smaller than the classes they are replacing, some significantly like class of 2030 being 150 fewer students than graduating class of 2026.

Yet FCPS continues to show growth at WSHS in spite of the WSHS feeder schools steadily losing enrollment each year.

Either the CIP math ain't mathing at WSHS, or there is something really fishy happening with transfers into WSHS, and possible widespread residency fraud.

WSHS needs a residency check and transfer into the school frozen.

What West Springfield needs is for the parents who are so insecure about being redistricted some day to stop pitching alternative scenarios that move around other people’s kids at other schools instead. It only serves to call renewed attention to which high school FCPS currently considers and projects to be the most overcrowded in the county: WSHS.

How about you mind your business and just give those WSHS parents credit. I didn't hear them advocating for kicking or moving anyone out. They did their freaking homework, they understood the assignment, and they pushed back hard. Do the residency checks, keep limiting transfers, keep watching the declining numbers. Improving programing before you start playing ping-ponging kids around.

Some of them are pushing for Bren Mar Park to get moved to Lewis. Try to keep up.

“Them” Oh you mean the BRAC and Thru who proposed the move and then quickly took it back … I’m sure WS parents wish they were that powerful though, LOL.

The Springfield BRAC members did not have anything to do with this Bren Mar situation.

Not to be snide, but no one in the WSHS pyramid has ever heard of the school and could not locate on a map.

It's ridiculous to suggest you can speak for everyone in the WSHS pyramid.

From reading the thread today, it seemed fairly clear that someone at WS was pushing to move Bren Mar Park kids to Lewis. It's not hard to figure out the motivation: fill Lewis with kids from another pyramid, not West Springfield.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Do you think school board will amend with new changes from Reid’s proposal or just remove some of her changes? I hope nothing new - maybe just add to list of things to look at in future?

They might put some of the Map 4 changes back into play (WSHS comes to mind)

There are some very upset Cardinal Forest families at Reid's last minute changes that switched that Keene Mill island down near White Oaks, Shannon Station, from getting rezoned to White Oaks elementary and Lake Braddock in Map 4, to Reid rezoning them to Cardinal Forest, putting Cardinal Forest well over capacity, and also rezoning walkable Cardinal Forest neighborhoods from Cardinal Forest to farther away Keene Mill elementary.

Moving Shannon Station to White Oaks in Map 4 eliminated an attendance island and decreased West Springfield High School by around 100 students. It also lowered transportation costs by sending them to a closer school, and sent Shannon Station to equivalent schools with the same programs. The Shannon Station move was low hanging fruit and met every last one of the four rezoning mandates given to the BRAC committee by the school board.

Reid's map keeps everyone at WSHS. Reid keeps the recommendation from Map 4 to move two SPAs from Rolling Valley to Saratoga, but leaves one Rolling Valley SPA from the Parkway area at status quo (Rolling Valley > Key > Lewis), which means that instead of being a roughly 60/40 split feeder between WSHS and Lewis, Rolling Valley is now less than 10% split going to Lewis.

What Reid did to the WSHS maps by keeping Emerald Chase at WSHS and rezoning Rolling Valley the way that she did, puts a huge target on WSHS for mid cycle rezoning in the next year or two.

Sandy Anderson openly stated this at the school board meeting last week. Anderson's term goes through 2028. Rezoning WSHS has been her consistent, stated goal since soon after she was sworn in. If she can find a way to rezone neighborhoods out of WSHS in an off cycle rezoning before her term ends, and move RV into WSHS, then she will definitely try.

If you know the history and follow the process, it is clear that Reid's map, trying to keep everyone happy, is the worst case scenario for WSHS as it means continuous, mid cycle rezoning.

I sincerely hope that the school board adopts Map 4 for WSHS, for at least Shannon Station. Or, if they leave Shannon Station at WSHS, then I hope they rezone SPA 8922 along the Parkway to Saratoga, along with the rest of the Rolling Valley Lewis schools.

