FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Thanks-but all proposals don’t have any reduction in the Langley boundary, so it’s safe right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks-but all proposals don’t have any reduction in the Langley boundary, so it’s safe right?

I don’t think they’ll move Forestville, but I wouldn’t be shopping around RT-7 border. They’ve been doing a lot of tinkering at an SPA level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks-but all proposals don’t have any reduction in the Langley boundary, so it’s safe right?

There is another round of changes coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks-but all proposals don’t have any reduction in the Langley boundary, so it’s safe right?

Probably safe for 5 years, then we do this again and the more "obvious" spots are all used up. Absolutely would not purchase a Forestville home if your reason for purchasing is the Langley pyramid though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks-but all proposals don’t have any reduction in the Langley boundary, so it’s safe right?

No, nothing is close to being decided.

[Anonymous]

I’m curious whether the Westbriar recommendation will move forward. It makes sense to align the Kilmer boundaries to Marshall, but the additional cut out they’ve added practically turns Wolftrap into an attendance island. On top of that, adding those additional students (beyond those currently attending Madison) puts Thoreau at 104%. This might self correct slightly with AAP transfers to Jackson and Kilmer. If they wanted to utilize Madison’s expansion, wouldn’t it be a better move to get the Thoreau kids from Stenwood out of Marshall? Then Thoreau would only be a Madison/Oakton feeder, they wouldn’t overcrowd Thoreau, and the Stenwood kids wouldn’t be sent out of pyramid for two years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could anyone just let me know if any of the Langley boundaries were changed? I am looking to buy and want to make sure I didn’t miss anything from my review of the updates.

The consultants retained by FCPS (Thru Consulting) are recommending that an attendance island in north central Tysons that currently feeds into Spring Hill/Longfellow/McLean be reassigned to Cooper/Langley. The island accounts for about 38% of Spring Hill's enrollment and, had the boundary change been in effect this year, would have moved 201 kids from McLean to Langley.

Thru has not proposed to move anyone out of the current Langley boundaries. They would just expand the boundaries.

People have offered different opinions as to whether moving this area to Langley will, over time, lead to the western most parts of the current Langley boundaries getting moved into the Herndon pyramid. There are a number of pending proposals for additional condos and apartments in the area recommended for reassignment. Great Falls residents advocated vigorously and successfully against FCPS moving this area to Langley in 2021, but they seem to view the reassignment of this area in connection with the current boundary study as inevitable. The focus of their current efforts has been to point out that moving these kids to Cooper/Langley now would not overcrowd either school to the extent warranting boundary changes in the short term. Langley would be at 102% capacity with the additional students, but it also accepts over 100 pupil placements from other schools for AP and/or foreign languages. It can shut off that spigot at its discretion and then have more available seats for kids who reside within its catchment area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious whether the Westbriar recommendation will move forward. It makes sense to align the Kilmer boundaries to Marshall, but the additional cut out they’ve added practically turns Wolftrap into an attendance island. On top of that, adding those additional students (beyond those currently attending Madison) puts Thoreau at 104%. This might self correct slightly with AAP transfers to Jackson and Kilmer. If they wanted to utilize Madison’s expansion, wouldn’t it be a better move to get the Thoreau kids from Stenwood out of Marshall? Then Thoreau would only be a Madison/Oakton feeder, they wouldn’t overcrowd Thoreau, and the Stenwood kids wouldn’t be sent out of pyramid for two years.

There are several recommendations for Westbriar. The first is to move the current Westbriar atendance island to Wolftrap but keep it at Kilmer/Marshall. The second is to reassign part of Wolftrap to Westbriar near Wolf Trails Park and keep it at Kilmer/Marshall. The third is to carve out a chunk of Westbriar's main attendance area north of Old Courthouse Road (the "Tysons Green" area) and reassign it from Kilmer/Marshall to Thoreau/Madison.

I think you're focusing on the third proposal. That's the one that makes the Wolftrap area almost, but not quite, a new attendance island. This was not part of the slides originally presented by Thru to the BRAC but instead was featured in all three of the updated scenarios in the "interactive tool." It seems to have been motivated by a desire to take advantage of the expansion of Madison a few years ago and address overcrowding at Kilmer, but moving kids out of Westbriar - which has been primarily a Kilmer/Marshall feeder for a long time AND is one of the AAP centers in the Marshall pyramid - seems like a bad idea.

I agree that, if they want to move kids from Kilmer/Madison to Thoreau/Madison, other areas would be better candidates. You noted a few, and moving more of Woltrap (say the area south of Meadowlark Road and west of Beulah) might have been a possibility. Moving the Tysons Green area seems like a bad idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious whether the Westbriar recommendation will move forward. It makes sense to align the Kilmer boundaries to Marshall, but the additional cut out they’ve added practically turns Wolftrap into an attendance island. On top of that, adding those additional students (beyond those currently attending Madison) puts Thoreau at 104%. This might self correct slightly with AAP transfers to Jackson and Kilmer. If they wanted to utilize Madison’s expansion, wouldn’t it be a better move to get the Thoreau kids from Stenwood out of Marshall? Then Thoreau would only be a Madison/Oakton feeder, they wouldn’t overcrowd Thoreau, and the Stenwood kids wouldn’t be sent out of pyramid for two years.

