FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess they’d just move all the trailers and modular classrooms from the elementary schools to the middle schools? Because otherwise I don’t know if there is a single middle school in FCPS that could absorb a whole additional grade. Key Middle has 700 students, Whitman has 825, and they are considered pretty small. That would be roughly 350 per grade level at Key, a little over 400 at Whitman, but 500-600 at the larger schools like Irving or Frost. And the mods and trailers add classroom space but not space in the hallways, cafeteria, the gym, restrooms … I understand the goal but more work has to be done first.

To accomodate 6th at Irving, they would need to move around 600 students to Key.

Can Key accomodate an almost doubling of its student population?

[Anonymous]

My kids are out of middle school. But, I like it the way it is.

The sixth grade teachers did a great job of transitioning them to middle school.

An earlier poster said sixth graders are more teens than children. I disagree. It changes from one day to the next. We don't need to push them to mature faster than they already do.

As far as families having a better connection with the school if it is 6-8: I don't get that. Middle school is a transition point and should not be coddling the kids. That is the role of the sixth grade teacher--to make them more independent. Our middle school walked the line between elementary and high school very well

I think the problem with FCPS schools is administration. The principals are not the quality i have seen in the past. I don't know why--maybe, too many meetings. Too little experience. Being hired for the wrong reasons?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reid stated at a meeting tonight that rezoning is about manipulating space to move all the 6th grades to middle school.

That is a hill she isn't willing to give up.

She is using WSHS capacity as an excuse to move a WSHS feeder from Irving to Key so she can move 6th grade to middle school.

She was fairly emphatic at the meeting tonight that she will not budge on moving 6th to middle school.

What sense does this make?! If you look at the CIP, so many are already over capacity with no budget plans for expansion to accommodate entire new grades.

Hold on, hold on. Let’s give this a close look before we pass judgment. Dr. Reid brings her unique expertise, experience, and insight to this $4 billion organization. After spending her first year and a half getting to know the district and its many diverse pyramids she may have spotted a pattern with her fresh set of eyes that we may not have seen.

Hmmm…let’s see…make middle school grades 6-8…ah, there it is! Did you know that three middle schools are already 6-8 in FCPS:

Glasgow Middle School
Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School
Edgar Allan Poe Middle School

There it is, you judgmental fools... I am just a teacher who has taught in one of the title one school ESs that feeds into one of the middle schools noted above.

Well as a teacher I assume you know how to use excell. Do a spreadsheet and add up building capacities for design and programming. Current sites designated middle schools and net out grade 6. Divisionwide FCPS dashboard:
students
grade 6= 13339
grade 7= 13110
grade 8= 13629
total 40078
capacity 30080 [number includes full cap for 3 schools that currently have 678]
deficit -9998

That almost 10,000 so what's your plan? Convert some of the largest elementary schools for whatever pyramids are developed to middle schools? Use the spreadsheet and review the Parklawn study. That issue might be solvable by converting either Poe or Holmes to an elementray school. Some pyramids have single feed middle schools for AAP-South County, Cooper, Longfellow. You planning on making Silverbrook, Colvin Run, Chesterbrook middle schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reid stated at a meeting tonight that rezoning is about manipulating space to move all the 6th grades to middle school.

That is a hill she isn't willing to give up.

She is using WSHS capacity as an excuse to move a WSHS feeder from Irving to Key so she can move 6th grade to middle school.

She was fairly emphatic at the meeting tonight that she will not budge on moving 6th to middle school.

I've heard her say the same thing. Some of the reasons for moving 6th graders:

1. Families, students and staff do not feel as connected to their 7-8 middle schools as they do to the elementary and high schools. It is such a short period of time - the students come in one year and they're out the door the next. By moving 6th graders in, you now have students at a school for 3 years and have a chance to make more connections.

2. 6th grades are much closer emotionally/socially to 7th and 8th graders than they are to K - 4th graders. I sub in elementary school. I was in a school last week and a group of 6th grade girls walked by - I was shocked! If I had seen them outside of school, I would have thought they were around 16 years old.

3. Making room in all elementary schools for universal PreK.

She is going to fight for this.

There is a lot to say for starting accelerated math (and other academics) earlier. That doesn't happen as well in 6th grade when the classes are 35 minutes long and there's a lot of wasted minutes with morning meeting garbage and specials filling up the day. The 90-minute block in MS gets the advanced kids on that track earlier.

The 90 minute class block is HARD for 7th graders and the adjustment period is steep.

Most 6th graders will not do well making that switch.

How many 6th graders do we have who are skilled enough to take Algebra in 6th grade successfully?

Very, very few. Moving them 6th to middle school will not change this small number.

In fact, the longer classtimes and less qualified kids signing up for algebra might make things worse.

Have you seen the latest assessment ratings?

