FCPS About to Propose Major Boundary Changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have to make some changes by next year when the giant wave of current AAP 5th graders hits middle school.
As far as guessing their long term goals, are they prioritizing keeping people in the same region from ES through HS? Are they trying to avoid split feeders? I hope that they make changes that make sense, rather than just catering to temporary capacity issues.

FCPS created that problem; there are far too many AAP kids, especially the current 5th graders. They should rectify their mistake, and not at the expense of crowding out the non-AAP kids.

[Anonymous]

The materials for the Work Session have now been posted.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=9PANAF5EF993

The materials are far more detailed and transparent about the range of options and their potential timing than anything included in CIP materials for many years.

There are lots of options identified that would potentially affect different schools over the next decade, but the biggest theme seems to be that we cannot maintain the AAP centers in their current form, as they skew enrollments at too many schools, leading to schools that are both seriously overcrowded and significantly underenrolled. There are many suggestions to move kids out of overcrowded centers like Kilmer and Longfellow.

I was also pleased to see Facilities admit that some of its short-term projections were seriously off, although they don't seem to identify when the latest projections were developed. Had they used the projections made public in the spring of 2014, some of the differences between the projected vs. actual fall 2014 enrollments would have been even larger.

[Anonymous]

Holy cow. Thank you for posting this. I plan to get a glass of wine and pour through this tonight. I can't believe the number of changes that might affect my family and neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The materials for the Work Session have now been posted.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=9PANAF5EF993

The materials are far more detailed and transparent about the range of options and their potential timing than anything included in CIP materials for many years.

There are lots of options identified that would potentially affect different schools over the next decade, but the biggest theme seems to be that we cannot maintain the AAP centers in their current form, as they skew enrollments at too many schools, leading to schools that are both seriously overcrowded and significantly underenrolled. There are many suggestions to move kids out of overcrowded centers like Kilmer and Longfellow.

I was also pleased to see Facilities admit that some of its short-term projections were seriously off, although they don't seem to identify when the latest projections were developed. Had they used the projections made public in the spring of 2014, some of the differences between the projected vs. actual fall 2014 enrollments would have been even larger.

Thank you for posting this link.

Have you seen any data on # of students receiving Level IV AAP services to be moved from one school to another? I cannot locate it in the attachments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The materials for the Work Session have now been posted.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=9PANAF5EF993

The materials are far more detailed and transparent about the range of options and their potential timing than anything included in CIP materials for many years.

There are lots of options identified that would potentially affect different schools over the next decade, but the biggest theme seems to be that we cannot maintain the AAP centers in their current form, as they skew enrollments at too many schools, leading to schools that are both seriously overcrowded and significantly underenrolled. There are many suggestions to move kids out of overcrowded centers like Kilmer and Longfellow.

I was also pleased to see Facilities admit that some of its short-term projections were seriously off, although they don't seem to identify when the latest projections were developed. Had they used the projections made public in the spring of 2014, some of the differences between the projected vs. actual fall 2014 enrollments would have been even larger.

Thank you for posting this link.

Have you seen any data on # of students receiving Level IV AAP services to be moved from one school to another? I cannot locate it in the attachments.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but if you look at the maps at Attachment C you get some feel for the potential impact. So, for example, Map 10 at p. 11 of Attachment C reflects a projected future movement of 250 AAP students from Kilmer to Thoreau and 150 AAP students from Jackson to Thoreau. And Map 7 at p. 8 of Attachment C reflects a proposed future movement of AAP students out of Kilmer and Longfellow to Cooper, although some of the other Kilmer numbers on that slide are wrong.

And then if you look at the summary in the main document, you see that Facilities has suggested that Thoreau might get an AAP center in the 2017-18 time frame (p. 15), whereas Cooper might get an AAP center in the 2019-21 time frame (p. 14). Those dates are based on when the renovations at Thoreau and Cooper are expected to be completed.

You may have entirely different schools in mind, but that gives you some idea as to how the information ties together. All of these "solutions" are described as "options" for the different Board Members to consider for their districts.

[Anonymous]

There are about 460 AAP students at Kilmer. So after all that, 50 AAP students would be left at Kilmer? Or eventually Kilmer would have an AAP center?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are about 460 AAP students at Kilmer. So after all that, 50 AAP students would be left at Kilmer? Or eventually Kilmer would have an AAP center?

