FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anyway, it will be the board dictating, not your neighbors but good on you for volunteering. Someone has to serve as checkbox for “community engagement.”

NP. So you'd rather complain on an anonymous board than actually do something? Got it.

The PP is the attitude of all the FCPS employees who hate FCPS but who hate parents even more. There are lots of them and they are chronically online.

Well, we had Ricardy Anderson complaining yesterday about the "squeaky wheels" in the community and the new consultant essentially saying the survey results from the work of the prior consultant (in which there was strong opposition to boundary changes) can be disregarded because the respondents weren't sufficiently representative.

The consistent message from the School Board is to shut up and just rely on them to channel the wishes of the community, although all the evidence from the past is that they act in their own interests and ignore the interests of others.

If you went door-to-door in disadvantaged communities and asked families if they'd like their kids to attend successful, safe schools with hundreds of opportunities in academic clubs, activities, and sports, I guarantee you they'd be fully on board.

But your side wants to dismiss their thoughts. Just because they don't answer email surveys and don't have the luxury of a 9-to-5 office gig with time to attend evening community meetings, doesn't mean their "culture" devalues education of their children.

Not sure what to make of this. Are you contending this doesn’t describe the schools for which these families are currently zoned? And, if so, why would it surprise you if others don’t want to be reassigned to those schools?

I’m all for additional outreach, but less in favor of transparently leading questions or School Board members purporting to speak for “those who aren’t being heard” when it’s really just a pretext to impose their own preferences on everyone else.

Yeah, is the prior poster admitting that the school board is wasting taxpayer money on these surveys?

If she just wants to pretend that the public’s overwhelming opposition to boundary changes doesn’t matter, then why do the school board members continually harp on how extensive public outreach will be?

“Overwhelming opposition” from who exactly (besides the FairFacts Matters folks)? Because the voters seem to overwhelmingly support the school board leadership. Also, how can you oppose a plan that hasn’t been developed yet?

The school board has been wholly inconsistent in the rationale for the boundary changes, and we all know why. Board members can’t say the real reason why they want to change boundaries, because that result in a lawsuit, so they’re stuck arguing for these supposed transportation cost savings (with any grandfathering savings will be negative), or sleep time for high schoolers (could they come up with a more spacious paternalistic rationale? Probably not).

Fairfax families are overwhelmingly against changes that will split friends groups and cause turmoil across the county. Ask yourself why the school board is hell bent on getting this done by fall of 2026 not fall of 2027.

And many are in favor of reviewing the borders to alleviate the split feeders and attendance islands that have gotten out of hand, so that their children’s friend groups aren’t split up every few years.

Also, it's ok to split up friend groups every year for every 3rd grader in the county for AAP?

AAP is popular and something people have the opportunity to choose. If they don't want to leave their friends, they can remain at the base school.

Rezoning every 5 years to push One Fairfax is controversial and unwanted.

Unless their base school IS the center school, and that center school feeds the AAP kids to an entirely different middle school that their non-AAP counterparts. See also the Carson/Franklin comment mentioned above. I agree that this is not a reason to change every border in the entire county, but to claim that this something that can easily be avoided is just not based on facts.

It’s all being considered together, right? I guess I assumed that. Start times for middle school, boundary adjustments, AAP centers, 6th in MS?

That would be asking an awful lot of outside consultants with no prior familiarity with FCPS, wouldn’t it?

Then why are we paying the no bid contractor hundreds of thousands of dollars? Thru can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? Why did Reid pick it then?

Just coming up with recommended county-wide boundary adjustments based on current forecasts and academic programs is no small task.

If you empower third-party consultants to make decisions about phasing out AAP centers, eliminating IB, or relocating Academy programs, that’s a much larger delegation of responsibility and it makes the consulting firm’s work more complex.

So not comprehensive? Again, why are we giving them so much money with a no bid contract?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anyway, it will be the board dictating, not your neighbors but good on you for volunteering. Someone has to serve as checkbox for “community engagement.”

NP. So you'd rather complain on an anonymous board than actually do something? Got it.

The PP is the attitude of all the FCPS employees who hate FCPS but who hate parents even more. There are lots of them and they are chronically online.

Well, we had Ricardy Anderson complaining yesterday about the "squeaky wheels" in the community and the new consultant essentially saying the survey results from the work of the prior consultant (in which there was strong opposition to boundary changes) can be disregarded because the respondents weren't sufficiently representative.

The consistent message from the School Board is to shut up and just rely on them to channel the wishes of the community, although all the evidence from the past is that they act in their own interests and ignore the interests of others.

If you went door-to-door in disadvantaged communities and asked families if they'd like their kids to attend successful, safe schools with hundreds of opportunities in academic clubs, activities, and sports, I guarantee you they'd be fully on board.

