FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The impression I got was they are going to focus first on the bussing islands and less on entire schools. They also didn’t emphasize that much the high school situation and act like they was an attempt to fill up Lewis high school. I don’t even think they will look at moving elementary to other regions/pyramids if they aren’t bussing them now (ie West Springfield schools).

Wishful thinking. Anderson must have mentioned at least three times that Glasgow MS has more kids than Lewis HS, and St. John-Cunning talked about how Lewis kids were just as proud as Langley kids. The low enrollment at Lewis is very much on their minds.

Yes but Reid emphasized keeping community together. And bussing HV or another school to Key and Lewis goes against that and can’t be the only solution to fix the Lewis under enrollment. I don’t think she’s interested in redoing pyramids and regions.

I don't know. They are very open to shifting elementary kids. I can see them redoing the HV boundary to put more kids into Saratoga.

Pohick Creek will continue to serve as the western barrier for Saratoga, but they may extend the Saratoga border north to take on some of the Rolling Valley split feeder population that can access Saratoga via Rolling Rd.

The Lewis/WSHS equity/capacity rebalance cannot be done without redrawing the existing HS boundaries. WSES, which is already adjacent to Crestwood and Garfield, is part of the Franconia magesterial district under St John-Cunning, is closest in terms of geography and travel time, and is closest in terms of community, will go to Lewis. Look at the Lewis boundary on a map and ask yourself "if this is a puzzle, what piece is missing to complete it?"

[Anonymous]

What happened at the school board meeting last night? Did they pass 8130? I heard that might impact us?

[Anonymous]

With all the talk of having too much competition for sports teams at over crowded schools or not enough opportunities at under enrolled schools, they really must even out the number of students at each of the schools. It’s the only way to ensure the same level of competition at each.

Centreville expanding to 3,000 is an obvious example of inequity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The impression I got was they are going to focus first on the bussing islands and less on entire schools. They also didn’t emphasize that much the high school situation and act like they was an attempt to fill up Lewis high school. I don’t even think they will look at moving elementary to other regions/pyramids if they aren’t bussing them now (ie West Springfield schools).

Wishful thinking. Anderson must have mentioned at least three times that Glasgow MS has more kids than Lewis HS, and St. John-Cunning talked about how Lewis kids were just as proud as Langley kids. The low enrollment at Lewis is very much on their minds.

Yes but Reid emphasized keeping community together. And bussing HV or another school to Key and Lewis goes against that and can’t be the only solution to fix the Lewis under enrollment. I don’t think she’s interested in redoing pyramids and regions.

I don't know. They are very open to shifting elementary kids. I can see them redoing the HV boundary to put more kids into Saratoga.

Pohick Creek will continue to serve as the western barrier for Saratoga, but they may extend the Saratoga border north to take on some of the Rolling Valley split feeder population that can access Saratoga via Rolling Rd.

The Lewis/WSHS equity/capacity rebalance cannot be done without redrawing the existing HS boundaries. WSES, which is already adjacent to Crestwood and Garfield, is part of the Franconia magesterial district under St John-Cunning, is closest in terms of geography and travel time, and is closest in terms of community, will go to Lewis. Look at the Lewis boundary on a map and ask yourself "if this is a puzzle, what piece is missing to complete it?"

The half of the WSES boundary that is closest to WSHS and walking distance to Irving is a golf course and...wait for it....the population that remained zoned for Braddock district when the rest of the WSES and the school itself was rezoned for Franconia district. It's almost as if this was deliberately planned out years ago to set up the move of WSES to Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Well as Reid said last night you have a legal right to remain in AAP but not to the location so I assume centers have to be part of how this all gets reshuffled at the ES level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With all the talk of having too much competition for sports teams at over crowded schools or not enough opportunities at under enrolled schools, they really must even out the number of students at each of the schools. It’s the only way to ensure the same level of competition at each.

Centreville expanding to 3,000 is an obvious example of inequity.

Given the crowding at Centreville and Chantilly, and the lack of progress towards building a new western high school, the idea of expanding Centreville to 3000 (slightly larger than Westfield) isn’t crazy. The far more egregious expansion was building West Potomac out to 3000 when there was space available at Mount Vernon.

