FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The only people who appear to be for new boundaries are the people who hate Langley and want to see families who go there now suffer. I can’t for the life of me understand how so many people whose kids don’t go to Forestville could possibly care where Forestville students go to high school. Some people are super passionate about this particular boundary change possibility.

Don’t expect a bunch of students from Forestville to show up at Herndon High School if boundaries change. A majority of the families will send their kids to private after elementary school or use the transfer process to attend Langley.

**My kids do not attend Forestville, but are in the Langley district. Great Falls is united as a community. We want our kids to stay together. These kids are all friends and have been playing sports together in Great Falls for years. We don’t want to see our community torn apart. ESPECIALLY considering Langley is not at capacity (and the even has availability to admit a ton of transfer kids).

You think the county-wide boundary study is prompted by “hate” for Langley?

I think they just realized they’d built out schools like Herndon to have hundreds of empty seats while other schools are overcrowded, and it was time to look at boundaries holistically with an eye towards consolidating attendance areas rather than continue to make odd, one-off adjustments.

Can’t really see the logic for continuing to bus kids over 10 miles to Langley if there is now space available closer at Herndon. Great Falls is unincorporated Fairfax just like other areas where kids are assigned to multiple schools. And your apparent readiness to send your kids off to different privates suggests you’re more intent on avoiding Herndon than keeping kids together anyway.

It’s your call sign on this board to repeat the same discredited talking point about distance. You put no substance behind it other than crying about ten miles.

A real analysis would include how much time and or money would be saved, and we know why you don’t ever bring either up, because you’ve got nothing to back up your rather vapid complaints.

You seem to be forgetting that years ago when both Herndon and Langley had capacity, western Great Falls went to Herndon. They only started schlepping kids to Langley when Herndon got overcrowded. Now it has extra capacity again.

I think it makes sense for some Great Falls / Herndon neighborhoods to be moved to Herndon High School because of it’s location.

As a Herndon High parent, it really wouldn’t make a difference in my kids’ education. Herndon is a great school with supportive teachers. It’s central location means my kids friends are all a close distance. A big plus is all the extra parking.

If you get moved to Herndon, and you are too afraid to send your kids there, please go to private. I don’t want my DC to have to share a class with a disgruntled former Langley bound student.

What a mooch. Move your kids even though it won’t make a difference in my kids education. Go private so I can mooch off your tax dollars. You aren’t a serious person.

All I am saying is that if you kid gets moved to Herndon, that would be just fine. My own kids would continue getting a good education. If, however they have been told they will have to slum it at Herndon, and will be disgruntled, then please, send them to private. We don’t need negative energy.

DP. You said it makes sense. It makes sense to divide kids from their elementary school friends and send them to a different high school than their older siblings? But, in a few years, when Herndon gets overcrowded you can send them back to Langley?

Didn’t they recently make some families send their younger kids to Langley even if they had older siblings at Mclean? I’m sure many bought expecting to send all their kids to Mclean.

We are zoned to Langley. I don’t want to switch pyramids but if we had to for a valid reason i would have a much easier time being switched to a comparable school. Langley to McLean for example. When you’re going from a #148 nationally ranked school to #4176 that’s where a lot of parents are having a hard time. You can say you’re not guaranteed a school when you buy a house all you want but anyone with kids is picking a home based on schools.

The problem with herndons capacity issue is they expanded the school way larger than the middle school capacity. If you move forestville to Herndon MS it will put that school over capacity. Capacity issues is one of things the school board is apparently trying to fix with this study. And unless you tie another middle school to Herndon hs or create an academy within the school there is going to be a large excess in seats. Current commute from my home to cooper when middle schoolers are being picked up is 17 minutes and to Herndon MS is 14. People keep saying 10 miles from Langley. But time wise they aren’t far off. 3 minutes isn’t going to save millions on transportation.

Agree with all of this. I just looked now, as a bus rolled past my house. 2 minute difference between cooper and Herndon middle.

[Anonymous]

any decent group of human beings would recognize there's so much negativity and stress and uncertainty for families right now, that this is not the time to add to it by changing boundaries. Willing to wager that most of the families with ties to the federal government are those who are more likely to rely on public school. It is becoming clearer that some of these FCPS high schools are sinking ships and the SB want to paper them out of failure at all costs.

[Anonymous]

Is there a proposed map of boundary changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a proposed map of boundary changes?

Not yet that they’ve released to the public. They had to do the dog and pony show of soliciting public feedback. now they’ll have the consultants do whatever they want to advance the current agenda of balancing the FARMS/ESOL rates (really more the ESOL, since it is my understanding that the new state standards don’t exempt ESOL students from standardized testing as long as they were in the last) as much as humanly possible given the population distribution in the county. There’s supposed to be draft maps in March or April, then another show of community feedback which will be promptly discarded. Oh and 6th grade may fold into the middle schools in the middle of all of this also.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:FCPS is in a death spiral, if the board goes through with boundary changes there will be no pulling out of it.