Meant to ask if Kilmer would no longer be an AAP center.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are about 460 AAP students at Kilmer. So after all that, 50 AAP students would be left at Kilmer? Or eventually Kilmer would have an AAP center?

I'd read it as follows:

Kilmer had an AAP center with 454 AAP students last year, of whom 210 had Kilmer as their base school. The rest are primarily from the Cooper district.

If nothing changes, FCPS projects Kilmer will be at 1733 kids in 4-5 years, 581 students over capacity. One option to reduce the enrollment at Kilmer is to move the Cooper AAP now at Kilmer back to Cooper, which FCPS estimates would reduce Kilmer's enrollment by 227 students. Another option is to move AAP students from Kilmer to a new AAP center at Thoreau, reducing the Kilmer enrollment by roughly 250 students.

Neither option could be adopted, just one option could be adopted, or both options could be adopted. Facilities is essentially saying that, unless both options are adopted, it currently projects that Kilmer will be quite overcrowded. It is also saying that, because Thoreau is scheduled to be renovated before Cooper, it would be easier to move Kilmer AAP students to Thoreau (in 2017-18) before moving AAP students back to Cooper (in 2019-21).

I think you are right that, if FCPS adopted both options, Kilmer would no longer have AAP. But the sequencing would be strange - is FCPS going to send AAP kids who are in-boundary for Kilmer over to Thoreau, but allow Cooper AAP kids to stay at Kilmer until Cooper has been renovated?

The other take-away is that, if the projections are off, new options may emerge or these options will be discarded. But Facilities at least wants to put the options on the table so that the School Board and the public understand that there probably will need to be changes.

[Anonymous]

16:31 here: I looked at this again and the documents suggest that the movement of kids who might be moved from Kilmer AAP to a new Thoreau AAP center would be "AAP students residing within the Thoreau MS attendance area" currently at Kilmer AAP (main summary document at p. 15).

I don't know how that could possibly involve 250 students (see Attachment C - Map 10 at p. 11). Most Thoreau kids go the the Jackson AAP center, not Kilmer. The only exception seems to be the Kilmer AAP kids at Freedom Hill and Stenwood who have Thoreau as their base school, and I don't think anywhere close to 250 kids fall in that category, since Kilmer is the base school for most Freedom Hill and Stenwood kids. That's what made me think this option must involve moving other Kilmer AAP kids to Thoreau. Guess the actual details would emerge later if that option got some real traction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16:31 here: I looked at this again and the documents suggest that the movement of kids who might be moved from Kilmer AAP to a new Thoreau AAP center would be "AAP students residing within the Thoreau MS attendance area" currently at Kilmer AAP (main summary document at p. 15).

I don't know how that could possibly involve 250 students (see Attachment C - Map 10 at p. 11). Most Thoreau kids go the the Jackson AAP center, not Kilmer. The only exception seems to be the Kilmer AAP kids at Freedom Hill and Stenwood who have Thoreau as their base school, and I don't think anywhere close to 250 kids fall in that category, since Kilmer is the base school for most Freedom Hill and Stenwood kids. That's what made me think this option must involve moving other Kilmer AAP kids to Thoreau. Guess the actual details would emerge later if that option got some real traction.

It was nicer for Vienna when Kilmer was the base AAP center for all of Vienna. Then there was a nice percentage of kids from that school going on to Madison and Marshall. For many years there's been odd boundaries for middle and high school where some Cunningham Park and Stenwood kids going to Thoreau and then to Marshall and some Wolftrap and Westbriar kids going to Kilmer and then Madison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The materials for the Work Session have now been posted.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=9PANAF5EF993

The materials are far more detailed and transparent about the range of options and their potential timing than anything included in CIP materials for many years.

There are lots of options identified that would potentially affect different schools over the next decade, but the biggest theme seems to be that we cannot maintain the AAP centers in their current form, as they skew enrollments at too many schools, leading to schools that are both seriously overcrowded and significantly underenrolled. There are many suggestions to move kids out of overcrowded centers like Kilmer and Longfellow.

