Boundary Review Meetings
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Anonymous
Sure, but to claim that they have a mandate regarding something they hid from voters is really pretty brazenly stupid. |
Anonymous
Yet they opened up the process to public opinion, which I think was a stupid move. |
Anonymous
You vote them out at the next election. That is how you hold them accountable. The reality is that many of the school board members face challenges from MAGA type candidates the last bunch of elections, which means the incumbent is going to win. Not to mention, people vote fo school board who don't have kids in the schools and are unaware of some of what is happening or how awful the process has been. And the people posting on this board don't really represent the entire County, we tend to be people with strong opinions who like to type a lot. (shrugs) So this board is not really representative of what the county feels. I would say that the public meetings are a better indicator but those also are going to draw dissenting voices more then people who don't care or are supportive. |
Anonymous
They are required to by law. LCPS redistricted this year. They opened it to public comment and then did what they thought they needed to do without many adjustments. |
Anonymous
Yes, changing families' schools in the dead of night with no input or ability to provide feedback is definitely the way to go. Who could object to that? 
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Anonymous
If you watched the meetings 2 summers ago, you would know that their original motive for doing this was Equity and One Fairfax. Most people weren't paying attention back then. It is all there on video if you watched any of the earlier work sessions. They stated explicitly that they wanted all of the rezoning done under the umbrella of One Fairfax. Anyone who doesn't believe this, go watch the videos from summer 2024. If their goal was to fix overcrowded schools , then they could have easily have done it using the old policy 8130, without any of this mess All they needed to do under the old policy was say that they were going to address overcrowding at all schools over a certain percentage, such as 105% or 110%, then limit the rezoning scope to those schools. Under the old policy, they would have started the process with the understanding that there would be generous grandfathering with bussing, like they always did with rezoning under the old policy. There would have bedn pushback, but FAR less than this mess. It would have been so much cheaper, with less time and money spent. The schools that were most over crowded, such as Coates, would have already been rezoned, with relief in Fall 2025. The overcrowded middle and high schools would have been adjusted. WSHS would probably have ended up with the Sangster split feeder and Shannon Station moved to Lake Braddock, since it would have been based on very concrete numbers and those two neighborhoods to LB are blaringly obvious solutions. With very flexible, extensive grandfathering and transportation provided, the push back would have been much less under the old policy. But the school board rep wanted to go big, rezoning several neighborhoods from Lewis into WSHS and an entire elementary from the other side of the boundary into Lewis, for a big equity bussing experiment. The others were all so enamored by all the One Fairfax equity calls, the untruth that there were no major boundary adjustments in over 40 years, and the buzz words that this would be "transformational", that they threw out the practicality and efficiency of the old policy 8130 with zero pushback, so they could do something dramatic and monumental. They started this process saying it would be county wide, rezoning with equity as the primary concern, and no grandfathering for high school students. This immediately and justifiably got parents everywhere organized with furious pushback. This decision back in summer 2024 to announce they were not grandfathering high school students and would not provide bussing is what doomed the entire process. Dr. Anderson called it right from the start. They followed the outcry by suggesting grandfathering for most high students but no bussing, then only certain grades, again with no bussing. This brought on more and more upset parents. Then they changed the goals from equity to equitable access, attendance islands, split feeders, transportation savings and neighborhood proximity/cohesion. No one in FCPS would define "equitable access" and they refused to fix any "equitable access" items first. AAP middle school centers in every school, the glut of failing unwanted IB programs, massive transfers out of some high schools and residency fraud in others, language program disparities ALL should have been addressed by FCPS before starting this process if equity and equitable access were going to be the pillar of rezoning. They put the most logical reason, attendance islands and split feeders as a priority reason, but failed to acknowledge that most people living in one knew exactly what schools they were zoned for when they bought their houses, and with rare exception, did not want to be rezoned, at least not if it was being done "just because" so the school board could claim success on a county wide rezoning. There would have been less pushback if the school board either kept the old policy 8130 and just did targeted adjustments based on a hard enrollment percentage, or did a county wide rezoning of only attendance islands and split feeders, with the stated goal that every high school pyramid will have a direct and clean feeder patrern, but only after FCPS unified high school program options and put AAP at every middle school. They had busses and transportation savings as a top goal, but only moving 1700 students accomplishes zero transportation savings. They put neighborhood proximity and community as a priority, but everyone defines their community differently, and they didn't actually offer suggestions based on proximity. If they had focused on proximinity and fixing under enrolled schools with the kids closest to them, Daventry and half of Keene Mill Elementary would have been recommended to attend Lewis high school. The only thing this proximity and community priority did was to give everyone in the county valid arguments to fight rezoning their neighborhood. They screwed up this process from the very beginning and wasted a ton of money doing it. If they would have left policy 8130 as is, the most overcrowded schools would have been already dealt with and rezoned in fall 2025, with extensive grandfathering and bussing. If they had listened to Dr. Anderson's warning and announced extensive grandfathering and bussing from the beginning, they would not have had 2 years of outrage, and universal pushback to their plans. I am happy that our school is not rezoned, yet completely shocked that it wasn't, especially not the one most obvious neighborhood. The school board really made a complete and utter $#it$#ow of this process. They should have listened to Dr. Anderson back in summer 2024. |
Anonymous