In my opinion, that is the best way to protect WSHS from mid cycle rezoning.

One correction to my post.

School board elections are odd years in FairfaxCounty, 2019, 2023, 2027...

The term ends in January 2028, while the election is November 2027, roughly 22 months from now.

This school board has roughly 2 years to continue to make their mark on our kids' education. I think they are counting on voters completely forgetting about this rezoning mess by the next election.

Hard to do that when Sandy Anderson promised that this is just the start and they’re planning to continue looking at a variety of schools starting in January from the superintendent’s list.

Is anyone familiar with her origin story? I’m genuinely curious why she’s so singularly focused on WSHS. How does someone wake up one day and decide that rezoning this one school becomes their life’s mission?

Some people just think they know best. They claim to "care more" than you do. "Savior" mentality.

A white suburban woman knows what is good for poor black, Latino and Asian children than their own parents. These women are the real racists.

Correct.

Those two white women who argued for more boundary changes are just trying to get more kids like theirs in their classrooms. I question their motives. The only one who seemed to be truly crunchy was the elderly woman with short hair who clearly doesn’t have kids in the school district, but even her children probably benefited from the system she is now trying to change.

So some FCPS schools are designated for black, Latino, and Asian students? That is what you can read from your statement.

Lewis is closing in on only 1500 students this year and will almost certainly start next year around 1450 if nothing is done. It is not like the other FCPS schools simply in the NUMBER of students, be they white, black, Latino, Asian, or other.

But they are doing something. They’re looking at stopping transfers out by adding programming. That’s what Reid said.

And it looks like they are going to add Bren Mar Park elementary before the 5 year review. Which also helps relieve capacity issues at Edison so is a good change.

I have no idea why we’re suddenly bringing up a NYT podcast from an entirely different cultural era … definitely not a relevant piece of media in these extremely different times.

It’s not clear it’s a good change. It quickly got tabled for this cycle whereas they went ahead with the other last-minute changes to move kids out of Glasgow/Justice to Poe/Falls Church and Holmes/Annandale. They ended up getting a lot of push back from the Beech Tree families, but they hadn’t tabled those changes like they had with Bren Mar Park.

It isn’t a change that is being proposed to add kids to Lewis - rather, it is to take kids out of Edison. Edison needs to get rid of some students in order to accommodate growth in the region - they’ve already broken ground on a large neighborhood in Kingstowne where the old Top Golf used to be and that area will for sure be zoned for Edison. Never mind when the Franconia government center gets redeveloped in a few years. I know BMP would like to end up back at Annandale but Annandale also can’t accommodate more students at this point.

All of Bren Mar Park went to Annandale before 2011. Bren Mar Park ES used to be two different schools - Edsall Park ES covered the area north of the Beltway and west of 395, and Bren Mar Park ES the area north of the Beltway an east of 395. One area is Springfield and the other Alexandria. They closed Edsall Park decades ago. To get to Edison now, the Edsall Park area has to cross both 395 and the Beltway. The Bren Mar area just has to cross the Beltway.

Annandale has capacity to take back the Edsall Park area, and that area would no longer have to cross either the Beltway or 395. The Bren Mar area is better served by Edison. None of these folks want to go to Lewis, and they should not be moved there just to give West Springfield families comfort that someone else is getting moved instead.

So you propose making a split feeder out of BMP and sending some to Annandale and keeping some at Edison? It’s not a bad idea on paper and does get some kids out of Edison - but not sure if it’s enough kids to accommodate the new neighborhoods. And then you run into the K-5/K-6 school problems as BMP is currently a K-5 school whereas the rest of Edison and all of Lewis have K-6 elementaries.

And again - this is not about adding kids to Lewis to prop it up, it’s about reducing enrollment at Edison. I would agree if Annandale could pick up all of BMP, that is where they should go. But they can’t at this point without worsening the crowding there and then creating a spillover effect into Justice, Falls Church, Woodson etc. From a purely logistical standpoint and affecting the smallest number of schools, BMP to Lewis makes sense right now.