The 4th/5th/6th graders are WOEFULLY behind in math dues fo fake covid school in Kinder/1st/2nd grade. They missed critical building blocks during their formative education years and have not caught up

These kids will not benefit from being in middle school or the 7th-12th secondary schools where there is so much less structure and so many opportunities to fall into the wrong crowd, especially for those kids (full grades of upper elementary students) who are already so far behind academically in math and reading.

[Anonymous]

People can argue about whether the 6-8 or 7-8 model is preferable, but it’s clear that any decision to change to a 6-8 model should have been made before a county-wide boundary study was undertaken; that we currently do not have the capacity for 6-8 middle schools in most of our existing middle schools; and that the 6-8 model would likely increase rather than decrease the number of split feeders.

The problem with this School Board and Superintendent is that that they simultaneously are full of ideas yet don’t like to make decisions and have no idea how to structure a fair decision-making process. As a result, all they have done is create chaos, uncertainty, and resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reid stated at a meeting tonight that rezoning is about manipulating space to move all the 6th grades to middle school.

That is a hill she isn't willing to give up.

She is using WSHS capacity as an excuse to move a WSHS feeder from Irving to Key so she can move 6th grade to middle school.

She was fairly emphatic at the meeting tonight that she will not budge on moving 6th to middle school.

I've heard her say the same thing. Some of the reasons for moving 6th graders:

1. Families, students and staff do not feel as connected to their 7-8 middle schools as they do to the elementary and high schools. It is such a short period of time - the students come in one year and they're out the door the next. By moving 6th graders in, you now have students at a school for 3 years and have a chance to make more connections.

2. 6th grades are much closer emotionally/socially to 7th and 8th graders than they are to K - 4th graders. I sub in elementary school. I was in a school last week and a group of 6th grade girls walked by - I was shocked! If I had seen them outside of school, I would have thought they were around 16 years old.

3. Making room in all elementary schools for universal PreK.

She is going to fight for this.

There is a lot to say for starting accelerated math (and other academics) earlier. That doesn't happen as well in 6th grade when the classes are 35 minutes long and there's a lot of wasted minutes with morning meeting garbage and specials filling up the day. The 90-minute block in MS gets the advanced kids on that track earlier.

The 90 minute class block is HARD for 7th graders and the adjustment period is steep.

Most 6th graders will not do well making that switch.

How many 6th graders do we have who are skilled enough to take Algebra in 6th grade successfully?

Very, very few. Moving them 6th to middle school will not change this small number.

In fact, the longer classtimes and less qualified kids signing up for algebra might make things worse.

Have you seen the latest assessment ratings?

The 4th/5th/6th graders are WOEFULLY behind in math dues fo fake covid school in Kinder/1st/2nd grade. They missed critical building blocks during their formative education years and have not caught up

These kids will not benefit from being in middle school or the 7th-12th secondary schools where there is so much less structure and so many opportunities to fall into the wrong crowd, especially for those kids (full grades of upper elementary students) who are already so far behind academically in math and reading.

Sixth graders all over the country are in middle school and they’re fine. Elementary students as young as kindergarten have been doing a 90-minute literacy block for decades. It’s on the teacher to break up the time into age-appropriate chunks. Please don’t dwell on the 90-minute block. It weakens the argument. The important thing is that there is no room for 6th in the middle school buildings. They cannot just add another entire grade ( universal prek) without trailers, quads, and modulars. It would be hugely disruptive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reid stated at a meeting tonight that rezoning is about manipulating space to move all the 6th grades to middle school.

That is a hill she isn't willing to give up.

She is using WSHS capacity as an excuse to move a WSHS feeder from Irving to Key so she can move 6th grade to middle school.

She was fairly emphatic at the meeting tonight that she will not budge on moving 6th to middle school.

I've heard her say the same thing. Some of the reasons for moving 6th graders:

1. Families, students and staff do not feel as connected to their 7-8 middle schools as they do to the elementary and high schools. It is such a short period of time - the students come in one year and they're out the door the next. By moving 6th graders in, you now have students at a school for 3 years and have a chance to make more connections.

2. 6th grades are much closer emotionally/socially to 7th and 8th graders than they are to K - 4th graders. I sub in elementary school. I was in a school last week and a group of 6th grade girls walked by - I was shocked! If I had seen them outside of school, I would have thought they were around 16 years old.

3. Making room in all elementary schools for universal PreK.

She is going to fight for this.

There is a lot to say for starting accelerated math (and other academics) earlier. That doesn't happen as well in 6th grade when the classes are 35 minutes long and there's a lot of wasted minutes with morning meeting garbage and specials filling up the day. The 90-minute block in MS gets the advanced kids on that track earlier.

The 90 minute class block is HARD for 7th graders and the adjustment period is steep.

Most 6th graders will not do well making that switch.

How many 6th graders do we have who are skilled enough to take Algebra in 6th grade successfully?

