FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they do not take steps to bolster Lewis’s enrollment this entire boundary exercise will have been a fiasco.

Perhaps they could actually fix whatever underlying issues exist at the school to make it undesirable for many families, rather than use FCPS kids as pawns in their equity game.

Come on, everyone knows the issue at Lewis is the overwhelming number of poor, ESL students. That is why people avoid it. Not some terrible teaching, administration, or facilities. Elephant in the room.

Well, yes - of course. I think the PP was pointing out that until those issues are fixed - the ones that dare not be spoken about - nothing is going to change.
DP

That level of concentrated poverty would primarily be fixed through large-scale, long-term changes (to things like zoning, economic development, placing AH in wealthier areas, etc.) that FCPS has no real power or influence over anyway. The only thing they can control are the school boundaries, to react to the realities on the ground, and create the best possible situation for the largest number of county residents as possible given the circumstances. The "they" the PP referred to as needing to fix underlying issues is an entirely different "they" that FCPS can't afford to wait for.

Placing AH in wealthier areas doesn’t change the concentration of poverty in other parts of the county. It just draws more people from other jurisdictions (or countries) looking for cheap rentals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they do not take steps to bolster Lewis’s enrollment this entire boundary exercise will have been a fiasco.

Perhaps they could actually fix whatever underlying issues exist at the school to make it undesirable for many families, rather than use FCPS kids as pawns in their equity game.

Come on, everyone knows the issue at Lewis is the overwhelming number of poor, ESL students. That is why people avoid it. Not some terrible teaching, administration, or facilities. Elephant in the room.

Well, yes - of course. I think the PP was pointing out that until those issues are fixed - the ones that dare not be spoken about - nothing is going to change.
DP

That level of concentrated poverty would primarily be fixed through large-scale, long-term changes (to things like zoning, economic development, placing AH in wealthier areas, etc.) that FCPS has no real power or influence over anyway. The only thing they can control are the school boundaries, to react to the realities on the ground, and create the best possible situation for the largest number of county residents as possible given the circumstances. The "they" the PP referred to as needing to fix underlying issues is an entirely different "they" that FCPS can't afford to wait for.

Placing AH in wealthier areas doesn’t change the concentration of poverty in other parts of the county. It just draws more people from other jurisdictions (or countries) looking for cheap rentals.

It’ll be funny to see all the cheaper rentals in certain areas get snatched up by wealthy people looking to send their kids to the desirable schools.

All of a sudden those garden apartments will be rented by families who let them sit empty for the mailbox only. Then the equity crew will complain about how there aren’t any affordable rentals in desirable school pyramids anymore.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think the homes really vulnerable to redistricting is the Mozaic part of Oakton High School. Look at the Falls Church HS versus Oakton HS geography / district. In that area, they intertwine like fingers on two hands.

I deliberately avoided the Riveradale (I think that is the name?) area currently districted for Braddock, and the areas of Mozaic ES closest to Inova Fairfax Hospital. With the addition and renovation of the Falls Church HS, one of them will be moved back - or possibly Mozaic to Falls Church HS, and Riverdale to Annandale HS where it used to be 20 years ago.

Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES catchment area, so why would any part of Mosaic get moved to Falls Church HS? It wasn’t that long ago that area got pulled out of Jackson MS and moved to Thoreau MS.

The county is expanding Falls Church HS for a reason. I just look at that weird little "finger" of their district coming up to the Mozaic district, and cannot help but think that the easiest way to increase achievement in FCHS is to redistrict a part of Mozaic there. These townhouses / houses tend to be lower cost and primarily occupied by immigrants, giving a combination of lower influence and higher achievement that the country would want to move around.

Another possibility is that part of Marshall HS would be redistricted to FCHS.

I don't think the county would do anything that lowers the FARMS rate at Oakton and raises it at FCHS

It definitely will not raise the FARMS rate at FCHS, and I suspect it would remain steady at Oakton.

Mosiac is 25% farms, Oakton is 15. Removing Mosiac would lower Oakton's rate. I really don't see the county doing anything that would lower the FARMs rate of any school that already has a sub 20% rate.

I think that will be the math for any of the candidate areas to flow into FCHS. Someone will clearly be moved to FCHS because the county is expanding the building.

Could be Mozaic (or part of Mozaic), could be part of Marshall HS, could be part of McLean HS (that one is least likely in my mind because that would only leave very affluent areas attending McLean HS... I think a part of their far away demographic would be channeled to either South lakes or Herndon HS instead)

It’s Mosaic, not Mozaic.

Since Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES area, moving any part of Mosaic to Falls Church creates a new split feeder, so unlikely.

If any part of Marshall were to move, it would more logically be areas further west in Vienna near Wolf Trap that could move to expanded Madison.

The Timber Lane island at McLean may well move to Falls Church st some point, if not soon then eventually when more housing gets built in Tysons or near the WFC metro. There is no area zoned to McLean that logically should move to South Lakes or Herndon. The “far away” areas zoned to McLean were already rezoned to even “further away” Langley in 2021.

Sorry, it would leapfrog from Langley to South Lakes / Herndon, and then from McLean or Marshall to Langley.
McLean is overcrowded
Langley is underused
Oakton is at capacity
FCHS is gaining seats, it is having an addition built
Where is it gaining seats from? Open question.
What other schools are underused? Where will they gain students from? OPen question.
You have to look at who needs to have more students, and how needs to lose students.

