FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Also if your neighborhood friends told you they go for the Catholic education, why do not believe it or why do you care why they do not go to Timber Lane? They are not bad-mouthing the school, their choices literally have nothing to do with you. I think it’s time for you to realize families make their own choices independent of what their friends families might be doing. It does not mean they are judging your choice.

Bc they aren’t just going for the catholic education. Suddenly public school becomes ok in middle and high school, as long as it isn’t at Timber Lane (or Shrevewood, for that matter). So now these same people suddenly claiming to care about the FARMs students at Timberlane is quite frankly disgusting.

DP. It's nothing new for families to send their kids to K-6 parochial schools and then to public middle and high schools or to K-8 parochial schools and then to public high school. Langley HS has a lot of families who sent their kids to St. Luke when they could have gone to Churchill Road and Cooper, and McLean HS has a lot of families who sent their kids to St. Mark when they could have gone to Chesterbrook and Longfellow. I'm not convinced you have quite as much insight into the motives of all these families as you think you do.

DP but some of these people are my friends and they 100% are sending their children to St. James with the intent to send them to McLean for high school because they don't want to send their children to Timber Lane. They're all very open about it. I am a Shrevewood parent whose child's pyramid is going to stay the same but I'm sad that my children's friends will go to a different high school.

Someone above mentioned sports leagues. All of our kids - Shrevewood and Timber Lane - play in the Falls Church City rec league. We don't play sports with kids who live in McLean and Vienna except for maybe a handful of kids who go to Haycock. For the most part, my kids' soccer, baseball, and basketball friends go to Oak St, Mt. Daniel, Shrevewood, and Timber Lane.

Agreed. Plus Pine Spring.

And many of these are also the kids they hang with every summer at the pool.

A lot of Marshall kids go to the same pre-schools and are members of the same pools in Vienna as Madison kids. Doesn't mean they have to attend the same high school.

No one said they did.

[Anonymous]

Outrageous they are making these huge changes and wasting time and money on this given Reid’s emails on all the cuts/bigger class sizes. Stop wasting all this money, time, energy and make targeted changes and leave rest alone. Why they are looking for problems to solve when there are much bigger problems is beyond me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Outrageous they are making these huge changes and wasting time and money on this given Reid’s emails on all the cuts/bigger class sizes. Stop wasting all this money, time, energy and make targeted changes and leave rest alone. Why they are looking for problems to solve when there are much bigger problems is beyond me

There's a perception that Reid wants to inflict some pain on families where they'll feel it in exchange for the BOS not giving FCPS all the money it wanted. No doubt they'll renew the claim at some point that boundary changes are needed to save money, even though Thru's latest recommendations don't particularly seem geared to achieving that goal.

If they just cut Gatehouse positions and things like School Board members now having multiple aides, parents and kids would be less inconvenienced, and that's not painful enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Outrageous they are making these huge changes and wasting time and money on this given Reid’s emails on all the cuts/bigger class sizes. Stop wasting all this money, time, energy and make targeted changes and leave rest alone. Why they are looking for problems to solve when there are much bigger problems is beyond me

class sizes can’t get too much bigger as they are already close to state maxes.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:PP- to clarify- the McLean families are not unhappy with the split, they are upset with the reasoning to FCHS.

The pro boundary change/SJW folks are tripping all over themselves on this one.

“Hell, no, no addition for McLean! Redistrict those kids (again) and eliminate the attendance islands and split feeders!”

“You mean we’re sending most of the FARMS kids there to Falls Church and slashing the FARMS rate at McLean? Hell, no!”

“You mean if we want to keep those FARMS kids at McLean, we have to create a new split feeder at Shrevewood so we don’t have a terrible, awful, very bad attendance island? Hell, no!”

McLean: “How about you just leave our families alone for now and let us know when you’re finally going to renovate our school?”

Shrevewood isn't even zoned to McLean right now. This has nothing to do with McLean parents. It has to do with creating a split feeder for no reason just because they don't want to keep Timberlane an attendance island. I think the idea of ruining other schools to get rid of attendance islands is so stupid. Literally nobody has ever complained specifically about Timberlane being an attendance island. The parents there don't care, they're just happy they're zoned to McLean (and unhappy now). Shrevewood parents on the other hand seem to be just fine with their current pyramid and don't want their school (which has already been torn apart by the previous principal's idiotic removal of the AAP program) torn apart AGAIN.

