FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Turn Lewis into a pure Votech school. Move the Academy classes to Lewis, keep the core classes (Math, Science, History, LA), and add traditional votech classes. Set up a school for kids who don’t want to go to college and want to look at the trades. Give them a place where they feel supported and have access to career choices to explore.

I would have no problem with a ELL school that is focused on teaching kids English and getting them caught up in core subjects. Many of the ELL students arrive in school with no or limited academic history. They need a school that is able to address their unique concerns.

You write this as if every kid who lives within the Lewis boundaries would only benefit from vocational options. That is not the case, and it’s educational redlining.

In the other hand, if you’re suggesting that Lewis become a vocational center for students across the county, lots of boundaries would need to change since, among other things, several of the current Lewis feeders would be reassigned to West Springfield. Also, to maintain feeder patterns Key also has to close or be repurposed.

It would be open to all students in FCPS, in the same way TJ is. The County would provide bussing to the school. Lewis kids who don’t want to attend Vo-Tech would be redistributed to HS in the area, the way some posters have suggested if Lewis were shut down.

Vo-Tech schools are something that are fairly common in some parts of the Country. There is normally one that shared by smaller school districts in Massachusetts. It provides a viable option for kids to complete their degrees while finding a trade or path that makes sense for students not interested in college.

We know that there is an issue with absenteeism across the county, part of that is that there are kids who are not interested in academics or college. They might be more interested in attending school if they saw school as a way to learn a trade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Turn Lewis into a pure Votech school. Move the Academy classes to Lewis, keep the core classes (Math, Science, History, LA), and add traditional votech classes. Set up a school for kids who don’t want to go to college and want to look at the trades. Give them a place where they feel supported and have access to career choices to explore.

I would have no problem with a ELL school that is focused on teaching kids English and getting them caught up in core subjects. Many of the ELL students arrive in school with no or limited academic history. They need a school that is able to address their unique concerns.

You write this as if every kid who lives within the Lewis boundaries would only benefit from vocational options. That is not the case, and it’s educational redlining.

In the other hand, if you’re suggesting that Lewis become a vocational center for students across the county, lots of boundaries would need to change since, among other things, several of the current Lewis feeders would be reassigned to West Springfield. Also, to maintain feeder patterns Key also has to close or be repurposed.

It would be open to all students in FCPS, in the same way TJ is. The County would provide bussing to the school. Lewis kids who don’t want to attend Vo-Tech would be redistributed to HS in the area, the way some posters have suggested if Lewis were shut down.

Vo-Tech schools are something that are fairly common in some parts of the Country. There is normally one that shared by smaller school districts in Massachusetts. It provides a viable option for kids to complete their degrees while finding a trade or path that makes sense for students not interested in college.

We know that there is an issue with absenteeism across the county, part of that is that there are kids who are not interested in academics or college. They might be more interested in attending school if they saw school as a way to learn a trade.

There are already a lot of vocational programs available at Academies in different locations. If you centralize them at Lewis, students closer to Chantilly, Edison, Marshall, etc might be less likely to take advantage of these types of courses.

Perhaps there should be better counseling or more emphasis on what’s available at the Academies, but I’m not persuaded that converting Lewis to a vo-tech school is a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Turn Lewis into a pure Votech school. Move the Academy classes to Lewis, keep the core classes (Math, Science, History, LA), and add traditional votech classes. Set up a school for kids who don’t want to go to college and want to look at the trades. Give them a place where they feel supported and have access to career choices to explore.

I would have no problem with a ELL school that is focused on teaching kids English and getting them caught up in core subjects. Many of the ELL students arrive in school with no or limited academic history. They need a school that is able to address their unique concerns.

You write this as if every kid who lives within the Lewis boundaries would only benefit from vocational options. That is not the case, and it’s educational redlining.

In the other hand, if you’re suggesting that Lewis become a vocational center for students across the county, lots of boundaries would need to change since, among other things, several of the current Lewis feeders would be reassigned to West Springfield. Also, to maintain feeder patterns Key also has to close or be repurposed.

It would be open to all students in FCPS, in the same way TJ is. The County would provide bussing to the school. Lewis kids who don’t want to attend Vo-Tech would be redistributed to HS in the area, the way some posters have suggested if Lewis were shut down.

Vo-Tech schools are something that are fairly common in some parts of the Country. There is normally one that shared by smaller school districts in Massachusetts. It provides a viable option for kids to complete their degrees while finding a trade or path that makes sense for students not interested in college.

We know that there is an issue with absenteeism across the county, part of that is that there are kids who are not interested in academics or college. They might be more interested in attending school if they saw school as a way to learn a trade.

There are already a lot of vocational programs available at Academies in different locations. If you centralize them at Lewis, students closer to Chantilly, Edison, Marshall, etc might be less likely to take advantage of these types of courses.