No current dog in this fight, but I used to live in the Mosaic district townhomes. We could walk to Oakton high school through a fence at the end of our neighborhood. It was a five minute commute, door-to-door. The county is not going to take walkers and put them on a bus across town. Gallows has terrible traffic. You clearly don’t know that part of town.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think the homes really vulnerable to redistricting is the Mozaic part of Oakton High School. Look at the Falls Church HS versus Oakton HS geography / district. In that area, they intertwine like fingers on two hands.

I deliberately avoided the Riveradale (I think that is the name?) area currently districted for Braddock, and the areas of Mozaic ES closest to Inova Fairfax Hospital. With the addition and renovation of the Falls Church HS, one of them will be moved back - or possibly Mozaic to Falls Church HS, and Riverdale to Annandale HS where it used to be 20 years ago.

Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES catchment area, so why would any part of Mosaic get moved to Falls Church HS? It wasn’t that long ago that area got pulled out of Jackson MS and moved to Thoreau MS.

The county is expanding Falls Church HS for a reason. I just look at that weird little "finger" of their district coming up to the Mozaic district, and cannot help but think that the easiest way to increase achievement in FCHS is to redistrict a part of Mozaic there. These townhouses / houses tend to be lower cost and primarily occupied by immigrants, giving a combination of lower influence and higher achievement that the country would want to move around.

Another possibility is that part of Marshall HS would be redistricted to FCHS.

I don't think the county would do anything that lowers the FARMS rate at Oakton and raises it at FCHS

It definitely will not raise the FARMS rate at FCHS, and I suspect it would remain steady at Oakton.

Mosiac is 25% farms, Oakton is 15. Removing Mosiac would lower Oakton's rate. I really don't see the county doing anything that would lower the FARMs rate of any school that already has a sub 20% rate.

I think that will be the math for any of the candidate areas to flow into FCHS. Someone will clearly be moved to FCHS because the county is expanding the building.

Could be Mozaic (or part of Mozaic), could be part of Marshall HS, could be part of McLean HS (that one is least likely in my mind because that would only leave very affluent areas attending McLean HS... I think a part of their far away demographic would be channeled to either South lakes or Herndon HS instead)

It’s Mosaic, not Mozaic.

Since Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES area, moving any part of Mosaic to Falls Church creates a new split feeder, so unlikely.

If any part of Marshall were to move, it would more logically be areas further west in Vienna near Wolf Trap that could move to expanded Madison.

The Timber Lane island at McLean may well move to Falls Church st some point, if not soon then eventually when more housing gets built in Tysons or near the WFC metro. There is no area zoned to McLean that logically should move to South Lakes or Herndon. The “far away” areas zoned to McLean were already rezoned to even “further away” Langley in 2021.

Sorry, it would leapfrog from Langley to South Lakes / Herndon, and then from McLean or Marshall to Langley.
McLean is overcrowded
Langley is underused
Oakton is at capacity
FCHS is gaining seats, it is having an addition built
Where is it gaining seats from? Open question.
What other schools are underused? Where will they gain students from? OPen question.
You have to look at who needs to have more students, and how needs to lose students.

No current dog in this fight, but I used to live in the Mosaic district townhomes. We could walk to Oakton high school through a fence at the end of our neighborhood. It was a five minute commute, door-to-door. The county is not going to take walkers and put them on a bus across town. Gallows has terrible traffic. You clearly don’t know that part of town.

DP. Do you mean townhouses in the Mosaic ES attendance area? The Mosaic District townhouses built by EYA are south of 29, zoned to Falls Church HS, and not within 5 minutes of Oakton HS.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think the homes really vulnerable to redistricting is the Mozaic part of Oakton High School. Look at the Falls Church HS versus Oakton HS geography / district. In that area, they intertwine like fingers on two hands.

I deliberately avoided the Riveradale (I think that is the name?) area currently districted for Braddock, and the areas of Mozaic ES closest to Inova Fairfax Hospital. With the addition and renovation of the Falls Church HS, one of them will be moved back - or possibly Mozaic to Falls Church HS, and Riverdale to Annandale HS where it used to be 20 years ago.

Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES catchment area, so why would any part of Mosaic get moved to Falls Church HS? It wasn’t that long ago that area got pulled out of Jackson MS and moved to Thoreau MS.

The county is expanding Falls Church HS for a reason. I just look at that weird little "finger" of their district coming up to the Mozaic district, and cannot help but think that the easiest way to increase achievement in FCHS is to redistrict a part of Mozaic there. These townhouses / houses tend to be lower cost and primarily occupied by immigrants, giving a combination of lower influence and higher achievement that the country would want to move around.

Another possibility is that part of Marshall HS would be redistricted to FCHS.

I don't think the county would do anything that lowers the FARMS rate at Oakton and raises it at FCHS

It definitely will not raise the FARMS rate at FCHS, and I suspect it would remain steady at Oakton.

Mosiac is 25% farms, Oakton is 15. Removing Mosiac would lower Oakton's rate. I really don't see the county doing anything that would lower the FARMs rate of any school that already has a sub 20% rate.

I think that will be the math for any of the candidate areas to flow into FCHS. Someone will clearly be moved to FCHS because the county is expanding the building.

Could be Mozaic (or part of Mozaic), could be part of Marshall HS, could be part of McLean HS (that one is least likely in my mind because that would only leave very affluent areas attending McLean HS... I think a part of their far away demographic would be channeled to either South lakes or Herndon HS instead)

It’s Mosaic, not Mozaic.

Since Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES area, moving any part of Mosaic to Falls Church creates a new split feeder, so unlikely.

If any part of Marshall were to move, it would more logically be areas further west in Vienna near Wolf Trap that could move to expanded Madison.

