Boundaries assessment update 2023

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school board needs to take a serious look at the inequitable borders between Herndon, Langley, and Chantilly. They need to start making adjustments to these boundaries. Look at the demo and FARM info between Herndon and Langley alone.

There is no border between Herndon and Chantilly. Perhaps you mean Westfield.

or South Lakes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school board needs to take a serious look at the inequitable borders between Herndon, Langley, and Chantilly. They need to start making adjustments to these boundaries. Look at the demo and FARM info between Herndon and Langley alone.

Langley is untouchable. Just watch.

[Anonymous]

It is not the boundaries that is the problem.

And, FWI, I just checked the AP results from Herndon and they were decent. What is the problem?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is LLIV at all elementary schools (almost there already) remove AAP in middle schools.

LLIV in all middle schools should exist. Just eliminate the centers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school board needs to take a serious look at the inequitable borders between Herndon, Langley, and Chantilly. They need to start making adjustments to these boundaries. Look at the demo and FARM info between Herndon and Langley alone.

The Herndon/Langley thing would either involve giving some Herndon kids an annoyingly long bus ride to Langley since the building is physically located in the more populated area near Tysons, or giving some of relatively sparsely populated western Great Falls back to Herndon. That would decrease their bus ride length but would be a political nuclear bomb because Langley is so under-enrolled and it would be seen as busing kids to a lesser school for “equity.” Herndon was pretty crowded for awhile - not sure where they stand now or if they could absorb a few more students, but again, little reason to do so if Langley is under enrolled.

Not saying this is what should happen, but if the forrestville students were moved to Herndon, Langley would not stay under enrolled. They could do another boundary adjustment with McLean and move the rest of Spring Hill to Langley. That would alleviate McLean’s overcrowding and eliminate another split feeder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is LLIV at all elementary schools (almost there already) remove AAP in middle schools.

LLIV in all middle schools should exist. Just eliminate the centers.

I’ve never understood why they allowed Carson to become such an AAP center behemoth when other middle schools like Franklin could have AAP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guessing there would be some way to phase it out if there is a desire to do so by the School board. Start by putting AP options in. Expensive for a couple of years but ultimately would save money. Perhaps, take the IB diploma candidates and group them in one or two schools for two years.

cont. Start by doing a serious survey asking parents and students what they would like.

FWIW, two of my kids' college friends graduated with the diploma. One from MV and one from Robinson. Both said they would have much preferred AP. They also did not get as much college credit as my DD who started as an academic sophomore.

It’s not just about the college credit.

Much better to offer AP and include the AP electives that require more writing. IB is inefficient and costly, and the fact that most FCPS families want nothing to do with it is a big impediment to boundary adjustments.

It’s really not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guessing there would be some way to phase it out if there is a desire to do so by the School board. Start by putting AP options in. Expensive for a couple of years but ultimately would save money. Perhaps, take the IB diploma candidates and group them in one or two schools for two years.

cont. Start by doing a serious survey asking parents and students what they would like.

FWIW, two of my kids' college friends graduated with the diploma. One from MV and one from Robinson. Both said they would have much preferred AP. They also did not get as much college credit as my DD who started as an academic sophomore.

A survey can potentially have bad faith actors. Someone at Annandale could fake their support for IB because they use AP at Lake Braddock to pupil place out.

I don't think making all schools AP is the easy solution many make it out to be. Falls Church HS has AP and it is by no means a school that is considered desirable by the general public. Parents pupil place into IB at Marshall to avoid AP at FCHS. The issue runs deeper than AP > IB.

Of course. It’s SES, and the posters who play the IB strawman know it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guessing there would be some way to phase it out if there is a desire to do so by the School board. Start by putting AP options in. Expensive for a couple of years but ultimately would save money. Perhaps, take the IB diploma candidates and group them in one or two schools for two years.

cont. Start by doing a serious survey asking parents and students what they would like.

FWIW, two of my kids' college friends graduated with the diploma. One from MV and one from Robinson. Both said they would have much preferred AP. They also did not get as much college credit as my DD who started as an academic sophomore.

A survey can potentially have bad faith actors. Someone at Annandale could fake their support for IB because they use AP at Lake Braddock to pupil place out.

I don't think making all schools AP is the easy solution many make it out to be. Falls Church HS has AP and it is by no means a school that is considered desirable by the general public. Parents pupil place into IB at Marshall to avoid AP at FCHS. The issue runs deeper than AP > IB.

Of course. It’s SES, and the posters who play the IB strawman know it.

If you think it’s mostly SES arbitrage, that only underscores how ridiculous it was for FCPS to have placed IB mostly at lower-performing schools and then given people an option to pupil place. It suggests that, for many, the main benefit of IB is the ability it gives them to avoid an Annandale or Lewis by transferring to, say, Lake Braddock.

