Boundaries assessment update 2023

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Instead of making this yet another IB vs. AP debate (they are both fine), let's get back to original topic. Yes making some IB schools AP would help. SB won't do jack because they don't want to stir up the pot. Parents-many in this forum-will freak out with boundary changes if it doesn't go their way. So what is the solution?

What about parents who are currently freaking out about our kids' situation with boundary changes that did not go our way? 10 years ago I didn't think my pyramid could get this bad. Why are our reasons invalid?
Why do only the johnny-come-lately folks have ground to stand on to prevent any further changes?

Sorry but it's the risk we all take when buying houses that aren't literally next door to the school (and even then you're not guaranteed that you're in boundary).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the way things are in the county with most of the poverty (and issues associated with poverty) being clustered in only certain areas, I’m not sure that any boundary change would be enough. I do think there are some changes (some of them aren’t even too painful!) they can make to relieve some specific overcrowding scenarios, but boundary changes can’t change the fact that Lewis HS is 63% FARMS, 25% ESOL, and very under-enrolled, because those are also the demographics of the neighborhoods that feed into the school. And no one wants bussing, kids don’t want an hour long bus ride across the county to go to a “better” school with kids they don’t even know.

Honestly at the ES level I disagree. There are many schools that could get apartment complexes to diversify their school more. We are at Freedom Hill and there is an apartment building cut in half (half go to Lemon Road and 1/2 go to FH). It is closer to Lemon Road but parents fought taking the whole complex cause they felt that would turn the school Title 1. Same thing with Shrevewood. There are complexes zoned for Shrevewood that really are closer to Stenwood.

In my opinion, I think every ES should have at least one apartment complex. That is why Great Schools is messed up.

Shrevewood parent here - I don't know why Stenwood parents have so much power. They are underenrolled and pre-Covid, Shrevewood was over capacity, but they still refused to move the Dunn Loring apartments to Stenwood because the parents are so obnoxious about it. I also don't understand why the townhouse community by the cemetery isn't zoned to Stenwood, Graham Road, or Timberlane. All three are closer to Shrevewood.

[Anonymous]

What I'd like to see is moving houses in Herndon/Oak Hill that are currently zoned to Oakton moved to Chantilly. It's so much closer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the way things are in the county with most of the poverty (and issues associated with poverty) being clustered in only certain areas, I’m not sure that any boundary change would be enough. I do think there are some changes (some of them aren’t even too painful!) they can make to relieve some specific overcrowding scenarios, but boundary changes can’t change the fact that Lewis HS is 63% FARMS, 25% ESOL, and very under-enrolled, because those are also the demographics of the neighborhoods that feed into the school. And no one wants bussing, kids don’t want an hour long bus ride across the county to go to a “better” school with kids they don’t even know.

Honestly at the ES level I disagree. There are many schools that could get apartment complexes to diversify their school more. We are at Freedom Hill and there is an apartment building cut in half (half go to Lemon Road and 1/2 go to FH). It is closer to Lemon Road but parents fought taking the whole complex cause they felt that would turn the school Title 1. Same thing with Shrevewood. There are complexes zoned for Shrevewood that really are closer to Stenwood.

In my opinion, I think every ES should have at least one apartment complex. That is why Great Schools is messed up.

Shrevewood parent here - I don't know why Stenwood parents have so much power. They are underenrolled and pre-Covid, Shrevewood was over capacity, but they still refused to move the Dunn Loring apartments to Stenwood because the parents are so obnoxious about it. I also don't understand why the townhouse community by the cemetery isn't zoned to Stenwood, Graham Road, or Timberlane. All three are closer to Shrevewood.

The apartments/condos outside the Beltway now zoned to Shrevewood will surely move to Stenwood when Dunn Loring ES opens because much of Stenwood is going to have to move to Dunn Loring. They are going to have to do something to justify the completely unnecessary construction of DLES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the way things are in the county with most of the poverty (and issues associated with poverty) being clustered in only certain areas, I’m not sure that any boundary change would be enough. I do think there are some changes (some of them aren’t even too painful!) they can make to relieve some specific overcrowding scenarios, but boundary changes can’t change the fact that Lewis HS is 63% FARMS, 25% ESOL, and very under-enrolled, because those are also the demographics of the neighborhoods that feed into the school. And no one wants bussing, kids don’t want an hour long bus ride across the county to go to a “better” school with kids they don’t even know.