The Timber Lane island at McLean may well move to Falls Church st some point, if not soon then eventually when more housing gets built in Tysons or near the WFC metro. There is no area zoned to McLean that logically should move to South Lakes or Herndon. The “far away” areas zoned to McLean were already rezoned to even “further away” Langley in 2021.

Sorry, it would leapfrog from Langley to South Lakes / Herndon, and then from McLean or Marshall to Langley.
McLean is overcrowded
Langley is underused
Oakton is at capacity
FCHS is gaining seats, it is having an addition built
Where is it gaining seats from? Open question.
What other schools are underused? Where will they gain students from? OPen question.
You have to look at who needs to have more students, and how needs to lose students.

No current dog in this fight, but I used to live in the Mosaic district townhomes. We could walk to Oakton high school through a fence at the end of our neighborhood. It was a five minute commute, door-to-door. The county is not going to take walkers and put them on a bus across town. Gallows has terrible traffic. You clearly don’t know that part of town.

DP. Do you mean townhouses in the Mosaic ES attendance area? The Mosaic District townhouses built by EYA are south of 29, zoned to Falls Church HS, and not within 5 minutes of Oakton HS.

I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, right? The Mosaic District is NOT zoned to Mosaic Elementary School.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all speculation. Nothing has been announced yet. Maybe take a deep breath and wait to see what the school board proposes.

You're too sane for this thread. It's ALL speculative, yet the posters here are rabidly certain of what will happen. Jeff shut down an earlier thread that was identical to this one and I wish he'd lock this one too. At least until there's actually something concrete to discuss.

Or...
You can always not read the threads that annoy you instead of playing hall monitor or censor.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If they do not take steps to bolster Lewis’s enrollment this entire boundary exercise will have been a fiasco.

I believe they need to keep their options open WRT Lewis. There was talk in the past of turning it into some kind of IB magnet and distributing the ES feeders to the nearby high schools. This may come up again with the state’s new rules on accreditation. Also there is a lot of residential development in the works in that area, not all of which is zoned for Lewis to be sure but they may need to shift borders in the future like 5-10 years off to relieve Edison.

A magic school / program at Lewis sounds kind of interesting. Look at Montgomery Blair and kids competing to get in to its magnet programs. The downside for the Lewis location is the traffic around Springfield and its location nestled in between freeway interchanges making access difficult, especially if it ceases to be a neighborhood school.

Circa 1987, Jefferson HS ceased to be a neighborhood school and became TJHSST.

I don’t understand why FCPS won’t consider making Lewis into a magnet school or language immersion or some special designation to at least keep the doors open. My own ES is now the Plum Center. Lewis has the smallest population - keep those students there but I don’t know - add vo-tech or academy classes.

Jefferson wasn’t near a high school with over 2700 kids in the mid-80. It was near two other schools with small, declining enrollments.

If either Annandale or Stuart had had over 2500 kids at the time they would have redistricted and kept Jefferson open.

How did Jefferson’s quality compare to those two schools at the time? If there was a large disparity then they definitely wouldn’t have redistricted.

They were more sane back then and not focused on bringing the whole county down to the lowest common denominator.

The disparities were not as large but they still would have redistricted.

In Jefferson’s case, given the declining enrollments at the area schools, moving kids into Jefferson wasn’t an option. It is here with Lewis.

Families don’t think it’s an option until the school quality improves.

This is nothing that Madison, Oakton, and Westfield parents didn’t say before they were moved to South Lakes back in 2008.

People forget that South Lakes used to be the school to avoid. A pariah so the speak. Now it’s generally a desirable middle of the pack FCPS school with solid academics and competitive sports teams.

Absolutely this. For all of those who are scared to death of redistricting the case of South Lakes is a great example of what will probably happen. Back in 2008 NOBODY wanted their kids to go to South Lakes. Then they pulled a bunch of UMC kids from Westfield and Oakton and Madison over and now South Lakes is no longer scary.

Lewis and Mount Vernon do not have "a bunch of UMC" to pull from

They are surrounded by working class and middle class neighborhoods, except for the 2 closest neighborhoods to Lewis, Daventry and Keene Mill neighborhoods.

Rezoning to Lewis would yield very different outcomes than what happened to South Lakes.

I’m working class and we are in Keene Mill.

2 feds is not considered working class.

Most of Keene Mill is in the low 6 figure income bracket, which is not working class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the homes really vulnerable to redistricting is the Mozaic part of Oakton High School. Look at the Falls Church HS versus Oakton HS geography / district. In that area, they intertwine like fingers on two hands.

I deliberately avoided the Riveradale (I think that is the name?) area currently districted for Braddock, and the areas of Mozaic ES closest to Inova Fairfax Hospital. With the addition and renovation of the Falls Church HS, one of them will be moved back - or possibly Mozaic to Falls Church HS, and Riverdale to Annandale HS where it used to be 20 years ago.

Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES catchment area, so why would any part of Mosaic get moved to Falls Church HS? It wasn’t that long ago that area got pulled out of Jackson MS and moved to Thoreau MS.

The county is expanding Falls Church HS for a reason. I just look at that weird little "finger" of their district coming up to the Mozaic district, and cannot help but think that the easiest way to increase achievement in FCHS is to redistrict a part of Mozaic there. These townhouses / houses tend to be lower cost and primarily occupied by immigrants, giving a combination of lower influence and higher achievement that the country would want to move around.

Another possibility is that part of Marshall HS would be redistricted to FCHS.

I don't think the county would do anything that lowers the FARMS rate at Oakton and raises it at FCHS

It definitely will not raise the FARMS rate at FCHS, and I suspect it would remain steady at Oakton.