Perhaps there should be better counseling or more emphasis on what’s available at the Academies, but I’m not persuaded that converting Lewis to a vo-tech school is a good idea.

The Academies are inconvenient for anyone not a student at the host school. They require kids to miss extra periods for transport to the academy school. I know kids who were interested and choose not to attend an academy because it was simply too disruptive to their schedule. The strength of a dedicated school is that the kids take all of their classes at one school. There is no disruption to their schedule. They are taking classes with kids with similar interests. They have the opportunity to explore a variety of options because the programs are in one place.

The Academy set up is inconvenient and requires kids to not have classes so they can be transported to a different school. It is a ludicrous set up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Turn Lewis into a pure Votech school. Move the Academy classes to Lewis, keep the core classes (Math, Science, History, LA), and add traditional votech classes. Set up a school for kids who don’t want to go to college and want to look at the trades. Give them a place where they feel supported and have access to career choices to explore.

I would have no problem with a ELL school that is focused on teaching kids English and getting them caught up in core subjects. Many of the ELL students arrive in school with no or limited academic history. They need a school that is able to address their unique concerns.

You write this as if every kid who lives within the Lewis boundaries would only benefit from vocational options. That is not the case, and it’s educational redlining.

In the other hand, if you’re suggesting that Lewis become a vocational center for students across the county, lots of boundaries would need to change since, among other things, several of the current Lewis feeders would be reassigned to West Springfield. Also, to maintain feeder patterns Key also has to close or be repurposed.

It would be open to all students in FCPS, in the same way TJ is. The County would provide bussing to the school. Lewis kids who don’t want to attend Vo-Tech would be redistributed to HS in the area, the way some posters have suggested if Lewis were shut down.

Vo-Tech schools are something that are fairly common in some parts of the Country. There is normally one that shared by smaller school districts in Massachusetts. It provides a viable option for kids to complete their degrees while finding a trade or path that makes sense for students not interested in college.

We know that there is an issue with absenteeism across the county, part of that is that there are kids who are not interested in academics or college. They might be more interested in attending school if they saw school as a way to learn a trade.

There are already a lot of vocational programs available at Academies in different locations. If you centralize them at Lewis, students closer to Chantilly, Edison, Marshall, etc might be less likely to take advantage of these types of courses.

Perhaps there should be better counseling or more emphasis on what’s available at the Academies, but I’m not persuaded that converting Lewis to a vo-tech school is a good idea.

The Academies are inconvenient for anyone not a student at the host school. They require kids to miss extra periods for transport to the academy school. I know kids who were interested and choose not to attend an academy because it was simply too disruptive to their schedule. The strength of a dedicated school is that the kids take all of their classes at one school. There is no disruption to their schedule. They are taking classes with kids with similar interests. They have the opportunity to explore a variety of options because the programs are in one place.

The Academy set up is inconvenient and requires kids to not have classes so they can be transported to a different school. It is a ludicrous set up.

It will be far more disruptive if they convert Lewis and have to change even more boundaries. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Turn Lewis into a pure Votech school. Move the Academy classes to Lewis, keep the core classes (Math, Science, History, LA), and add traditional votech classes. Set up a school for kids who don’t want to go to college and want to look at the trades. Give them a place where they feel supported and have access to career choices to explore.

I would have no problem with a ELL school that is focused on teaching kids English and getting them caught up in core subjects. Many of the ELL students arrive in school with no or limited academic history. They need a school that is able to address their unique concerns.

You write this as if every kid who lives within the Lewis boundaries would only benefit from vocational options. That is not the case, and it’s educational redlining.

In the other hand, if you’re suggesting that Lewis become a vocational center for students across the county, lots of boundaries would need to change since, among other things, several of the current Lewis feeders would be reassigned to West Springfield. Also, to maintain feeder patterns Key also has to close or be repurposed.

It would be open to all students in FCPS, in the same way TJ is. The County would provide bussing to the school. Lewis kids who don’t want to attend Vo-Tech would be redistributed to HS in the area, the way some posters have suggested if Lewis were shut down.

Vo-Tech schools are something that are fairly common in some parts of the Country. There is normally one that shared by smaller school districts in Massachusetts. It provides a viable option for kids to complete their degrees while finding a trade or path that makes sense for students not interested in college.

We know that there is an issue with absenteeism across the county, part of that is that there are kids who are not interested in academics or college. They might be more interested in attending school if they saw school as a way to learn a trade.

I like this idea a lot!

[Anonymous]

So you have West Springfield parents complaining that it’s too difficult to get from their nearby neighborhoods to Lewis given the traffic near Franconia and 95, but you’re suggesting that FCPS bus kids from all over the county to Lewis for vo-tech?

