FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Close Lewis and split the kids between WSHS, Edison, and Hayfield. Move some kids out of WSHS to Robinson and Lake Braddock to accommodate. Done!

That’s what will happen if they end up closing Lewis as a neighborhood school. Keep an eye on the new accreditation and quality metrics coming out of the state and how FCPS is going to try to deal with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lewis doesn’t have a full slate of AP courses, the language offerings are paltry, advanced classes have fewer sessions (so greater likelihood of a scheduling conflict), fewer parents get involved, some sports don’t have teams below varsity, extra-curricular programs fiction on a shoestring compared to wealthier schools.

Aren’t they offering AP at Lewis these days? I thought they were getting away from IB because of all the transfers out. And if a student maxes out the offered AP/IB classes, there is always dual enrollment. Honestly the rest of the stuff ultimately sounds petty to me. The purpose of high school is to get an education. You’ll never have high parental involvement at a high ESOL, high poverty school, no matter if it’s elementary, middle, or high school. Undoing a boundary change from 20(!) years ago to create another split feeder won’t bring in an onslaught of parental involvement.

Fortunately, with a 2800-student school nearby, they can adjust the boundaries, create two schools closer to 2200 students each, and mitigate these “petty” problems.

Exactly. These issues are “petty” until they impact the experience of their children. But it’s totally fine for ”others” to have subpar facilities, instruction and access to extracurricular activities.

Why do you want MORE kids to have subpar facilities, instruction, and access to extracurricular activities? Why not focus on improving the school rather than just throwing more kids into it?

The whole point of this exercise is to balance the scales a bit. By adjusting the boundaries, the quality of education at your current school doesn’t change at all. But for the kids at Lewis, it will make a world of difference (maybe not immediately but eventually).

You’re really fighting this because YOUR CHILDREN might be impacted. You care nothing about families who’ve been waiting years for improvements to Lewis. We bought more than a decade ago, before we had children. I guess we should have anticipated that the county would flood its school system with poor immigrants and refugees, dragging our already neglected and struggling high school down even further.

But I’m the selfish one?

Stop taking this so personally.

+1. Also bought in a "poor" pyramid over a decade ago. Back then of course we knew our pyramid wasn't one of the Langleys, but it was still a very solid choice compared to the rest of Virginia. Now more than a few FCPS high schools are worse than the US average in test scores, or are quickly trending in that direction. None of us could have imagined that would happen to a school in Fairfax County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Close Lewis and split the kids between WSHS, Edison, and Hayfield. Move some kids out of WSHS to Robinson and Lake Braddock to accommodate. Done!

That’s what will happen if they end up closing Lewis as a neighborhood school. Keep an eye on the new accreditation and quality metrics coming out of the state and how FCPS is going to try to deal with it.

I don't think FCPS will close a school that is named after a Black Civil Rights Icon b/c they fear it will look like they are against or not supporting Black Civil Rights. FCPS would think like that. Other people would just look at the school objectively and make decisions without regard to the name. But, FCPS and Anderson will definitely make hay about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Close Lewis and split the kids between WSHS, Edison, and Hayfield. Move some kids out of WSHS to Robinson and Lake Braddock to accommodate. Done!

That’s what will happen if they end up closing Lewis as a neighborhood school. Keep an eye on the new accreditation and quality metrics coming out of the state and how FCPS is going to try to deal with it.

I don't think FCPS will close a school that is named after a Black Civil Rights Icon b/c they fear it will look like they are against or not supporting Black Civil Rights. FCPS would think like that. Other people would just look at the school objectively and make decisions without regard to the name. But, FCPS and Anderson will definitely make hay about that.

The last time they toyed with the idea of closing a high school was probably Marshall in the 90s when its enrollment was around 1100. It was no doubt tempting given how much money they could have gotten for selling a site around Tysons. But they didn’t, and that’s fortunate, since the school’s enrollment eventually doubled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are zoned for HVES and for us school proximity is everything. The psychological barrier of the commute between our neighborhood and driving to Lewis is real. We want to remain an engaged family that supports our schools but it is not doable if it means a drive through traffic to Lewis. You could reverse Lewis and South County HS and we would want Lewis for proximity (if we are forced out of WSHS).