There are several recommendations for Westbriar. The first is to move the current Westbriar atendance island to Wolftrap but keep it at Kilmer/Marshall. The second is to reassign part of Wolftrap to Westbriar near Wolf Trails Park and keep it at Kilmer/Marshall. The third is to carve out a chunk of Westbriar's main attendance area north of Old Courthouse Road (the "Tysons Green" area) and reassign it from Kilmer/Marshall to Thoreau/Madison.

I think you're focusing on the third proposal. That's the one that makes the Wolftrap area almost, but not quite, a new attendance island. This was not part of the slides originally presented by Thru to the BRAC but instead was featured in all three of the updated scenarios in the "interactive tool." It seems to have been motivated by a desire to take advantage of the expansion of Madison a few years ago and address overcrowding at Kilmer, but moving kids out of Westbriar - which has been primarily a Kilmer/Marshall feeder for a long time AND is one of the AAP centers in the Marshall pyramid - seems like a bad idea.

I agree that, if they want to move kids from Kilmer/Madison to Thoreau/Madison, other areas would be better candidates. You noted a few, and moving more of Woltrap (say the area south of Meadowlark Road and west of Beulah) might have been a possibility. Moving the Tysons Green area seems like a bad idea.

I’m talking about the third. Specifically the fact they’re driving Thoreau to 104% with the last minute tinkering. The best candidate for filling Madison is the area that’s already assigned to Thoreau, but not to Madison. And that’s the Stenwood/Cunningham block. They’ve reshaped Kilmer’s boundaries to match Marshall except for that area, because Thoreau is in its boundary. Now they should reconsider redrawing Marshall’s boundaries to fit Kilmer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is my suggestion for Emerald Chase:

1. Lobby to stay at Oak Hill along with the Franklin Farm/Navy Island kids being sent there. There is room, I think according to the slides.
2. Go to Franklin along with the Navy Island. Again, I think there is room.
3. Lobby to go to Oakton along with the Navy Island. Chantilly is a non-starter.

I disagree with this gambit. If you want to attend Oakton HS pony up the cash to buy a house in Oakton. I don’t want to be fighting five years from now to keep my Oakton address home zoned to Oakton HS to accommodate “zone stability” for the Emerald Chase vultures.

Just because your town name is Oakton and the high school name is Oakton doesn't make it your community high school. Ask all the children all over FCPS who live much closer to one high school and go to a different one. The name doesn't matter, you can't use it as an excuse.

This is the silliest post.

Of course, if you live in Oakton you should attend the Oakton neighborhood high school. If you live in Lorton you should attend the Lorton neighborhood high school. If you live in Falls Church, you should attend the Falls Church neighborhood high school. It really is that simple.

At a minimum, students should be zoned for the high school that shares their home zip code, with all boundary tweaks limited to neighborhoods with zip codes outside of the immediate high school zip code.

You realize there are more than 1 Falls Church “neighborhood” schools right?

They all have different zip codes...

Falls Church high school 22042
Marshall High School 22043
Justice High School 22044

Not to mention the southern portion of McLean HS is also Falls Church (22046)

Whoever is suggesting doing ANYTHING related to school boundaries based on zipcodes really has no clue. Zipcodes are based on logistical convenience for a POST OFFICE from which your particular mail carrier's route originates. They are different in size and scope than schools, not typically co-located, and are not necessarily based on any notion of neighborhood or convenience, even if there does tend to be SOME degree of overlap in some cases with schools, it's by happenstance moreso than by design.

Agree. Some zips have more than one high school and some have none at all. I think there are a lot that apply to this.

If you don't live in the same zip code as a high school, then you would have the current status quo where you (hopefully) go to the nearest high school, but you are at risk of being rezoned every 5 years.

FCPS needs to lock in the closest neighborhoods to each high school if we are going to go through this 2 year process every 5 years. The zip code is an obvious non partial, concrete method to establish a compact area associated with each high school that will not be rezoned.

Or you could just prioritize buying a home as close as you can get to the high school. My neighborhood walks to HS. I think the chances of us ever getting rezoned to another HS- which would require a bus- are approximately 0%.

Great idea! There is a walking distance HS to every address in the county!

While we are at it, I hear the peasants calling for bread. Something about starving. What’s they you say? Let them eat cake? Wow, two amazing ideas in a row. You are on fire.

Location, location, location... We could have had a wonderful home on the cusp of a border but passed and found something not as nice nearby to the school we wanted. If a particular school is important to you then you need to prioritize location. I'm sorry that's just how it is with the nature of this sort of thing.

