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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
FCPS HS Boundary
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Anonymous
Funny that you mention that. I attended a talk about school boundary modeling based on AI, and I found it extremely lacking. It did really poorly with boundaries such as major roads. |
Anonymous
THE DANGER IS BEING ASSIGNED TO A LESSER PERFORMING SCHOOL YOU DERP. The same thing people have been fighting about for the last 400 pages. Try to keep up! |
Anonymous
Not that poster, but if you think poverty isn’t stressful and places children in more danger, you have never read a study about the effects of poverty. It is very well proven. Poverty can negatively impact child health, child well-being, and child development in the following ways: Chronic or prolonged stress, such as the stress experienced by those who live in extreme poverty, can negatively impact early brain development, potentially resulting in cognitive impairment and other long-term consequences for children. This effect is sometimes referred to as toxic stress. The effects of stress and other social conditions of poverty also can increase the risk of children developing mental health issues and behavioural problems. For this reason, poverty has been described by some researchers as an adverse childhood experience (ACE) There is evidence that children living in poverty experience worse health outcomes; child poverty also contributes to poor health outcomes during adulthood. In general, poverty is widely understood to be a risk factor for many health conditions, so much so that physicians are now encouraged to screen patients for poverty in order to better respond to health concerns Children who live in poverty typically have low levels of access to health care services and other social supports which are critical for promoting good health and managing and treating health conditions. Children from low-income families also have less financial resources to draw upon in times of need and crisis Children living in food insecure households and communities may suffer from inadequate nutrition which can contribute to physical health problems (e.g. diabetes, obesity) as well as mental health issues. During the early years, malnutrition can result in failure to thrive and developmental problems Poverty is associated with lower levels of academic achievement and educational attainment for children. This is because the experience of poverty poses many challenges for children. For example, children from low-income families may not be able to concentrate because of hunger or may be victimized by bullies Is it catching? No, nott really, but moving high SES kids into FARMS schools won’t help the low FARMS families. They need wrap around services. |
Anonymous
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Interesting civil war taking place now on the FairFACTS Matters page on FB between Langley parents who are trying to protect Langley's boundaries under the guise of doing what's best for everyone in the county and hard-core conservatives like Luke Rosiak who are vocally advocating for the group to adopt an anti-immigrant stance, vote for Republican candidates, pull their kids ASAP from FCPS, and advocate for vouchers and other private school subsidies.
Not surprisingly, the insurgents (Rosiak and his sympathizers) get the support of a lot of the local parents, who are already quite conservative and have been confused by statements from FairFACTS Matters leaders suggesting that FCPS should look at public-private partnerships in Detroit as a model. Great Falls residents aren't very used to seeing Detroit held out as a useful model for their community. |
Anonymous
Of course kids in poverty are stressed. How does this demonstrate that UMC kids are in danger by going to school with kids in poverty? |
Anonymous
Why is this a danger to high performing UMC kids? |
Anonymous
"Tell me you haven't attended both a high-poverty public school and a low-poverty public school without telling me you haven't...." |
Anonymous
Can you answer the question? How are UMC kids in danger by going to school with low-income students? |
Anonymous
I think you’re sealioning, first of all. But: 1) Moving schools in the middle of HS means that you lose out on the leadership opportunities you may have had at your former HS, had you been allowed to stay there. This is particularly bad for juniors and possibly sophomores. There has been at least one poster on here who said she would send a rising 9th grader to Lewis with other kids from the neighborhood if need be, but sending a junior to another school for 2 years is hugely disruptive. There needs to be grandfathering, even if WSHS kids need to find their own transportation. Fortunately their boundaries are compact to the point that a kid could likely bike from the southern end of the boundary to WSHS. 2) The SB has not guaranteed classes that would be available at Lewis vs. WSHS. A kid on the highest math track could end up simply not having classes to take as a senior, and would end up less prepared for college than if they had been at WSHS all 4 years. I also don’t know if Lewis is all AP at this point or if they’re still partially holding on to IB. Whereas WSHS is all AP. 3) they aren’t reporting any of this anymore, but the last school year that had safety and security data accurately reported for the full SY was 2018-2019. WSHS had 87 safety offenses and 0 weapons offenses. Lewis had 238 safety offenses, with a smaller student population, and 3 weapons offenses - and 7 in SY 2019-2020 which was cut short due to Covid! 4) You can’t say that every WSHS kid is from a nice graduate educated $300k+ income family and will immediately go to another school and be a shining star. There are lots of kids who are kept on the fairly straight and narrow just by having a largely good peer group. |
