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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
FCPS comprehensive boundary review
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Anonymous
How did you think they planned to achieve One Fairfax and Equity? The previous school board was in the process of county wide rezoning based on equity and One Fairfax. They were hot and heavy into it pre covid, then put it under wraps leading into the election. This school board is just continuing the long game plan set in place by the previous school board. This is all part of One Fairfax, and is following the all democratic school board long term planning goals. Glad you are paying attention now, but if you had been paying attention earlier this rezoning would not come as a surprise to you. The democratic school board had had this in the works for a while. |
Anonymous
I do regret the vote. Hindsight shows you are right. This was on the heels of the Supreme Court striking down affirmative action, so One Fairfax seemed dead in the water. And I even met with our now school board member while the member was a candidate to ask explicitly about redistricting. Of course the member did not divulge any plans. I do wish the other side was a little less extreme, but I’ll cast my lot with them going forward, because this school board has gone way too far in its equity quest. |
Anonymous
That's because most of the time the policies they vot for dont impact their own lives. Now that the border has reached a tipping point here they are personally impacted, it's a different story. |
Anonymous
It's not nonsensical at all, actually. Take a look at the ES with HS boundary map, and you'll see many examples of elementary schools that are much closer to a high school that they aren't assigned to. Forestville to Langley instead of Herndon, Lorton Station to Hayfield instead of South County, Fort Hunt to West Potomac instead of Mount Vernon, Navy to Oakton instead of Chantilly. Those are just the ones that stick out like a sore thumb. It's inevitable that some schools at the margins are like this. |
Anonymous
You mean Debra Tisler? The woman who partnered on the project that resulted in the improper release of thousands of student records? (See: Can I sue Callie Oettinger? https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1172964.page) Debrah Tisler, who was quoted in this NBC News story (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/glenn-youngkin-virginia-policy-fairfax-county-school-board-rcna122754): Before Debra Tisler, a former special education teacher, became a GOP-backed school board candidate, she waged a campaign to investigate the district’s spending, which turned into a legal battle she won. She said she’d been frustrated with her own yearslong attempt to get tutoring for her dyslexic son, and special education is the main issue she talks about on the campaign trail, but she also relates to concerns parents have over library books with sexually explicit passages. “When you have graphic pictures of adults or children engaging in sexual activities, it’s harmful to children,” Tisler said. “And I’m very concerned for our children with autism and intellectual disabilities, as well, because if they see this information — this pictorial form in a cartoon that’s very friendly to them — it could make them vulnerable to think that it’s OK for an adult to want that type of sexual behavior from them.” That's the moderate of which you speak? Uh, no. |
Anonymous
You make a great point, and yet Dr. Reid stated at the (I think June 18th?) SB meeting that the focus would not be on elementary schools being moved into new pyramids and she didn't see that happening except in a couple of cases. Probably because the focus is on socioeconomic gerrymandering and it makes it easier to move the higher affluent neighborhoods at the edge of a current boundary into the boundary of a higher FARMS elementary school. |
Anonymous
The Democrats say “diversity is our strength” but when they get elected it becomes clear they want more diversity for others and less for themselves. |
Anonymous
She was no more the advocate for her own special education kid than Sizemore Heizer, so hard to see why you’d object to that. As for her comments about the impact of sexually explicit materials on some students and young adults, we’ve just heard about the Langley graduate with special needs who was working at LHS and apparently decided it was OK to rub one out in a classroom. Just because Karl Frisch might take an oath over a book depicting such behavior doesn’t make it OK. When these boundaries change to your detriment, just remember you gave their architects a blank check to disregard parents’ views and impose their own agenda. |
Anonymous
You know what you are right. Your kid should have a flashing red screen at the library so if they try to check out these books your kid won’t be able to. But the book can be in the library. That way you can restrict your kid and exercise your parents rights without imposing your morality on everyone’s kids. Done. Issue over. As far as dems being for redistricting no one ran on this. It was 4 years ago pre- COVid this was talked about. I looked at the time because I was concerned and NEITHER candidate mentioned it, so I went with the more respectful of the two candidates. The republicans should run on this next time and run with sane people who are respectful and address people respectfully (no LWNJ or RHINO or name calling). You would get a lot farther. |
Anonymous