The Lemon Road ES rezoning takes kids who are literally across the street from Marshall HS and moves them to another HS. These kids could walk toMarshall in 2 minutes but will now have to take a 20 minute bus. So much for those parents' planning, eh?.

They shouldn’t move any of that area around Idylwood that’s currently split between Freedom Hill/Lemon Road/Shrevewood because those lines are going to be redrawn in a few years anyway when Dunn Loring elementary opens.

Does Pimmit Hills walk to Marshall? I’ve only ever seen high schoolers get off the bus there while directly across Magarity there are walkers heading to McLean.

They should move all of Pimmit to
Lemon Road. It makes no sense to have an apartment complex cut in half so if they move buildings, they move schools. They are walking distance to Lemon Road and are closer to Shrevewood and Westgate.

What do you mean by "Pimmit"? Pimmit Hills? Apartments off Pimmit Drive? They aren't the same thing and are on opposite sides of Route 7.

A counter-proposal for the Langley/McLean/Marshall/Madison pyramids:

Langley: Churchill Road, Spring Hill, Colvin Run, Great Falls, Forestville ES; Cooper MS

McLean: Chesterbrook, Franklin Sherman, Kent Gardens, Haycock, Lemon Road (except for area on Marshall side of Route 7), Westgate ES; Longfellow MS

Marshall: Shrevewood, Stenwood, Freedom Hill, Dunn Loring (when it opens), Timber Lane, Westbriar ES; Kilmer MS

Madison: Wolftrap, Louise Archer, Flint Hill, Marshall Road, Vienna, Cunningham Park ES; Thoreau MS

No split feeders except Lemon Road (temporary) unless numbers require adjustments. Route 7 treated as primary dividing line in Tysons area (Westbriar crosses Route 7, but the area is mostly the two malls and office buildings). No more worrying about attendance islands/bridging attendance islands.

The apartment complex behind Whole Foods off of Pimmit is half zoned for Lemon Road and 1/2 zoned for Freedom
Hill. An apartment complex being cut in half has kids bouncing between two schools. They should all go to Lemon Road as it is closer.

Is this the same apartment complex that Freedom tried to send in its entirety to Lemon Road 10-15 years ago because they didn’t want the poor students? They were successful in sending half. If so, they should be zoned back to Freedom. It was about the time when Lemon Road became a AAP Center.

PP is referring to the garden apartments on the south side of Route 7 between Pimmit Drive and George C. Marshall Drive.

Lemon Road got expanded in 2013. At the time all those apartments went to Freedom Hill. There were proposals to move all or some of the apartments to Lemon Road, which is on the other side of Route 7. This also coincided with overcrowding at Haycock, which at the time had an ever bigger AAP program that a lot of kids in the Marshall pyramid were attending.

The conclusion was to make Lemon Road an AAP center and send half the garden apartments in that complex there. Going by the current enrollment numbers it was a good decision as Lemon Road is at 101% capacity and Freedom Hill at 81% capacity. If all those kids had moved out of Freedom Hill it would be even more under capacity now. But it can result in situations where the kids of tenants in the same large complex who switch units have to change schools.

I just used to boundary adjustment tool and it has that 1/2 of the apartment complex (Lemon Road/Freedom Hill Complex) going to Longfellow and Mclean now. Which is odd because that was not on the original slide proposals. So now if kids move buildings they can move to a new ES, Middle and/or High School?

I also question what additional changes are on the boundary adjustment tool that was not on the slides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is my suggestion for Emerald Chase:

1. Lobby to stay at Oak Hill along with the Franklin Farm/Navy Island kids being sent there. There is room, I think according to the slides.
2. Go to Franklin along with the Navy Island. Again, I think there is room.
3. Lobby to go to Oakton along with the Navy Island. Chantilly is a non-starter.

I disagree with this gambit. If you want to attend Oakton HS pony up the cash to buy a house in Oakton. I don’t want to be fighting five years from now to keep my Oakton address home zoned to Oakton HS to accommodate “zone stability” for the Emerald Chase vultures.

Just because your town name is Oakton and the high school name is Oakton doesn't make it your community high school. Ask all the children all over FCPS who live much closer to one high school and go to a different one. The name doesn't matter, you can't use it as an excuse.

This is the silliest post.

Of course, if you live in Oakton you should attend the Oakton neighborhood high school. If you live in Lorton you should attend the Lorton neighborhood high school. If you live in Falls Church, you should attend the Falls Church neighborhood high school. It really is that simple.

At a minimum, students should be zoned for the high school that shares their home zip code, with all boundary tweaks limited to neighborhoods with zip codes outside of the immediate high school zip code.

You realize there are more than 1 Falls Church “neighborhood” schools right?

They all have different zip codes...