The CIP now has West Springfield at 114% this fall and Edison at 103%. Any future adjustments should be based on updated numbers.

Annandale could probably pick up all of BMP if needed but it’s those from west of 395 who would be most receptive to that move.

Their starting point with Lewis needs to be replacing IB with AP, which would curtail transfers. As for Edison, they can monitor enrollments to see if the projected increase in students materializes. They have Edison at 109% in 2030, but that still well below West Springfield’s current and projected capacity utilization.

Some of the elementary feeders into WSHS are heading down to below 90% capacity. All of the feeders are smaller than the classes they are replacing, some significantly like class of 2030 being 150 fewer students than graduating class of 2026.

Yet FCPS continues to show growth at WSHS in spite of the WSHS feeder schools steadily losing enrollment each year.

Either the CIP math ain't mathing at WSHS, or there is something really fishy happening with transfers into WSHS, and possible widespread residency fraud.

WSHS needs a residency check and transfer into the school frozen.

What West Springfield needs is for the parents who are so insecure about being redistricted some day to stop pitching alternative scenarios that move around other people’s kids at other schools instead. It only serves to call renewed attention to which high school FCPS currently considers and projects to be the most overcrowded in the county: WSHS.

How about you mind your business and just give those WSHS parents credit. I didn't hear them advocating for kicking or moving anyone out. They did their freaking homework, they understood the assignment, and they pushed back hard. Do the residency checks, keep limiting transfers, keep watching the declining numbers. Improving programing before you start playing ping-ponging kids around.

Some of them are pushing for Bren Mar Park to get moved to Lewis. Try to keep up.

“Them” Oh you mean the BRAC and Thru who proposed the move and then quickly took it back … I’m sure WS parents wish they were that powerful though, LOL.

The Springfield BRAC members did not have anything to do with this Bren Mar situation.

Not to be snide, but no one in the WSHS pyramid has ever heard of the school and could not locate on a map.

It's ridiculous to suggest you can speak for everyone in the WSHS pyramid.

From reading the thread today, it seemed fairly clear that someone at WS was pushing to move Bren Mar Park kids to Lewis. It's not hard to figure out the motivation: fill Lewis with kids from another pyramid, not West Springfield.

Yes, that mystery person was Thru and the BRAC as a whole. LOL. This isn’t a suggestion that has come out of nowhere. It has been tabled for now, likely due to the middle school mismatch issue. But it and Hagel Circle are already scheduled to be addressed off cycle if you read the final report ( https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DQ55830EF08B/$file/Comprehensive%20Boundary%20Review%20Presentation%2001-08-2026%20FINAL%20for%20posting.pdf on PDF page 37.) This isn’t something that some nefarious person in West Springfield is bringing up out of the clear blue. It’s clearly on the radar of the superintendent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sandy tried to move a West Springfield neighborhood out that only had 18 sixth graders. I don't care if it's not a huge problem, but even if they found 18 kids who were illegally using a WSHS address it would mean not kicking out kids you rightly should be.

Supposedly, that Rolling Valley SPA 8922 that attends Lewis has around a half dozen kids per grade.

That is around 1/3 of the student transfers into WSHS. And surely they can find an equal number of out of bound residency fraud cases if they did a residency check.

If the Springfield rep truly wants to make room at WSHS for SPA 8922 Rolling avalley, then she should start with a full residency check, and enforce FCPS transfer policy.

At the last in person BRAC meeting, it was stated that the transfers into WSHS are mostly students from surtounding schools taking German. Per FCPS own policy, those students are not allowed to transfer into closed WSHS for German. They are required to go to the next closest school with a German program.

Close WSHS to transfers. Not just "closed but fcps will give you a waiver" but actually closed.

Put those German classes at LBSS. They have more space. No one should be transferring into WSHS for German.