Very, very few. Moving them 6th to middle school will not change this small number.

In fact, the longer classtimes and less qualified kids signing up for algebra might make things worse.

Have you seen the latest assessment ratings?

The 4th/5th/6th graders are WOEFULLY behind in math dues fo fake covid school in Kinder/1st/2nd grade. They missed critical building blocks during their formative education years and have not caught up

These kids will not benefit from being in middle school or the 7th-12th secondary schools where there is so much less structure and so many opportunities to fall into the wrong crowd, especially for those kids (full grades of upper elementary students) who are already so far behind academically in math and reading.

Sixth graders all over the country are in middle school and they’re fine. Elementary students as young as kindergarten have been doing a 90-minute literacy block for decades. It’s on the teacher to break up the time into age-appropriate chunks. Please don’t dwell on the 90-minute block. It weakens the argument. The important thing is that there is no room for 6th in the middle school buildings. They cannot just add another entire grade ( universal prek) without trailers, quads, and modulars. It would be hugely disruptive.

Well, no

The 6th graders in middle schools in the county are not fine.

We have 3 6th-8th middle schools in FCPS.

They are the worst performing middle schools in the county.

[Anonymous]

If they're really doing to do this, then they rip it all up. Change every boundary for every neighborhood and every school. Start completely over. Convert some of the ES to MS because the current MS's aren't large enough to accomodate 6-8.

They said they want a holistic review of every boundary. If this is the direction they're heading, it's not just going to be the Langley and West Springfield communities complaining once those draft maps come out in June.

[Anonymous]

The problem with this School Board and Superintendent is that that they simultaneously are full of ideas yet don’t like to make decisions and have no idea how to structure a fair decision-making process. As a result, all they have done is create chaos, uncertainty, and resentment.

I love surprises. But, on major issues, I like certainty. This whole boundary study is filled with nothing but "we are going to fix the school system our way. If you don't like it-tough!"

I think their goal is "equity." Make every school 35% FARMS. Problem is, they will reduce the FARMS in some schools at the expense of others. This is not the way to fix it.
The way to fix it is to address the struggling students and make their future families FARMSless. Putting wealthier kids in their schools will not do this.
And, to do this, it will require major busing for socioeconomic factors.

In this period of uncertainty, this is the last thing FCPS needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess they’d just move all the trailers and modular classrooms from the elementary schools to the middle schools? Because otherwise I don’t know if there is a single middle school in FCPS that could absorb a whole additional grade. Key Middle has 700 students, Whitman has 825, and they are considered pretty small. That would be roughly 350 per grade level at Key, a little over 400 at Whitman, but 500-600 at the larger schools like Irving or Frost. And the mods and trailers add classroom space but not space in the hallways, cafeteria, the gym, restrooms … I understand the goal but more work has to be done first.

To accomodate 6th at Irving, they would need to move around 600 students to Key.

Can Key accomodate an almost doubling of its student population?

AND, Key and every other MS would have to accommodate all the 6th graders at elementary schools already zoned for Key as well. That would be 300-350 kids current attending a Key/Lewis feeder ES if you figure similar class sizes, PLUS 500+ currently zoned for Irving/WSHS if they move a larger feeder like HV. So by my math it’s more than doubling Key’s enrollment!

Again - I get the reasoning to move 6th in terms of access to a middle school curriculum. But to do it right would be a years long process and probably couldn’t all be done at every school at once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reid stated at a meeting tonight that rezoning is about manipulating space to move all the 6th grades to middle school.

That is a hill she isn't willing to give up.

She is using WSHS capacity as an excuse to move a WSHS feeder from Irving to Key so she can move 6th grade to middle school.

She was fairly emphatic at the meeting tonight that she will not budge on moving 6th to middle school.

What sense does this make?! If you look at the CIP, so many are already over capacity with no budget plans for expansion to accommodate entire new grades.

Hold on, hold on. Let’s give this a close look before we pass judgment. Dr. Reid brings her unique expertise, experience, and insight to this $4 billion organization. After spending her first year and a half getting to know the district and its many diverse pyramids she may have spotted a pattern with her fresh set of eyes that we may not have seen.

Hmmm…let’s see…make middle school grades 6-8…ah, there it is! Did you know that three middle schools are already 6-8 in FCPS:

Glasgow Middle School
Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School
Edgar Allan Poe Middle School

There it is, you judgmental fools, she is simply trying to replicate the clear outcome success that students from these top middle schools in FCPS have shown at the top high schools these middle schools feed into, such as (checks notes):

Justice High School
Falls Church High School
Annandale High School

Wow. I bet you feel silly now. We should embrace the new slogan for FCPS:

FCPS, More Justice (High) for Everyone

Seriously, though, has it worked at those schools? More importantly, are [u]are the needs of the students at those schools the same as the needs of the students in other pyramids[u]?