Falls Church high school 22042
Marshall High School 22043
Justice High School 22044

Not to mention the southern portion of McLean HS is also Falls Church (22046)

Whoever is suggesting doing ANYTHING related to school boundaries based on zipcodes really has no clue. Zipcodes are based on logistical convenience for a POST OFFICE from which your particular mail carrier's route originates. They are different in size and scope than schools, not typically co-located, and are not necessarily based on any notion of neighborhood or convenience, even if there does tend to be SOME degree of overlap in some cases with schools, it's by happenstance moreso than by design.

Agree. Some zips have more than one high school and some have none at all. I think there are a lot that apply to this.

If you don't live in the same zip code as a high school, then you would have the current status quo where you (hopefully) go to the nearest high school, but you are at risk of being rezoned every 5 years.

FCPS needs to lock in the closest neighborhoods to each high school if we are going to go through this 2 year process every 5 years. The zip code is an obvious non partial, concrete method to establish a compact area associated with each high school that will not be rezoned.

Or you could just prioritize buying a home as close as you can get to the high school. My neighborhood walks to HS. I think the chances of us ever getting rezoned to another HS- which would require a bus- are approximately 0%.

Great idea! There is a walking distance HS to every address in the county!

While we are at it, I hear the peasants calling for bread. Something about starving. What’s they you say? Let them eat cake? Wow, two amazing ideas in a row. You are on fire.

Location, location, location... We could have had a wonderful home on the cusp of a border but passed and found something not as nice nearby to the school we wanted. If a particular school is important to you then you need to prioritize location. I'm sorry that's just how it is with the nature of this sort of thing.

The Lemon Road ES rezoning takes kids who are literally across the street from Marshall HS and moves them to another HS. These kids could walk toMarshall in 2 minutes but will now have to take a 20 minute bus. So much for those parents' planning, eh?.

They shouldn’t move any of that area around Idylwood that’s currently split between Freedom Hill/Lemon Road/Shrevewood because those lines are going to be redrawn in a few years anyway when Dunn Loring elementary opens.

Does Pimmit Hills walk to Marshall? I’ve only ever seen high schoolers get off the bus there while directly across Magarity there are walkers heading to McLean.

They should move all of Pimmit to
Lemon Road. It makes no sense to have an apartment complex cut in half so if they move buildings, they move schools. They are walking distance to Lemon Road and are closer to Shrevewood and Westgate.

What do you mean by "Pimmit"? Pimmit Hills? Apartments off Pimmit Drive? They aren't the same thing and are on opposite sides of Route 7.

A counter-proposal for the Langley/McLean/Marshall/Madison pyramids:

Langley: Churchill Road, Spring Hill, Colvin Run, Great Falls, Forestville ES; Cooper MS

McLean: Chesterbrook, Franklin Sherman, Kent Gardens, Haycock, Lemon Road (except for area on Marshall side of Route 7), Westgate ES; Longfellow MS

Marshall: Shrevewood, Stenwood, Freedom Hill, Dunn Loring (when it opens), Timber Lane, Westbriar ES; Kilmer MS

Madison: Wolftrap, Louise Archer, Flint Hill, Marshall Road, Vienna, Cunningham Park ES; Thoreau MS

No split feeders except Lemon Road (temporary) unless numbers require adjustments. Route 7 treated as primary dividing line in Tysons area (Westbriar crosses Route 7, but the area is mostly the two malls and office buildings). No more worrying about attendance islands/bridging attendance islands.

The apartment complex behind Whole Foods off of Pimmit is half zoned for Lemon Road and 1/2 zoned for Freedom
Hill. An apartment complex being cut in half has kids bouncing between two schools. They should all go to Lemon Road as it is closer.

Is this the same apartment complex that Freedom tried to send in its entirety to Lemon Road 10-15 years ago because they didn’t want the poor students? They were successful in sending half. If so, they should be zoned back to Freedom. It was about the time when Lemon Road became a AAP Center.

PP is referring to the garden apartments on the south side of Route 7 between Pimmit Drive and George C. Marshall Drive.

Lemon Road got expanded in 2013. At the time all those apartments went to Freedom Hill. There were proposals to move all or some of the apartments to Lemon Road, which is on the other side of Route 7. This also coincided with overcrowding at Haycock, which at the time had an ever bigger AAP program that a lot of kids in the Marshall pyramid were attending.

The conclusion was to make Lemon Road an AAP center and send half the garden apartments in that complex there. Going by the current enrollment numbers it was a good decision as Lemon Road is at 101% capacity and Freedom Hill at 81% capacity. If all those kids had moved out of Freedom Hill it would be even more under capacity now. But it can result in situations where the kids of tenants in the same large complex who switch units have to change schools.

I just used to boundary adjustment tool and it has that 1/2 of the apartment complex (Lemon Road/Freedom Hill Complex) going to Longfellow and Mclean now. Which is odd because that was not on the original slide proposals. So now if kids move buildings they can move to a new ES, Middle and/or High School?

I also question what additional changes are on the boundary adjustment tool that was not on the slides.

There are a lot of things in the proposals in the tool that were not in the earlier slide decks. They want you focusing comments on the proposals in the tool now.