Does Lake Braddock still offer German?

If so, then none of the German transfers into WSHS should have been approved.

Kids from SoCo, Hayfield, and Lewis can travel to Lake Braddock for German just as easily as WSHS.

Remember, throughout the boundary process, FCPS kept telling the Shannon Station and Sangster families that it was "just" an extra mile or two from WSHS to Lake Braddock.

Why aren't German language transfers being told the same thing?

If Lake Braddock doesn't offer German, then who offers it besides WSHS?

That is the school the German transfers should attend based on FCPS transfer policy.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Do you think school board will amend with new changes from Reid’s proposal or just remove some of her changes? I hope nothing new - maybe just add to list of things to look at in future?

They might put some of the Map 4 changes back into play (WSHS comes to mind)

There are some very upset Cardinal Forest families at Reid's last minute changes that switched that Keene Mill island down near White Oaks, Shannon Station, from getting rezoned to White Oaks elementary and Lake Braddock in Map 4, to Reid rezoning them to Cardinal Forest, putting Cardinal Forest well over capacity, and also rezoning walkable Cardinal Forest neighborhoods from Cardinal Forest to farther away Keene Mill elementary.

Moving Shannon Station to White Oaks in Map 4 eliminated an attendance island and decreased West Springfield High School by around 100 students. It also lowered transportation costs by sending them to a closer school, and sent Shannon Station to equivalent schools with the same programs. The Shannon Station move was low hanging fruit and met every last one of the four rezoning mandates given to the BRAC committee by the school board.

Reid's map keeps everyone at WSHS. Reid keeps the recommendation from Map 4 to move two SPAs from Rolling Valley to Saratoga, but leaves one Rolling Valley SPA from the Parkway area at status quo (Rolling Valley > Key > Lewis), which means that instead of being a roughly 60/40 split feeder between WSHS and Lewis, Rolling Valley is now less than 10% split going to Lewis.

What Reid did to the WSHS maps by keeping Emerald Chase at WSHS and rezoning Rolling Valley the way that she did, puts a huge target on WSHS for mid cycle rezoning in the next year or two.

Sandy Anderson openly stated this at the school board meeting last week. Anderson's term goes through 2028. Rezoning WSHS has been her consistent, stated goal since soon after she was sworn in. If she can find a way to rezone neighborhoods out of WSHS in an off cycle rezoning before her term ends, and move RV into WSHS, then she will definitely try.

If you know the history and follow the process, it is clear that Reid's map, trying to keep everyone happy, is the worst case scenario for WSHS as it means continuous, mid cycle rezoning.

I sincerely hope that the school board adopts Map 4 for WSHS, for at least Shannon Station. Or, if they leave Shannon Station at WSHS, then I hope they rezone SPA 8922 along the Parkway to Saratoga, along with the rest of the Rolling Valley Lewis schools.

In my opinion, that is the best way to protect WSHS from mid cycle rezoning.

One correction to my post.

School board elections are odd years in FairfaxCounty, 2019, 2023, 2027...

The term ends in January 2028, while the election is November 2027, roughly 22 months from now.

This school board has roughly 2 years to continue to make their mark on our kids' education. I think they are counting on voters completely forgetting about this rezoning mess by the next election.

Hard to do that when Sandy Anderson promised that this is just the start and they’re planning to continue looking at a variety of schools starting in January from the superintendent’s list.

Is anyone familiar with her origin story? I’m genuinely curious why she’s so singularly focused on WSHS. How does someone wake up one day and decide that rezoning this one school becomes their life’s mission?

Some people just think they know best. They claim to "care more" than you do. "Savior" mentality.

A white suburban woman knows what is good for poor black, Latino and Asian children than their own parents. These women are the real racists.

Correct.

Those two white women who argued for more boundary changes are just trying to get more kids like theirs in their classrooms. I question their motives. The only one who seemed to be truly crunchy was the elderly woman with short hair who clearly doesn’t have kids in the school district, but even her children probably benefited from the system she is now trying to change.