But your side wants to dismiss their thoughts. Just because they don't answer email surveys and don't have the luxury of a 9-to-5 office gig with time to attend evening community meetings, doesn't mean their "culture" devalues education of their children.

Not sure what to make of this. Are you contending this doesn’t describe the schools for which these families are currently zoned? And, if so, why would it surprise you if others don’t want to be reassigned to those schools?

I’m all for additional outreach, but less in favor of transparently leading questions or School Board members purporting to speak for “those who aren’t being heard” when it’s really just a pretext to impose their own preferences on everyone else.

Yeah, is the prior poster admitting that the school board is wasting taxpayer money on these surveys?

If she just wants to pretend that the public’s overwhelming opposition to boundary changes doesn’t matter, then why do the school board members continually harp on how extensive public outreach will be?

“Overwhelming opposition” from who exactly (besides the FairFacts Matters folks)? Because the voters seem to overwhelmingly support the school board leadership. Also, how can you oppose a plan that hasn’t been developed yet?

The school board has been wholly inconsistent in the rationale for the boundary changes, and we all know why. Board members can’t say the real reason why they want to change boundaries, because that result in a lawsuit, so they’re stuck arguing for these supposed transportation cost savings (with any grandfathering savings will be negative), or sleep time for high schoolers (could they come up with a more spacious paternalistic rationale? Probably not).

Fairfax families are overwhelmingly against changes that will split friends groups and cause turmoil across the county. Ask yourself why the school board is hell bent on getting this done by fall of 2026 not fall of 2027.

And many are in favor of reviewing the borders to alleviate the split feeders and attendance islands that have gotten out of hand, so that their children’s friend groups aren’t split up every few years.

Also, it's ok to split up friend groups every year for every 3rd grader in the county for AAP?

AAP is popular and something people have the opportunity to choose. If they don't want to leave their friends, they can remain at the base school.

Rezoning every 5 years to push One Fairfax is controversial and unwanted.

Unless their base school IS the center school, and that center school feeds the AAP kids to an entirely different middle school that their non-AAP counterparts. See also the Carson/Franklin comment mentioned above. I agree that this is not a reason to change every border in the entire county, but to claim that this something that can easily be avoided is just not based on facts.

It’s all being considered together, right? I guess I assumed that. Start times for middle school, boundary adjustments, AAP centers, 6th in MS?

That would be asking an awful lot of outside consultants with no prior familiarity with FCPS, wouldn’t it?

Then why are we paying the no bid contractor hundreds of thousands of dollars? Thru can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? Why did Reid pick it then?

Just coming up with recommended county-wide boundary adjustments based on current forecasts and academic programs is no small task.

If you empower third-party consultants to make decisions about phasing out AAP centers, eliminating IB, or relocating Academy programs, that’s a much larger delegation of responsibility and it makes the consulting firm’s work more complex.

So not comprehensive? Again, why are we giving them so much money with a no bid contract?

No, they will call it “holistic” and “comprehensive,” but it’s really likely to be neither. Many of us would rather see the School Board resolve the issues around academic programs, and come up with a new renovation queue first, before they start adjusting boundaries, but that would require more time and thought, and one suspects they want to cram boundary adjustments down our throats sooner rather than later.

I have no idea why they didn’t follow a more typical competitive bidding process, other than the possibility that they didn’t expect to get decent bids. The dollar amount of the contract is not huge for the work involved, even with the more limited scope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anyway, it will be the board dictating, not your neighbors but good on you for volunteering. Someone has to serve as checkbox for “community engagement.”

NP. So you'd rather complain on an anonymous board than actually do something? Got it.

The PP is the attitude of all the FCPS employees who hate FCPS but who hate parents even more. There are lots of them and they are chronically online.

Well, we had Ricardy Anderson complaining yesterday about the "squeaky wheels" in the community and the new consultant essentially saying the survey results from the work of the prior consultant (in which there was strong opposition to boundary changes) can be disregarded because the respondents weren't sufficiently representative.

The consistent message from the School Board is to shut up and just rely on them to channel the wishes of the community, although all the evidence from the past is that they act in their own interests and ignore the interests of others.

If you went door-to-door in disadvantaged communities and asked families if they'd like their kids to attend successful, safe schools with hundreds of opportunities in academic clubs, activities, and sports, I guarantee you they'd be fully on board.

But your side wants to dismiss their thoughts. Just because they don't answer email surveys and don't have the luxury of a 9-to-5 office gig with time to attend evening community meetings, doesn't mean their "culture" devalues education of their children.

Not sure what to make of this. Are you contending this doesn’t describe the schools for which these families are currently zoned? And, if so, why would it surprise you if others don’t want to be reassigned to those schools?