I was also pleased to see Facilities admit that some of its short-term projections were seriously off, although they don't seem to identify when the latest projections were developed. Had they used the projections made public in the spring of 2014, some of the differences between the projected vs. actual fall 2014 enrollments would have been even larger.

Thank you for posting this link.

Have you seen any data on # of students receiving Level IV AAP services to be moved from one school to another? I cannot locate it in the attachments.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but if you look at the maps at Attachment C you get some feel for the potential impact. So, for example, Map 10 at p. 11 of Attachment C reflects a projected future movement of 250 AAP students from Kilmer to Thoreau and 150 AAP students from Jackson to Thoreau. And Map 7 at p. 8 of Attachment C reflects a proposed future movement of AAP students out of Kilmer and Longfellow to Cooper, although some of the other Kilmer numbers on that slide are wrong.

And then if you look at the summary in the main document, you see that Facilities has suggested that Thoreau might get an AAP center in the 2017-18 time frame (p. 15), whereas Cooper might get an AAP center in the 2019-21 time frame (p. 14). Those dates are based on when the renovations at Thoreau and Cooper are expected to be completed.

You may have entirely different schools in mind, but that gives you some idea as to how the information ties together. All of these "solutions" are described as "options" for the different Board Members to consider for their districts.

Thank you for taking the time to go into those details.

I am looking Belvedere ES. From what I am reading, Map 17 (referred to at the bottom of page 17 in the summary document, Attachment A) would send AAP students from Belvedere to either Annandale Terrace or Braddock. Belvedere is in a different high school pyramid (Stuart).

From the feeder school enrollment numbers from 2012-2013:

http://fcag.org/documents/aap_center_data/aap_enrollment_1213.pdf

Belvedere had 62 students across grades 3 - 5 attending the AAP center. So for this option, they will take the larger number of students and put them on a bus to attend a school outside their pyramid to join 27 students (Annandale Terrace, Braddock and North Springfield combined) for a total of 89 students over grades 3 - 5.

I have to say these numbers just seem very wrong. I also cannot see the logic of busing more kids, and out of their high school pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The materials for the Work Session have now been posted.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=9PANAF5EF993

The materials are far more detailed and transparent about the range of options and their potential timing than anything included in CIP materials for many years.

There are lots of options identified that would potentially affect different schools over the next decade, but the biggest theme seems to be that we cannot maintain the AAP centers in their current form, as they skew enrollments at too many schools, leading to schools that are both seriously overcrowded and significantly underenrolled. There are many suggestions to move kids out of overcrowded centers like Kilmer and Longfellow.

I was also pleased to see Facilities admit that some of its short-term projections were seriously off, although they don't seem to identify when the latest projections were developed. Had they used the projections made public in the spring of 2014, some of the differences between the projected vs. actual fall 2014 enrollments would have been even larger.

Thank you for posting this link.

Have you seen any data on # of students receiving Level IV AAP services to be moved from one school to another? I cannot locate it in the attachments.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but if you look at the maps at Attachment C you get some feel for the potential impact. So, for example, Map 10 at p. 11 of Attachment C reflects a projected future movement of 250 AAP students from Kilmer to Thoreau and 150 AAP students from Jackson to Thoreau. And Map 7 at p. 8 of Attachment C reflects a proposed future movement of AAP students out of Kilmer and Longfellow to Cooper, although some of the other Kilmer numbers on that slide are wrong.

And then if you look at the summary in the main document, you see that Facilities has suggested that Thoreau might get an AAP center in the 2017-18 time frame (p. 15), whereas Cooper might get an AAP center in the 2019-21 time frame (p. 14). Those dates are based on when the renovations at Thoreau and Cooper are expected to be completed.

You may have entirely different schools in mind, but that gives you some idea as to how the information ties together. All of these "solutions" are described as "options" for the different Board Members to consider for their districts.

Thank you for taking the time to go into those details.

I am looking Belvedere ES. From what I am reading, Map 17 (referred to at the bottom of page 17 in the summary document, Attachment A) would send AAP students from Belvedere to either Annandale Terrace or Braddock. Belvedere is in a different high school pyramid (Stuart).