Agree with you 100%. But the fact is that FCPS staff and Thru are treating the elimination of attendance islands as ground zero for boundary changes. If you look their scenarios, the elimination of attendance islands is treated as the first order of business in "Scenario 1," and everything in "Scenario 1" is repeated in "Scenario 2" and "Scenario 3."

The Timber Lane folks are arguing theirs is not truly an attendance island, and it's true that it's closer to the main McLean area than some other attendance islands are to the main areas at other schools, but it's still an attendance island. So if you really think an attendance island is bad, and must be bridged for a boundary to be acceptable, that means they're going to create a new split feeder at Shrevewood. Shrevewood doesn't want that, so presumably you prefer that, if FCPS is going to do something, they just reassign the island to Falls Church and Marshall (although some of you have expressed reservations about taking on the area west of Hollywood Road) and avoid the bridge.

And, then, if that preference is honored, and the island is reassigned, there are going to be other people complaining about FCPS reducing the FARMS rate at McLean. That's why I said it becomes a tail-chasing exercise when the reality is that most people in the McLean and Marshally pyramids would just like to be left alone.

Why can't they just rezone all of Shrevewood to McLean so they're not splitting the school in half?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I understand the frustration of some people at schools like Carson and Thoreau that are three-way split feeders and have some really weird feeder patterns. What I don't quite get is why some in those areas don't spend more time asking FCPS and its outside consultants to address them, because they aren't part of Thru's proposals. Instead, they project all their angst into cheering for other people's kids to get redistricted to eliminate split feeders at other schools their kids don't attend. That just seems bizarre to me.

Carson feeds into Westfield, Carson, Oakton, and South Lakes, I think. (Some Chantilly AAP kids, but that is elective.)
Franklin--less than two miles away feeds into Chantilly, Oakton, and, I think a little to Westfield.

That is five high schools between two middle schools in close proximity. I guess you could send the Franklin Westfield
kids to Carson (not sure about where they come from). But, I don't know if Franklin could absorb all the Oakton kids. Can Hughes absorb all South Lakes kids? I doubt it.

Bottom line: there is no way to get those two middle schools to be single feeders. One of them necessarily has to feed into three high schools.

The only Oakton kids at Carson are the ones who go to Crossfield (and some Navy kids who choose to go there for AAP). The Crossfield kids are maybe 75, and if some of those stay at Carson for AAP, it's maybe 65. There's room for that at Franklin, which is at 80-something% capacity. I don't understand why they won't send the Crossfield kids to Franklin - it's even closer to most of the kids than Carson is.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am very curious if most of the pro rezoning posts from the past 10-20 pages are from just 1-2 people posting repeatedly.

The pro-boundary update people watching the thread have very little incentive to post. If someone posts how they'd like to fix their split feeder they are hounded incessantly by claims of "you just want to hurt the mental health of my kids", or "you're just trying to increase your property value at the expense of others" (the Emerald Chase people come to mind most recently) - all the while the people posting against them are happy to do the same to keep the status quo. I notice hardly any Emerald Chase people post here anymore because of it.
You don't have the super majority you think you have. It's just an echo chamber in here.

If you are posting the majority of the posts in support of boundary changes here, then it is likely that you have as little support throughout FCPS as you do here.

No, usually I post maybe once a week - twice if I reply to someone afterward. I'm not in a split feeder ES, but one kid basically was because of AAP. He was split from his friends where roughly 30% of the kids go to the center - so it's a situation Thru wouldn't have addressed either. Now he goes to Carson for AAP where he'll be split from most of his peers once again for high school. Split feeders are not ideal and should be eliminated whenever possible. The only people okay with them are the ones that are just happy they got the "better" end of the split for their future middle and high school and don't want it fixed if they end up somewhere "worse."

DP but you could have left him at Franklin for AAP with more kids who are going to go to his High School but you didn't. You did this to your own child.

I let him choose. How many of his classmates do you think chose to go to Franklin with kids they haven't seen since 2nd grade? Almost none. They all go to Carson to be with their friends from the last 4 years. Middle school already sucks. No one wants to go to a school where they don't know anyone.

What a bizarre thing to say!! Your son was ONLY friends with kids in his AAP class for the past four years? And he's not making ANY new friends in middle school? He's sticking with just his elementary school AAP friends? And I guess this means he'll stay friends with JUST those kids in high school? No new friends there, either? How sad.

