FCPS' plans to address concerns at under-enrolled and over-enrolled schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boundary review made it very clear that parents don't want their kids to be moved from one school to another. This is even more true when the move requires moving from a higher ranked school with better test scores to a school that it far lower in the rankings, with bad test scores, and fewer offerings of higher level courses. Toss in moving kids from an AP HS to an IB HS and you have all sorts or rioting.

The school board is trying to limit students moving out of the lower ranked schools by removing the pupil placement option for a foreign language, which will turn off the moves from one AP school to another for a language, think Herndon to Langley for Russian. It does nothing to stop the move from an IB school to an AP school, which provides plenty of room for kids to leave Lewis. Removing the language option does reduce the students ability to ask for a specific school because they want to take a language offered at West Springfield that is not offered at Lewis or the other near by AP school that is not over enrolled.

Well I'm not sure what would work the best, but understanding the issue regarding programming is important.

Maybe if there were equity in programming, such issues with imbalanced school enrollment would exist.

FCPS should do the best it can not only to balance enrollment, but if they can, to even out school rankings.

Even out schools rankings just means that all of them will be terrible. That will be the death knell for public school enrollment in Fairfax county.

Schools have no control over what rank their school is given. GreatSchools is a privately run organization that is funded by "charities" such as the Walton Foundation, which is a huge proponent of charter schools and for taking money out of public schools.

No school district should be making decisions based on GreatSchool rankings or other similar, privately run ranking systems.

If there's an imbalance in school enrollment, the county should address it, regardless of what GreatSchool rankings are listed.

It's been well documented that school ranking companies like GreatSchools penalize black- and Latino-heavy schools, regardless of how those schools are performing.

If you're against providing equity in programming across schools, as in you want some schools to provide programs but others not to, I have no statement to make regarding that because it's a pretty disgusting statement.

You cannot "balance" the enrollments without extreme busing. I am against busing and believe that kids should go to the closest school possible. Of course, that puts "some" neighborhoods where they do not want to be.

Now that is a great point that FCPS should have considered during the CBR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boundary review made it very clear that parents don't want their kids to be moved from one school to another. This is even more true when the move requires moving from a higher ranked school with better test scores to a school that it far lower in the rankings, with bad test scores, and fewer offerings of higher level courses. Toss in moving kids from an AP HS to an IB HS and you have all sorts or rioting.

The school board is trying to limit students moving out of the lower ranked schools by removing the pupil placement option for a foreign language, which will turn off the moves from one AP school to another for a language, think Herndon to Langley for Russian. It does nothing to stop the move from an IB school to an AP school, which provides plenty of room for kids to leave Lewis. Removing the language option does reduce the students ability to ask for a specific school because they want to take a language offered at West Springfield that is not offered at Lewis or the other near by AP school that is not over enrolled.

Well I'm not sure what would work the best, but understanding the issue regarding programming is important.

Maybe if there were equity in programming, such issues with imbalanced school enrollment would exist.

FCPS should do the best it can not only to balance enrollment, but if they can, to even out school rankings.

Even out schools rankings just means that all of them will be terrible. That will be the death knell for public school enrollment in Fairfax county.

Schools have no control over what rank their school is given. GreatSchools is a privately run organization that is funded by "charities" such as the Walton Foundation, which is a huge proponent of charter schools and for taking money out of public schools.

No school district should be making decisions based on GreatSchool rankings or other similar, privately run ranking systems.

If there's an imbalance in school enrollment, the county should address it, regardless of what GreatSchool rankings are listed.

It's been well documented that school ranking companies like GreatSchools penalize black- and Latino-heavy schools, regardless of how those schools are performing.

If you're against providing equity in programming across schools, as in you want some schools to provide programs but others not to, I have no statement to make regarding that because it's a pretty disgusting statement.

You cannot "balance" the enrollments without extreme busing. I am against busing and believe that kids should go to the closest school possible. Of course, that puts "some" neighborhoods where they do not want to be.

Now that is a great point that FCPS should have considered during the CBR.

DP. It’s totally inconsistent with how FCPS spends its money or comes up with boundary adjustments. They plowed tens of millions into expanding some schools knowing that would mean kids would keep commuting long distances to those schools and people would then defend it on the grounds the expanded schools weren’t overcrowded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents view schools as monetary transactions. Parents are willing to spend more money for real estate to live in districts with higher GreatSchool ratings.

They also don't want to believe that a child will still be successful even if a parent doesn't dump tons of money into a mortgage, and if the kid goes to one of those "lower-ranked" schools.

FCPS shouldn't be in the process of using GreatSchools as a means of making decisions regarding boundaries, but parents will fight to the death to keep their kids in certain schools. Because parents believe they paid for those schools. They believe they are entitled to them.

And that's why FCPS boundary changes won't happen. Because GreatSchools rules them all.

I can only think of a few areas of the county where rich areas with 8-10 ratings directly border lower income areas with 1-4 school ratings. Like, very few. And if you then drill it down to “the 8-10 school is crowded and could stand to lose some students” and “the 1-4 school has low enrollment and could stand to pick up some students” it’s even fewer. And in a lot of these areas there is another move that could also make sense and wouldn’t result in as much of a drop in terms of SES of the schools.