Bullsh*t.

That traffic isn’t bad. Stop your nonsense. It’s similar to everywhere here in NOVA.

And tell your mates to stop suggesting South County….thats a bad look.

Wow someone got triggered. PP has a valid point, and one of the updated 8130 priorities is to keep students in close proximity to schools for engagement and sense of community. It’s not just about commute, it’s about not riding in a vehicle to a far off school that makes no sense when there are two closer high schools.

Another priority is providing students with equitable opportunities and kids at a school like Lewis with 1600 students don’t have the same breadth of opportunities as kids at a school with over 2500 kids.

What specific “opportunities” are missing? No one can answer this. I even asked upthread and the answer was basically “we have to have our school dances on Friday because they’re cheaper and the athletic boosters aren’t as involved.”

Example - a few years ago they did not field a baseball team. The football team has been in jeopardy of not being viable.

At 1600 students they can't offer as many different classes or as many instances of those classes relative to other schools in the county (FCPS high schools average around 2300 students). So maybe they offer a class, but it only gets offered for one period - so if that doesn't fit in your schedule then you are out of luck.

And on top of that, the concentration of poverty puts a very large burden on those families that can support the extracurricular activities.

If all the schools in the FCPS legal jurisdiction were of similar size then this wouldn't stand out, but Lewis really is an outlier.

That might be accurate but it’s absurd. I went to a high school with 1200 kids in it in central Virginia, in a very poor district, and we had football and baseball teams. And plenty of classes.

[Anonymous]

When will all the rezoning be completely finished?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Close Lewis and split the kids between WSHS, Edison, and Hayfield. Move some kids out of WSHS to Robinson and Lake Braddock to accommodate. Done!

That’s what will happen if they end up closing Lewis as a neighborhood school. Keep an eye on the new accreditation and quality metrics coming out of the state and how FCPS is going to try to deal with it.

I don't think FCPS will close a school that is named after a Black Civil Rights Icon b/c they fear it will look like they are against or not supporting Black Civil Rights. FCPS would think like that. Other people would just look at the school objectively and make decisions without regard to the name. But, FCPS and Anderson will definitely make hay about that.

The last time they toyed with the idea of closing a high school was probably Marshall in the 90s when its enrollment was around 1100. It was no doubt tempting given how much money they could have gotten for selling a site around Tysons. But they didn’t, and that’s fortunate, since the school’s enrollment eventually doubled.

MCPS closed a lot of high schools like Northwood HS in the 1980s as a result of the previous decade’s baby boom bust. They have slowly been reopening them over the past 25 years or so. APS planned to close Yorktown HS when its population hovered around the point of no return, far below 1000 students in the 80s. FCPS only closed original TJ and Fort Hunt.

Lewis High School is no where near as small as those schools were in the 1980s. The difference today is that the minimum baseline of acceptability is now around 1500 students. And on average we now build high schools to just under 3,000 students. It’s cheaper than operating multiple smaller schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are zoned for HVES and for us school proximity is everything. The psychological barrier of the commute between our neighborhood and driving to Lewis is real. We want to remain an engaged family that supports our schools but it is not doable if it means a drive through traffic to Lewis. You could reverse Lewis and South County HS and we would want Lewis for proximity (if we are forced out of WSHS).

Bullsh*t.

That traffic isn’t bad. Stop your nonsense. It’s similar to everywhere here in NOVA.

And tell your mates to stop suggesting South County….thats a bad look.

Wow someone got triggered. PP has a valid point, and one of the updated 8130 priorities is to keep students in close proximity to schools for engagement and sense of community. It’s not just about commute, it’s about not riding in a vehicle to a far off school that makes no sense when there are two closer high schools.

Another priority is providing students with equitable opportunities and kids at a school like Lewis with 1600 students don’t have the same breadth of opportunities as kids at a school with over 2500 kids.

What specific “opportunities” are missing? No one can answer this. I even asked upthread and the answer was basically “we have to have our school dances on Friday because they’re cheaper and the athletic boosters aren’t as involved.”