From the feeder school enrollment numbers from 2012-2013:

http://fcag.org/documents/aap_center_data/aap_enrollment_1213.pdf

Belvedere had 62 students across grades 3 - 5 attending the AAP center. So for this option, they will take the larger number of students and put them on a bus to attend a school outside their pyramid to join 27 students (Annandale Terrace, Braddock and North Springfield combined) for a total of 89 students over grades 3 - 5.

I have to say these numbers just seem very wrong. I also cannot see the logic of busing more kids, and out of their high school pyramid.

Part of the problem is trying to reconcile historical information about the number of students from different schools that feed into AAP centers and proposals that are based on unstated assumptions as to how large those programs will be at some point in the future.

Currently, there are several schools outside the Stuart pyramid that send their AAP kids to Belvedere - the portion of Mason Crest zoned for Poe/Falls Church (which oddly enough is in the Annandale pyramid, even though no Mason Crest kids are zoned for Annandale), Columbia and Weyanoke (Annandale pyramid) and Bren Mar Park (still in the Annandale pyramid, although all the kids are now zoned for Edison). In addition, some of Parklawn goes to Holmes/Annandale, even though the school is in the Stuart pyramid.

So there certainly is some potential to send those kids to AAP centers that are better aligned with the HS pyramids. In this case, I think FCPS is assuming that the total AAP enrollment at Belvedere will be larger than the 150 students in 2012-13, and that 55 students who may not be in the Stuart pyramid can be moved to a new center at Annandale Terrace or Braddock.

[Anonymous]

And just to elaborate on the last point, if you look at p. 42 of Attachment D, you'll see that the Belvedere AAP program was up to 176 students in 2013-14, with 42 students outside the pyramid. So I think the assumption is that the 42 would grow to 55 or so at some future point, and those are the kids who would get moved to Annandale Terrace or Braddock.

The documents are a work in progress, and it's not hard to catch errors. For example, the page I just cited from Attachment D with information about the Belvedere AAP enrollment in 2013-14 identifies Bren Mar Park as being in the Stuart pyramid, when it is actually in the Annandale pyramid (but now sends all its students to Holmes and then Edison, not Annandale).

I'm kind of two minds about this. It reinforces this sense that FCPS is just too big to administer, but I don't want to carp about it too much because I do appreciate the attempt to be transparent and forward-looking and don't want to discourage that. '

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:31 here: I looked at this again and the documents suggest that the movement of kids who might be moved from Kilmer AAP to a new Thoreau AAP center would be "AAP students residing within the Thoreau MS attendance area" currently at Kilmer AAP (main summary document at p. 15).

I don't know how that could possibly involve 250 students (see Attachment C - Map 10 at p. 11). Most Thoreau kids go the the Jackson AAP center, not Kilmer. The only exception seems to be the Kilmer AAP kids at Freedom Hill and Stenwood who have Thoreau as their base school, and I don't think anywhere close to 250 kids fall in that category, since Kilmer is the base school for most Freedom Hill and Stenwood kids. That's what made me think this option must involve moving other Kilmer AAP kids to Thoreau. Guess the actual details would emerge later if that option got some real traction.

It was nicer for Vienna when Kilmer was the base AAP center for all of Vienna. Then there was a nice percentage of kids from that school going on to Madison and Marshall. For many years there's been odd boundaries for middle and high school where some Cunningham Park and Stenwood kids going to Thoreau and then to Marshall and some Wolftrap and Westbriar kids going to Kilmer and then Madison.

I have been posting for years that, to align the pyramids, the boundaries for Thoreau should become the Madison boundaries, and the boundaries for Kilmer should become the Marshall boundaries. One response I've heard was that the Town of Vienna has always, and must always, go to Madison. I recently found out, however, that part of the Town of Vienna used to go to Oakton.

The weirdest splits in Vienna, however, are at Vienna ES (sending only 11% of its kids to Marshall, with the rest to Madison) and Freedom Hill ES (sending only 8% of its kids to Madison, with the rest to Marshall). With those schools right next to each other, I have no idea why that has never been fixed so that everyone from Vienna goes to Thoreau/Madison and everyone from Freedom Hill goes to Kilmer/Marshall.

[Anonymous]

I agree with your last point - transparency is good.

But there still appear to be errors in the Attachment D numbers. As an example, Braddock does not feed to Belvedere as shown on page 42.