However, now that the Policy 8130 revisions have passed, we can look for one community in particular to argue against the Centreville expansion and in favor of ultimately filling the extra Herndon seats with kids who do not live in their community, which is not far from Herndon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The impression I got was they are going to focus first on the bussing islands and less on entire schools. They also didn’t emphasize that much the high school situation and act like they was an attempt to fill up Lewis high school. I don’t even think they will look at moving elementary to other regions/pyramids if they aren’t bussing them now (ie West Springfield schools).

Wishful thinking. Anderson must have mentioned at least three times that Glasgow MS has more kids than Lewis HS, and St. John-Cunning talked about how Lewis kids were just as proud as Langley kids. The low enrollment at Lewis is very much on their minds.

Yes but Reid emphasized keeping community together. And bussing HV or another school to Key and Lewis goes against that and can’t be the only solution to fix the Lewis under enrollment. I don’t think she’s interested in redoing pyramids and regions.

I don't know. They are very open to shifting elementary kids. I can see them redoing the HV boundary to put more kids into Saratoga.

The edge of HV border bumps up against Newington Forest and Sangster. Saratoga makes no sense.

It’s probably closer, or at least the same distance, for the southern part of HV (south of the parkway) to go to South County via Newington Forest. That would free up some space at HV to allow for some adjustments with Orange Hunt and/or Sangster. OH in particular is very large and over-enrolled. I’m not sure how many students that would affect however and I’m not sure if Newington Forest could absorb them all since it is a pretty small school.

I don’t know what they are going to do with Sangster. The problem is the AAP center stuff. OH and HV are some of the only schools in the county with no LLIV. They have L3 only. Keene Mill is obviously the main center for the WS pyramid, but HV and OH kids go to the center at Sangster and then LB for MS AAP, and then WSHS. I don’t know that KM could absorb all of HV and OH’s AAP kids at this point if Sangster was completely made into a LB feeder.

Sangster doesn’t have to be a WSHS split feeder to also be one of its AAP centers. There are many schools that send their AAP kids to a different pyramid. Keene Mill is the AAP center for Ravensworth and Kings Glen/Park, which are Lake Braddock schools. Send those schools to Lake Braddock AAP centers (White Oak and Sangster shuffle) and Keene Mill can pick up HV and OV.

Yeah they’ll have to do something with the AAP centers until they can get LLIV in everywhere and eventually phase out centers. It’s another complicated piece of the puzzle until then.

[Anonymous]

There are only 5 ES without LLIV, I would expect the AAP Center conversation to be center stage during this time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well as Reid said last night you have a legal right to remain in AAP but not to the location so I assume centers have to be part of how this all gets reshuffled at the ES level.

Reshuffling AP center assignments so kids stay with their neighborhood pyramid is an easy way to keep kids in their community instead of setting them on a path to pupil place for high school. I see MS AAP either being expanded to every MS or phased out in favor of actual honors classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best nugget of info out of this meeting (because boundary adjustments are a foregone conclusion) is from Dr. Reid's response to Mateo Dunne's question about boundary changes: she stated that HS boundaries will not change much at all, and most of the boundary changes will be at the ES level.

That’s interesting, I wonder why they decided to do that. Most kids attend the closest ES unless they’re at a split feeder or in an attendance island. The kids who have a long ES bus ride would have one regardless because they live in a far-flung area like Clifton or Great Falls. Or they’re getting bussed to the AAP center …

This is false. Anyone with eyes can look at a map of the school boundaries to see lots of elementary schools completely disconnected from their communities.

Such as??

Westbriar, Keene Mill, Flint Hill, Sangster, etc.

The one no-brainer move coming from a savant who spends too much time on Zillow and has no dog in the fight, the Groveland/Green Garland drive area zoned for Sangster will move to Newington Forest and will become part of the South County pyramid.

I can see that happening, although that’s a really small neighborhood that probably won’t make too much of a difference either way.

As a Lorton resident I wonder if the infamous Hagel Circle will continue to get bussed past 95 to Halley or if they will get sent to the much closer Gunston. That’s a hot potato.

I was shocked to learn that Hagel Ct students didn’t go to Lorton Station ES. It’s only a mile away!

That’s one of the equity bussing situations. Sending those kids to the comparatively rich Halley makes Halley and Gunston both around 40% FARMS, and Lorton Station around 55%. Otherwise Halley would have demographics similar to Silverbrook which has single digit FARMS, and Gunston or Lorton Station would be much higher needs.