The reality is that poverty is concentrated in a few areas. And if you start some kind of large scale bussing to more equally distribute the poverty, that has consequences too - longer bus rides, more busses on the roads, more absenteeism, kids/families not feeling connected to their school community because they’re being bussed to a school past 3 other closer schools because someone wanted to balance out the FARMS and ESOL rates.

West Springfield/Lewis
Langley/Herndon
McLean/Falls Church
Woodson/Annandale

It’s closer and a much easier commute for some of WSHS to attend South County or Lake Braddock if they need to.

McLean is over capacity but aren’t Marshall and Falls Church both basically at capacity? I’m looking at the current maps and they show McLean at 105% with their modular, Marshall at 98%, and FCHS at 102%. They can’t receive students at this point.

Langley doesn’t need to lose any students right now. But it will be interesting to see what happens in 5-10 years with their furthest west neighborhoods.

So you basically only have the Woodson/Annandale situation right now and that’s it. And as far as I can remember, capacity balancing between these two schools was never in any plans.

falls church got a big expansion. they tried to move some of mclean there but the parents fought against it. so they moved a large number to langley to lower enrollment.

FCPS class sizes will get bigger and more teachers will be cut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents view schools as monetary transactions. Parents are willing to spend more money for real estate to live in districts with higher GreatSchool ratings.

They also don't want to believe that a child will still be successful even if a parent doesn't dump tons of money into a mortgage, and if the kid goes to one of those "lower-ranked" schools.

FCPS shouldn't be in the process of using GreatSchools as a means of making decisions regarding boundaries, but parents will fight to the death to keep their kids in certain schools. Because parents believe they paid for those schools. They believe they are entitled to them.

And that's why FCPS boundary changes won't happen. Because GreatSchools rules them all.

I can only think of a few areas of the county where rich areas with 8-10 ratings directly border lower income areas with 1-4 school ratings. Like, very few. And if you then drill it down to “the 8-10 school is crowded and could stand to lose some students” and “the 1-4 school has low enrollment and could stand to pick up some students” it’s even fewer. And in a lot of these areas there is another move that could also make sense and wouldn’t result in as much of a drop in terms of SES of the schools.

The reality is that poverty is concentrated in a few areas. And if you start some kind of large scale bussing to more equally distribute the poverty, that has consequences too - longer bus rides, more busses on the roads, more absenteeism, kids/families not feeling connected to their school community because they’re being bussed to a school past 3 other closer schools because someone wanted to balance out the FARMS and ESOL rates.

West Springfield/Lewis
Langley/Herndon
McLean/Falls Church
Woodson/Annandale

It’s closer and a much easier commute for some of WSHS to attend South County or Lake Braddock if they need to.

McLean is over capacity but aren’t Marshall and Falls Church both basically at capacity? I’m looking at the current maps and they show McLean at 105% with their modular, Marshall at 98%, and FCHS at 102%. They can’t receive students at this point.

Langley doesn’t need to lose any students right now. But it will be interesting to see what happens in 5-10 years with their furthest west neighborhoods.

So you basically only have the Woodson/Annandale situation right now and that’s it. And as far as I can remember, capacity balancing between these two schools was never in any plans.

West Springfield is overcrowded and Lewis has more surplus capacity than LB or SC.

McLean was overcrowded and you’re ignoring the big Falls Church expansion. They got sent to Langley instead.

They overcrowded Langley by moving hundreds of McLean kids there and Herndon is far closer to many Langley neighborhoods than Langley.

Woodson is overcrowded and Annandale is adjacent.

I’m not advocating for further changes at this point, just pointing out your BS when you claim these changes from lower to higher FARMS schools couldn’t have been made.

Well again, the WS/Lewis thing goes to one of my original points. Is it better to prioritize a shorter or better commute when moving neighborhoods, or better to prioritize filling up existing schools? The SB seems to think the former is preferred. It’s not an easy ride to Lewis from anywhere in West Springfield compared to the distance to WSHS itself.

They seem to think space will be needed at Falls Church and it seems like they always give a school an expansion when they do a renovation.

And the numbers don’t support the fact that Langley is currently overcrowded. But again, it may be/will probably be in the near future if they keep moving parts of McLean there.

But that’s what … 2-3 areas where they could easily make an “equity move” but aren’t? Most of the county would be unaffected.

No, the SB seems to think placating wealthier, noisier parents is to the best way to go. They haven't done "equity moves" since the 2008 South Lakes redistricting, but there are at least four situations (not 2-3) where they could have had they been so inclined.

You can't really say that leaving WS alone shows that the SB prioritizes a shorter or better commute over capacity utilization, when they leave Langley families with much longer commutes than they'd have if some moved to Herndon. And they may be retreating now from moving Oakton families to Skyview even though the long commutes to Oakton were mentioned by several SB members (Frisch, McDaniel) as a reason to acquire KAA last year.

DP. Ezra Klein had Fareed Zarkaria on his show last week, and they had an interesting discourse for part of the podcast about how the left always goes too far. I immediately thought of how frequently a handful of lefties on this board push for equity redistricting any chance they get.