[Anonymous]

Lets talk Timberlane. Is there any realistic chance it stays with McLean? Or gets transitioned into Marshall? Or is it ultimately bound for Falls Church High School?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is my suggestion for Emerald Chase:

1. Lobby to stay at Oak Hill along with the Franklin Farm/Navy Island kids being sent there. There is room, I think according to the slides.
2. Go to Franklin along with the Navy Island. Again, I think there is room.
3. Lobby to go to Oakton along with the Navy Island. Chantilly is a non-starter.

I disagree with this gambit. If you want to attend Oakton HS pony up the cash to buy a house in Oakton. I don’t want to be fighting five years from now to keep my Oakton address home zoned to Oakton HS to accommodate “zone stability” for the Emerald Chase vultures.

Just because your town name is Oakton and the high school name is Oakton doesn't make it your community high school. Ask all the children all over FCPS who live much closer to one high school and go to a different one. The name doesn't matter, you can't use it as an excuse.

This is the silliest post.

Of course, if you live in Oakton you should attend the Oakton neighborhood high school. If you live in Lorton you should attend the Lorton neighborhood high school. If you live in Falls Church, you should attend the Falls Church neighborhood high school. It really is that simple.

At a minimum, students should be zoned for the high school that shares their home zip code, with all boundary tweaks limited to neighborhoods with zip codes outside of the immediate high school zip code.

You realize there are more than 1 Falls Church “neighborhood” schools right?

They all have different zip codes...

Falls Church high school 22042
Marshall High School 22043
Justice High School 22044

Not to mention the southern portion of McLean HS is also Falls Church (22046)

Whoever is suggesting doing ANYTHING related to school boundaries based on zipcodes really has no clue. Zipcodes are based on logistical convenience for a POST OFFICE from which your particular mail carrier's route originates. They are different in size and scope than schools, not typically co-located, and are not necessarily based on any notion of neighborhood or convenience, even if there does tend to be SOME degree of overlap in some cases with schools, it's by happenstance moreso than by design.

Agree. Some zips have more than one high school and some have none at all. I think there are a lot that apply to this.

If you don't live in the same zip code as a high school, then you would have the current status quo where you (hopefully) go to the nearest high school, but you are at risk of being rezoned every 5 years.

FCPS needs to lock in the closest neighborhoods to each high school if we are going to go through this 2 year process every 5 years. The zip code is an obvious non partial, concrete method to establish a compact area associated with each high school that will not be rezoned.

Or you could just prioritize buying a home as close as you can get to the high school. My neighborhood walks to HS. I think the chances of us ever getting rezoned to another HS- which would require a bus- are approximately 0%.

Great idea! There is a walking distance HS to every address in the county!

While we are at it, I hear the peasants calling for bread. Something about starving. What’s they you say? Let them eat cake? Wow, two amazing ideas in a row. You are on fire.

Location, location, location... We could have had a wonderful home on the cusp of a border but passed and found something not as nice nearby to the school we wanted. If a particular school is important to you then you need to prioritize location. I'm sorry that's just how it is with the nature of this sort of thing.

The Lemon Road ES rezoning takes kids who are literally across the street from Marshall HS and moves them to another HS. These kids could walk toMarshall in 2 minutes but will now have to take a 20 minute bus. So much for those parents' planning, eh?.

They shouldn’t move any of that area around Idylwood that’s currently split between Freedom Hill/Lemon Road/Shrevewood because those lines are going to be redrawn in a few years anyway when Dunn Loring elementary opens.

Does Pimmit Hills walk to Marshall? I’ve only ever seen high schoolers get off the bus there while directly across Magarity there are walkers heading to McLean.

They should move all of Pimmit to
Lemon Road. It makes no sense to have an apartment complex cut in half so if they move buildings, they move schools. They are walking distance to Lemon Road and are closer to Shrevewood and Westgate.

What do you mean by "Pimmit"? Pimmit Hills? Apartments off Pimmit Drive? They aren't the same thing and are on opposite sides of Route 7.

A counter-proposal for the Langley/McLean/Marshall/Madison pyramids:

Langley: Churchill Road, Spring Hill, Colvin Run, Great Falls, Forestville ES; Cooper MS

McLean: Chesterbrook, Franklin Sherman, Kent Gardens, Haycock, Lemon Road (except for area on Marshall side of Route 7), Westgate ES; Longfellow MS

Marshall: Shrevewood, Stenwood, Freedom Hill, Dunn Loring (when it opens), Timber Lane, Westbriar ES; Kilmer MS

Madison: Wolftrap, Louise Archer, Flint Hill, Marshall Road, Vienna, Cunningham Park ES; Thoreau MS

No split feeders except Lemon Road (temporary) unless numbers require adjustments. Route 7 treated as primary dividing line in Tysons area (Westbriar crosses Route 7, but the area is mostly the two malls and office buildings). No more worrying about attendance islands/bridging attendance islands.