Something doesn’t quite add up there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you have West Springfield parents complaining that it’s too difficult to get from their nearby neighborhoods to Lewis given the traffic near Franconia and 95, but you’re suggesting that FCPS bus kids from all over the county to Lewis for vo-tech?

Something doesn’t quite add up there.

DP. You realize that there are more than one posters on this thread, right?

Also, I don’t think that is comparable. If families want to voluntarily do a longer commute to school, I don’t see a problem.

That said, the voc change to Lewis is so theoretical and remote that it’s not even really worth discussing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you have West Springfield parents complaining that it’s too difficult to get from their nearby neighborhoods to Lewis given the traffic near Franconia and 95, but you’re suggesting that FCPS bus kids from all over the county to Lewis for vo-tech?

Something doesn’t quite add up there.

DP. You realize that there are more than one posters on this thread, right?

Also, I don’t think that is comparable. If families want to voluntarily do a longer commute to school, I don’t see a problem.

That said, the voc change to Lewis is so theoretical and remote that it’s not even really worth discussing.

Of course there are multiple posters, but the fact remains that Lewis is either reasonably accessible or it’s an inconvenient site that’s hard to access. If it’s an inconvenient site, that wouldn’t be ignored by people deciding whether to voluntarily attend a hypothetical vo-tech program there.

Conversely, if Lewis were considered a suitable site for a program for kids across the entire county, it certainly would not be too much of an imposition to reassign some of the kids in the county who live closest to that school there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you have West Springfield parents complaining that it’s too difficult to get from their nearby neighborhoods to Lewis given the traffic near Franconia and 95, but you’re suggesting that FCPS bus kids from all over the county to Lewis for vo-tech?

Something doesn’t quite add up there.

Our base school is SLHS, we don’t have Academies and there are a good number of kids who could benefit from taking those types of classes but don’t because they are hard to schedule. I know two kids who have said no to Academies because they are hard to schedule but who might have been interested if they were at their school. We cannot put Academies at every school, we have an under enrolled school with a population that might actually benefit from having access to Academies, and people are complaining about how it is hard to get to. Turn that school into a Vo Tech school so that kids who are not interested in college have a place to attend school that offer programs that work for them and don’t have to worry about weird scheduling. We use the space of an existing school more effectively, offer better options to kids who are not interested in college, and are eliminate the local concern about getting too and from the school.

The Vo Tech school in the area I grew up in was a well regarded option for many kids. It was a popular choice. We know that many kids are not interested in college but we don’t provide good options for those kids unless they are at the academy schools and it is easy to attend. Toss in that many of the kids that would benefit from the Academies are coming from families where their parents are less likely to be informed on the different options or how to apply for those options or how to work the scheduling for those options and you greatly limit the effectiveness of the Academies.

Put them in one place, allow kids to choose that option and move to a high school that fits their needs and you can decrease absenteeism, increase the graduation rates for an at risk population, increase the job prospects for an at risk population, and make better use of the space that we have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you have West Springfield parents complaining that it’s too difficult to get from their nearby neighborhoods to Lewis given the traffic near Franconia and 95, but you’re suggesting that FCPS bus kids from all over the county to Lewis for vo-tech?

Something doesn’t quite add up there.

Our base school is SLHS, we don’t have Academies and there are a good number of kids who could benefit from taking those types of classes but don’t because they are hard to schedule. I know two kids who have said no to Academies because they are hard to schedule but who might have been interested if they were at their school. We cannot put Academies at every school, we have an under enrolled school with a population that might actually benefit from having access to Academies, and people are complaining about how it is hard to get to. Turn that school into a Vo Tech school so that kids who are not interested in college have a place to attend school that offer programs that work for them and don’t have to worry about weird scheduling. We use the space of an existing school more effectively, offer better options to kids who are not interested in college, and are eliminate the local concern about getting too and from the school.

The Vo Tech school in the area I grew up in was a well regarded option for many kids. It was a popular choice. We know that many kids are not interested in college but we don’t provide good options for those kids unless they are at the academy schools and it is easy to attend. Toss in that many of the kids that would benefit from the Academies are coming from families where their parents are less likely to be informed on the different options or how to apply for those options or how to work the scheduling for those options and you greatly limit the effectiveness of the Academies.

Put them in one place, allow kids to choose that option and move to a high school that fits their needs and you can decrease absenteeism, increase the graduation rates for an at risk population, increase the job prospects for an at risk population, and make better use of the space that we have.

What you’re misting is that there has already been a significant investment in the academies, so there are sunk costs. You can’t just declare Lewis a vo-tech school. You’d have to invest more in the facility to make it suitable for that purpose, spend a lot of money to provide transportation to that school, and then figure out how it impacts the existing academies with vocational courses.