Anonymous
Well, as the studies have pointed out, kids in poverty can have more behaviorial issues. THis is where trauma informed teaching can play a role, but it doesn’t always catch everyone with issue or always help the high flyers. If a kid is having behavioral difficulties in school and there are many children having behavioral difficulties in school, that can be disruptive. Like in gym or the cafeteria. Higher percentage of low income kids, then there is more likely hood (again according to studies that say kids in low SES communities have more difficulty with regulation). This isn’t always the case. If your kid is in a school where the resources are geared to deal with trauma informed teaching, and counselors are dealing with behavioral issues, there is less time for the kids who “will be fine” when applying to college. I went to a mediocre high school with about 30% of my fellow students attending a 4 year college and my counselors were “too busy” to send in my scholarship application to the flagship university. I got a letter that my packet was denied because my counselor didn’t send the proper information. I got a full ride to a non flagship instate school. Was I fine? I guess, but I don’t want that to happen to my kids. One of my friends went to the school next to mine that was in a higher poverty area. He wore a chain to school everyday with keys on the end and told me he learned to swing it around to fight because he kept getting beaten up and the chain at least scared some of the kids off. I don’t want that to be my kid. Would it necessarily happen, no, but knowing how he described his school experience stuck with me. Some of my friends knew drug dealers where I worked in college. These friends were in high school and worked at the Chuck E. Cheese place with me. Those friends were awesome people, but on edge around the drug dealers because they knew them from school, so I (who they didn’t know and who lived farther away) would do those birthday parties. Again, would it happen here- I don’t know, but there is a higher likely hood in a school where there is more gang activity. I feel better where I am and with my kids where they are because I have seen the other side. I worked to protect my kids and their experience while at the same time, in my everyday job, I work to give wrap around services to low income kids. I say this because you want to vilify people who don’t want or are worried about moving their kids to low income schools. You really want someone to “realize’ it is about race or being scared when you shouldn’t. It isn’t. Poverty has consequences socially, behaviorally and academic consequences for kids. We can both want to do what is best for our own kids AND what is best for society. Unfortunately, the school board isn’t giving us any choice but to use our kids and their experience as the “fix.” Why expose my kid to things I had to deal with, if they don’t need to be? The fix should be more services and help. |
Anonymous
Based on my personal experience, the risk of physical violence and theft on a regular basis was greater at the school with more low-income kids compared to the public school I'd previously attended. Also, it's not so much danger, but there are also issues around academics at schools where the primary focus is just getting kids to meet minimal thresholds of competency. To put this in perspective, my freshman class had about 560 kids and graduated 420. So about 25% of the students eventually dropped out or moved to different schools over four years because their parents weren't satisfied with the environment. |
Anonymous
You probably trying to reference me, but that wasn’t my post. As you can tell, there are many moments of redistricting on this forum. It must be tiring replying to us all! |
Anonymous
| When a school’s focus is on supporting all the kids on the borderline of maybe graduating/not graduating/dropping out, the smaller number of the regular ol’ college prep kids are the ones who suffer due to comparative lack of attention. Most people don’t want their kids, who are just teens(!) to be the equity guinea pigs. |
Anonymous
Hopefully reassigned families can encourage their kids to become leaders in the new school, push for more AP and demand safe schools. |
Anonymous
Not at all fair to push that on an average 15/16 year old. At all. Very much reeks of “hey 20 or so teens from outside the area, fix this troubled school! The adults couldn’t do anything for the last 20 years but maybe you can!!!” |