FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole boundary process is the worst creating friction in neighborhoods, adding stress to kids who want to stay with their friends/teams….all for what? Solve the few issues and let’s move on.

+1. From the beginning it's been very unclear what the goal is. The School Board should have had a list of the actual schools with issues that needed to be resolved. Otherwise, what is the GOAL, how can we determine if it is achieved, and why are we all funding this nonsense. They spent a lot of money on meetings in the Fall of 2024 asking the community what THEY thought needed to be addressed in the boundary changes. WTF, why do this... if no one knows why it's being done and they are randomly taking in comments from an uninformed public. Literally there was no data or hard information provided to the public at these meetings for anyone to provide an informed opinion! It's tuned into a nebulous disaster creating lots of damage to our communities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole boundary process is the worst creating friction in neighborhoods, adding stress to kids who want to stay with their friends/teams….all for what? Solve the few issues and let’s move on.

+1. From the beginning it's been very unclear what the goal is. The School Board should have had a list of the actual schools with issues that needed to be resolved. Otherwise, what is the GOAL, how can we determine if it is achieved, and why are we all funding this nonsense. They spent a lot of money on meetings in the Fall of 2024 asking the community what THEY thought needed to be addressed in the boundary changes. WTF, why do this... if no one knows why it's being done and they are randomly taking in comments from an uninformed public. Literally there was no data or hard information provided to the public at these meetings for anyone to provide an informed opinion! It's tuned into a nebulous disaster creating lots of damage to our communities.

It’s almost like the school board can’t comprehend that families don’t want their students to be moved.

[Anonymous]

No. The School Board had a pie in the sky idea that a "comprehensive boundary study" designed by a consultant would enable them to 'balance" demographics.
They did not take into consideration that it would not work.

[Anonymous]

Top three topics tonight

Coates
Hunt Valley
Timber Lane

Interestingly, the Lemon Road upvotes are for sticking with Marshall over moving to McLean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. The School Board had a pie in the sky idea that a "comprehensive boundary study" designed by a consultant would enable them to 'balance" demographics.
They did not take into consideration that it would not work.

^^ This. All blue SB moved out like Trump believing they had a mandate from the good people of Fairfax to move forward with One Fairfax. The DMV has its own unique brand of liberals - 'I am holier than thou and will determine when you can apply it to thee.' The upper-middle-class-but-a-few-million-shy-of-limousine liberal. And thankfully, this demographic helped fend off what could have been a much worse outcome for the boundary review.

[Anonymous]

Lemon road kids are just like everyone else - people want to stay at their schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Top three topics tonight

Coates
Hunt Valley
Timber Lane

Interestingly, the Lemon Road upvotes are for sticking with Marshall over moving to McLean.

Wasn’t at this meeting but at an earlier meeting it was Lemon Road folks within walking distance to Marshall on the same side of Route 7 who want to stay there. Some of them literally live next door to Marshall.

[Anonymous]

It makes no sense to be taking kids out of Longfellow/mclean who are already part of those communities to replace them with Kilmer/marshall kids who are already happy in their communities. This is just an exchange for no purpose. An example of how we should prioritize Coates and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to be taking kids out of Longfellow/mclean who are already part of those communities to replace them with Kilmer/marshall kids who are already happy in their communities. This is just an exchange for no purpose. An example of how we should prioritize Coates and move on.

It's all about addressing the McLean attendance island. Thru was asked to prioritize eliminating these.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to be taking kids out of Longfellow/mclean who are already part of those communities to replace them with Kilmer/marshall kids who are already happy in their communities. This is just an exchange for no purpose. An example of how we should prioritize Coates and move on.

It's all about addressing the McLean attendance island. Thru was asked to prioritize eliminating these.

It’s as much about the purported overcrowding at Kilmer MS as it is the attendance island. They have
Kilmer at 118% even with the modular there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to be taking kids out of Longfellow/mclean who are already part of those communities to replace them with Kilmer/marshall kids who are already happy in their communities. This is just an exchange for no purpose. An example of how we should prioritize Coates and move on.

It's all about addressing the McLean attendance island. Thru was asked to prioritize eliminating these.

The Graham Road/Timber Lane/Pine Springs shuffle into Shrevewood is the first driving factor. They need Shrevewood’s capacity to balance the neighborhoods south of 29. But once they move more students into Shrevewood/Kilmer/Marshall, they have to move more students out of Kilmer. Timber Lane as an attendance island is another priority, but not the driving factor here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Top three topics tonight

Coates
Hunt Valley
Timber Lane

Interestingly, the Lemon Road upvotes are for sticking with Marshall over moving to McLean.