The apartment complex behind Whole Foods off of Pimmit is half zoned for Lemon Road and 1/2 zoned for Freedom
Hill. An apartment complex being cut in half has kids bouncing between two schools. They should all go to Lemon Road as it is closer.

Is this the same apartment complex that Freedom tried to send in its entirety to Lemon Road 10-15 years ago because they didn’t want the poor students? They were successful in sending half. If so, they should be zoned back to Freedom. It was about the time when Lemon Road became a AAP Center.

PP is referring to the garden apartments on the south side of Route 7 between Pimmit Drive and George C. Marshall Drive.

Lemon Road got expanded in 2013. At the time all those apartments went to Freedom Hill. There were proposals to move all or some of the apartments to Lemon Road, which is on the other side of Route 7. This also coincided with overcrowding at Haycock, which at the time had an ever bigger AAP program that a lot of kids in the Marshall pyramid were attending.

The conclusion was to make Lemon Road an AAP center and send half the garden apartments in that complex there. Going by the current enrollment numbers it was a good decision as Lemon Road is at 101% capacity and Freedom Hill at 81% capacity. If all those kids had moved out of Freedom Hill it would be even more under capacity now. But it can result in situations where the kids of tenants in the same large complex who switch units have to change schools.

I just used to boundary adjustment tool and it has that 1/2 of the apartment complex (Lemon Road/Freedom Hill Complex) going to Longfellow and Mclean now. Which is odd because that was not on the original slide proposals. So now if kids move buildings they can move to a new ES, Middle and/or High School?

I also question what additional changes are on the boundary adjustment tool that was not on the slides.

There are a ton of changes added between the slides and the online tool, and a lot of them are very subtle. Look closely at your pyramid for all scenarios.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is my suggestion for Emerald Chase:

1. Lobby to stay at Oak Hill along with the Franklin Farm/Navy Island kids being sent there. There is room, I think according to the slides.
2. Go to Franklin along with the Navy Island. Again, I think there is room.
3. Lobby to go to Oakton along with the Navy Island. Chantilly is a non-starter.

I disagree with this gambit. If you want to attend Oakton HS pony up the cash to buy a house in Oakton. I don’t want to be fighting five years from now to keep my Oakton address home zoned to Oakton HS to accommodate “zone stability” for the Emerald Chase vultures.

Just because your town name is Oakton and the high school name is Oakton doesn't make it your community high school. Ask all the children all over FCPS who live much closer to one high school and go to a different one. The name doesn't matter, you can't use it as an excuse.

This is the silliest post.

Of course, if you live in Oakton you should attend the Oakton neighborhood high school. If you live in Lorton you should attend the Lorton neighborhood high school. If you live in Falls Church, you should attend the Falls Church neighborhood high school. It really is that simple.

At a minimum, students should be zoned for the high school that shares their home zip code, with all boundary tweaks limited to neighborhoods with zip codes outside of the immediate high school zip code.

You realize there are more than 1 Falls Church “neighborhood” schools right?

They all have different zip codes...

Falls Church high school 22042
Marshall High School 22043
Justice High School 22044

Not to mention the southern portion of McLean HS is also Falls Church (22046)

Whoever is suggesting doing ANYTHING related to school boundaries based on zipcodes really has no clue. Zipcodes are based on logistical convenience for a POST OFFICE from which your particular mail carrier's route originates. They are different in size and scope than schools, not typically co-located, and are not necessarily based on any notion of neighborhood or convenience, even if there does tend to be SOME degree of overlap in some cases with schools, it's by happenstance moreso than by design.

Agree. Some zips have more than one high school and some have none at all. I think there are a lot that apply to this.

If you don't live in the same zip code as a high school, then you would have the current status quo where you (hopefully) go to the nearest high school, but you are at risk of being rezoned every 5 years.

FCPS needs to lock in the closest neighborhoods to each high school if we are going to go through this 2 year process every 5 years. The zip code is an obvious non partial, concrete method to establish a compact area associated with each high school that will not be rezoned.

Or you could just prioritize buying a home as close as you can get to the high school. My neighborhood walks to HS. I think the chances of us ever getting rezoned to another HS- which would require a bus- are approximately 0%.

Great idea! There is a walking distance HS to every address in the county!

While we are at it, I hear the peasants calling for bread. Something about starving. What’s they you say? Let them eat cake? Wow, two amazing ideas in a row. You are on fire.

Location, location, location... We could have had a wonderful home on the cusp of a border but passed and found something not as nice nearby to the school we wanted. If a particular school is important to you then you need to prioritize location. I'm sorry that's just how it is with the nature of this sort of thing.

The Lemon Road ES rezoning takes kids who are literally across the street from Marshall HS and moves them to another HS. These kids could walk toMarshall in 2 minutes but will now have to take a 20 minute bus. So much for those parents' planning, eh?.

They shouldn’t move any of that area around Idylwood that’s currently split between Freedom Hill/Lemon Road/Shrevewood because those lines are going to be redrawn in a few years anyway when Dunn Loring elementary opens.