So some FCPS schools are designated for black, Latino, and Asian students? That is what you can read from your statement.

Lewis is closing in on only 1500 students this year and will almost certainly start next year around 1450 if nothing is done. It is not like the other FCPS schools simply in the NUMBER of students, be they white, black, Latino, Asian, or other.

But they are doing something. They’re looking at stopping transfers out by adding programming. That’s what Reid said.

And it looks like they are going to add Bren Mar Park elementary before the 5 year review. Which also helps relieve capacity issues at Edison so is a good change.

I have no idea why we’re suddenly bringing up a NYT podcast from an entirely different cultural era … definitely not a relevant piece of media in these extremely different times.

It’s not clear it’s a good change. It quickly got tabled for this cycle whereas they went ahead with the other last-minute changes to move kids out of Glasgow/Justice to Poe/Falls Church and Holmes/Annandale. They ended up getting a lot of push back from the Beech Tree families, but they hadn’t tabled those changes like they had with Bren Mar Park.

It isn’t a change that is being proposed to add kids to Lewis - rather, it is to take kids out of Edison. Edison needs to get rid of some students in order to accommodate growth in the region - they’ve already broken ground on a large neighborhood in Kingstowne where the old Top Golf used to be and that area will for sure be zoned for Edison. Never mind when the Franconia government center gets redeveloped in a few years. I know BMP would like to end up back at Annandale but Annandale also can’t accommodate more students at this point.

All of Bren Mar Park went to Annandale before 2011. Bren Mar Park ES used to be two different schools - Edsall Park ES covered the area north of the Beltway and west of 395, and Bren Mar Park ES the area north of the Beltway an east of 395. One area is Springfield and the other Alexandria. They closed Edsall Park decades ago. To get to Edison now, the Edsall Park area has to cross both 395 and the Beltway. The Bren Mar area just has to cross the Beltway.

Annandale has capacity to take back the Edsall Park area, and that area would no longer have to cross either the Beltway or 395. The Bren Mar area is better served by Edison. None of these folks want to go to Lewis, and they should not be moved there just to give West Springfield families comfort that someone else is getting moved instead.

So you propose making a split feeder out of BMP and sending some to Annandale and keeping some at Edison? It’s not a bad idea on paper and does get some kids out of Edison - but not sure if it’s enough kids to accommodate the new neighborhoods. And then you run into the K-5/K-6 school problems as BMP is currently a K-5 school whereas the rest of Edison and all of Lewis have K-6 elementaries.

And again - this is not about adding kids to Lewis to prop it up, it’s about reducing enrollment at Edison. I would agree if Annandale could pick up all of BMP, that is where they should go. But they can’t at this point without worsening the crowding there and then creating a spillover effect into Justice, Falls Church, Woodson etc. From a purely logistical standpoint and affecting the smallest number of schools, BMP to Lewis makes sense right now.

The CIP now has West Springfield at 114% this fall and Edison at 103%. Any future adjustments should be based on updated numbers.

Annandale could probably pick up all of BMP if needed but it’s those from west of 395 who would be most receptive to that move.

Their starting point with Lewis needs to be replacing IB with AP, which would curtail transfers. As for Edison, they can monitor enrollments to see if the projected increase in students materializes. They have Edison at 109% in 2030, but that still well below West Springfield’s current and projected capacity utilization.

Some of the elementary feeders into WSHS are heading down to below 90% capacity. All of the feeders are smaller than the classes they are replacing, some significantly like class of 2030 being 150 fewer students than graduating class of 2026.

Yet FCPS continues to show growth at WSHS in spite of the WSHS feeder schools steadily losing enrollment each year.

Either the CIP math ain't mathing at WSHS, or there is something really fishy happening with transfers into WSHS, and possible widespread residency fraud.

WSHS needs a residency check and transfer into the school frozen.

