FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school board never explained why this comprehensive review and the perpetual 5 year reviews are needed. And to my knowledge never even got around to defining some of their criteria. So what are we actually doing here guys?

To address issues of overcrowding and, potentially, under utilized schools. I have no problem with that. A review does not have to lead to boundary changes but there are times when a boundary change is needed to address over crowded schools. Underutilized schools could be used for specialized programs, like academies, or to develop better programs for kids needing specialized programs, like Autistic bridge programs. If we have the space, use it to fill gaps in programming that is desperately needed.

I have no problem with regular reviews and can see the value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school board never explained why this comprehensive review and the perpetual 5 year reviews are needed. And to my knowledge never even got around to defining some of their criteria. So what are we actually doing here guys?

To address issues of overcrowding and, potentially, under utilized schools. I have no problem with that. A review does not have to lead to boundary changes but there are times when a boundary change is needed to address over crowded schools. Underutilized schools could be used for specialized programs, like academies, or to develop better programs for kids needing specialized programs, like Autistic bridge programs. If we have the space, use it to fill gaps in programming that is desperately needed.

I have no problem with regular reviews and can see the value.

Yeah, but please expand my school first. Then I can comfortably pontificate about the need to redistrict other kids out of their schools.

[Anonymous]

A 5 year review is way too often. Grandfathering will help somewhat, but if your neighborhood was “tinkered with” multiple times, you could easily end up with kids at two different elementary schools at the same time, or if you had more kids with a larger age gap, kid 1 went to elementary A and is now in HS, kid 2 went to elementary B and is now in MS or HS, and kid 3 is in elementary C - without ever moving or going to an AAP center.

A 10 year review seems about right, with flexibility to change early if a large, new neighborhood comes online and the schools need immediate relief.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A 5 year review is way too often. Grandfathering will help somewhat, but if your neighborhood was “tinkered with” multiple times, you could easily end up with kids at two different elementary schools at the same time, or if you had more kids with a larger age gap, kid 1 went to elementary A and is now in HS, kid 2 went to elementary B and is now in MS or HS, and kid 3 is in elementary C - without ever moving or going to an AAP center.

A 10 year review seems about right, with flexibility to change early if a large, new neighborhood comes online and the schools need immediate relief.

They’ve always had, and used, flexibility for urgent capacity issues, so we don’t need the regular review - 5 or 10 year. Ironically this year’s comprehensive review has delayed capacity relief for Coates, the one school that desperately needs it.

They Thru the baby out with the bath water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school board never explained why this comprehensive review and the perpetual 5 year reviews are needed. And to my knowledge never even got around to defining some of their criteria. So what are we actually doing here guys?

They talked about it in 2018/19.

Back then they wanted the power to change every 3 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school board never explained why this comprehensive review and the perpetual 5 year reviews are needed. And to my knowledge never even got around to defining some of their criteria. So what are we actually doing here guys?

Watching a bunch of equity warriors trying to justify their efforts anyway they can. SB and administration aren’t effective so let’s put some smart kids in underperforming schools and see if they can make things better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school board never explained why this comprehensive review and the perpetual 5 year reviews are needed. And to my knowledge never even got around to defining some of their criteria. So what are we actually doing here guys?

Watching a bunch of equity warriors trying to justify their efforts anyway they can. SB and administration aren’t effective so let’s put some smart kids in underperforming schools and see if they can make things better.

That’s the opposite of what they are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school board never explained why this comprehensive review and the perpetual 5 year reviews are needed. And to my knowledge never even got around to defining some of their criteria. So what are we actually doing here guys?

Watching a bunch of equity warriors trying to justify their efforts anyway they can. SB and administration aren’t effective so let’s put some smart kids in underperforming schools and see if they can make things better.

That’s the opposite of what they are doing.

DP. If you go back to the origins of the county-wide review back in 2018, it was very clear that the idea of a county-wide review was being pushed by Democrats like Tamara Derenak-Kaufax and Pat Hynes who absolutely salivated at the prospect of moving kids out of Langley and from schools like West Springfield to Lewis.

Then they got cold feet before the 2019 School Board elections and decided to hire a consultant so boundaries wouldn't be front and center in the 2019 election. That consultant reported back that families valued stability over everything else and prioritized strategic additions over random boundary changes. Their advice was ignored.

Karl Frisch revived a county-wide boundary study because he *thought* that somehow farming out responsibility for boundary changes to a third-party "expert" would help politicians like him on the School Board avoid accountability for boundary changes. He also had the idea that they could push through equity-driven boundary changes so long as they were disguised as based on "efficiency" or "equitable access to programming." Not surprisingly, people very quickly saw through that flimsy rhetoric.

Once again, they've gotten cold feet, so very few if any of the consultant's recommendations look like the work of "equity warriors." They've settled for proposing random changes to deal with things that weren't bothering very many people, like attendance islands and split feeders. In many cases the proposals would increase, not reduce, disparities among nearby schools (for example, by moving single-family areas out of Marshall to wealthier Madison). Or they do crap like eliminate an attendance island but create a new split feeder in the process. It's just mostly random crap that isn't really worth the effort. Meanwhile real issues like the serious overcrowding at Coates remain unaddressed.

This School Board isn't serious, intelligent, or principled. The only member who really saw what a shit show this would become is Ryan McElveen, and he responded by distancing himself from the study rather than repudiating it. Most of the rest are total bumblers, and that includes people like Rachna Sizemore-Heizer, who somehow think that they deserve election to higher office despite their role in this debacle. If we do reward them with seats on the Board of Supervisors, etc., we probably deserve the complete mess they're making of FCPS.