If you want to discourage that behavior, one of the best ways to do so is by getting rid of IB, so that one of the grounds for pupil placement no longer exists. Telling people they have no alternative to an IB school (by eliminating student transfers entirely) would be political suicide for the School Board members. Whether you like it or not, parents and students do generally prefer AP to IB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guessing there would be some way to phase it out if there is a desire to do so by the School board. Start by putting AP options in. Expensive for a couple of years but ultimately would save money. Perhaps, take the IB diploma candidates and group them in one or two schools for two years.

cont. Start by doing a serious survey asking parents and students what they would like.

FWIW, two of my kids' college friends graduated with the diploma. One from MV and one from Robinson. Both said they would have much preferred AP. They also did not get as much college credit as my DD who started as an academic sophomore.

A survey can potentially have bad faith actors. Someone at Annandale could fake their support for IB because they use AP at Lake Braddock to pupil place out.

I don't think making all schools AP is the easy solution many make it out to be. Falls Church HS has AP and it is by no means a school that is considered desirable by the general public. Parents pupil place into IB at Marshall to avoid AP at FCHS. The issue runs deeper than AP > IB.

Of course. It’s SES, and the posters who play the IB strawman know it.

If you think it’s mostly SES arbitrage, that only underscores how ridiculous it was for FCPS to have placed IB mostly at lower-performing schools and then given people an option to pupil place. It suggests that, for many, the main benefit of IB is the ability it gives them to avoid an Annandale or Lewis by transferring to, say, Lake Braddock.

If you want to discourage that behavior, one of the best ways to do so is by getting rid of IB, so that one of the grounds for pupil placement no longer exists. Telling people they have no alternative to an IB school (by eliminating student transfers entirely) would be political suicide for the School Board members. Whether you like it or not, parents and students do generally prefer AP to IB.

Eh, it’s just whack-a-mole. White flight will find a way.

[Anonymous]

Posted 6 years ago (some of the info may now be dated, such as the comment on Latin or the numbers of pupil placements):

How Lee was changed by FCPS -

Step 1 - Early 2000's - Differentiate curriculums by putting in a program (IB) as a magnet and leaving AP at other schools.

Step 2 - Twice, in 2005 and 2015, take kids from the wealthiest elementary schools feeding Lee and move them to West Springfield.
- In 2005 the School Board could have moved Crestwood (a much poorer school) to West Springfield and left Hunt Valley students at Lee. Lee still would have been poorer than West Springfield, but the balance would have been better). Essentially, FCPS doubled down on poverty at Lee.

Step 3 - Drop languages from the curriculum at Lee (including Latin and Japanese; only Lee, Mt. Vernon, and Stuart do not offer Latin).

Step 4 - Have a liberal pupil placement policy in place that allows parents to easily avoid a school because of the different curriculums at the schools (as established by FCPS). Generally only non-F/R lunch families can take advantage of the pupil placement policy because of transportation and logistics issues associated with being poor. Putting in IB at Lee, as opposed to drawing families in, actually provided legal justification to leave. Lee loses over 150 students to pupil placement and I am sure very few of them qualify for F/R lunch. It also loses the vast majority of its pyramid AAP students.

It all spiraled downward from there to the point where military families (and other non-F/R lunch families) started avoiding Lee. Hence it gets poorer and poorer.

So which came first, people avoiding Lee, or FCPS changing Lee so that people started avoiding it? I'll admit Lee was never as wealthy as West Springfield, but now the gap is ridiculous.

I am not advocating boundary changes. That would not fly and would not work. At this point I just want them to replace IB with AP and stop the rise in the F/R lunch numbers. For example, don't build any affordable housing on the Springfield Town Center property (if and when they ever build any). The only other option would be to make Lee a complete magnet school like Jefferson (perhaps for the arts or IB). Not sure where they would put the kids who now attend Lee. By the way, from a taxpayer perspective, IB is twice as expensive as AP and only one school with IB achieved a 20% IB Diploma rate last year (Robinson). That means that even the best performing IB school saw 80% of its graduates not get the IB Diploma. FCPS should drop IB altogether. Just because we tried it does not mean we have to keep it.

******************************************************************************

Since that post, the gap between West Springfield and Lewis has only gotten worse. In 2005 there was only a 150 student enrollment difference between them. Now it is close to 1000. And Lee was roughly 27% F/R lunch in 2005, now it is 63%. After the 2005 boundary change FCPS said Lee would only rise to roughly 30%, but it quickly flew past 40%. West Springfield is in the mid-teens. And honestly, the elephant in the room continues to be uncontrolled immigration. Unless that starts to impact the West Springfields, Madisons, or Langleys of this county, nothing will change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm guessing there would be some way to phase it out if there is a desire to do so by the School board. Start by putting AP options in. Expensive for a couple of years but ultimately would save money. Perhaps, take the IB diploma candidates and group them in one or two schools for two years.

cont. Start by doing a serious survey asking parents and students what they would like.

FWIW, two of my kids' college friends graduated with the diploma. One from MV and one from Robinson. Both said they would have much preferred AP. They also did not get as much college credit as my DD who started as an academic sophomore.

A survey can potentially have bad faith actors. Someone at Annandale could fake their support for IB because they use AP at Lake Braddock to pupil place out.