I don't think this is quite the Catch-22 you think it is. All we need is a School Board with the intelligence and confidence to hire a competent superintendent and then tell her or him to come up with a sensible plan to deploy capital resources in an efficient manner that avoids, wherever possible, the need for future boundary changes. County residents have spoken up consistently that they prefer stability when it comes to school assignments. We don't have that now because the School Board is a bunch of cowards. They slavishly adhere to an outdated renovation queue developed almost 20 years ago because it allows them to avoid paying attention. If any private business was making decisions about investments in property, plant, and equipment based on an obsolete business plan developed in 2008, there would be a shareholder revolt and management would be kicked out. But this is what the School Board does because the politicians on the board don't want to step up and make hard but sensible decisions. Then we end up with unnecessary additions slapped on schools that didn't need them simply because they were in the queue, while schools that need additional capacity get ignored. |
Anonymous
They should have sent the 2 closest neighborhoods to Lewis, Daventry and Keene Mill elementary alind OKM to Lewis Not surprisingly, people from the neighborhoods closest to Lewis who were not mentioned for rezoning, are some of the loudest public voices saying that one of the neighborhoods on the other side of WSHS, much farther than the KM neighborhood, should happily accept rezoning to the "adjacent, underenrolled high school" in the name of equity. If those neighborhoods really believe this, then the ones closest to Lewis should have volunteered for their homes to get rezoned to Lewis, instead of trying to guilt and publicly shaming neighborhoods much farther away from Lewis into taking one for the team. |
Anonymous
| All this drama and the main thing they've done is create a ridiculous new Marshall attendance island. Karl Frisch and Melanie Meren are such fools. Selfish, stupid, cowardly, preening idiots. |
Anonymous
Moving all of Wolftrap and greatly changing the makeup of Marshall was not a necessary move. There are numerous neighborhoods impacted and all all buyers and renters in that area have known since moving in which schools they are assigned and that Tommy may loose some friends and make some new ones when he goes to middle school and high school. |
Anonymous
Moving them from one of the farthest elementary schools from said "over crowded school", instead of from the 2 closest neighborhoods, including one that was most recently zoned for said school with space, is definitely equity and not common sense If it was based on "common sense", Daventry and the part of Keene mill closest to and 5-10 minutes from Lewis along OKM would have been the neighborhoods picked for rezoning to Lewis, not neighborhoods from the oopposite end of the boundary. There are people from the end closest to Lewis pushing for other neighborhoods much farther away to get rezoned to "the under enrolled high school right next to WSHS." Up to this point, not a single Sangster, Hunt Valley or Shannon Station neighborhood has uttered once at community meetings that someone else living in WSHS boundaries should get rezoned out of the school. Not once. They have only argued that no one should get moved in or out, until FCPS can confirm that the growth predictions are correct since every replacement class based on FCPS own projections is smaller than the respective graduating class. In many cases, it is much smaller. For example, the 8th grade class is 150 fewer students than the graduating seniors. That class graduating should result in lower enrollment at WSHS, not growth. They have argued for residency checks, and moving out pupil placements that do not live in bounds for WSHS. But they have never argued for other WSHS zoned neighborhoods to get rezoned instead of them. But if you keep publicly pushing that neighborhoods on the other side of WSHS should get rezoned to the adjacent, under enrolled Lewis, then at some point you are going to push those families who so far have fought against rezoning anyone, even you, to start arguing that if filling Lewis is the goal then it needs to come from neighborhoods 2-3 miles 5/10 minutes away on OKM, which are Keene Mill and Daventry neighborhoods. If you are located closest to Lewis, you probably want to follow the example set by Sangster, Shannon Station and Hunt Valley parents, and keep your mouth shut about rezoning other people's kids, focusing only on your own neighborhoods. |
Anonymous
If you look they are pulling 5 SPAs out of Marshall to Madison but 10 SPAs out of Kilmer to Thoreau. So the bigger impact will be driving up the poverty rate at Kilmer and then making the Kilmer/Marshall pyramid substantially less attractive to UMC families. Leaving one of the remaining wealthier areas as an isolated attendance island will also, over time, incentivize people in that area to go private, pupil place, and/or lobby for further boundary changes. I think McElveen went to both Kilmer and Marshall. Maybe he'll offer some amendments to undo some or all of these unnecessary changes. Or maybe Meren will pretend she hasn't been complicit in this nonsense and do that, although she'd been sending opposite signals recently (doesn't matter - she's utterly inconsistent). |
Anonymous
If you look they are pulling 5 SPAs out of Marshall to Madison but 10 SPAs out of Kilmer to Thoreau. So the bigger impact will be driving up the poverty rate at Kilmer and then making the Kilmer/Marshall pyramid substantially less attractive to UMC families. Leaving one of the remaining wealthier areas as an isolated attendance island will also, over time, incentivize people in that area to go private, pupil place, and/or lobby for further boundary changes. I think McElveen went to both Kilmer and Marshall. Maybe he'll offer some amendments to undo some or all of these unnecessary changes. Or maybe Meren will pretend she hasn't been complicit in this nonsense and do that, although she'd been sending opposite signals recently (doesn't matter - she's utterly inconsistent). People should stop talking about that attendance island so much, it is exhausting when they are doing it on behalf of the people that live there, regardless of what those residents want, just to support whatever argument they are using to complain about the Marshall to Madison move. I will say, as a parent who has supported the move out of Kilmer and into Thoreau - it is tough to hear people now saying the numbers shared with us were wrong. Say what you will about other motivators for the change, but we were told that Kilmer is at 118% capacity and 153% without modulars. I do not try to pretend that I would be able to know the incremental difference between 99% and 103%, but 118% and 153% were startling numbers that feel bad to a parent and made me want my kid to not go there. If those numbers aren't the real numbers, I don't know how to feel. |
Anonymous
| No one will be offering amendments unless they have already shared them with their communities. This will pass as is. Marshall and Kilmer will be on the decline and people will then fight to move into the McLean pyramid in that area close to Marshall. |
Anonymous
I would not count on that. |