Mosiac is 25% farms, Oakton is 15. Removing Mosiac would lower Oakton's rate. I really don't see the county doing anything that would lower the FARMs rate of any school that already has a sub 20% rate.

I think that will be the math for any of the candidate areas to flow into FCHS. Someone will clearly be moved to FCHS because the county is expanding the building.

Could be Mozaic (or part of Mozaic), could be part of Marshall HS, could be part of McLean HS (that one is least likely in my mind because that would only leave very affluent areas attending McLean HS... I think a part of their far away demographic would be channeled to either South lakes or Herndon HS instead)

It’s Mosaic, not Mozaic.

Since Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES area, moving any part of Mosaic to Falls Church creates a new split feeder, so unlikely.

If any part of Marshall were to move, it would more logically be areas further west in Vienna near Wolf Trap that could move to expanded Madison.

The Timber Lane island at McLean may well move to Falls Church st some point, if not soon then eventually when more housing gets built in Tysons or near the WFC metro. There is no area zoned to McLean that logically should move to South Lakes or Herndon. The “far away” areas zoned to McLean were already rezoned to even “further away” Langley in 2021.

Sorry, it would leapfrog from Langley to South Lakes / Herndon, and then from McLean or Marshall to Langley.
McLean is overcrowded
Langley is underused
Oakton is at capacity
FCHS is gaining seats, it is having an addition built
Where is it gaining seats from? Open question.
What other schools are underused? Where will they gain students from? OPen question.
You have to look at who needs to have more students, and how needs to lose students.

No current dog in this fight, but I used to live in the Mosaic district townhomes. We could walk to Oakton high school through a fence at the end of our neighborhood. It was a five minute commute, door-to-door. The county is not going to take walkers and put them on a bus across town. Gallows has terrible traffic. You clearly don’t know that part of town.

DP. Do you mean townhouses in the Mosaic ES attendance area? The Mosaic District townhouses built by EYA are south of 29, zoned to Falls Church HS, and not within 5 minutes of Oakton HS.

I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, right? The Mosaic District is NOT zoned to Mosaic Elementary School.

Correct. The Mosaic District is zoned to Fairhill/Jackson/Falls Church.

Years after the Mosaic District was built, Karl Frisch decided the name of Mosby Woods ES needed to be changed to avoid the Confederate reference (never mind that by now it was just a suburban neighborhood name) and decided Mosaic ES would celebrate diversity. Some of us told them it would create confusion since the Mosaic District wouldn’t feed to Mosaic ES, but of course we were ignored.

Living in the Twilight Zone would be an improvement over half the decisions made by the FCPS School Board. But, sure, no doubt they’ll come up with really sensible county-wide boundary changes…

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they do not take steps to bolster Lewis’s enrollment this entire boundary exercise will have been a fiasco.

I believe they need to keep their options open WRT Lewis. There was talk in the past of turning it into some kind of IB magnet and distributing the ES feeders to the nearby high schools. This may come up again with the state’s new rules on accreditation. Also there is a lot of residential development in the works in that area, not all of which is zoned for Lewis to be sure but they may need to shift borders in the future like 5-10 years off to relieve Edison.

A magic school / program at Lewis sounds kind of interesting. Look at Montgomery Blair and kids competing to get in to its magnet programs. The downside for the Lewis location is the traffic around Springfield and its location nestled in between freeway interchanges making access difficult, especially if it ceases to be a neighborhood school.

Circa 1987, Jefferson HS ceased to be a neighborhood school and became TJHSST.

I don’t understand why FCPS won’t consider making Lewis into a magnet school or language immersion or some special designation to at least keep the doors open. My own ES is now the Plum Center. Lewis has the smallest population - keep those students there but I don’t know - add vo-tech or academy classes.

Jefferson wasn’t near a high school with over 2700 kids in the mid-80. It was near two other schools with small, declining enrollments.

If either Annandale or Stuart had had over 2500 kids at the time they would have redistricted and kept Jefferson open.

How did Jefferson’s quality compare to those two schools at the time? If there was a large disparity then they definitely wouldn’t have redistricted.

They were more sane back then and not focused on bringing the whole county down to the lowest common denominator.

The disparities were not as large but they still would have redistricted.

In Jefferson’s case, given the declining enrollments at the area schools, moving kids into Jefferson wasn’t an option. It is here with Lewis.

Families don’t think it’s an option until the school quality improves.

This is nothing that Madison, Oakton, and Westfield parents didn’t say before they were moved to South Lakes back in 2008.

People forget that South Lakes used to be the school to avoid. A pariah so the speak. Now it’s generally a desirable middle of the pack FCPS school with solid academics and competitive sports teams.

Absolutely this. For all of those who are scared to death of redistricting the case of South Lakes is a great example of what will probably happen. Back in 2008 NOBODY wanted their kids to go to South Lakes. Then they pulled a bunch of UMC kids from Westfield and Oakton and Madison over and now South Lakes is no longer scary.

Lewis and Mount Vernon do not have "a bunch of UMC" to pull from

They are surrounded by working class and middle class neighborhoods, except for the 2 closest neighborhoods to Lewis, Daventry and Keene Mill neighborhoods.

Rezoning to Lewis would yield very different outcomes than what happened to South Lakes.

There’s no easy way of fixing the capacity issues in that region without nuking the boundaries. If the projections hold true, they could close Lewis in 5 years, but you’d need to completely rework the boundaries of Edison and Hayfield to distribute the displaced students to Mount Vernon and West Potomac.

LOL. Just as like reworking the boundaries of West Springfield to distribute the displaced students to South County and Lake Braddock.

