Lee HS Enrollment Falls Below 1700
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Anonymous
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The enrollment at Lee HS fell below 1700 students last month.
The trends aren't favorable. Poorer high schools like Lee typically see more freshman and sophomores than juniors and seniors, because students drop out in significant numbers starting when they are juniors. But Lee now has only four more freshmen (358) than seniors (354). When does FCPS wake up and redistrict part of West Springfield (with over 2150 kids) to Lee? Do the "liberals" on the School Board really not recognize that Lee cannot begin to offer its students the same range of academic classes and extra-curricular opportunities that exist at other schools when its enrollment is so much lower? They either need to change the boundaries or close the school entirely. What they have now does not work. |
Anonymous
I think this is a big reason why the county is looking at closing the school and recommissioning it as a regional IB center. Honestly, if I lived in Hayfield, Edison, West Springfield, or South County, I would be following this closely. |
Anonymous
| Funny OP you are feeling very strongly about the "liberal" school board- are you are Lee parent? Why so upset? |
Anonymous
| I would think a smaller school would be very beneficial to a struggling student body. |
Anonymous
Me too. 1700 is hardly a small school. |
Anonymous
| i thought it was justice |
Anonymous
Not Lee. |
Anonymous
The case becomes stronger all the time. |
Anonymous
| This could be great. Shift all the schools over and fix some of the overcrowding. |
Anonymous
Nope. Smaller enrollment reduces course variety and the number of offerings for the courses it does have - relative to nearby schools. |
Anonymous
Okay then. Eastern county reasoning. Time to pop some popcorn. Everyone wants reasoning. Once the SB tries to do it, things get ugly, fast. I know Western County have capacity problems and Lee makes sense. But it would be nice to put an IB magnet I Western County, since TJ is in Eastern County. That way Western County kids don’t have to commune an hour to get access to a magnet program. |
Anonymous
Are you saying the 500-plus kids at TJ who came from Carson and Rocky Run would go to an IB magnet in western Fairfax rather than TJHSST given the choice? That would mean going to a selective school trumps whether the school has a STEM focus. |
Anonymous
| isn't it illegal to drop out of school before 18? unless these freshmen and sophomores had been getting held back repeatedly |
Anonymous
| It is sad. No one with kids wants to live in that pyramid. I think some massive changing of boundaries is needed in the eastern and central county pyramids. Not just Lee but Annandale too. |
Anonymous
Yes, the law in VA is that you can drop out once you turn 18. But the law is not always followed, some students are older and others move. One way or the other, most high schools in FCPS with large ESOL/FARMS populations see significant levels of attrition. Lee has 354 seniors this year. There were 430 students in the Class of 2018 three years ago. There are only 358 freshmen in the Class of 2021. If the school continues to have similar attrition levels, they'll end up with around 295 seniors in 2021. As others noted, that means the school will have to de-staff and offer fewer courses than other schools. |