Example - a few years ago they did not field a baseball team. The football team has been in jeopardy of not being viable.

At 1600 students they can't offer as many different classes or as many instances of those classes relative to other schools in the county (FCPS high schools average around 2300 students). So maybe they offer a class, but it only gets offered for one period - so if that doesn't fit in your schedule then you are out of luck.

And on top of that, the concentration of poverty puts a very large burden on those families that can support the extracurricular activities.

If all the schools in the FCPS legal jurisdiction were of similar size then this wouldn't stand out, but Lewis really is an outlier.

That might be accurate but it’s absurd. I went to a high school with 1200 kids in it in central Virginia, in a very poor district, and we had football and baseball teams. And plenty of classes.

Yeah and I’m sure those kids were mostly from poor immigrant families, who had competing educational and family priorities (like working to contribute to the household or watching younger siblings while their parents worked).

Some of yall are out of touch with reality and it shows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are zoned for HVES and for us school proximity is everything. The psychological barrier of the commute between our neighborhood and driving to Lewis is real. We want to remain an engaged family that supports our schools but it is not doable if it means a drive through traffic to Lewis. You could reverse Lewis and South County HS and we would want Lewis for proximity (if we are forced out of WSHS).

Bullsh*t.

That traffic isn’t bad. Stop your nonsense. It’s similar to everywhere here in NOVA.

And tell your mates to stop suggesting South County….thats a bad look.

Wow someone got triggered. PP has a valid point, and one of the updated 8130 priorities is to keep students in close proximity to schools for engagement and sense of community. It’s not just about commute, it’s about not riding in a vehicle to a far off school that makes no sense when there are two closer high schools.

Another priority is providing students with equitable opportunities and kids at a school like Lewis with 1600 students don’t have the same breadth of opportunities as kids at a school with over 2500 kids.

What specific “opportunities” are missing? No one can answer this. I even asked upthread and the answer was basically “we have to have our school dances on Friday because they’re cheaper and the athletic boosters aren’t as involved.”

Example - a few years ago they did not field a baseball team. The football team has been in jeopardy of not being viable.

At 1600 students they can't offer as many different classes or as many instances of those classes relative to other schools in the county (FCPS high schools average around 2300 students). So maybe they offer a class, but it only gets offered for one period - so if that doesn't fit in your schedule then you are out of luck.

And on top of that, the concentration of poverty puts a very large burden on those families that can support the extracurricular activities.

If all the schools in the FCPS legal jurisdiction were of similar size then this wouldn't stand out, but Lewis really is an outlier.

That might be accurate but it’s absurd. I went to a high school with 1200 kids in it in central Virginia, in a very poor district, and we had football and baseball teams. And plenty of classes.

If Lewis wasn't 750 students smaller than the county average high school (187 per grade) or 1100 students smaller than its neighbor West Springfield (275 per grade) it would not be a problem. But those things are true, and it does make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lewis doesn’t have a full slate of AP courses, the language offerings are paltry, advanced classes have fewer sessions (so greater likelihood of a scheduling conflict), fewer parents get involved, some sports don’t have teams below varsity, extra-curricular programs fiction on a shoestring compared to wealthier schools.

Aren’t they offering AP at Lewis these days? I thought they were getting away from IB because of all the transfers out. And if a student maxes out the offered AP/IB classes, there is always dual enrollment. Honestly the rest of the stuff ultimately sounds petty to me. The purpose of high school is to get an education. You’ll never have high parental involvement at a high ESOL, high poverty school, no matter if it’s elementary, middle, or high school. Undoing a boundary change from 20(!) years ago to create another split feeder won’t bring in an onslaught of parental involvement.

Fortunately, with a 2800-student school nearby, they can adjust the boundaries, create two schools closer to 2200 students each, and mitigate these “petty” problems.

Exactly. These issues are “petty” until they impact the experience of their children. But it’s totally fine for ”others” to have subpar facilities, instruction and access to extracurricular activities.

Why do you want MORE kids to have subpar facilities, instruction, and access to extracurricular activities? Why not focus on improving the school rather than just throwing more kids into it?