Does Pimmit Hills walk to Marshall? I’ve only ever seen high schoolers get off the bus there while directly across Magarity there are walkers heading to McLean.

They should move all of Pimmit to
Lemon Road. It makes no sense to have an apartment complex cut in half so if they move buildings, they move schools. They are walking distance to Lemon Road and are closer to Shrevewood and Westgate.

What do you mean by "Pimmit"? Pimmit Hills? Apartments off Pimmit Drive? They aren't the same thing and are on opposite sides of Route 7.

A counter-proposal for the Langley/McLean/Marshall/Madison pyramids:

Langley: Churchill Road, Spring Hill, Colvin Run, Great Falls, Forestville ES; Cooper MS

McLean: Chesterbrook, Franklin Sherman, Kent Gardens, Haycock, Lemon Road (except for area on Marshall side of Route 7), Westgate ES; Longfellow MS

Marshall: Shrevewood, Stenwood, Freedom Hill, Dunn Loring (when it opens), Timber Lane, Westbriar ES; Kilmer MS

Madison: Wolftrap, Louise Archer, Flint Hill, Marshall Road, Vienna, Cunningham Park ES; Thoreau MS

No split feeders except Lemon Road (temporary) unless numbers require adjustments. Route 7 treated as primary dividing line in Tysons area (Westbriar crosses Route 7, but the area is mostly the two malls and office buildings). No more worrying about attendance islands/bridging attendance islands.

The apartment complex behind Whole Foods off of Pimmit is half zoned for Lemon Road and 1/2 zoned for Freedom
Hill. An apartment complex being cut in half has kids bouncing between two schools. They should all go to Lemon Road as it is closer.

Is this the same apartment complex that Freedom tried to send in its entirety to Lemon Road 10-15 years ago because they didn’t want the poor students? They were successful in sending half. If so, they should be zoned back to Freedom. It was about the time when Lemon Road became a AAP Center.

PP is referring to the garden apartments on the south side of Route 7 between Pimmit Drive and George C. Marshall Drive.

Lemon Road got expanded in 2013. At the time all those apartments went to Freedom Hill. There were proposals to move all or some of the apartments to Lemon Road, which is on the other side of Route 7. This also coincided with overcrowding at Haycock, which at the time had an ever bigger AAP program that a lot of kids in the Marshall pyramid were attending.

The conclusion was to make Lemon Road an AAP center and send half the garden apartments in that complex there. Going by the current enrollment numbers it was a good decision as Lemon Road is at 101% capacity and Freedom Hill at 81% capacity. If all those kids had moved out of Freedom Hill it would be even more under capacity now. But it can result in situations where the kids of tenants in the same large complex who switch units have to change schools.

I just used to boundary adjustment tool and it has that 1/2 of the apartment complex (Lemon Road/Freedom Hill Complex) going to Longfellow and Mclean now. Which is odd because that was not on the original slide proposals. So now if kids move buildings they can move to a new ES, Middle and/or High School?

I also question what additional changes are on the boundary adjustment tool that was not on the slides.

There are a ton of changes added between the slides and the online tool, and a lot of them are very subtle. Look closely at your pyramid for all scenarios.

And, look for lightly shaded colors beyond boundary lines. Very subtle and painful adjustments are lightly shaded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is my suggestion for Emerald Chase:

1. Lobby to stay at Oak Hill along with the Franklin Farm/Navy Island kids being sent there. There is room, I think according to the slides.
2. Go to Franklin along with the Navy Island. Again, I think there is room.
3. Lobby to go to Oakton along with the Navy Island. Chantilly is a non-starter.

I disagree with this gambit. If you want to attend Oakton HS pony up the cash to buy a house in Oakton. I don’t want to be fighting five years from now to keep my Oakton address home zoned to Oakton HS to accommodate “zone stability” for the Emerald Chase vultures.

Just because your town name is Oakton and the high school name is Oakton doesn't make it your community high school. Ask all the children all over FCPS who live much closer to one high school and go to a different one. The name doesn't matter, you can't use it as an excuse.

This is the silliest post.

Of course, if you live in Oakton you should attend the Oakton neighborhood high school. If you live in Lorton you should attend the Lorton neighborhood high school. If you live in Falls Church, you should attend the Falls Church neighborhood high school. It really is that simple.

At a minimum, students should be zoned for the high school that shares their home zip code, with all boundary tweaks limited to neighborhoods with zip codes outside of the immediate high school zip code.

You realize there are more than 1 Falls Church “neighborhood” schools right?

They all have different zip codes...

Falls Church high school 22042
Marshall High School 22043
Justice High School 22044

Not to mention the southern portion of McLean HS is also Falls Church (22046)

Whoever is suggesting doing ANYTHING related to school boundaries based on zipcodes really has no clue. Zipcodes are based on logistical convenience for a POST OFFICE from which your particular mail carrier's route originates. They are different in size and scope than schools, not typically co-located, and are not necessarily based on any notion of neighborhood or convenience, even if there does tend to be SOME degree of overlap in some cases with schools, it's by happenstance moreso than by design.