That is not notable at all.

No one wants their kids moved, not even to perceived "better" schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to be taking kids out of Longfellow/mclean who are already part of those communities to replace them with Kilmer/marshall kids who are already happy in their communities. This is just an exchange for no purpose. An example of how we should prioritize Coates and move on.

They are doing a similar round robin exchange with Sangster, Hunt Valley & Silverbrook / Lake Braddock, WSHS and SoCo. No one wants to get exchanged with a few streets in a different neighborhood just so FCPS can claimed they rezoned someone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to be taking kids out of Longfellow/mclean who are already part of those communities to replace them with Kilmer/marshall kids who are already happy in their communities. This is just an exchange for no purpose. An example of how we should prioritize Coates and move on.

It's all about addressing the McLean attendance island. Thru was asked to prioritize eliminating these.

The Graham Road/Timber Lane/Pine Springs shuffle into Shrevewood is the first driving factor. They need Shrevewood’s capacity to balance the neighborhoods south of 29. But once they move more students into Shrevewood/Kilmer/Marshall, they have to move more students out of Kilmer. Timber Lane as an attendance island is another priority, but not the driving factor here.

DP. They are pushing kids now at Graham Road and Pine Spring into Timber Lane as part of a proposed solution to redraw Graham Road’s boundaries so the school sits within its boundaries. But they are proposing to do so in a manner that substantially reduces the enrollment at Graham Road and Pine Spring and increases the enrollment at Timber Lane. That, in turn, is leading them to propose moving part of current Timber Lane into Shrevewood/Kilmer/Marshall to avoid overcrowding Timber Lane. But if they kept more of the kids south of Route 29 at Graham Road and Pine Spring they wouldn’t be adding so many kids to Timber Lane and then pushing part of that school north of Route 29 into Shrevewood.

As for the island, it was a non-issue until they decided to make it an issue. It’s been at McLean for 40 years and is less than 1/4 of a mile from the main attendance area. Those families want to stay at McLean but if FCPS concludes that can only happen if they bridge the island they’ll create a new split feeder at Shrevewood and make some other Marshall families unhappy.

No one at McLean or Marshall was asking for these proposed changes. Another irony is that a lot of the kids in the Falls Church pyramid for whom the new Graham Road building was originally constructed would have a longer commute to Timber Lane than they currently do to Graham Road.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes no sense to be taking kids out of Longfellow/mclean who are already part of those communities to replace them with Kilmer/marshall kids who are already happy in their communities. This is just an exchange for no purpose. An example of how we should prioritize Coates and move on.

It's all about addressing the McLean attendance island. Thru was asked to prioritize eliminating these.

The Graham Road/Timber Lane/Pine Springs shuffle into Shrevewood is the first driving factor. They need Shrevewood’s capacity to balance the neighborhoods south of 29. But once they move more students into Shrevewood/Kilmer/Marshall, they have to move more students out of Kilmer. Timber Lane as an attendance island is another priority, but not the driving factor here.

DP. They are pushing kids now at Graham Road and Pine Spring into Timber Lane as part of a proposed solution to redraw Graham Road’s boundaries so the school sits within its boundaries. But they are proposing to do so in a manner that substantially reduces the enrollment at Graham Road and Pine Spring and increases the enrollment at Timber Lane. That, in turn, is leading them to propose moving part of current Timber Lane into Shrevewood/Kilmer/Marshall to avoid overcrowding Timber Lane. But if they kept more of the kids south of Route 29 at Graham Road and Pine Spring they wouldn’t be adding so many kids to Timber Lane and then pushing part of that school north of Route 29 into Shrevewood.

As for the island, it was a non-issue until they decided to make it an issue. It’s been at McLean for 40 years and is less than 1/4 of a mile from the main attendance area. Those families want to stay at McLean but if FCPS concludes that can only happen if they bridge the island they’ll create a new split feeder at Shrevewood and make some other Marshall families unhappy.

No one at McLean or Marshall was asking for these proposed changes. Another irony is that a lot of the kids in the Falls Church pyramid for whom the new Graham Road building was originally constructed would have a longer commute to Timber Lane than they currently do to Graham Road.

We live in the neighborhoods south of 29 and I don’t know anyone who was asking for changes here either.