The whole point of this exercise is to balance the scales a bit. By adjusting the boundaries, the quality of education at your current school doesn’t change at all. But for the kids at Lewis, it will make a world of difference (maybe not immediately but eventually).

You’re really fighting this because YOUR CHILDREN might be impacted. You care nothing about families who’ve been waiting years for improvements to Lewis. We bought more than a decade ago, before we had children. I guess we should have anticipated that the county would flood its school system with poor immigrants and refugees, dragging our already neglected and struggling high school down even further.

But I’m the selfish one?

Stop taking this so personally.

Presumably you didn’t vote for democrats because this is what they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Close Lewis and split the kids between WSHS, Edison, and Hayfield. Move some kids out of WSHS to Robinson and Lake Braddock to accommodate. Done!

West Springfield doesn’t want Lewis to come to West Springfield any more than West Springfield wants to go to Lewis. They want kids from Annandale or Edison sent to Lewis instead. The issue is that West Springfield is the school near Lewis sitting with almost 2800 kids, not Annandale or Lewis.

I don’t doubt there are things that need to happen to make Lewis more attractive, in particular getting rid of IB, offering a full menu of AP courses, and de-emphasizing the social justice program, which is of marginal benefit. But the school literally is an FCPS asset, and closing it would create more problems that it would solve.

This exactly. Even if WSHS didn't have 2800 students, they would absolutely revolt at having the ELL learners from the apartments behind Whole Foods zone to WSHS. That's the only logical school for them to go to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Close Lewis and split the kids between WSHS, Edison, and Hayfield. Move some kids out of WSHS to Robinson and Lake Braddock to accommodate. Done!

That’s what will happen if they end up closing Lewis as a neighborhood school. Keep an eye on the new accreditation and quality metrics coming out of the state and how FCPS is going to try to deal with it.

I don't think FCPS will close a school that is named after a Black Civil Rights Icon b/c they fear it will look like they are against or not supporting Black Civil Rights. FCPS would think like that. Other people would just look at the school objectively and make decisions without regard to the name. But, FCPS and Anderson will definitely make hay about that.

The last time they toyed with the idea of closing a high school was probably Marshall in the 90s when its enrollment was around 1100. It was no doubt tempting given how much money they could have gotten for selling a site around Tysons. But they didn’t, and that’s fortunate, since the school’s enrollment eventually doubled.

MCPS closed a lot of high schools like Northwood HS in the 1980s as a result of the previous decade’s baby boom bust. They have slowly been reopening them over the past 25 years or so. APS planned to close Yorktown HS when its population hovered around the point of no return, far below 1000 students in the 80s. FCPS only closed original TJ and Fort Hunt.

Lewis High School is no where near as small as those schools were in the 1980s. The difference today is that the minimum baseline of acceptability is now around 1500 students. And on average we now build high schools to just under 3,000 students. It’s cheaper than operating multiple smaller schools.

Depending on the outcome of the election, more may be coming in from the border to Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Close Lewis and split the kids between WSHS, Edison, and Hayfield. Move some kids out of WSHS to Robinson and Lake Braddock to accommodate. Done!

That’s what will happen if they end up closing Lewis as a neighborhood school. Keep an eye on the new accreditation and quality metrics coming out of the state and how FCPS is going to try to deal with it.

I don't think FCPS will close a school that is named after a Black Civil Rights Icon b/c they fear it will look like they are against or not supporting Black Civil Rights. FCPS would think like that. Other people would just look at the school objectively and make decisions without regard to the name. But, FCPS and Anderson will definitely make hay about that.

The last time they toyed with the idea of closing a high school was probably Marshall in the 90s when its enrollment was around 1100. It was no doubt tempting given how much money they could have gotten for selling a site around Tysons. But they didn’t, and that’s fortunate, since the school’s enrollment eventually doubled.

MCPS closed a lot of high schools like Northwood HS in the 1980s as a result of the previous decade’s baby boom bust. They have slowly been reopening them over the past 25 years or so. APS planned to close Yorktown HS when its population hovered around the point of no return, far below 1000 students in the 80s. FCPS only closed original TJ and Fort Hunt.