What West Springfield needs is for the parents who are so insecure about being redistricted some day to stop pitching alternative scenarios that move around other people’s kids at other schools instead. It only serves to call renewed attention to which high school FCPS currently considers and projects to be the most overcrowded in the county: WSHS.

How about you mind your business and just give those WSHS parents credit. I didn't hear them advocating for kicking or moving anyone out. They did their freaking homework, they understood the assignment, and they pushed back hard. Do the residency checks, keep limiting transfers, keep watching the declining numbers. Improving programing before you start playing ping-ponging kids around.

Some of them are pushing for Bren Mar Park to get moved to Lewis. Try to keep up.

“Them” Oh you mean the BRAC and Thru who proposed the move and then quickly took it back … I’m sure WS parents wish they were that powerful though, LOL.

The Springfield BRAC members did not have anything to do with this Bren Mar situation.

Not to be snide, but no one in the WSHS pyramid has ever heard of the school and could not locate on a map.

It's ridiculous to suggest you can speak for everyone in the WSHS pyramid.

From reading the thread today, it seemed fairly clear that someone at WS was pushing to move Bren Mar Park kids to Lewis. It's not hard to figure out the motivation: fill Lewis with kids from another pyramid, not West Springfield.

No, it is not obvious.

Someone from your school was pushing it. Or your own Franconia school board rep.

Most likely no one from WSHS has heard of Bren Mar before today when you keep posting about it.

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Anonymous wrote:Do you think school board will amend with new changes from Reid’s proposal or just remove some of her changes? I hope nothing new - maybe just add to list of things to look at in future?

They might put some of the Map 4 changes back into play (WSHS comes to mind)

There are some very upset Cardinal Forest families at Reid's last minute changes that switched that Keene Mill island down near White Oaks, Shannon Station, from getting rezoned to White Oaks elementary and Lake Braddock in Map 4, to Reid rezoning them to Cardinal Forest, putting Cardinal Forest well over capacity, and also rezoning walkable Cardinal Forest neighborhoods from Cardinal Forest to farther away Keene Mill elementary.

Moving Shannon Station to White Oaks in Map 4 eliminated an attendance island and decreased West Springfield High School by around 100 students. It also lowered transportation costs by sending them to a closer school, and sent Shannon Station to equivalent schools with the same programs. The Shannon Station move was low hanging fruit and met every last one of the four rezoning mandates given to the BRAC committee by the school board.

Reid's map keeps everyone at WSHS. Reid keeps the recommendation from Map 4 to move two SPAs from Rolling Valley to Saratoga, but leaves one Rolling Valley SPA from the Parkway area at status quo (Rolling Valley > Key > Lewis), which means that instead of being a roughly 60/40 split feeder between WSHS and Lewis, Rolling Valley is now less than 10% split going to Lewis.

What Reid did to the WSHS maps by keeping Emerald Chase at WSHS and rezoning Rolling Valley the way that she did, puts a huge target on WSHS for mid cycle rezoning in the next year or two.

Sandy Anderson openly stated this at the school board meeting last week. Anderson's term goes through 2028. Rezoning WSHS has been her consistent, stated goal since soon after she was sworn in. If she can find a way to rezone neighborhoods out of WSHS in an off cycle rezoning before her term ends, and move RV into WSHS, then she will definitely try.

If you know the history and follow the process, it is clear that Reid's map, trying to keep everyone happy, is the worst case scenario for WSHS as it means continuous, mid cycle rezoning.

I sincerely hope that the school board adopts Map 4 for WSHS, for at least Shannon Station. Or, if they leave Shannon Station at WSHS, then I hope they rezone SPA 8922 along the Parkway to Saratoga, along with the rest of the Rolling Valley Lewis schools.

In my opinion, that is the best way to protect WSHS from mid cycle rezoning.

One correction to my post.

School board elections are odd years in FairfaxCounty, 2019, 2023, 2027...

The term ends in January 2028, while the election is November 2027, roughly 22 months from now.