Sincerely, a Democrat who hates that the extreme left flank hinders and diminishes our party’s chances of winning elections

What are you babbling about? Democrats completely dominate local politics in Fairfax and one reason is that they spout a bunch of liberal platitudes that go down easy but then kowtow to the center right when it comes to actual decisions.

I’m not sure if there is any extreme left flank in decision-making positions in Fairfax. If there are, they have no power.

[Anonymous]

Lewis will be lucky to hit 1420-1430 in enrollment next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lewis will be lucky to hit 1420-1430 in enrollment next year.

there are lots of great high schools of that size. But, if they want more, I would suggest that they switch to AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lewis will be lucky to hit 1420-1430 in enrollment next year.

there are lots of great high schools of that size. But, if they want more, I would suggest that they switch to AP.

They need a decent academy/magnet program of some sort. But the enrollment figures don’t look great. Yes there are some new developments going up in the area, but the big one is some apartments essentially at the mall, and that’s not going to attract many high school age students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lewis will be lucky to hit 1420-1430 in enrollment next year.

there are lots of great high schools of that size. But, if they want more, I would suggest that they switch to AP.

Unfortunately FCPS refuses to make the switch to AP. Parents can't do anything but move their kids out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lewis will be lucky to hit 1420-1430 in enrollment next year.

there are lots of great high schools of that size. But, if they want more, I would suggest that they switch to AP.

Unfortunately FCPS refuses to make the switch to AP. Parents can't do anything but move their kids out.

I suspect parents are not complaining about IB because its existence at Lewis allows them to pupil place out. Add AP and their kids would have to stay at Lewis. AP is the reason given for leaving, the real reason is parents want their kids at schools with a larger cohort of college bound kids who are motivated to work hard in HS.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, it wouldn't matter if Lewis was AP or IB. Switch to AP, and parents will pupil place to an IB school -- probably Edison. Keep it IB, and parents will switch to the closest AP school -- probably Hayfield.

It doesn't matter.

And I don't think stopping transfers is enough to really make a different in the Lewis population size.

In the meantime, Lewis borders two schools that are over capacity (WSHS and Edison). The very simply solution would be to re-do boundaries for more equal student population sizes.

[Anonymous]

FCPS is shrinking several schools with the recent boundary changes, such as Justice, Marshall, and McLean. And the big schools in western Fairfax will see their enrollments come down when Skyview boundary changes are fully in place. Lewis will still be a runt but it won’t stick out as much as it has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, it wouldn't matter if Lewis was AP or IB. Switch to AP, and parents will pupil place to an IB school -- probably Edison. Keep it IB, and parents will switch to the closest AP school -- probably Hayfield.

It doesn't matter.

And I don't think stopping transfers is enough to really make a different in the Lewis population size.

In the meantime, Lewis borders two schools that are over capacity (WSHS and Edison). The very simply solution would be to re-do boundaries for more equal student population sizes.

Social engineering at its finest. The downward spiral advocates continue their work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, it wouldn't matter if Lewis was AP or IB. Switch to AP, and parents will pupil place to an IB school -- probably Edison. Keep it IB, and parents will switch to the closest AP school -- probably Hayfield.

It doesn't matter.

And I don't think stopping transfers is enough to really make a different in the Lewis population size.

In the meantime, Lewis borders two schools that are over capacity (WSHS and Edison). The very simply solution would be to re-do boundaries for more equal student population sizes.

Social engineering at its finest. The downward spiral advocates continue their work.

The social engineering occurred when FCPS’s former head of Facilities, a West Springfield graduate, made sure West Springfield was expanded during its renovation even though Lewis had available seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents view schools as monetary transactions. Parents are willing to spend more money for real estate to live in districts with higher GreatSchool ratings.

They also don't want to believe that a child will still be successful even if a parent doesn't dump tons of money into a mortgage, and if the kid goes to one of those "lower-ranked" schools.

FCPS shouldn't be in the process of using GreatSchools as a means of making decisions regarding boundaries, but parents will fight to the death to keep their kids in certain schools. Because parents believe they paid for those schools. They believe they are entitled to them.

And that's why FCPS boundary changes won't happen. Because GreatSchools rules them all.

I can only think of a few areas of the county where rich areas with 8-10 ratings directly border lower income areas with 1-4 school ratings. Like, very few. And if you then drill it down to “the 8-10 school is crowded and could stand to lose some students” and “the 1-4 school has low enrollment and could stand to pick up some students” it’s even fewer. And in a lot of these areas there is another move that could also make sense and wouldn’t result in as much of a drop in terms of SES of the schools.

The reality is that poverty is concentrated in a few areas. And if you start some kind of large scale bussing to more equally distribute the poverty, that has consequences too - longer bus rides, more busses on the roads, more absenteeism, kids/families not feeling connected to their school community because they’re being bussed to a school past 3 other closer schools because someone wanted to balance out the FARMS and ESOL rates.

West Springfield/Lewis
Langley/Herndon
McLean/Falls Church
Woodson/Annandale

I'm behind the times. I thought Herndon was a 5 or 6.

[Anonymous]

Well, isht. They are a 3.