Boundary Review Meetings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keene mill is not closer to Lewis than it is to irving or WSHS. We are two min away from Irving and WSHS. Same neighborhood. We dont appreciate getting thrown under the bus when we can literally be at all 3 schools way closer than other areas. So why dont you stop targeting us.

Keene Mill is equally between WSHS and Lewis by tenths of a mile, and the closest WSHS elementary school to Lewis. Fact.

No one is throwing you under the bus, but if you continue to push that some other farther away neighborhood from "overcrowded" WSHS needs to get rezoned to the "nearby under enrolled high school" because Lewis being under enrolled while WSHS is over capacity is not equitable, at some point, the rest of WSHS is going to start pointing out the obvious, that Keene Mill is the closest school to Lewis, situated almost equally between the 2 high schools, a straight shot down OKM, filled with kids from other high school pyramids due to AAP, and located in the perfect spot to become a split feeder between Irving to Lewis instead of Irving WSHS. It is also not part of the Springfield magesterial district and currently does not have a school board rep, so the Springfield rep could easily decide to support her voting constituents desire to stay at WSHS and focus on rezoning a neighborhood located much closer to Lewis that does not live in her magisterial district or vote for her. Rolling Valley, ironically, is in the Springfield district and votes for the Springfield rep, so she should prioritize RV families over KM families if it comes down to it.

Stop pushing for other WSHS neighborhoods to get rezoned to Lewis, especially if you live in the closest neighborhoods to Lewis, closer even than Daventry.

Instead, join those Sangster, HV and Shannon Station neighborhoods to help push for a residency check at WSHS starting in February 2026 when they form next years schedule. If parents can manage to bring in shot records, then they can manage to bring in a current utility bill, notorized lease, or car tax receipt. It is not that difficult. Every other district in northern Virginia, DC and Maryland mange to do this with no difficulty, no fanfare,and minimal time or expense. There is no escuse for FCPS to not do residenct checks every year, or at least in 7th and 9th grades.

Heck, they could require that the proff of residency be a car tax receipt or a waiver plus your military orders since the only people allowed to not register their car in Virginia are active duty military on orders. That would kill 2 birds with 1 stone. I am sure the car tax folks would be overjoyed to collaborate with FCPS on that.

[Anonymous]

Well the final recommendations just came up marked up in red with all the "parent feedback" changes. This gives the impression that they came up with the final version randomly and with minor pushback, switched everything around. I expect they will see a LOT more pushback now that people see they bend like a willow. This will never end!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
No one is throwing you under the bus

That is literally what you are doing writing pages and pages of commentary hoping it will stick.

[Anonymous]

Looks like the WSHS people got their way with yet another town hall. Interesting that Marcia St. John- cunning is going to be there too. Maybe she will be talking up the programs at Lewis to encourage transfers that way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the Poster referencing Keene Mill - you do realize Keene Mill is right next to Irving - literally, and much closer to WSHS then some of the other neighborhoods. They also want to rezone neighborhoods further back in cardinal forest to Keene mill. Again these neighborhoods are way closer to irving than other neighborhoods so stop bringing up how Keene Mill is closer to Lewis. Its way more closer to Irving and WSHS. What the board needs to do is do the residency checks and be serious about them and have legal punishments for parents who submit false paperwork showing false addresses. Otherwise those of us who play by the rules will continue to play by the rules but those that dont and have no problem lying really dont seem to care that they lie and get away with it..

The board definitely needs to get serious about residency checks before even one neighborhood gets moved out of WSHS. They can easily do them when a child is submitting their vaccinations before entering Irving. Have parents go through the same checking process (show a bill, etc) that they did when they first registered (usually at the elementary level). Do it again when they transition from Irving to WHSH. It is not that hard!

100% agree.

This is where the fight nedds to be at WSHS.

I am the poster who mentioned KM being the closest. Those people need to stop talking about the nearby under enrolled high school needing WSHS kids rezoned to it, and start joining the other half of WSHS that is advocating for residency checks.