If we didn’t have the academies and were starting on a blank slate, maybe it would be a decent model, though I wonder whether kids in Herndon or Centreville who might benefit from such a school would stick with a program miles away in Springfield. But we aren’t starting on a blank slate so it’s not going to happen. The idea is mostly a Hail Mary thrown out by people looking to kill Lewis as a community school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you have West Springfield parents complaining that it’s too difficult to get from their nearby neighborhoods to Lewis given the traffic near Franconia and 95, but you’re suggesting that FCPS bus kids from all over the county to Lewis for vo-tech?

Something doesn’t quite add up there.

DP. You realize that there are more than one posters on this thread, right?

Also, I don’t think that is comparable. If families want to voluntarily do a longer commute to school, I don’t see a problem.

That said, the voc change to Lewis is so theoretical and remote that it’s not even really worth discussing.

2011 FCPS moved Bren Mar Park from Annandale to Edison. Edison is projected 100% plus capacity for all CIP years. Bren Mar Park avg 75/grade level so it's about 305 9-12. Lewis program capacity is 1920 - SY 28-29 projection: 1423 + 305= 90% utlization plus an Edison academy. Move Hayfield hat to Edison.

There are numerous 9-12 sites that could be in a boundary process for West Springfield with major dominoes.

Hayfield hat? projects into Edison-flip to Edison. Lewis could also receive academies located at Edison.

[Anonymous]

Why is the community here so anti-Lewis? (Lewis parent here, by the way.) I have found the academics there to be excellent, with more teacher-parent interaction than I've gotten since the preschool years. The teachers are truly dedicated. My kid is a Level IV AAP grad with pass-advanced SOL scores, but then, so is pretty much half of FCSP, so a typical student. We've found plenty of other parents really happy with the school. 

Where I've found things to be challenging is the money and activities side of things. We're not getting the huge boosts in fundraisers and ticket sales. The sports kids didn't spend years doing travel sports and training. The music kids are using old school instruments in cases held together with duct tape. The houses around the Lewis community are smaller, older structures that don't typically draw higher income families. 

That being said, these kids are doing amazing things with far fewer resources. Maybe give a shout out to the Lewis cheerleaders, who just won their district championship. Or take a look at the Lewis soccer team this spring. These kids work HARD for their successes.

Maybe come walk in the Lewis shoes for a week or two and see how amazing the community is. Meet the parents, the kids, the teaching staff. It's a small school, but with such a BIG heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is the community here so anti-Lewis? (Lewis parent here, by the way.) I have found the academics there to be excellent, with more teacher-parent interaction than I've gotten since the preschool years. The teachers are truly dedicated. My kid is a Level IV AAP grad with pass-advanced SOL scores, but then, so is pretty much half of FCSP, so a typical student. We've found plenty of other parents really happy with the school. 

Where I've found things to be challenging is the money and activities side of things. We're not getting the huge boosts in fundraisers and ticket sales. The sports kids didn't spend years doing travel sports and training. The music kids are using old school instruments in cases held together with duct tape. The houses around the Lewis community are smaller, older structures that don't typically draw higher income families. 

That being said, these kids are doing amazing things with far fewer resources. Maybe give a shout out to the Lewis cheerleaders, who just won their district championship. Or take a look at the Lewis soccer team this spring. These kids work HARD for their successes.

Maybe come walk in the Lewis shoes for a week or two and see how amazing the community is. Meet the parents, the kids, the teaching staff. It's a small school, but with such a BIG heart.

I agree. I working the pyramid and there is a lot of good from that school. Lewis is getting a bad rep and people believe things without doing their own research.

[Anonymous]

No one should be redistricted into an IB school against their wishes. It’s a niche program, whereas AP is more flexible and accepted.

If they scrap IB and offer the same AP courses as other AP schools, Lewis would have fewer pupil placements and be seen as more acceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is the community here so anti-Lewis? (Lewis parent here, by the way.) I have found the academics there to be excellent, with more teacher-parent interaction than I've gotten since the preschool years. The teachers are truly dedicated. My kid is a Level IV AAP grad with pass-advanced SOL scores, but then, so is pretty much half of FCSP, so a typical student. We've found plenty of other parents really happy with the school. 

Where I've found things to be challenging is the money and activities side of things. We're not getting the huge boosts in fundraisers and ticket sales. The sports kids didn't spend years doing travel sports and training. The music kids are using old school instruments in cases held together with duct tape. The houses around the Lewis community are smaller, older structures that don't typically draw higher income families. 

That being said, these kids are doing amazing things with far fewer resources. Maybe give a shout out to the Lewis cheerleaders, who just won their district championship. Or take a look at the Lewis soccer team this spring. These kids work HARD for their successes.

Maybe come walk in the Lewis shoes for a week or two and see how amazing the community is. Meet the parents, the kids, the teaching staff. It's a small school, but with such a BIG heart.

Happy to hear that things are going well at the school, and a corollary of that is that you are against the white savior approach that the school board is looking to do, right?