I imagine if they changed it it would be to send those kids to Gunston so they can stay at South County, as opposed to Lorton Station/Hayfield. But also, without that big neighborhood Halley’s population would drop quite a bit and there’s really nowhere for them to pick up kids from since that is not a growth area of the county.

This may have been their intention when they assigned these attendance islands, but they’re seeing the negative impacts. If kids miss the bus, they’re likely missing school that day, when in some cases, there’s another elementary school within walking distance.

Very true and I’m sure there is a lot of absenteeism coming from that area. A lot of families don’t have cars. If the kid misses the school bus there’s no way to get them to school.

+ 1 never thought of this but I’m positive this is happening.

These are the types of nuances that people who support “keeping things the same” don’t think about. I’m glad that the school board is taking a look at this in a holistic way. Issues like chronic absenteeism only put kids in that community further and further behind, which leads to more stress on the educators and other school resources.

[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:The best nugget of info out of this meeting (because boundary adjustments are a foregone conclusion) is from Dr. Reid's response to Mateo Dunne's question about boundary changes: she stated that HS boundaries will not change much at all, and most of the boundary changes will be at the ES level.

That’s interesting, I wonder why they decided to do that. Most kids attend the closest ES unless they’re at a split feeder or in an attendance island. The kids who have a long ES bus ride would have one regardless because they live in a far-flung area like Clifton or Great Falls. Or they’re getting bussed to the AAP center …

This is false. Anyone with eyes can look at a map of the school boundaries to see lots of elementary schools completely disconnected from their communities.

Such as??

Westbriar, Keene Mill, Flint Hill, Sangster, etc.

The one no-brainer move coming from a savant who spends too much time on Zillow and has no dog in the fight, the Groveland/Green Garland drive area zoned for Sangster will move to Newington Forest and will become part of the South County pyramid.

I can see that happening, although that’s a really small neighborhood that probably won’t make too much of a difference either way.

As a Lorton resident I wonder if the infamous Hagel Circle will continue to get bussed past 95 to Halley or if they will get sent to the much closer Gunston. That’s a hot potato.

I was shocked to learn that Hagel Ct students didn’t go to Lorton Station ES. It’s only a mile away!

That’s one of the equity bussing situations. Sending those kids to the comparatively rich Halley makes Halley and Gunston both around 40% FARMS, and Lorton Station around 55%. Otherwise Halley would have demographics similar to Silverbrook which has single digit FARMS, and Gunston or Lorton Station would be much higher needs.

I imagine if they changed it it would be to send those kids to Gunston so they can stay at South County, as opposed to Lorton Station/Hayfield. But also, without that big neighborhood Halley’s population would drop quite a bit and there’s really nowhere for them to pick up kids from since that is not a growth area of the county.

This may have been their intention when they assigned these attendance islands, but they’re seeing the negative impacts. If kids miss the bus, they’re likely missing school that day, when in some cases, there’s another elementary school within walking distance.

Very true and I’m sure there is a lot of absenteeism coming from that area. A lot of families don’t have cars. If the kid misses the school bus there’s no way to get them to school.

+ 1 never thought of this but I’m positive this is happening.

These are the types of nuances that people who support “keeping things the same” don’t think about. I’m glad that the school board is taking a look at this in a holistic way. Issues like chronic absenteeism only put kids in that community further and further behind, which leads to more stress on the educators and other school resources.

They would only be revisiting this if it's part of a larger boundary review where they can do things like move Langley kids to Herndon.

Otherwise, they'd be defending the original islands, which were often intended to avoid concentrating poverty at certain schools.

In general, if FCPS was big on revisiting whether past decisions have been failures or had unintended consequences, it would have done things like get rid of IB at most of the schools where it's offered years ago.

But, sure, let's keep pretending FCPS is committed to innovation if it can be used as a pretext to effect the particular boundary changes you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With all the talk of having too much competition for sports teams at over crowded schools or not enough opportunities at under enrolled schools, they really must even out the number of students at each of the schools. It’s the only way to ensure the same level of competition at each.

Centreville expanding to 3,000 is an obvious example of inequity.

Given the crowding at Centreville and Chantilly, and the lack of progress towards building a new western high school, the idea of expanding Centreville to 3000 (slightly larger than Westfield) isn’t crazy. The far more egregious expansion was building West Potomac out to 3000 when there was space available at Mount Vernon.