Daventry families should espcially take note. They are laying low right now because they have not been mentioned on any maps. But there are certain school board members bringing them up in other neighborhood discussions for "next time." Based on the debates on the facebook pages - elementary schools seem to be a hot topic, but the over arching support of residecy checks at the 7th and 9th grade years should be on the forefront, because even neighborhoods who think they are safe, may not be as secure as they assume.

Well, Daventry should never have been added to Irving/WSHS. It was made abundantly clear when that area was developed that there was NOT room at WSHS for them and that they would go to WSES/Key/Lewis. I don't know the politics behind what happened when they got moved to WSHS in the 2010s. But I think they should be first out if WSHS remains overcrowded AFTER residency checks. They could avoid creating a split feeder issue at WS elementary if they moved Daventry to Garfield ES/Key/Lewis. I believe Garfield is at about 75% capacity. That is the real solution (again IF they do residency checks and it doesn't relieve the overcrowding). I'm baffled that it wasn't suggested.

Daventry went to WSES/Irving/Lee (now Lewis)

Daventry never went to Key.

If Daventry could do the Irving > Lewis/Lee split feeder path, then parts of or all of Keene Mill could do the Irving > Lewis split feeder path since they are the closest WSHS neighborhoods to Lewis, closer to Lewis than Daventry, and much closer than Rolling Valley SPA 8922 as well as much closer than HV Gambrill.


Again, I don't think that any schools should be rezoned out of WSHS until the current 9th-12th graders graduate and we see if the much, much smaller 5th-8th grade classes result in smaller enrollment as all the numbers indicate, or increased enrollment like FCPS CIP predicts. The 8th grade and below are on a steady path down for that pyramid, but the FCPS predictions show a big increase in enrollment at WSHS. Something is not right at WSHS because the math is not making sense. 2-4 more years will either prove FCPS right or prove them wrong.

But no matter what, WSHS needs a full residency check before getting rezoned. If FCPS doesn't want to check the whole school, start with just the rising 9th graders.

Keene Mill parents posting here, start fighting with the Sangster, Hunt Valley and Shannon Station families for a full residency check at WSHS. Work with those families, instead of pushing for neighborhoods much farther away from Lewis than Keene Mill to drive past you to get rezoned to Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

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.

Wolftrap mom, I'm sorry you don't like hearing that your getting moved to Madison is being accomplished by further isolating people who'd been asking for years not to be an attendance island at Westbriar, and ended up getting turned into an island not just at Westbriar, but also Kilmer and Marshall. And, it was justified in part by pointing at numbers at Kilmer they've now admitted were fake.

I live in the attendance island. And I can only speak for myself but I felt I didn’t know what to even ask for, and when we bought our house I actually didn’t know it was an attendance island ( that’s on me not doing my research). The first scenario proposed had us moving to wolftrap but then staying at Kilmer and Marshall. I don’t know if anyone had strong feelings about that seeing as wolftrap is great. Absolutely nobody I talked to wanted to be moved to Reston schools, so maybe everyone figured no change was / is good. Looking on a map it is pretty clear the island should be moved to Colvin run/ Langley. Nobody ever explained why that didn’t happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is throwing you under the bus

That is literally what you are doing writing pages and pages of commentary hoping it will stick.

Then you need to stop saying that some other neighborhood farther away needs to get rezoned to Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My heart breaks for the 859 elementary students, 364 middle school students, and 474 high school students who are being forced to move as part of this messed up review.

I hope that they find happiness after their mental health has been sacrificed on the altar of Sandy Anderdon’s misguided comprehensive review, and may we have the wisdom to shutdown the ongoing five-year reviews before they can do further harm to thousands and tens of thousands of additional students.

I feel upset because the process was a disaster that did nothing to fix the larger issues in the county and ended up being controlled by the parents with the loudest voices because the school board refuses to do what they think is actually best for the county. The moves don’t address any of the real issues and are pretty much happening only because the school board can’t afford to throw up their hands and say “Well, that accomplished nothing.”

I am not worried about the mental health of the kids moving, they are moving with friends and will be just fine. Kids move every day for a variety of reasons. Most don’t move with another group of kids that they know.

