Limiting choice as a reason to not redistrict is not the way through this. It kills the things you want to flourish. In this political time of ‘parent choice” etc, limiting choices is not going to gain you ground in the long run. The boundary review should be limited at this point because of the instability the FCPS population is feeling as a result of being so tied to Federal instability. But attacking school choice right now is a bad plan. |
For a school board that is likely adamantly opposed to "school choice," they sure do give a lot of "outs." |
https://patch.com/virginia/across-va/public-school-enrollment-continues-fall-including-virginia
Pretty soon, FCPS is going to have to decide whether it wants UMC families in the school system. The school board can have its every five-year boundary change instability or they can retain these families. The trade-off is clear. |
Boundary changes justified by the need to relieve overcrowding don’t make a lot of sense when enrollments are already coming down for a number of reasons. It’s no surprise that this School Board is belatedly purporting to address yesterday’s problems, but they need to stand down. Otherwise they will simply contribute to a further decline in FCPS enrollment. |
There are not enough private schools in this area and most people cannot afford the $50,000 price tags, or more, of the majority of schools in this area. The article does not breakdown how many of those kids that are leaving are SPED kids whose parents are dissatisfied with the services offered in the public schools. It also points to kids leaving mainly in MS, where parents are placing kids in private school to avoid the hell that is MS by placing them in smaller MS. Many of those families return their kids to public HS. They are not going to adjust all the boundaries every 5 years but they will shift to use available space as schools become more crowded and other schools decrease in numbers. Loudoun does this right now and there are not that many complaints. They need to open new schools because of growth, maybe that explains the lack of complaint, but I have friends whose kids have changed schools in ES and HS. |
Arlington regularly shifts boundaries too. If you want to guarantee your pyramid, buy in FCC or the City of Fairfax. |
I'm sure FCPS has the data on which schools are losing the most students to private schools and which students are leaving FCPS to attend private schools. Teachers talk about this a lot. Many of my coworkers filled out a record number of referrals for private schools this past school year. Mostly UMC families with bright kids. |
The Board of Supervisors will love that! Reduce the number of families moving into Fairfax? Really? |
This is it right here- if schools are overcrowded, then they need to look at transfers before moving a neighborhood out. Many of these overcrowded HS are in very concentrated boundaries as is. Their current zoned HS is the closest HS. Neighborhoods should not get bumped because of kids who transfer for specific choices. How can we make those choices available without transferring? Maybe that’s where money should be spent instead of on a fancy consulting company. |
This. It is easier to move kids rather than address the issues and problems. |
Yes. And families should not be reassigned to fill seats at a school that is bleeding 10-15% of its inbounds student population to pupil placements. If IB is underutilized at a school and large numbers of students are placing out for AP, that’s a sign that IB is not a good fit for that school. |
I think you missed that we’re talking about upper middle class families. Most can afford it. And maybe you missed that policy 8130 requires them to do a comprehensive review every five years. Fwiw, it’s the uncertainty that’ll drive the flight, even if the changes are not as disruptive as this go round. The school board is doing real damage to the public schools unnecessarily. |
None of the recommendations have anything to do with backfilling IB transfers. Edison is the only school that’s taking more transfers in than transfers out. It’s an IB school and takes about 54 Lewis transfers (also IB). The recommendation to send Bren Mar Park back to Annandale is driven by middle school feeders. Schools that are shuffling students to backfill others like Chantilly and WSHS are not taking IB transfers. Chantilly should have offloaded most of their academies years ago. Their primary transfers are from Westfield, Centreville, Fairfax, and Oakton. All AP schools. WSHS is primarily from LB and South County. Again, AP schools. Academies can be hard to move for certain specialties, but they should absolutely move those to neighboring schools with capacity surpluses before changing boundaries. |
The school board loves IB. Global citizens! Lifelong learners! Theory of knowledge! They don’t give a crap that the percentage of kids getting IB diplomas at IB schools is an absolute joke. And one suspects that some of them know it’s become a ticket for people to avoid some of the worst schools by pupil placing. It’s no way to run a school system, or at least one that aspires to be a model of excellence. Until they get their act together both the enrollment numbers and student performance will continue to decline. |
WSHS has been closed to transfers since its renovation started in 2016. Yet, around 60 students have been allowed to transfer into the school every year for the past few years. Chantilly is also way over capacity and I thought was closed to transfers. 85 students transferred into Chantilly last year. McLean is supposedly bursting at the seems. 60 students transferred into McLean last year. There are several schools with close to 250-300 students transferring out each year. Why is that? Why isn't FCPS identifying the problem and fixing that before rezoning? Isn't running quality schools what we pay taxes for and why we elect the school board? My taxes keep going up, but school quality keeps going down. Those transfer loopholes need to be closed, particularly at the overcrowded schools and the undercrowded schools, before any rezoning occurs. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/fcps.fts/viz/SY2024-25StudentTransfersDashboard/ReadMe |