However, now that the Policy 8130 revisions have passed, we can look for one community in particular to argue against the Centreville expansion and in favor of ultimately filling the extra Herndon seats with kids who do not live in their community, which is not far from Herndon.

No one said it was crazy, just counter to the goals of the revamped policy. They are looking to both save money and equities offerings, and there is a big equity difference between 2,000 and 3,000 kids at a school, as they said yesterday.

So surprising to see you advocate for just your kids on this forum. Hypocrite.

[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:The best nugget of info out of this meeting (because boundary adjustments are a foregone conclusion) is from Dr. Reid's response to Mateo Dunne's question about boundary changes: she stated that HS boundaries will not change much at all, and most of the boundary changes will be at the ES level.

That’s interesting, I wonder why they decided to do that. Most kids attend the closest ES unless they’re at a split feeder or in an attendance island. The kids who have a long ES bus ride would have one regardless because they live in a far-flung area like Clifton or Great Falls. Or they’re getting bussed to the AAP center …

This is false. Anyone with eyes can look at a map of the school boundaries to see lots of elementary schools completely disconnected from their communities.

Such as??

Westbriar, Keene Mill, Flint Hill, Sangster, etc.

The one no-brainer move coming from a savant who spends too much time on Zillow and has no dog in the fight, the Groveland/Green Garland drive area zoned for Sangster will move to Newington Forest and will become part of the South County pyramid.

I can see that happening, although that’s a really small neighborhood that probably won’t make too much of a difference either way.

As a Lorton resident I wonder if the infamous Hagel Circle will continue to get bussed past 95 to Halley or if they will get sent to the much closer Gunston. That’s a hot potato.

I was shocked to learn that Hagel Ct students didn’t go to Lorton Station ES. It’s only a mile away!

That’s one of the equity bussing situations. Sending those kids to the comparatively rich Halley makes Halley and Gunston both around 40% FARMS, and Lorton Station around 55%. Otherwise Halley would have demographics similar to Silverbrook which has single digit FARMS, and Gunston or Lorton Station would be much higher needs.

I imagine if they changed it it would be to send those kids to Gunston so they can stay at South County, as opposed to Lorton Station/Hayfield. But also, without that big neighborhood Halley’s population would drop quite a bit and there’s really nowhere for them to pick up kids from since that is not a growth area of the county.

This may have been their intention when they assigned these attendance islands, but they’re seeing the negative impacts. If kids miss the bus, they’re likely missing school that day, when in some cases, there’s another elementary school within walking distance.

Very true and I’m sure there is a lot of absenteeism coming from that area. A lot of families don’t have cars. If the kid misses the school bus there’s no way to get them to school.

+ 1 never thought of this but I’m positive this is happening.

These are the types of nuances that people who support “keeping things the same” don’t think about. I’m glad that the school board is taking a look at this in a holistic way. Issues like chronic absenteeism only put kids in that community further and further behind, which leads to more stress on the educators and other school resources.

You don’t know what nuance I think about. You’re just throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks.

[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:The best nugget of info out of this meeting (because boundary adjustments are a foregone conclusion) is from Dr. Reid's response to Mateo Dunne's question about boundary changes: she stated that HS boundaries will not change much at all, and most of the boundary changes will be at the ES level.

That’s interesting, I wonder why they decided to do that. Most kids attend the closest ES unless they’re at a split feeder or in an attendance island. The kids who have a long ES bus ride would have one regardless because they live in a far-flung area like Clifton or Great Falls. Or they’re getting bussed to the AAP center …

This is false. Anyone with eyes can look at a map of the school boundaries to see lots of elementary schools completely disconnected from their communities.

Such as??

Westbriar, Keene Mill, Flint Hill, Sangster, etc.

The one no-brainer move coming from a savant who spends too much time on Zillow and has no dog in the fight, the Groveland/Green Garland drive area zoned for Sangster will move to Newington Forest and will become part of the South County pyramid.

I can see that happening, although that’s a really small neighborhood that probably won’t make too much of a difference either way.

As a Lorton resident I wonder if the infamous Hagel Circle will continue to get bussed past 95 to Halley or if they will get sent to the much closer Gunston. That’s a hot potato.