But I suspect they are too prideful and stupid to do the right thing.

While they haven't done a county-wide study in years, there have been multipe boundary changes since 2008. They apparently didn't affect you, so you didn't blather on about a "death spiral" at the time.

Time to put on the big boy pants.

Sorry you can’t see what is coming. Each superintendent is worse than the last. Test scores keep falling. No one wants to sacrifice their kid to make failing schools look better. This will lead to vouchers in VA and the collapse of FCPS.

Oh vouchers are coming but not for those reasons. They’re coming because y’all elected a bunch of far-right oligarchs who want to privatize anything and everything. Get ready for a bunch of hastily-assembled “schools” where a minimum-wage hourly worker supervises students watching Amazon and Meta-built AI content all day long. Suddenly these boundary arguments are going to seem pretty quaint

[Anonymous]

At the end of the day this will always be about Great Falls families contending they are too good for Herndon and whether the School Board is going to continue to indulge them by bussing their kids longer distances to schools in McLean. The answer may well be “yes.” They always got their way in the past, even while kids in other pyramids got redistricted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is in a death spiral, if the board goes through with boundary changes there will be no pulling out of it.

But I suspect they are too prideful and stupid to do the right thing.

While they haven't done a county-wide study in years, there have been multipe boundary changes since 2008. They apparently didn't affect you, so you didn't blather on about a "death spiral" at the time.

Time to put on the big boy pants.

Sorry you can’t see what is coming. Each superintendent is worse than the last. Test scores keep falling. No one wants to sacrifice their kid to make failing schools look better. This will lead to vouchers in VA and the collapse of FCPS.

Oh vouchers are coming but not for those reasons. They’re coming because y’all elected a bunch of far-right oligarchs who want to privatize anything and everything. Get ready for a bunch of hastily-assembled “schools” where a minimum-wage hourly worker supervises students watching Amazon and Meta-built AI content all day long. Suddenly these boundary arguments are going to seem pretty quaint

Well, when the school board pushes UMC students into poorer performing schools, that’s the result.

The good news for me is that we are well off enough that my kids will be just fine. I wish the same could be said for others in Fairfax, but these boundary changes have made it so I only focus on my kids.

Nice job, SB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day this will always be about Great Falls families contending they are too good for Herndon and whether the School Board is going to continue to indulge them by bussing their kids longer distances to schools in McLean. The answer may well be “yes.” They always got their way in the past, even while kids in other pyramids got redistricted.

2 minutes longer to HMS than Cooper. You’re argument is so weak.

[Anonymous]

Just checked Google Maps and it said the commute to Herndon from Forestville was 15 minutes less than the commute to Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just checked Google Maps and it said the commute to Herndon from Forestville was 15 minutes less than the commute to Langley.

🙄 so you want to destroy communities over (checks notes). 2 minutes for Herndon Middle and fifteen minutes for Herndon High?

If you want to redistrict for your home values or for DEI reasons, just say that. Because those times are not material to anyone, particularly those who chose to live in the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just checked Google Maps and it said the commute to Herndon from Forestville was 15 minutes less than the commute to Langley.

🙄 so you want to destroy communities over (checks notes). 2 minutes for Herndon Middle and fifteen minutes for Herndon High?

If you want to redistrict for your home values or for DEI reasons, just say that. Because those times are not material to anyone, particularly those who chose to live in the area.

Melodrama in the service of segregation is never a good look. You’ll be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just checked Google Maps and it said the commute to Herndon from Forestville was 15 minutes less than the commute to Langley.

Colvin run to Langley is 7.5 miles. To Marshall 4.4 miles. Madison 4.9. Why is no one up in arms about that school going further?

[Anonymous]

Heard there is a vote this evening on moving certain schools. Anyone else heard that to know if it's true??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just checked Google Maps and it said the commute to Herndon from Forestville was 15 minutes less than the commute to Langley.

🙄 so you want to destroy communities over (checks notes). 2 minutes for Herndon Middle and fifteen minutes for Herndon High?

If you want to redistrict for your home values or for DEI reasons, just say that. Because those times are not material to anyone, particularly those who chose to live in the area.

Melodrama in the service of segregation is never a good look. You’ll be fine.

That you think it’s segregation to want stability of schools and pyramids shows just how extreme and out of touch you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just checked Google Maps and it said the commute to Herndon from Forestville was 15 minutes less than the commute to Langley.

🙄 so you want to destroy communities over (checks notes). 2 minutes for Herndon Middle and fifteen minutes for Herndon High?

If you want to redistrict for your home values or for DEI reasons, just say that. Because those times are not material to anyone, particularly those who chose to live in the area.

The main reason is the increased housing currently being and recently built in the Tysons area and Langley will have to take on some of that load from McLean and Marshall. They can take on more if some of its western boundary gets moved to Herndon. It may not happen with this round, but as Tysons grows and the condos and apartments keep getting built, it will increase the pressure. You can always push for the illusive new western high school instead. The time savings you mentioned is just gravy.