No one used to toss terms like "morality" into the mix. There was a simply a sense of "community standards," and an expectation that school librarians would exercise common sense in allocating resources to books other than Mein Kampf, the screen play for "Birth of a Nation," or "Gender Queer." No one was attempting to censor those publications generally; instead, there was simply an understanding that other materials were more suitable for a public school library designed for K-12 students. That common sense has gone out the window. Once you agree that it's cool for a school library to have books that graphically depict a teenager getting anally penetrated with a dildo, which is clearly the view of Karl Frisch and his cronies, you've basically become a First Amendment absolutist (not that there's any consistency on this score - FCPS staff will still actively police what students have to say about international issues, but the smut in the libraries is apparently fine). The relevance of all this to the boundary discussion is that what's happened underscores the extent to which the School Board members seek to impose their own views as to what is needed and disregard community preferences over and over again. They will keep doing this until they finally exhaust the patience of voters, but given how School Board elections are low-information contests, that could take quite a while. |
Anonymous
The internet has changed access. Kids can access all that and more from their homes or even their pockets if they have a cell phone. I’m guessing you don’t have kids around anymore- libraries aren’t the only or even a widely used source of information. The internet is. And kids see all of that in pop culture these days reading about it is the least of your concerns if you are parenting a teen. And again the republicans should learn a lesson as well. Hold back the name calling tirades- get back to policies that affect people on a broader level and appeal to that. I’d argue a low information election is the best place to start with respectful discourse. |
Anonymous
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If you think about it, the Democratic backed School Board knows at this point it is a one-party county. Every local, state, and federal office, save Pat Herrity, is occupied by a Democrat. They know that if they drive through boundary changes and p*&% off some local voters, there will only be minor blowback from a relatively small number of impacted residents.
If people are moved from one elementary or middle school to another, but it is a relatively even trade, the parents (voters) might be annoyed, but not likely enough to vote differently. High school changes might annoy people more, even at a fairly even trade level, but enough to change a vote? The only voters who would change their vote would be those who felt like they got screwed by a perceived drastic change - so a Langley (Great Falls) to Herndon or West Springfield to Lewis (or some similar change at the elementary or middle school level). But even in those cases, the number of voters impacted would likely be relatively small. They might get some sympathy from other parents at the school who were not impacted by the boundary change, but those other parents might also just throw them under the school bus. In a county with a 12-0 Democrat backed school board, I don't think they are worried about losing control. They might anticipate losing a few district seats on the board. But unless the county-wide changes are so drastic that they manage to p*&% off a larger group of voters, I can't see it going beyond 9-3 Democrat control or at worst 8-4. |
Anonymous
There's a distinction between accessing something online, which requires access to an enabled cell phone, and school officials effectively putting their stamp of approval on materials by choosing to use their limited budgets on them. I'm sure you appreciate that. If FCPS surveyed parents about whether such explicit materials should be in school libraries, I think you'd find majority opposition, even though parents realized their kids may gain access through other means. But FCPS would ignore the results of any such survey, just like they are now ignoring the results of outreach conducted by their prior boundary consultant, which indicated that most parents oppose boundary changes. Outreach is only useful to this School Board when it validates their existing, "progressive" views; otherwise, it is quickly ignored. |
Anonymous
I agree but they should be concerned with the slippery slope of poor school performance and county property taxes. They need to lean on building on established communities and what each community in Fairfax wants. Looking across the whole thing and rebalancing is not the solution. Most parents want a strong community and public schools are the heart of that. I don’t care much about sports or extra curricular except that the build community for my kid and that my kid is learning. To be a part of a group experience through these extra activities. I don’t need my kid to be the best it is over rated imho. This policy tears at the heart of what keeps public schools together- the community. Each community is slightly different and so the schools do need to emphasize different programs. Ramming this through isn’t really a political party issue as much as it is a struggle in the ideals of what a community is. One Fairfax is somethjng I can agree with but homogenizing differences isn’t the way to go- it is highlighting the community and school differences while giving equal Respect to all of those communities that we need to strive for. Anything less feels Disingenuous and won’t work. |
Anonymous
These are good points - it's a one-party county that thrives on low-information voters with a general preference for Democratic over Republican candidates. It will depend, of course, on the scale of the boundary changes, and whether they are sufficiently brazen that they piss off people who otherwise might not care or be directly affected. If the changes are purely at the margins, it won't move the needle very much in terms of political support. |