This school board has roughly 2 years to continue to make their mark on our kids' education. I think they are counting on voters completely forgetting about this rezoning mess by the next election.

Hard to do that when Sandy Anderson promised that this is just the start and they’re planning to continue looking at a variety of schools starting in January from the superintendent’s list.

Is anyone familiar with her origin story? I’m genuinely curious why she’s so singularly focused on WSHS. How does someone wake up one day and decide that rezoning this one school becomes their life’s mission?

Some people just think they know best. They claim to "care more" than you do. "Savior" mentality.

A white suburban woman knows what is good for poor black, Latino and Asian children than their own parents. These women are the real racists.

Correct.

Those two white women who argued for more boundary changes are just trying to get more kids like theirs in their classrooms. I question their motives. The only one who seemed to be truly crunchy was the elderly woman with short hair who clearly doesn’t have kids in the school district, but even her children probably benefited from the system she is now trying to change.

So some FCPS schools are designated for black, Latino, and Asian students? That is what you can read from your statement.

Lewis is closing in on only 1500 students this year and will almost certainly start next year around 1450 if nothing is done. It is not like the other FCPS schools simply in the NUMBER of students, be they white, black, Latino, Asian, or other.

But they are doing something. They’re looking at stopping transfers out by adding programming. That’s what Reid said.

And it looks like they are going to add Bren Mar Park elementary before the 5 year review. Which also helps relieve capacity issues at Edison so is a good change.

I have no idea why we’re suddenly bringing up a NYT podcast from an entirely different cultural era … definitely not a relevant piece of media in these extremely different times.

It’s not clear it’s a good change. It quickly got tabled for this cycle whereas they went ahead with the other last-minute changes to move kids out of Glasgow/Justice to Poe/Falls Church and Holmes/Annandale. They ended up getting a lot of push back from the Beech Tree families, but they hadn’t tabled those changes like they had with Bren Mar Park.

It isn’t a change that is being proposed to add kids to Lewis - rather, it is to take kids out of Edison. Edison needs to get rid of some students in order to accommodate growth in the region - they’ve already broken ground on a large neighborhood in Kingstowne where the old Top Golf used to be and that area will for sure be zoned for Edison. Never mind when the Franconia government center gets redeveloped in a few years. I know BMP would like to end up back at Annandale but Annandale also can’t accommodate more students at this point.

All of Bren Mar Park went to Annandale before 2011. Bren Mar Park ES used to be two different schools - Edsall Park ES covered the area north of the Beltway and west of 395, and Bren Mar Park ES the area north of the Beltway an east of 395. One area is Springfield and the other Alexandria. They closed Edsall Park decades ago. To get to Edison now, the Edsall Park area has to cross both 395 and the Beltway. The Bren Mar area just has to cross the Beltway.

Annandale has capacity to take back the Edsall Park area, and that area would no longer have to cross either the Beltway or 395. The Bren Mar area is better served by Edison. None of these folks want to go to Lewis, and they should not be moved there just to give West Springfield families comfort that someone else is getting moved instead.

So you propose making a split feeder out of BMP and sending some to Annandale and keeping some at Edison? It’s not a bad idea on paper and does get some kids out of Edison - but not sure if it’s enough kids to accommodate the new neighborhoods. And then you run into the K-5/K-6 school problems as BMP is currently a K-5 school whereas the rest of Edison and all of Lewis have K-6 elementaries.

And again - this is not about adding kids to Lewis to prop it up, it’s about reducing enrollment at Edison. I would agree if Annandale could pick up all of BMP, that is where they should go. But they can’t at this point without worsening the crowding there and then creating a spillover effect into Justice, Falls Church, Woodson etc. From a purely logistical standpoint and affecting the smallest number of schools, BMP to Lewis makes sense right now.

The CIP now has West Springfield at 114% this fall and Edison at 103%. Any future adjustments should be based on updated numbers.