I don't think making all schools AP is the easy solution many make it out to be. Falls Church HS has AP and it is by no means a school that is considered desirable by the general public. Parents pupil place into IB at Marshall to avoid AP at FCHS. The issue runs deeper than AP > IB.

Of course. It’s SES, and the posters who play the IB strawman know it.

If you think it’s mostly SES arbitrage, that only underscores how ridiculous it was for FCPS to have placed IB mostly at lower-performing schools and then given people an option to pupil place. It suggests that, for many, the main benefit of IB is the ability it gives them to avoid an Annandale or Lewis by transferring to, say, Lake Braddock.

If you want to discourage that behavior, one of the best ways to do so is by getting rid of IB, so that one of the grounds for pupil placement no longer exists. Telling people they have no alternative to an IB school (by eliminating student transfers entirely) would be political suicide for the School Board members. Whether you like it or not, parents and students do generally prefer AP to IB.

Eh, it’s just whack-a-mole. White flight will find a way.

Sorry there aren’t always as many of us to go around as you’d like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simple answer is LLIV at all elementary schools (almost there already) remove AAP in middle schools.

LLIV in all middle schools should exist. Just eliminate the centers.

That’s what honors is. No need to call it something else. Provide level 4 curriculum in the honors classes because those already exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Posted 6 years ago (some of the info may now be dated, such as the comment on Latin or the numbers of pupil placements):

How Lee was changed by FCPS -

Step 1 - Early 2000's - Differentiate curriculums by putting in a program (IB) as a magnet and leaving AP at other schools.

Step 2 - Twice, in 2005 and 2015, take kids from the wealthiest elementary schools feeding Lee and move them to West Springfield.
- In 2005 the School Board could have moved Crestwood (a much poorer school) to West Springfield and left Hunt Valley students at Lee. Lee still would have been poorer than West Springfield, but the balance would have been better). Essentially, FCPS doubled down on poverty at Lee.

Step 3 - Drop languages from the curriculum at Lee (including Latin and Japanese; only Lee, Mt. Vernon, and Stuart do not offer Latin).

Step 4 - Have a liberal pupil placement policy in place that allows parents to easily avoid a school because of the different curriculums at the schools (as established by FCPS). Generally only non-F/R lunch families can take advantage of the pupil placement policy because of transportation and logistics issues associated with being poor. Putting in IB at Lee, as opposed to drawing families in, actually provided legal justification to leave. Lee loses over 150 students to pupil placement and I am sure very few of them qualify for F/R lunch. It also loses the vast majority of its pyramid AAP students.

It all spiraled downward from there to the point where military families (and other non-F/R lunch families) started avoiding Lee. Hence it gets poorer and poorer.

So which came first, people avoiding Lee, or FCPS changing Lee so that people started avoiding it? I'll admit Lee was never as wealthy as West Springfield, but now the gap is ridiculous.

I am not advocating boundary changes. That would not fly and would not work. At this point I just want them to replace IB with AP and stop the rise in the F/R lunch numbers. For example, don't build any affordable housing on the Springfield Town Center property (if and when they ever build any). The only other option would be to make Lee a complete magnet school like Jefferson (perhaps for the arts or IB). Not sure where they would put the kids who now attend Lee. By the way, from a taxpayer perspective, IB is twice as expensive as AP and only one school with IB achieved a 20% IB Diploma rate last year (Robinson). That means that even the best performing IB school saw 80% of its graduates not get the IB Diploma. FCPS should drop IB altogether. Just because we tried it does not mean we have to keep it.

******************************************************************************

Since that post, the gap between West Springfield and Lewis has only gotten worse. In 2005 there was only a 150 student enrollment difference between them. Now it is close to 1000. And Lee was roughly 27% F/R lunch in 2005, now it is 63%. After the 2005 boundary change FCPS said Lee would only rise to roughly 30%, but it quickly flew past 40%. West Springfield is in the mid-teens. And honestly, the elephant in the room continues to be uncontrolled immigration. Unless that starts to impact the West Springfields, Madisons, or Langleys of this county, nothing will change.

The crazy thing is that since that post was written FCPS expanded each of West Springfield, Madison, and Langley, even though they may the three schools least affected by immigration and least likely to be affected by any new development. So they’ll siphon off higher-income areas from other schools because they got additions they didn’t need, and concentrate more poverty at other schools. For example, every new building in Tysons that is slated to be entirely affordable housing will feed to Marshall, and eventually they’ll end up reassigning expensive single-family neighborhoods in Vienna now at Marshall to Madison. The guy who ran planning in FCPS for years was a total disaster and, even though he’s gone now, we’ll be living with the consequences of his terrible decisions for years to come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just get rid of AAP and AAP centers. Beef up the curriculum for everyone instead.

Both of my kids are in AAP and I’m glad the programs exists but I agree centers make no sense.

Part of the rationale was that some elementary and middle schools by themselves don’t have a critical mass of advanced students.

And they never will if they flee to centers. I don’t think AAP should necessarily mix with gen Ed but have a designated class.