[Anonymous]

I just looked at the posted comments from the boundary review and it appears that they only included comments that implicated specific schools. There were a lot of comments from the meeting I attended that basically said, “Don’t move kids unless needed,” but I don’t see those comments represented in the posted comments.

This is a huge scandal if they are removing constituents comments, especially if they aren’t disclosing that they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the posted comments from the boundary review and it appears that they only included comments that implicated specific schools. There were a lot of comments from the meeting I attended that basically said, “Don’t move kids unless needed,” but I don’t see those comments represented in the posted comments.

This is a huge scandal if they are removing constituents comments, especially if they aren’t disclosing that they are.

Did you review the section for Comments Not Associated with a Region?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school board never explained why this comprehensive review and the perpetual 5 year reviews are needed. And to my knowledge never even got around to defining some of their criteria. So what are we actually doing here guys?

Watching a bunch of equity warriors trying to justify their efforts anyway they can. SB and administration aren’t effective so let’s put some smart kids in underperforming schools and see if they can make things better.

That’s the opposite of what they are doing.

DP. If you go back to the origins of the county-wide review back in 2018, it was very clear that the idea of a county-wide review was being pushed by Democrats like Tamara Derenak-Kaufax and Pat Hynes who absolutely salivated at the prospect of moving kids out of Langley and from schools like West Springfield to Lewis.

Then they got cold feet before the 2019 School Board elections and decided to hire a consultant so boundaries wouldn't be front and center in the 2019 election. That consultant reported back that families valued stability over everything else and prioritized strategic additions over random boundary changes. Their advice was ignored.

Karl Frisch revived a county-wide boundary study because he *thought* that somehow farming out responsibility for boundary changes to a third-party "expert" would help politicians like him on the School Board avoid accountability for boundary changes. He also had the idea that they could push through equity-driven boundary changes so long as they were disguised as based on "efficiency" or "equitable access to programming." Not surprisingly, people very quickly saw through that flimsy rhetoric.

Once again, they've gotten cold feet, so very few if any of the consultant's recommendations look like the work of "equity warriors." They've settled for proposing random changes to deal with things that weren't bothering very many people, like attendance islands and split feeders. In many cases the proposals would increase, not reduce, disparities among nearby schools (for example, by moving single-family areas out of Marshall to wealthier Madison). Or they do crap like eliminate an attendance island but create a new split feeder in the process. It's just mostly random crap that isn't really worth the effort. Meanwhile real issues like the serious overcrowding at Coates remain unaddressed.

This School Board isn't serious, intelligent, or principled. The only member who really saw what a shit show this would become is Ryan McElveen, and he responded by distancing himself from the study rather than repudiating it. Most of the rest are total bumblers, and that includes people like Rachna Sizemore-Heizer, who somehow think that they deserve election to higher office despite their role in this debacle. If we do reward them with seats on the Board of Supervisors, etc., we probably deserve the complete mess they're making of FCPS.

This is all incredibly accurate. If you read one post today, make it this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The school board never explained why this comprehensive review and the perpetual 5 year reviews are needed. And to my knowledge never even got around to defining some of their criteria. So what are we actually doing here guys?

Watching a bunch of equity warriors trying to justify their efforts anyway they can. SB and administration aren’t effective so let’s put some smart kids in underperforming schools and see if they can make things better.

That’s the opposite of what they are doing.

DP. If you go back to the origins of the county-wide review back in 2018, it was very clear that the idea of a county-wide review was being pushed by Democrats like Tamara Derenak-Kaufax and Pat Hynes who absolutely salivated at the prospect of moving kids out of Langley and from schools like West Springfield to Lewis.

Then they got cold feet before the 2019 School Board elections and decided to hire a consultant so boundaries wouldn't be front and center in the 2019 election. That consultant reported back that families valued stability over everything else and prioritized strategic additions over random boundary changes. Their advice was ignored.

Karl Frisch revived a county-wide boundary study because he *thought* that somehow farming out responsibility for boundary changes to a third-party "expert" would help politicians like him on the School Board avoid accountability for boundary changes. He also had the idea that they could push through equity-driven boundary changes so long as they were disguised as based on "efficiency" or "equitable access to programming." Not surprisingly, people very quickly saw through that flimsy rhetoric.

Once again, they've gotten cold feet, so very few if any of the consultant's recommendations look like the work of "equity warriors." They've settled for proposing random changes to deal with things that weren't bothering very many people, like attendance islands and split feeders. In many cases the proposals would increase, not reduce, disparities among nearby schools (for example, by moving single-family areas out of Marshall to wealthier Madison). Or they do crap like eliminate an attendance island but create a new split feeder in the process. It's just mostly random crap that isn't really worth the effort. Meanwhile real issues like the serious overcrowding at Coates remain unaddressed.

This School Board isn't serious, intelligent, or principled. The only member who really saw what a shit show this would become is Ryan McElveen, and he responded by distancing himself from the study rather than repudiating it. Most of the rest are total bumblers, and that includes people like Rachna Sizemore-Heizer, who somehow think that they deserve election to higher office despite their role in this debacle. If we do reward them with seats on the Board of Supervisors, etc., we probably deserve the complete mess they're making of FCPS.

DP. YES. All of this. One of the best posts on this 500+ page thread. Thank you for putting this into historical context.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the posted comments from the boundary review and it appears that they only included comments that implicated specific schools. There were a lot of comments from the meeting I attended that basically said, “Don’t move kids unless needed,” but I don’t see those comments represented in the posted comments.

This is a huge scandal if they are removing constituents comments, especially if they aren’t disclosing that they are.

Did you review the section for Comments Not Associated with a Region?

Very disingenuous as it makes it appear that those comments were not provided at the regional meetings