WSHS has one of the most compact boundaries in all of FCPS. Almost the entire zone, except parts of Daventry, the far end of Gambrill and Sangster, are a 10 minute bus ride, with most neighborhoods roughly within 2-3 miles to the high school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think the homes really vulnerable to redistricting is the Mozaic part of Oakton High School. Look at the Falls Church HS versus Oakton HS geography / district. In that area, they intertwine like fingers on two hands.

I deliberately avoided the Riveradale (I think that is the name?) area currently districted for Braddock, and the areas of Mozaic ES closest to Inova Fairfax Hospital. With the addition and renovation of the Falls Church HS, one of them will be moved back - or possibly Mozaic to Falls Church HS, and Riverdale to Annandale HS where it used to be 20 years ago.

Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES catchment area, so why would any part of Mosaic get moved to Falls Church HS? It wasn’t that long ago that area got pulled out of Jackson MS and moved to Thoreau MS.

The county is expanding Falls Church HS for a reason. I just look at that weird little "finger" of their district coming up to the Mozaic district, and cannot help but think that the easiest way to increase achievement in FCHS is to redistrict a part of Mozaic there. These townhouses / houses tend to be lower cost and primarily occupied by immigrants, giving a combination of lower influence and higher achievement that the country would want to move around.

Another possibility is that part of Marshall HS would be redistricted to FCHS.

I don't think the county would do anything that lowers the FARMS rate at Oakton and raises it at FCHS

It definitely will not raise the FARMS rate at FCHS, and I suspect it would remain steady at Oakton.

Mosiac is 25% farms, Oakton is 15. Removing Mosiac would lower Oakton's rate. I really don't see the county doing anything that would lower the FARMs rate of any school that already has a sub 20% rate.

I think that will be the math for any of the candidate areas to flow into FCHS. Someone will clearly be moved to FCHS because the county is expanding the building.

Could be Mozaic (or part of Mozaic), could be part of Marshall HS, could be part of McLean HS (that one is least likely in my mind because that would only leave very affluent areas attending McLean HS... I think a part of their far away demographic would be channeled to either South lakes or Herndon HS instead)

It’s Mosaic, not Mozaic.

Since Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES area, moving any part of Mosaic to Falls Church creates a new split feeder, so unlikely.

If any part of Marshall were to move, it would more logically be areas further west in Vienna near Wolf Trap that could move to expanded Madison.

The Timber Lane island at McLean may well move to Falls Church st some point, if not soon then eventually when more housing gets built in Tysons or near the WFC metro. There is no area zoned to McLean that logically should move to South Lakes or Herndon. The “far away” areas zoned to McLean were already rezoned to even “further away” Langley in 2021.

Sorry, it would leapfrog from Langley to South Lakes / Herndon, and then from McLean or Marshall to Langley.
McLean is overcrowded
Langley is underused
Oakton is at capacity
FCHS is gaining seats, it is having an addition built
Where is it gaining seats from? Open question.
What other schools are underused? Where will they gain students from? OPen question.
You have to look at who needs to have more students, and how needs to lose students.

No current dog in this fight, but I used to live in the Mosaic district townhomes. We could walk to Oakton high school through a fence at the end of our neighborhood. It was a five minute commute, door-to-door. The county is not going to take walkers and put them on a bus across town. Gallows has terrible traffic. You clearly don’t know that part of town.

DP. Do you mean townhouses in the Mosaic ES attendance area? The Mosaic District townhouses built by EYA are south of 29, zoned to Falls Church HS, and not within 5 minutes of Oakton HS.

I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, right? The Mosaic District is NOT zoned to Mosaic Elementary School.

Correct. The Mosaic District is zoned to Fairhill/Jackson/Falls Church.

Years after the Mosaic District was built, Karl Frisch decided the name of Mosby Woods ES needed to be changed to avoid the Confederate reference (never mind that by now it was just a suburban neighborhood name) and decided Mosaic ES would celebrate diversity. Some of us told them it would create confusion since the Mosaic District wouldn’t feed to Mosaic ES, but of course we were ignored.

Living in the Twilight Zone would be an improvement over half the decisions made by the FCPS School Board. But, sure, no doubt they’ll come up with really sensible county-wide boundary changes…

God, the idiocy is unreal.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they do not take steps to bolster Lewis’s enrollment this entire boundary exercise will have been a fiasco.

I believe they need to keep their options open WRT Lewis. There was talk in the past of turning it into some kind of IB magnet and distributing the ES feeders to the nearby high schools. This may come up again with the state’s new rules on accreditation. Also there is a lot of residential development in the works in that area, not all of which is zoned for Lewis to be sure but they may need to shift borders in the future like 5-10 years off to relieve Edison.

A magic school / program at Lewis sounds kind of interesting. Look at Montgomery Blair and kids competing to get in to its magnet programs. The downside for the Lewis location is the traffic around Springfield and its location nestled in between freeway interchanges making access difficult, especially if it ceases to be a neighborhood school.

Circa 1987, Jefferson HS ceased to be a neighborhood school and became TJHSST.

I don’t understand why FCPS won’t consider making Lewis into a magnet school or language immersion or some special designation to at least keep the doors open. My own ES is now the Plum Center. Lewis has the smallest population - keep those students there but I don’t know - add vo-tech or academy classes.

Jefferson wasn’t near a high school with over 2700 kids in the mid-80. It was near two other schools with small, declining enrollments.

If either Annandale or Stuart had had over 2500 kids at the time they would have redistricted and kept Jefferson open.