I’m all for additional outreach, but less in favor of transparently leading questions or School Board members purporting to speak for “those who aren’t being heard” when it’s really just a pretext to impose their own preferences on everyone else.

Yeah, is the prior poster admitting that the school board is wasting taxpayer money on these surveys?

If she just wants to pretend that the public’s overwhelming opposition to boundary changes doesn’t matter, then why do the school board members continually harp on how extensive public outreach will be?

“Overwhelming opposition” from who exactly (besides the FairFacts Matters folks)? Because the voters seem to overwhelmingly support the school board leadership. Also, how can you oppose a plan that hasn’t been developed yet?

The school board has been wholly inconsistent in the rationale for the boundary changes, and we all know why. Board members can’t say the real reason why they want to change boundaries, because that result in a lawsuit, so they’re stuck arguing for these supposed transportation cost savings (with any grandfathering savings will be negative), or sleep time for high schoolers (could they come up with a more spacious paternalistic rationale? Probably not).

Fairfax families are overwhelmingly against changes that will split friends groups and cause turmoil across the county. Ask yourself why the school board is hell bent on getting this done by fall of 2026 not fall of 2027.

And many are in favor of reviewing the borders to alleviate the split feeders and attendance islands that have gotten out of hand, so that their children’s friend groups aren’t split up every few years.

Also, it's ok to split up friend groups every year for every 3rd grader in the county for AAP?

AAP is popular and something people have the opportunity to choose. If they don't want to leave their friends, they can remain at the base school.

Rezoning every 5 years to push One Fairfax is controversial and unwanted.

Unless their base school IS the center school, and that center school feeds the AAP kids to an entirely different middle school that their non-AAP counterparts. See also the Carson/Franklin comment mentioned above. I agree that this is not a reason to change every border in the entire county, but to claim that this something that can easily be avoided is just not based on facts.

It’s all being considered together, right? I guess I assumed that. Start times for middle school, boundary adjustments, AAP centers, 6th in MS?

That would be asking an awful lot of outside consultants with no prior familiarity with FCPS, wouldn’t it?

Then why are we paying the no bid contractor hundreds of thousands of dollars? Thru can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? Why did Reid pick it then?

Just coming up with recommended county-wide boundary adjustments based on current forecasts and academic programs is no small task.

If you empower third-party consultants to make decisions about phasing out AAP centers, eliminating IB, or relocating Academy programs, that’s a much larger delegation of responsibility and it makes the consulting firm’s work more complex.

So not comprehensive? Again, why are we giving them so much money with a no bid contract?

No, they will call it “holistic” and “comprehensive,” but it’s really likely to be neither. Many of us would rather see the School Board resolve the issues around academic programs, and come up with a new renovation queue first, before they start adjusting boundaries, but that would require more time and thought, and one suspects they want to cram boundary adjustments down our throats sooner rather than later.

I have no idea why they didn’t follow a more typical competitive bidding process, other than the possibility that they didn’t expect to get decent bids. The dollar amount of the contract is not huge for the work involved, even with the more limited scope.

At the board meeting where they approved the Thru contract, they said a traditional RFP would have taken many months. Add that to the evidence that the school board is rushing to make changes by the fall of 2026 to try to avoid a political disaster right before their reelection season.

Putting politics above kids is pretty damn disgusting. Shame in the school board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anyway, it will be the board dictating, not your neighbors but good on you for volunteering. Someone has to serve as checkbox for “community engagement.”

NP. So you'd rather complain on an anonymous board than actually do something? Got it.

The PP is the attitude of all the FCPS employees who hate FCPS but who hate parents even more. There are lots of them and they are chronically online.

Well, we had Ricardy Anderson complaining yesterday about the "squeaky wheels" in the community and the new consultant essentially saying the survey results from the work of the prior consultant (in which there was strong opposition to boundary changes) can be disregarded because the respondents weren't sufficiently representative.

The consistent message from the School Board is to shut up and just rely on them to channel the wishes of the community, although all the evidence from the past is that they act in their own interests and ignore the interests of others.

If you went door-to-door in disadvantaged communities and asked families if they'd like their kids to attend successful, safe schools with hundreds of opportunities in academic clubs, activities, and sports, I guarantee you they'd be fully on board.

But your side wants to dismiss their thoughts. Just because they don't answer email surveys and don't have the luxury of a 9-to-5 office gig with time to attend evening community meetings, doesn't mean their "culture" devalues education of their children.

Not sure what to make of this. Are you contending this doesn’t describe the schools for which these families are currently zoned? And, if so, why would it surprise you if others don’t want to be reassigned to those schools?