I was shocked to learn that Hagel Ct students didn’t go to Lorton Station ES. It’s only a mile away!

That’s one of the equity bussing situations. Sending those kids to the comparatively rich Halley makes Halley and Gunston both around 40% FARMS, and Lorton Station around 55%. Otherwise Halley would have demographics similar to Silverbrook which has single digit FARMS, and Gunston or Lorton Station would be much higher needs.

I imagine if they changed it it would be to send those kids to Gunston so they can stay at South County, as opposed to Lorton Station/Hayfield. But also, without that big neighborhood Halley’s population would drop quite a bit and there’s really nowhere for them to pick up kids from since that is not a growth area of the county.

This may have been their intention when they assigned these attendance islands, but they’re seeing the negative impacts. If kids miss the bus, they’re likely missing school that day, when in some cases, there’s another elementary school within walking distance.

Very true and I’m sure there is a lot of absenteeism coming from that area. A lot of families don’t have cars. If the kid misses the school bus there’s no way to get them to school.

+ 1 never thought of this but I’m positive this is happening.

These are the types of nuances that people who support “keeping things the same” don’t think about. I’m glad that the school board is taking a look at this in a holistic way. Issues like chronic absenteeism only put kids in that community further and further behind, which leads to more stress on the educators and other school resources.

THe school board has ALL the power and data available to it to look at “nuances” but they didn’t even look at the very glaring issue of grandfathering until YESTERDAY. Why would you expect more of a random DCUM poster than you would the school board?

[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:The best nugget of info out of this meeting (because boundary adjustments are a foregone conclusion) is from Dr. Reid's response to Mateo Dunne's question about boundary changes: she stated that HS boundaries will not change much at all, and most of the boundary changes will be at the ES level.

That’s interesting, I wonder why they decided to do that. Most kids attend the closest ES unless they’re at a split feeder or in an attendance island. The kids who have a long ES bus ride would have one regardless because they live in a far-flung area like Clifton or Great Falls. Or they’re getting bussed to the AAP center …

This is false. Anyone with eyes can look at a map of the school boundaries to see lots of elementary schools completely disconnected from their communities.

Such as??

Westbriar, Keene Mill, Flint Hill, Sangster, etc.

The one no-brainer move coming from a savant who spends too much time on Zillow and has no dog in the fight, the Groveland/Green Garland drive area zoned for Sangster will move to Newington Forest and will become part of the South County pyramid.

I can see that happening, although that’s a really small neighborhood that probably won’t make too much of a difference either way.

As a Lorton resident I wonder if the infamous Hagel Circle will continue to get bussed past 95 to Halley or if they will get sent to the much closer Gunston. That’s a hot potato.

I was shocked to learn that Hagel Ct students didn’t go to Lorton Station ES. It’s only a mile away!

That’s one of the equity bussing situations. Sending those kids to the comparatively rich Halley makes Halley and Gunston both around 40% FARMS, and Lorton Station around 55%. Otherwise Halley would have demographics similar to Silverbrook which has single digit FARMS, and Gunston or Lorton Station would be much higher needs.

I imagine if they changed it it would be to send those kids to Gunston so they can stay at South County, as opposed to Lorton Station/Hayfield. But also, without that big neighborhood Halley’s population would drop quite a bit and there’s really nowhere for them to pick up kids from since that is not a growth area of the county.

This may have been their intention when they assigned these attendance islands, but they’re seeing the negative impacts. If kids miss the bus, they’re likely missing school that day, when in some cases, there’s another elementary school within walking distance.

Very true and I’m sure there is a lot of absenteeism coming from that area. A lot of families don’t have cars. If the kid misses the school bus there’s no way to get them to school.

+ 1 never thought of this but I’m positive this is happening.

These are the types of nuances that people who support “keeping things the same” don’t think about. I’m glad that the school board is taking a look at this in a holistic way. Issues like chronic absenteeism only put kids in that community further and further behind, which leads to more stress on the educators and other school resources.

You don’t know what nuance I think about. You’re just throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks.

I don’t have to throw anything, the motion passed so it’s “up and it’s stuck” already! That reference will likely over your head, it just means your whining is pointless at this point. You should focus that energy on opening up your mind to the possibilities now, since this is no longer a question of IF but WHEN and HOW.