But the School Board needs to actually make choices that might be unpopular to address over crowded schools. They won’t but that really is their job. I don’t think their original motives for starting this made sense. They should have started by looking at every school that was over crowded and made adjustments to move kids from over crowded schools to decrease that issue. That is it. And some families would not have been happy with the moves, which sucks, but if it makes sense to move SPAs from an over crowded school to the school next door that has space, then that is what should have happened.

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.

Excellent post. Thank you.

So tired of watching the nonsense in this thread and especially tired of school board members posting here trying to astroturf or gaslight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keene mill is not closer to Lewis than it is to irving or WSHS. We are two min away from Irving and WSHS. Same neighborhood. We dont appreciate getting thrown under the bus when we can literally be at all 3 schools way closer than other areas. So why dont you stop targeting us.

Sandy and Thru created this toxic mess by asking for suggestions from people on what they suggest. So now it’s an absolute disaster of everyone targeting everyone else. The boundary website comment portion was very sad to read, pathetic.

[Anonymous]

When you say further away, it's all relative. You seem to want the keene mill neighborhood that is .5 miles to 2 miles away from WSHS to go elsewhere so you can travel 4-5 miles to WSHS versus 5-6 miles to Lewis. I never once said I want those neighborhoods to go to Lewis, i just said we should do residency checks and I asked you to stop throwing keene mill under the bus but you keep going on and on doing just that.

[Anonymous]

Fix or close Lewis. Do residency checks.

Or we can just say our kids are homeless and take the Hayfield football route and go to whatever school we want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you say further away, it's all relative. You seem to want the keene mill neighborhood that is .5 miles to 2 miles away from WSHS to go elsewhere so you can travel 4-5 miles to WSHS versus 5-6 miles to Lewis. I never once said I want those neighborhoods to go to Lewis, i just said we should do residency checks and I asked you to stop throwing keene mill under the bus but you keep going on and on doing just that.

Wrong.

I am closer to WSHS than any Keene Mill neighborhood.

And anyone can read a map and see that Meene mill is the closest WSHS area to Lewis, closer than Rolling Valley SPA 8922 for sure.

Again, I have said repeatedly that I don't think that anyone should get rezoned out of WSHS, except kids transferring into WSHS for programs like German, and kids whose parents are using false or former addresses to attend WSHS.

I don't even think Keene Mill or Daventry should get rezoned. I think everyone should stay where they are.

But if Keene Mill parents are pushing for a single other WSHS neighborhood to get rezoned to Lewis, then FCPS cannot ignore that Keene Mill is the closest WSHS feeder school and neighborhoods to Lewis. And if FCPS intends to create a split feeder into Lewis, then Keene Mill > Irving > Lewis must be on the table, because Keene Mill is the closest school and neighborhoods to Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fix or close Lewis. Do residency checks.

Or we can just say our kids are homeless and take the Hayfield football route and go to whatever school we want to.

That could be a solution.

I hear that Planet Fitness is a great address to use

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is throwing you under the bus

That is literally what you are doing writing pages and pages of commentary hoping it will stick.

Then you need to stop saying that some other neighborhood farther away needs to get rezoned to Lewis.

Never did. You are tilting at windmills, most people in WSHS area are on board with residency checks and closing transfers before a single student is moved out or in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

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.

Wolftrap mom, I'm sorry you don't like hearing that your getting moved to Madison is being accomplished by further isolating people who'd been asking for years not to be an attendance island at Westbriar, and ended up getting turned into an island not just at Westbriar, but also Kilmer and Marshall. And, it was justified in part by pointing at numbers at Kilmer they've now admitted were fake.

I live in the attendance island. And I can only speak for myself but I felt I didn’t know what to even ask for, and when we bought our house I actually didn’t know it was an attendance island ( that’s on me not doing my research). The first scenario proposed had us moving to wolftrap but then staying at Kilmer and Marshall. I don’t know if anyone had strong feelings about that seeing as wolftrap is great. Absolutely nobody I talked to wanted to be moved to Reston schools, so maybe everyone figured no change was / is good. Looking on a map it is pretty clear the island should be moved to Colvin run/ Langley. Nobody ever explained why that didn’t happen.

Because that would put pressure on Langley to “let go” of some students.