How did Jefferson’s quality compare to those two schools at the time? If there was a large disparity then they definitely wouldn’t have redistricted.

They were more sane back then and not focused on bringing the whole county down to the lowest common denominator.

The disparities were not as large but they still would have redistricted.

In Jefferson’s case, given the declining enrollments at the area schools, moving kids into Jefferson wasn’t an option. It is here with Lewis.

Families don’t think it’s an option until the school quality improves.

This is nothing that Madison, Oakton, and Westfield parents didn’t say before they were moved to South Lakes back in 2008.

People forget that South Lakes used to be the school to avoid. A pariah so the speak. Now it’s generally a desirable middle of the pack FCPS school with solid academics and competitive sports teams.

Absolutely this. For all of those who are scared to death of redistricting the case of South Lakes is a great example of what will probably happen. Back in 2008 NOBODY wanted their kids to go to South Lakes. Then they pulled a bunch of UMC kids from Westfield and Oakton and Madison over and now South Lakes is no longer scary.

Lewis and Mount Vernon do not have "a bunch of UMC" to pull from

They are surrounded by working class and middle class neighborhoods, except for the 2 closest neighborhoods to Lewis, Daventry and Keene Mill neighborhoods.

Rezoning to Lewis would yield very different outcomes than what happened to South Lakes.

There’s no easy way of fixing the capacity issues in that region without nuking the boundaries. If the projections hold true, they could close Lewis in 5 years, but you’d need to completely rework the boundaries of Edison and Hayfield to distribute the displaced students to Mount Vernon and West Potomac.

LOL. Just as like reworking the boundaries of West Springfield to distribute the displaced students to South County and Lake Braddock.

WSHS has one of the most compact boundaries in all of FCPS. Almost the entire zone, except parts of Daventry, the far end of Gambrill and Sangster, are a 10 minute bus ride, with most neighborhoods roughly within 2-3 miles to the high school.

It also has almost 2800 kids and is near a school with slightly over 1600 students. So there’s that.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they do not take steps to bolster Lewis’s enrollment this entire boundary exercise will have been a fiasco.

I believe they need to keep their options open WRT Lewis. There was talk in the past of turning it into some kind of IB magnet and distributing the ES feeders to the nearby high schools. This may come up again with the state’s new rules on accreditation. Also there is a lot of residential development in the works in that area, not all of which is zoned for Lewis to be sure but they may need to shift borders in the future like 5-10 years off to relieve Edison.

A magic school / program at Lewis sounds kind of interesting. Look at Montgomery Blair and kids competing to get in to its magnet programs. The downside for the Lewis location is the traffic around Springfield and its location nestled in between freeway interchanges making access difficult, especially if it ceases to be a neighborhood school.

Circa 1987, Jefferson HS ceased to be a neighborhood school and became TJHSST.

I don’t understand why FCPS won’t consider making Lewis into a magnet school or language immersion or some special designation to at least keep the doors open. My own ES is now the Plum Center. Lewis has the smallest population - keep those students there but I don’t know - add vo-tech or academy classes.

Jefferson wasn’t near a high school with over 2700 kids in the mid-80. It was near two other schools with small, declining enrollments.

If either Annandale or Stuart had had over 2500 kids at the time they would have redistricted and kept Jefferson open.

How did Jefferson’s quality compare to those two schools at the time? If there was a large disparity then they definitely wouldn’t have redistricted.

They were more sane back then and not focused on bringing the whole county down to the lowest common denominator.

The disparities were not as large but they still would have redistricted.

In Jefferson’s case, given the declining enrollments at the area schools, moving kids into Jefferson wasn’t an option. It is here with Lewis.

Families don’t think it’s an option until the school quality improves.

This is nothing that Madison, Oakton, and Westfield parents didn’t say before they were moved to South Lakes back in 2008.

People forget that South Lakes used to be the school to avoid. A pariah so the speak. Now it’s generally a desirable middle of the pack FCPS school with solid academics and competitive sports teams.

Absolutely this. For all of those who are scared to death of redistricting the case of South Lakes is a great example of what will probably happen. Back in 2008 NOBODY wanted their kids to go to South Lakes. Then they pulled a bunch of UMC kids from Westfield and Oakton and Madison over and now South Lakes is no longer scary.

Lewis and Mount Vernon do not have "a bunch of UMC" to pull from

They are surrounded by working class and middle class neighborhoods, except for the 2 closest neighborhoods to Lewis, Daventry and Keene Mill neighborhoods.

Rezoning to Lewis would yield very different outcomes than what happened to South Lakes.

There’s no easy way of fixing the capacity issues in that region without nuking the boundaries. If the projections hold true, they could close Lewis in 5 years, but you’d need to completely rework the boundaries of Edison and Hayfield to distribute the displaced students to Mount Vernon and West Potomac.

LOL. Just as like reworking the boundaries of West Springfield to distribute the displaced students to South County and Lake Braddock.

WSHS has one of the most compact boundaries in all of FCPS. Almost the entire zone, except parts of Daventry, the far end of Gambrill and Sangster, are a 10 minute bus ride, with most neighborhoods roughly within 2-3 miles to the high school.

It also has almost 2800 kids and is near a school with slightly over 1600 students. So there’s that.

That discrepancy exists because of the school board and board of supervisors. Let’s not forget that it isn’t due to anything that anyone in WSHS pyramid did.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they do not take steps to bolster Lewis’s enrollment this entire boundary exercise will have been a fiasco.