Honestly at the ES level I disagree. There are many schools that could get apartment complexes to diversify their school more. We are at Freedom Hill and there is an apartment building cut in half (half go to Lemon Road and 1/2 go to FH). It is closer to Lemon Road but parents fought taking the whole complex cause they felt that would turn the school Title 1. Same thing with Shrevewood. There are complexes zoned for Shrevewood that really are closer to Stenwood.

In my opinion, I think every ES should have at least one apartment complex. That is why Great Schools is messed up.

Shrevewood parent here - I don't know why Stenwood parents have so much power. They are underenrolled and pre-Covid, Shrevewood was over capacity, but they still refused to move the Dunn Loring apartments to Stenwood because the parents are so obnoxious about it. I also don't understand why the townhouse community by the cemetery isn't zoned to Stenwood, Graham Road, or Timberlane. All three are closer to Shrevewood.

The apartments/condos outside the Beltway now zoned to Shrevewood will surely move to Stenwood when Dunn Loring ES opens because much of Stenwood is going to have to move to Dunn Loring. They are going to have to do something to justify the completely unnecessary construction of DLES.

Will they really? FCPS has never justified anything in the past, why start now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I'd like to see is moving houses in Herndon/Oak Hill that are currently zoned to Oakton moved to Chantilly. It's so much closer.

Highly unlikely without some county-wide changes that move other current Chantilly neighborhoods elsewhere. It already has around 2900 kids. And Chantilly’s boundaries are quite compact, so who there now wants to move to Fairfax, Centreville, etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the way things are in the county with most of the poverty (and issues associated with poverty) being clustered in only certain areas, I’m not sure that any boundary change would be enough. I do think there are some changes (some of them aren’t even too painful!) they can make to relieve some specific overcrowding scenarios, but boundary changes can’t change the fact that Lewis HS is 63% FARMS, 25% ESOL, and very under-enrolled, because those are also the demographics of the neighborhoods that feed into the school. And no one wants bussing, kids don’t want an hour long bus ride across the county to go to a “better” school with kids they don’t even know.

Honestly at the ES level I disagree. There are many schools that could get apartment complexes to diversify their school more. We are at Freedom Hill and there is an apartment building cut in half (half go to Lemon Road and 1/2 go to FH). It is closer to Lemon Road but parents fought taking the whole complex cause they felt that would turn the school Title 1. Same thing with Shrevewood. There are complexes zoned for Shrevewood that really are closer to Stenwood.

In my opinion, I think every ES should have at least one apartment complex. That is why Great Schools is messed up.

Shrevewood parent here - I don't know why Stenwood parents have so much power. They are underenrolled and pre-Covid, Shrevewood was over capacity, but they still refused to move the Dunn Loring apartments to Stenwood because the parents are so obnoxious about it. I also don't understand why the townhouse community by the cemetery isn't zoned to Stenwood, Graham Road, or Timberlane. All three are closer to Shrevewood.

The apartments/condos outside the Beltway now zoned to Shrevewood will surely move to Stenwood when Dunn Loring ES opens because much of Stenwood is going to have to move to Dunn Loring. They are going to have to do something to justify the completely unnecessary construction of DLES.

Will they really? FCPS has never justified anything in the past, why start now?

Maybe “justify” is the wrong word. They are going to have to back fill Dunn Loring when it opens. They will start by reassigning some Stenwood and Freedom Hill kids there and then there will be ripple effects that include moving part of Shrevewood to Stenwood. It doesn’t matter whether Stenwood parents opposed that previously, as PP contends. So much of Stenwood is going to get moved to Dunn Loring that Stenwood will need more kids to have a functioning school.

They will need another ES in the Tysons area but it never should have been planned at Dunn Loring, which is really in eastern Vienna, not Tysons, and not near where the growth is occurring. Karl Frisch pushed this through because he wanted to save Blake Lane Park, not because a new school is needed near Gallows/Idylwood. The rest of the School Board was too brain-dead and burnt out from Covid-related issues to object, but it’s total idiocy.

