That is not discriminatory. All of the feeder elementaries assigned to West Springfield are geographically within its neighborhood. |
People cross major roads elsewhere. Kids in the Edsall Park neighborhood have to cross both 395 and 495 to get to Edison. Kids in Merrifield cross both 66 and 495 to get to Marshall. Some in Falls Church cross both 66 and the Dulles Toll Road to get to McLean. Kids in Mason Neck cross over 95 to get to South County. And so on. The Saratoga neighborhood is by no means uniquely burdened in this regard. |
If they changed the boundary assignments just to move some of the wealthier west springfield elementaries into Lee it WOULD be gerrymandering. People would be furious and property values would dive. |
Saratoga should go to South County. The growth of Saratoga is fairly recent, and that is why they have weird boundaries. Sangster is in the same boat. It has some of the strangest spidery boundaries of any of tye elementaries in the district, but it has tue good fortune of being split between WSHS and LBSS. If you look at the Sangster boundaries, they are almost all of the newer neighborhoods in West Springfield. Saratoga has a lot of newer developments too. But really, it should feed to Soutu County. Geographically, that school makes much more sense than Lee or WSHS. |
It is concentrating poverty. |
West Springfield feeders should not be moved to accomodate Saratoga. WSHS has some of the most logical geographic boundaries in the county. Saratoga would be on the outside of those boundaries. |
| I think that's much of the problem with the lower performing schools. People move when their kids reach school age, or send them to private schools. Also pupil placing is just an excuse for people to leave higher poverty schools. |
Where did you learn how to count? Let me help you. 395 + 495 = 2; 66 + 495 = 2; 66 + DTR = 2; 95 = 1. FFX Pkwy + F-S Pkwy + 95 = 3. 3 >2 >1, right? Regardless, there may be other neighborhoods in FCPS where students are required to cross 3 major pkwy/interstates to get to school - I don't know. That doesn't make it a good thing or one where you can fault a neighborhood to advocate to be served by schools that are not so geographically isolated from their neighborhood or their elected representatives. |
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You get a HUGE discount for buying a house in Saratoga vs a house feeding into Orange Hunt, Hunt Valley or West Springfield. It is almost $100K less to buy in Saratoga compared to buying a similar but older house that feeds into one of the WSHS elementaries. The houses are so much cheaper, so to buy for so much less then complain about school zoning is a bit silly. |
Well, that wasn't my experience in 2013 when I bought my house - a $50k difference, yet. A $100k difference? I don't think so. YMMV. |
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The Daventry situation was completely different from the Saratoga situation. Those kids went to Irving MS and then were the only kids sent to Lee rather than West Springfield. Obviously there was a need to fix that.
In comparison, Saratoga feeds entirely to Key and then Lee. There is no need to change the assignments, and it would be a disservice to both Key and Lee to do so. Case closed. |
Drive time wise, it is not much different for them to go to Lee vs West Springfield. It is not as if there is a 30 minute difference in commute between the two. |
+100. |
$100K Our 1971 colonial feeding into WSHS was over $600K 3 years ago. Slightly larger colonials built in the 80s-90s in Saratoga were $80-100K less, in the low $500s. It is much, much cheaper to buy a similarly aged & size house in Saratoga than it is for the West Springfield feeder elementaries. |