Agree. Some zips have more than one high school and some have none at all. I think there are a lot that apply to this.

If you don't live in the same zip code as a high school, then you would have the current status quo where you (hopefully) go to the nearest high school, but you are at risk of being rezoned every 5 years.

FCPS needs to lock in the closest neighborhoods to each high school if we are going to go through this 2 year process every 5 years. The zip code is an obvious non partial, concrete method to establish a compact area associated with each high school that will not be rezoned.

Or you could just prioritize buying a home as close as you can get to the high school. My neighborhood walks to HS. I think the chances of us ever getting rezoned to another HS- which would require a bus- are approximately 0%.

Great idea! There is a walking distance HS to every address in the county!

While we are at it, I hear the peasants calling for bread. Something about starving. What’s they you say? Let them eat cake? Wow, two amazing ideas in a row. You are on fire.

Location, location, location... We could have had a wonderful home on the cusp of a border but passed and found something not as nice nearby to the school we wanted. If a particular school is important to you then you need to prioritize location. I'm sorry that's just how it is with the nature of this sort of thing.

The Lemon Road ES rezoning takes kids who are literally across the street from Marshall HS and moves them to another HS. These kids could walk toMarshall in 2 minutes but will now have to take a 20 minute bus. So much for those parents' planning, eh?.

They shouldn’t move any of that area around Idylwood that’s currently split between Freedom Hill/Lemon Road/Shrevewood because those lines are going to be redrawn in a few years anyway when Dunn Loring elementary opens.

Does Pimmit Hills walk to Marshall? I’ve only ever seen high schoolers get off the bus there while directly across Magarity there are walkers heading to McLean.

They should move all of Pimmit to
Lemon Road. It makes no sense to have an apartment complex cut in half so if they move buildings, they move schools. They are walking distance to Lemon Road and are closer to Shrevewood and Westgate.

What do you mean by "Pimmit"? Pimmit Hills? Apartments off Pimmit Drive? They aren't the same thing and are on opposite sides of Route 7.

A counter-proposal for the Langley/McLean/Marshall/Madison pyramids:

Langley: Churchill Road, Spring Hill, Colvin Run, Great Falls, Forestville ES; Cooper MS

McLean: Chesterbrook, Franklin Sherman, Kent Gardens, Haycock, Lemon Road (except for area on Marshall side of Route 7), Westgate ES; Longfellow MS

Marshall: Shrevewood, Stenwood, Freedom Hill, Dunn Loring (when it opens), Timber Lane, Westbriar ES; Kilmer MS

Madison: Wolftrap, Louise Archer, Flint Hill, Marshall Road, Vienna, Cunningham Park ES; Thoreau MS

No split feeders except Lemon Road (temporary) unless numbers require adjustments. Route 7 treated as primary dividing line in Tysons area (Westbriar crosses Route 7, but the area is mostly the two malls and office buildings). No more worrying about attendance islands/bridging attendance islands.

The apartment complex behind Whole Foods off of Pimmit is half zoned for Lemon Road and 1/2 zoned for Freedom
Hill. An apartment complex being cut in half has kids bouncing between two schools. They should all go to Lemon Road as it is closer.

Is this the same apartment complex that Freedom tried to send in its entirety to Lemon Road 10-15 years ago because they didn’t want the poor students? They were successful in sending half. If so, they should be zoned back to Freedom. It was about the time when Lemon Road became a AAP Center.

PP is referring to the garden apartments on the south side of Route 7 between Pimmit Drive and George C. Marshall Drive.

Lemon Road got expanded in 2013. At the time all those apartments went to Freedom Hill. There were proposals to move all or some of the apartments to Lemon Road, which is on the other side of Route 7. This also coincided with overcrowding at Haycock, which at the time had an ever bigger AAP program that a lot of kids in the Marshall pyramid were attending.

The conclusion was to make Lemon Road an AAP center and send half the garden apartments in that complex there. Going by the current enrollment numbers it was a good decision as Lemon Road is at 101% capacity and Freedom Hill at 81% capacity. If all those kids had moved out of Freedom Hill it would be even more under capacity now. But it can result in situations where the kids of tenants in the same large complex who switch units have to change schools.

I just used to boundary adjustment tool and it has that 1/2 of the apartment complex (Lemon Road/Freedom Hill Complex) going to Longfellow and Mclean now. Which is odd because that was not on the original slide proposals. So now if kids move buildings they can move to a new ES, Middle and/or High School?

I also question what additional changes are on the boundary adjustment tool that was not on the slides.

There are a ton of changes added between the slides and the online tool, and a lot of them are very subtle. Look closely at your pyramid for all scenarios.

Yep.

The whole point is to be unclear, confusing and deceptive, while ignoring information requests snd suggestions from the pyramid reps on the BRAC committee.