[Anonymous]

I'm making an offer on a house in the extreme north-western part of Langley HS district, near Seneca road. It's in the 7-1 grid of https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/medi...choolBoundaries.pdf. My son is in 1st grade currently, would prefer Cooper/Langley as schools.

Given where things are at, is there any intent by FCPS to move that part of Langley into Herndon HS, has that been proposed or discussed? I saw a comments to that in this thread, wondering if this was ever really entertained.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like it will be looked at this summer as she brought it up again in Glasgow MS meeting yesterday noting system-wide boundaries haven't been looked at in 37 years.

[Anonymous]

At least 8 of the 12 School Board members elected this fall will be new. Maybe they can postpone Dunn Loring ES indefinitely and blame it on rising construction costs. It is the definition of a boondoggle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm making an offer on a house in the extreme north-western part of Langley HS district, near Seneca road. It's in the 7-1 grid of https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/medi...choolBoundaries.pdf. My son is in 1st grade currently, would prefer Cooper/Langley as schools.

Given where things are at, is there any intent by FCPS to move that part of Langley into Herndon HS, has that been proposed or discussed? I saw a comments to that in this thread, wondering if this was ever really entertained.

There is no such intention and nothing to that effect is currently being discussed by people in a position to actually make it happen.

It occasionally gets discussed in DCUM, which is not the same thing. Realistically the only way the area you are referring to would get moved back to Herndon is if there were a county-wide boundary realignment or FCPS builds a new western HS, in which case FCPS might move kids in and out of both Langley and Herndon. Nothing like that is going to happen any time soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like it will be looked at this summer as she brought it up again in Glasgow MS meeting yesterday noting system-wide boundaries haven't been looked at in 37 years.

If they look at it this summer it will be done under lock and key because the last thing the Democrats want heading into the fall 2023 elections are reports that FCPS plans to change the boundaries across the entire county.

There’s a reason why the last county-wide boundary changes occurred 37 years ago - when a then-appointed School Board last did this in the 1980s it was so unpopular that they switched to an elected board. The thinking was that elected members would be more accountable to constituents and less likely to impose boundary changes on families against their will. Obviously that has led to its own issues over time but most people will continue to oppose getting rezoned absent the construction of a brand new school (and even then changes can be highly contentious).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like it will be looked at this summer as she brought it up again in Glasgow MS meeting yesterday noting system-wide boundaries haven't been looked at in 37 years.

Really odd she’d spout off about this at Glasgow. Glasgow is big and chaotic but if they want to reduce the enrollment there all they need to do is send some of the AAP kids at Glasgow back to Holmes and Poe, their base schools.

But I guess there’s more mileage for Reid and Ricardy Anderson if they suggest to (white) people in Mason District that the boundaries are “unfair” and that maybe they’re going to start bussing kids across the county. Good luck with that, Michelle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like it will be looked at this summer as she brought it up again in Glasgow MS meeting yesterday noting system-wide boundaries haven't been looked at in 37 years.

Who is she? Reid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm making an offer on a house in the extreme north-western part of Langley HS district, near Seneca road. It's in the 7-1 grid of https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/medi...choolBoundaries.pdf. My son is in 1st grade currently, would prefer Cooper/Langley as schools.

Given where things are at, is there any intent by FCPS to move that part of Langley into Herndon HS, has that been proposed or discussed? I saw a comments to that in this thread, wondering if this was ever really entertained.

I mean, yes, sending the far northwestern part of the county back to Herndon HS boundaries is a thing that could happen. A PP alluded to it earlier in the thread, and then the Langley boundaries would absorb one of the ES in the McLean pyramid. But Herndon HS doesn’t have the capacity right now to absorb a whole additional ES into its boundaries. The MS seems to have more “room” because the capacity dashboard shows it with a number of modular/temporary classrooms, but those are unpopular and not meant to be long term solutions. And building the mythical western HS that could change boundaries at multiple schools is at least 10 years away from completion and probably longer than that. So if you have a current 1st/rising 2nd grader I wouldn’t worry too much about it at all.