Lewis High School is no where near as small as those schools were in the 1980s. The difference today is that the minimum baseline of acceptability is now around 1500 students. And on average we now build high schools to just under 3,000 students. It’s cheaper than operating multiple smaller schools.

Depending on the outcome of the election, more may be coming in from the border to Lewis.

Regardless of one’s view on immigration, pro or anti, districts around the country have come up with novel approaches to educating students new to the country.

PGCPS a number of years ago created a separate school for immigrants with limited English proficiency. Near Langley Park and also Bladensburg I believe. Of course there are pluses and minuses to creating such schools. And there may be yet unchallenged legal issues with that approach.

I believe in Virginia, most school districts prefer the approach of mainstreaming those students with the general population. Different states approach this differently.

Regarding Lewis, it’s a similar challenge to the one PGCPS “solved” a few years back. Should FCPS create a separate “International High School” for those students? Where would FCPS locate such a school and how would it impact the population of Lewis? Would it be challenged in the courts? Unlike Maryland, Va prefers to mainstream students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Close Lewis and split the kids between WSHS, Edison, and Hayfield. Move some kids out of WSHS to Robinson and Lake Braddock to accommodate. Done!

That’s what will happen if they end up closing Lewis as a neighborhood school. Keep an eye on the new accreditation and quality metrics coming out of the state and how FCPS is going to try to deal with it.

I don't think FCPS will close a school that is named after a Black Civil Rights Icon b/c they fear it will look like they are against or not supporting Black Civil Rights. FCPS would think like that. Other people would just look at the school objectively and make decisions without regard to the name. But, FCPS and Anderson will definitely make hay about that.

The last time they toyed with the idea of closing a high school was probably Marshall in the 90s when its enrollment was around 1100. It was no doubt tempting given how much money they could have gotten for selling a site around Tysons. But they didn’t, and that’s fortunate, since the school’s enrollment eventually doubled.

MCPS closed a lot of high schools like Northwood HS in the 1980s as a result of the previous decade’s baby boom bust. They have slowly been reopening them over the past 25 years or so. APS planned to close Yorktown HS when its population hovered around the point of no return, far below 1000 students in the 80s. FCPS only closed original TJ and Fort Hunt.

Lewis High School is no where near as small as those schools were in the 1980s. The difference today is that the minimum baseline of acceptability is now around 1500 students. And on average we now build high schools to just under 3,000 students. It’s cheaper than operating multiple smaller schools.

Depending on the outcome of the election, more may be coming in from the border to Lewis.

Regardless of one’s view on immigration, pro or anti, districts around the country have come up with novel approaches to educating students new to the country.

PGCPS a number of years ago created a separate school for immigrants with limited English proficiency. Near Langley Park and also Bladensburg I believe. Of course there are pluses and minuses to creating such schools. And there may be yet unchallenged legal issues with that approach.

I believe in Virginia, most school districts prefer the approach of mainstreaming those students with the general population. Different states approach this differently.

Regarding Lewis, it’s a similar challenge to the one PGCPS “solved” a few years back. Should FCPS create a separate “International High School” for those students? Where would FCPS locate such a school and how would it impact the population of Lewis? Would it be challenged in the courts? Unlike Maryland, Va prefers to mainstream students.

I'm not sure the student profile at Lewis is too different from Annandale or Falls Church. Herndon and Justice are also similar, though they have more UMC families. Mount Vernon is also similar, although it probably has more AA poverty and fewer first-generation students.

The main thing that gives rise to all the suggestions to offer a pilot or magnet program at Lewis is that it's near a school - West Springfield - that has a huge enrollment yet has parents that are constantly looking for ways to distance themselves from Lewis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When will all the rezoning be completely finished?

Never? I mean, the current round of "we haven't really done this in decades" boundary review is likely to be implemented for 26-27 or 27-28 school year, but part of the policy change is to continue these reviews going forward and making small adjustments as appropriate so we don't end up in the same situation we are now where people have such strong entrenched expectations about being entitled to attend certain schools, and to be able to respond to growth and redevelopment in a responsible way in the future, and that entails making reasonable boundary adjustments as one of the tools in the toolkit.