Annandale could probably pick up all of BMP if needed but it’s those from west of 395 who would be most receptive to that move.

Their starting point with Lewis needs to be replacing IB with AP, which would curtail transfers. As for Edison, they can monitor enrollments to see if the projected increase in students materializes. They have Edison at 109% in 2030, but that still well below West Springfield’s current and projected capacity utilization.

Some of the elementary feeders into WSHS are heading down to below 90% capacity. All of the feeders are smaller than the classes they are replacing, some significantly like class of 2030 being 150 fewer students than graduating class of 2026.

Yet FCPS continues to show growth at WSHS in spite of the WSHS feeder schools steadily losing enrollment each year.

Either the CIP math ain't mathing at WSHS, or there is something really fishy happening with transfers into WSHS, and possible widespread residency fraud.

WSHS needs a residency check and transfer into the school frozen.

What West Springfield needs is for the parents who are so insecure about being redistricted some day to stop pitching alternative scenarios that move around other people’s kids at other schools instead. It only serves to call renewed attention to which high school FCPS currently considers and projects to be the most overcrowded in the county: WSHS.

How about you mind your business and just give those WSHS parents credit. I didn't hear them advocating for kicking or moving anyone out. They did their freaking homework, they understood the assignment, and they pushed back hard. Do the residency checks, keep limiting transfers, keep watching the declining numbers. Improving programing before you start playing ping-ponging kids around.

Some of them are pushing for Bren Mar Park to get moved to Lewis. Try to keep up.

“Them” Oh you mean the BRAC and Thru who proposed the move and then quickly took it back … I’m sure WS parents wish they were that powerful though, LOL.

The Springfield BRAC members did not have anything to do with this Bren Mar situation.

Not to be snide, but no one in the WSHS pyramid has ever heard of the school and could not locate on a map.

It's ridiculous to suggest you can speak for everyone in the WSHS pyramid.

From reading the thread today, it seemed fairly clear that someone at WS was pushing to move Bren Mar Park kids to Lewis. It's not hard to figure out the motivation: fill Lewis with kids from another pyramid, not West Springfield.

Yes, that mystery person was Thru and the BRAC as a whole. LOL. This isn’t a suggestion that has come out of nowhere. It has been tabled for now, likely due to the middle school mismatch issue. But it and Hagel Circle are already scheduled to be addressed off cycle if you read the final report ( https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DQ55830EF08B/$file/Comprehensive%20Boundary%20Review%20Presentation%2001-08-2026%20FINAL%20for%20posting.pdf on PDF page 37.) This isn’t something that some nefarious person in West Springfield is bringing up out of the clear blue. It’s clearly on the radar of the superintendent.

Oh, I never suggested that the idea originated with West Springfield. At some point they realized that Thru had failed to do anything about the under-enrollment at Lewis or Ricardy Anderson's years-long quest to get kids moved out of Parklawn and Glasgow. And they were still messing around with Hagel Circle.

So in December they came up with incremental proposals that hadn't been part of Scenarios 1, 2, 3 or 4. One of them involved moving Bren Mar Park from Holmes/Edison to Key/Lee, whereas Scenario 4 had it staying at Holmes but moving to Annandale. Reid didn't want to say that Thru had dropped the ball, so she said the new proposal was responsive to people at BMP claiming Annandale was too far away. But it turned out people at BMP didn't want to move to Lewis, and felt blindsided, and it got tabled. Note that the off-cycle reference just refers to BMP middle and high school feeders. So that could mean lots of things.

But today, amidst all the complaints about Sandy Anderson still wanting to mess with WSHS, it was pretty clear that one or more WSHS posters was pushing to move BMP to Lewis again. It actually isn't that big a deal, because it's not like they'll have that much influence. But it was awfully silly when claims were made that no one at WSHS had ever heard of BMP before. Some of you have spent the better part of the last 18 months pushing to move kids from Edison rather than WSHS into Lewis.