By the way, so interesting how all the other Navy moms insist that there is no segregation between the AAP kids and the regular kids, and that they mix for specials and lunch and stay friends with each other all through ES, but here you are telling me that your child didn't know a single non-AAP person in his grade????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I understand the frustration of some people at schools like Carson and Thoreau that are three-way split feeders and have some really weird feeder patterns. What I don't quite get is why some in those areas don't spend more time asking FCPS and its outside consultants to address them, because they aren't part of Thru's proposals. Instead, they project all their angst into cheering for other people's kids to get redistricted to eliminate split feeders at other schools their kids don't attend. That just seems bizarre to me.

Carson feeds into Westfield, Carson, Oakton, and South Lakes, I think. (Some Chantilly AAP kids, but that is elective.)
Franklin--less than two miles away feeds into Chantilly, Oakton, and, I think a little to Westfield.

That is five high schools between two middle schools in close proximity. I guess you could send the Franklin Westfield
kids to Carson (not sure about where they come from). But, I don't know if Franklin could absorb all the Oakton kids. Can Hughes absorb all South Lakes kids? I doubt it.

Bottom line: there is no way to get those two middle schools to be single feeders. One of them necessarily has to feed into three high schools.

The only Oakton kids at Carson are the ones who go to Crossfield (and some Navy kids who choose to go there for AAP). The Crossfield kids are maybe 75, and if some of those stay at Carson for AAP, it's maybe 65. There's room for that at Franklin, which is at 80-something% capacity. I don't understand why they won't send the Crossfield kids to Franklin - it's even closer to most of the kids than Carson is.

Waples Mill AAP kids go to Carson and then Oakton as well.

[Anonymous]

By the way, so interesting how all the other Navy moms insist that there is no segregation between the AAP kids and the regular kids, and that they mix for specials and lunch and stay friends with each other all through ES, but here you are telling me that your child didn't know a single non-AAP person in his grade????

Great point.
I've heard this about other schools, too.

[Anonymous]

At the Lewis meeting this evening, the overwhelming sentiment was against boundary changes. Always great to have to burn a Friday evening to help FCPS discover the obvious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outrageous they are making these huge changes and wasting time and money on this given Reid’s emails on all the cuts/bigger class sizes. Stop wasting all this money, time, energy and make targeted changes and leave rest alone. Why they are looking for problems to solve when there are much bigger problems is beyond me

class sizes can’t get too much bigger as they are already close to state maxes.

Our school could up each class to 30; eliminating a class per grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP- to clarify- the McLean families are not unhappy with the split, they are upset with the reasoning to FCHS.

The pro boundary change/SJW folks are tripping all over themselves on this one.

“Hell, no, no addition for McLean! Redistrict those kids (again) and eliminate the attendance islands and split feeders!”

“You mean we’re sending most of the FARMS kids there to Falls Church and slashing the FARMS rate at McLean? Hell, no!”

“You mean if we want to keep those FARMS kids at McLean, we have to create a new split feeder at Shrevewood so we don’t have a terrible, awful, very bad attendance island? Hell, no!”

McLean: “How about you just leave our families alone for now and let us know when you’re finally going to renovate our school?”

Shrevewood isn't even zoned to McLean right now. This has nothing to do with McLean parents. It has to do with creating a split feeder for no reason just because they don't want to keep Timberlane an attendance island. I think the idea of ruining other schools to get rid of attendance islands is so stupid. Literally nobody has ever complained specifically about Timberlane being an attendance island. The parents there don't care, they're just happy they're zoned to McLean (and unhappy now). Shrevewood parents on the other hand seem to be just fine with their current pyramid and don't want their school (which has already been torn apart by the previous principal's idiotic removal of the AAP program) torn apart AGAIN.

Agree with you 100%. But the fact is that FCPS staff and Thru are treating the elimination of attendance islands as ground zero for boundary changes. If you look their scenarios, the elimination of attendance islands is treated as the first order of business in "Scenario 1," and everything in "Scenario 1" is repeated in "Scenario 2" and "Scenario 3."

The Timber Lane folks are arguing theirs is not truly an attendance island, and it's true that it's closer to the main McLean area than some other attendance islands are to the main areas at other schools, but it's still an attendance island. So if you really think an attendance island is bad, and must be bridged for a boundary to be acceptable, that means they're going to create a new split feeder at Shrevewood. Shrevewood doesn't want that, so presumably you prefer that, if FCPS is going to do something, they just reassign the island to Falls Church and Marshall (although some of you have expressed reservations about taking on the area west of Hollywood Road) and avoid the bridge.

And, then, if that preference is honored, and the island is reassigned, there are going to be other people complaining about FCPS reducing the FARMS rate at McLean. That's why I said it becomes a tail-chasing exercise when the reality is that most people in the McLean and Marshally pyramids would just like to be left alone.