We are an enormous and diverse community. More focus should be placed on the unique needs of each group, providing resources directly to schools and teachers to meet the student populations where they are. Simply mushing everyone together into a “One Fairfax” pot only ensures degraded services to each unique group.

Ask a teacher: does intentionally grouping students in a manner that will require additional in-class differentiation improve student learning?

But what would I know. I am just a teacher who has taught in one of the title one school ESs that feeds into one of the middle schools noted above.

Wow. The attitude! I hope my children don't get rezoned to you as a teacher. And listing all those as "top schools"? Continued perplexity though I'm sure you'll school me on that too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The problem with this School Board and Superintendent is that that they simultaneously are full of ideas yet don’t like to make decisions and have no idea how to structure a fair decision-making process. As a result, all they have done is create chaos, uncertainty, and resentment.

I love surprises. But, on major issues, I like certainty. This whole boundary study is filled with nothing but "we are going to fix the school system our way. If you don't like it-tough!"

I think their goal is "equity." Make every school 35% FARMS. Problem is, they will reduce the FARMS in some schools at the expense of others. This is not the way to fix it.
The way to fix it is to address the struggling students and make their future families FARMSless. Putting wealthier kids in their schools will not do this.
And, to do this, it will require major busing for socioeconomic factors.

In this period of uncertainty, this is the last thing FCPS needs.

Never going to happen. Busses are short now and Supreme Court said it's unconstitutional. They said for race reasons but linking any equity reasons wont stretch the ruling. The board has only adjacent school districts to play with. Look at the map if you touch one district it dominos to other districts; almost every school is close to capacity, at capacity, or higher. You push kids to one school it will pull kids from another school.

[Anonymous]

Really feel all this time money and energy spent rearranging the deak chairs on the Titanic is completely idiotic when all that time, money and energy could be used for improving and delivering academic instruction...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they're really doing to do this, then they rip it all up. Change every boundary for every neighborhood and every school. Start completely over. Convert some of the ES to MS because the current MS's aren't large enough to accomodate 6-8.

They said they want a holistic review of every boundary. If this is the direction they're heading, it's not just going to be the Langley and West Springfield communities complaining once those draft maps come out in June.

More people will complain and rightly so. The disparities in facilities among current high schools is ridiculous enough as it is. Tell people their kids are going to 6-8 grades in a former elementary school and watch their heads explode.

Reid is a total idiot for not having realized this idea, even if pedagogically defensible, is not feasible or acceptable in FCPS given our current facilities. She should have stopped talking about it by now, or the School Board should have told her to shut the hell up. All she does now is make people's blood pressures rise with her stupid statements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reid stated at a meeting tonight that rezoning is about manipulating space to move all the 6th grades to middle school.

That is a hill she isn't willing to give up.

She is using WSHS capacity as an excuse to move a WSHS feeder from Irving to Key so she can move 6th grade to middle school.

She was fairly emphatic at the meeting tonight that she will not budge on moving 6th to middle school.

What sense does this make?! If you look at the CIP, so many are already over capacity with no budget plans for expansion to accommodate entire new grades.

Hold on, hold on. Let’s give this a close look before we pass judgment. Dr. Reid brings her unique expertise, experience, and insight to this $4 billion organization. After spending her first year and a half getting to know the district and its many diverse pyramids she may have spotted a pattern with her fresh set of eyes that we may not have seen.

Hmmm…let’s see…make middle school grades 6-8…ah, there it is! Did you know that three middle schools are already 6-8 in FCPS:

Glasgow Middle School
Oliver Wendell Holmes Middle School
Edgar Allan Poe Middle School

There it is, you judgmental fools, she is simply trying to replicate the clear outcome success that students from these top middle schools in FCPS have shown at the top high schools these middle schools feed into, such as (checks notes):

Justice High School
Falls Church High School
Annandale High School

Wow. I bet you feel silly now. We should embrace the new slogan for FCPS:

FCPS, More Justice (High) for Everyone

Seriously, though, has it worked at those schools? More importantly, are [u]are the needs of the students at those schools the same as the needs of the students in other pyramids[u]?

We are an enormous and diverse community. More focus should be placed on the unique needs of each group, providing resources directly to schools and teachers to meet the student populations where they are. Simply mushing everyone together into a “One Fairfax” pot only ensures degraded services to each unique group.

Ask a teacher: does intentionally grouping students in a manner that will require additional in-class differentiation improve student learning?

But what would I know. I am just a teacher who has taught in one of the title one school ESs that feeds into one of the middle schools noted above.

Wow. The attitude! I hope my children don't get rezoned to you as a teacher. And listing all those as "top schools"? Continued perplexity though I'm sure you'll school me on that too.

DP, but it's clear some posters have no appreciation for tongue-in-cheek remarks. Are you this literal in every other aspect of your lives?