I believe they need to keep their options open WRT Lewis. There was talk in the past of turning it into some kind of IB magnet and distributing the ES feeders to the nearby high schools. This may come up again with the state’s new rules on accreditation. Also there is a lot of residential development in the works in that area, not all of which is zoned for Lewis to be sure but they may need to shift borders in the future like 5-10 years off to relieve Edison.

A magic school / program at Lewis sounds kind of interesting. Look at Montgomery Blair and kids competing to get in to its magnet programs. The downside for the Lewis location is the traffic around Springfield and its location nestled in between freeway interchanges making access difficult, especially if it ceases to be a neighborhood school.

Circa 1987, Jefferson HS ceased to be a neighborhood school and became TJHSST.

I don’t understand why FCPS won’t consider making Lewis into a magnet school or language immersion or some special designation to at least keep the doors open. My own ES is now the Plum Center. Lewis has the smallest population - keep those students there but I don’t know - add vo-tech or academy classes.

Jefferson wasn’t near a high school with over 2700 kids in the mid-80. It was near two other schools with small, declining enrollments.

If either Annandale or Stuart had had over 2500 kids at the time they would have redistricted and kept Jefferson open.

How did Jefferson’s quality compare to those two schools at the time? If there was a large disparity then they definitely wouldn’t have redistricted.

They were more sane back then and not focused on bringing the whole county down to the lowest common denominator.

The disparities were not as large but they still would have redistricted.

In Jefferson’s case, given the declining enrollments at the area schools, moving kids into Jefferson wasn’t an option. It is here with Lewis.

Families don’t think it’s an option until the school quality improves.

This is nothing that Madison, Oakton, and Westfield parents didn’t say before they were moved to South Lakes back in 2008.

People forget that South Lakes used to be the school to avoid. A pariah so the speak. Now it’s generally a desirable middle of the pack FCPS school with solid academics and competitive sports teams.

Absolutely this. For all of those who are scared to death of redistricting the case of South Lakes is a great example of what will probably happen. Back in 2008 NOBODY wanted their kids to go to South Lakes. Then they pulled a bunch of UMC kids from Westfield and Oakton and Madison over and now South Lakes is no longer scary.

Lewis and Mount Vernon do not have "a bunch of UMC" to pull from

They are surrounded by working class and middle class neighborhoods, except for the 2 closest neighborhoods to Lewis, Daventry and Keene Mill neighborhoods.

Rezoning to Lewis would yield very different outcomes than what happened to South Lakes.

There’s no easy way of fixing the capacity issues in that region without nuking the boundaries. If the projections hold true, they could close Lewis in 5 years, but you’d need to completely rework the boundaries of Edison and Hayfield to distribute the displaced students to Mount Vernon and West Potomac.

LOL. Just as like reworking the boundaries of West Springfield to distribute the displaced students to South County and Lake Braddock.

WSHS has one of the most compact boundaries in all of FCPS. Almost the entire zone, except parts of Daventry, the far end of Gambrill and Sangster, are a 10 minute bus ride, with most neighborhoods roughly within 2-3 miles to the high school.

It also has almost 2800 kids and is near a school with slightly over 1600 students. So there’s that.

That discrepancy exists because of the school board and board of supervisors. Let’s not forget that it isn’t due to anything that anyone in WSHS pyramid did.

That may be true but if the goal is to manage facilities and provide students with comparable access it’s also largely irrelevant. The purpose of a boundary change isn’t to punish a community for past sins.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think the homes really vulnerable to redistricting is the Mozaic part of Oakton High School. Look at the Falls Church HS versus Oakton HS geography / district. In that area, they intertwine like fingers on two hands.

I deliberately avoided the Riveradale (I think that is the name?) area currently districted for Braddock, and the areas of Mozaic ES closest to Inova Fairfax Hospital. With the addition and renovation of the Falls Church HS, one of them will be moved back - or possibly Mozaic to Falls Church HS, and Riverdale to Annandale HS where it used to be 20 years ago.

Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES catchment area, so why would any part of Mosaic get moved to Falls Church HS? It wasn’t that long ago that area got pulled out of Jackson MS and moved to Thoreau MS.

The county is expanding Falls Church HS for a reason. I just look at that weird little "finger" of their district coming up to the Mozaic district, and cannot help but think that the easiest way to increase achievement in FCHS is to redistrict a part of Mozaic there. These townhouses / houses tend to be lower cost and primarily occupied by immigrants, giving a combination of lower influence and higher achievement that the country would want to move around.

Another possibility is that part of Marshall HS would be redistricted to FCHS.

I don't think the county would do anything that lowers the FARMS rate at Oakton and raises it at FCHS

It definitely will not raise the FARMS rate at FCHS, and I suspect it would remain steady at Oakton.

Mosiac is 25% farms, Oakton is 15. Removing Mosiac would lower Oakton's rate. I really don't see the county doing anything that would lower the FARMs rate of any school that already has a sub 20% rate.

I think that will be the math for any of the candidate areas to flow into FCHS. Someone will clearly be moved to FCHS because the county is expanding the building.

Could be Mozaic (or part of Mozaic), could be part of Marshall HS, could be part of McLean HS (that one is least likely in my mind because that would only leave very affluent areas attending McLean HS... I think a part of their far away demographic would be channeled to either South lakes or Herndon HS instead)

It’s Mosaic, not Mozaic.

Since Oakton HS sits within the Mosaic ES area, moving any part of Mosaic to Falls Church creates a new split feeder, so unlikely.

If any part of Marshall were to move, it would more logically be areas further west in Vienna near Wolf Trap that could move to expanded Madison.