Why can't they just rezone all of Shrevewood to McLean so they're not splitting the school in half?

If you want to rezone any part of Shrevewood to McLean you’d have to keep part of Lemon Road (which is closer to McLean) there to avoid creating a new attendance island. So then the question would come up as how much of Lemon Road you want assigned to McLean. At a minimum if you assigned all of Shrevewood to McLean - which I don’t think Shrevewood parents necessarily want although they might prefer it to creating a split feeder there - you’d probably also have to reassign any part of Westgate now at McLean to Marshall.

I don’t have enough information to run the numbers for capacity but in that case you’re probably talking about McLean having five 100% feeders (Franklin Sherman, Chesterbrook, Kent Gardens, Haycock, and Shrevewood) and keeping Lemon Road as a split feeder. And then the two islands still get moved to Langley and Falls Church as proposed and the Westgate areas at McLean moved to GCM. It would probably look kind of like a barbell.

I do see one advantage with this compared to Thru’s proposals, which is that it could keep all of Pimmit Hills at Marshall. On the other hand, some PH areas walkable to McLean would stay at Marshall, and some neighborhoods closer to Marshall would move to McLean.

I’m trying to answer your question, by the way, and not actually advocating for any changes. I still think most people would prefer no changes in these two pyramids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the Lewis meeting this evening, the overwhelming sentiment was against boundary changes. Always great to have to burn a Friday evening to help FCPS discover the obvious.

Any Lewis parents there? Anyone tell them to drop IB?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am very curious if most of the pro rezoning posts from the past 10-20 pages are from just 1-2 people posting repeatedly.

The pro-boundary update people watching the thread have very little incentive to post. If someone posts how they'd like to fix their split feeder they are hounded incessantly by claims of "you just want to hurt the mental health of my kids", or "you're just trying to increase your property value at the expense of others" (the Emerald Chase people come to mind most recently) - all the while the people posting against them are happy to do the same to keep the status quo. I notice hardly any Emerald Chase people post here anymore because of it.
You don't have the super majority you think you have. It's just an echo chamber in here.

If you are posting the majority of the posts in support of boundary changes here, then it is likely that you have as little support throughout FCPS as you do here.

No, usually I post maybe once a week - twice if I reply to someone afterward. I'm not in a split feeder ES, but one kid basically was because of AAP. He was split from his friends where roughly 30% of the kids go to the center - so it's a situation Thru wouldn't have addressed either. Now he goes to Carson for AAP where he'll be split from most of his peers once again for high school. Split feeders are not ideal and should be eliminated whenever possible. The only people okay with them are the ones that are just happy they got the "better" end of the split for their future middle and high school and don't want it fixed if they end up somewhere "worse."

DP but you could have left him at Franklin for AAP with more kids who are going to go to his High School but you didn't. You did this to your own child.

I let him choose. How many of his classmates do you think chose to go to Franklin with kids they haven't seen since 2nd grade? Almost none. They all go to Carson to be with their friends from the last 4 years. Middle school already sucks. No one wants to go to a school where they don't know anyone.

What a bizarre thing to say!! Your son was ONLY friends with kids in his AAP class for the past four years? And he's not making ANY new friends in middle school? He's sticking with just his elementary school AAP friends? And I guess this means he'll stay friends with JUST those kids in high school? No new friends there, either? How sad.

By the way, so interesting how all the other Navy moms insist that there is no segregation between the AAP kids and the regular kids, and that they mix for specials and lunch and stay friends with each other all through ES, but here you are telling me that your child didn't know a single non-AAP person in his grade????

So much wrong with what you posted.. The non-AAP kids at his center elementary school (Hunters Woods) where he had been the past 4 years all go to Hughes. Only the AAP kids he came with from Waples have the option between Franklin and Carson. All of them choose Carson to stay together.
I'll give you that first bit out of ignorance. It's a stupid out of pyramid split feeder center that shouldn't exist. The second half you just made up and is all on you. Of course he's making friends at middle school - but Carson splits 4 ways to high school so he'll lose most of those. I'm sure he'll make tons of friends in high school as well. Your comment is the only thing sad here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the Lewis meeting this evening, the overwhelming sentiment was against boundary changes. Always great to have to burn a Friday evening to help FCPS discover the obvious.

Any Lewis parents there? Anyone tell them to drop IB?

The pigeonhole (?) board has 240+ votes for Emerald Chase and whatever they want, but most comments are “please don’t do this right now”