The Timber Lane island at McLean may well move to Falls Church st some point, if not soon then eventually when more housing gets built in Tysons or near the WFC metro. There is no area zoned to McLean that logically should move to South Lakes or Herndon. The “far away” areas zoned to McLean were already rezoned to even “further away” Langley in 2021.

Sorry, it would leapfrog from Langley to South Lakes / Herndon, and then from McLean or Marshall to Langley.
McLean is overcrowded
Langley is underused
Oakton is at capacity
FCHS is gaining seats, it is having an addition built
Where is it gaining seats from? Open question.
What other schools are underused? Where will they gain students from? OPen question.
You have to look at who needs to have more students, and how needs to lose students.

No current dog in this fight, but I used to live in the Mosaic district townhomes. We could walk to Oakton high school through a fence at the end of our neighborhood. It was a five minute commute, door-to-door. The county is not going to take walkers and put them on a bus across town. Gallows has terrible traffic. You clearly don’t know that part of town.

DP. Do you mean townhouses in the Mosaic ES attendance area? The Mosaic District townhouses built by EYA are south of 29, zoned to Falls Church HS, and not within 5 minutes of Oakton HS.

I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, right? The Mosaic District is NOT zoned to Mosaic Elementary School.

Correct. The Mosaic District is zoned to Fairhill/Jackson/Falls Church.

Years after the Mosaic District was built, Karl Frisch decided the name of Mosby Woods ES needed to be changed to avoid the Confederate reference (never mind that by now it was just a suburban neighborhood name) and decided Mosaic ES would celebrate diversity. Some of us told them it would create confusion since the Mosaic District wouldn’t feed to Mosaic ES, but of course we were ignored.

Living in the Twilight Zone would be an improvement over half the decisions made by the FCPS School Board. But, sure, no doubt they’ll come up with really sensible county-wide boundary changes…

Has Karl F'ing Frisch made ANY good decisions on the school board? Any decisions supported by anyone other than his teacher partner? Nope. Didn't think so. That guy is such a POS. I say this as an incredibly liberal person who voted for him and deeply regret it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they do not take steps to bolster Lewis’s enrollment this entire boundary exercise will have been a fiasco.

I believe they need to keep their options open WRT Lewis. There was talk in the past of turning it into some kind of IB magnet and distributing the ES feeders to the nearby high schools. This may come up again with the state’s new rules on accreditation. Also there is a lot of residential development in the works in that area, not all of which is zoned for Lewis to be sure but they may need to shift borders in the future like 5-10 years off to relieve Edison.

A magic school / program at Lewis sounds kind of interesting. Look at Montgomery Blair and kids competing to get in to its magnet programs. The downside for the Lewis location is the traffic around Springfield and its location nestled in between freeway interchanges making access difficult, especially if it ceases to be a neighborhood school.

Circa 1987, Jefferson HS ceased to be a neighborhood school and became TJHSST.

I don’t understand why FCPS won’t consider making Lewis into a magnet school or language immersion or some special designation to at least keep the doors open. My own ES is now the Plum Center. Lewis has the smallest population - keep those students there but I don’t know - add vo-tech or academy classes.

Jefferson wasn’t near a high school with over 2700 kids in the mid-80. It was near two other schools with small, declining enrollments.

If either Annandale or Stuart had had over 2500 kids at the time they would have redistricted and kept Jefferson open.

How did Jefferson’s quality compare to those two schools at the time? If there was a large disparity then they definitely wouldn’t have redistricted.

They were more sane back then and not focused on bringing the whole county down to the lowest common denominator.

The disparities were not as large but they still would have redistricted.

In Jefferson’s case, given the declining enrollments at the area schools, moving kids into Jefferson wasn’t an option. It is here with Lewis.

Families don’t think it’s an option until the school quality improves.

This is nothing that Madison, Oakton, and Westfield parents didn’t say before they were moved to South Lakes back in 2008.

People forget that South Lakes used to be the school to avoid. A pariah so the speak. Now it’s generally a desirable middle of the pack FCPS school with solid academics and competitive sports teams.

Absolutely this. For all of those who are scared to death of redistricting the case of South Lakes is a great example of what will probably happen. Back in 2008 NOBODY wanted their kids to go to South Lakes. Then they pulled a bunch of UMC kids from Westfield and Oakton and Madison over and now South Lakes is no longer scary.

Lewis and Mount Vernon do not have "a bunch of UMC" to pull from

They are surrounded by working class and middle class neighborhoods, except for the 2 closest neighborhoods to Lewis, Daventry and Keene Mill neighborhoods.

Rezoning to Lewis would yield very different outcomes than what happened to South Lakes.

There’s no easy way of fixing the capacity issues in that region without nuking the boundaries. If the projections hold true, they could close Lewis in 5 years, but you’d need to completely rework the boundaries of Edison and Hayfield to distribute the displaced students to Mount Vernon and West Potomac.

LOL. Just as like reworking the boundaries of West Springfield to distribute the displaced students to South County and Lake Braddock.

WSHS has one of the most compact boundaries in all of FCPS. Almost the entire zone, except parts of Daventry, the far end of Gambrill and Sangster, are a 10 minute bus ride, with most neighborhoods roughly within 2-3 miles to the high school.

It also has almost 2800 kids and is near a school with slightly over 1600 students. So there’s that.

That discrepancy exists because of the school board and board of supervisors. Let’s not forget that it isn’t due to anything that anyone in WSHS pyramid did.

That may be true but if the goal is to manage facilities and provide students with comparable access it’s also largely irrelevant. The purpose of a boundary change isn’t to punish a community for past sins.

There are board members who have said in private that they are looking to move a particular zip code, regardless of need, so you can drop the pretense that the purpose is pure.