I’m all for additional outreach, but less in favor of transparently leading questions or School Board members purporting to speak for “those who aren’t being heard” when it’s really just a pretext to impose their own preferences on everyone else.

Yeah, is the prior poster admitting that the school board is wasting taxpayer money on these surveys?

If she just wants to pretend that the public’s overwhelming opposition to boundary changes doesn’t matter, then why do the school board members continually harp on how extensive public outreach will be?

“Overwhelming opposition” from who exactly (besides the FairFacts Matters folks)? Because the voters seem to overwhelmingly support the school board leadership. Also, how can you oppose a plan that hasn’t been developed yet?

The school board has been wholly inconsistent in the rationale for the boundary changes, and we all know why. Board members can’t say the real reason why they want to change boundaries, because that result in a lawsuit, so they’re stuck arguing for these supposed transportation cost savings (with any grandfathering savings will be negative), or sleep time for high schoolers (could they come up with a more spacious paternalistic rationale? Probably not).

Fairfax families are overwhelmingly against changes that will split friends groups and cause turmoil across the county. Ask yourself why the school board is hell bent on getting this done by fall of 2026 not fall of 2027.

And many are in favor of reviewing the borders to alleviate the split feeders and attendance islands that have gotten out of hand, so that their children’s friend groups aren’t split up every few years.

Also, it's ok to split up friend groups every year for every 3rd grader in the county for AAP?

AAP is popular and something people have the opportunity to choose. If they don't want to leave their friends, they can remain at the base school.

Rezoning every 5 years to push One Fairfax is controversial and unwanted.

Unless their base school IS the center school, and that center school feeds the AAP kids to an entirely different middle school that their non-AAP counterparts. See also the Carson/Franklin comment mentioned above. I agree that this is not a reason to change every border in the entire county, but to claim that this something that can easily be avoided is just not based on facts.

It’s all being considered together, right? I guess I assumed that. Start times for middle school, boundary adjustments, AAP centers, 6th in MS?

That would be asking an awful lot of outside consultants with no prior familiarity with FCPS, wouldn’t it?

Then why are we paying the no bid contractor hundreds of thousands of dollars? Thru can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? Why did Reid pick it then?

Just coming up with recommended county-wide boundary adjustments based on current forecasts and academic programs is no small task.

If you empower third-party consultants to make decisions about phasing out AAP centers, eliminating IB, or relocating Academy programs, that’s a much larger delegation of responsibility and it makes the consulting firm’s work more complex.

So not comprehensive? Again, why are we giving them so much money with a no bid contract?

No, they will call it “holistic” and “comprehensive,” but it’s really likely to be neither. Many of us would rather see the School Board resolve the issues around academic programs, and come up with a new renovation queue first, before they start adjusting boundaries, but that would require more time and thought, and one suspects they want to cram boundary adjustments down our throats sooner rather than later.

I have no idea why they didn’t follow a more typical competitive bidding process, other than the possibility that they didn’t expect to get decent bids. The dollar amount of the contract is not huge for the work involved, even with the more limited scope.

At the board meeting where they approved the Thru contract, they said a traditional RFP would have taken many months. Add that to the evidence that the school board is rushing to make changes by the fall of 2026 to try to avoid a political disaster right before their reelection season.

Putting politics above kids is pretty damn disgusting. Shame in the school board.

Find me the most recent school board member you know who hasn't done that routinely?

[Anonymous]

If there are widespread and unpopular boundary changes it’s going to have political consequences for Democratic School Board and supervisor candidates whether it happens in 2026 or 2027.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the school board work session, Representative Dunne just said that he expects every high school pyramid to be impacted by the review, and the consultant concurred.

The changes will likely be much broader than the frequently discussed possibilities on DCUM.

Is it because the capacity vs enrollment among the pyramids is so uneven?

Is there a single high school pyramid without a split feeder or out of pyramid AAP feeder?

HHS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If there are widespread and unpopular boundary changes it’s going to have political consequences for Democratic School Board and supervisor candidates whether it happens in 2026 or 2027.

It will impact all races. The biggest impact will be in state wide races not local races. Even angry voters are still going to elect democrats in fairfax, but for governor, it can be the difference between winning and losing. Anger with a school board made Youngking governor and it can do the same again

[Anonymous]

My child was not in AAP. I don't hate it, what I don't like is the center model as I think it skews what areas over vs under enrolled. Other much smaller programs contribute, but not to the extent that AAP does. I would love to see the consultant run the numbers if everyone was put back at their base schools with a LLIV and give recommendations on changing boundaries based on that.

[Anonymous]

The comments in the FCPS discussion Facebook group are interesting. A mix of delusional people saying there are no bad schools in the entire district and people with older kids who seem to have no idea that things may have changed for the worse since their kids were in elementary school over 10 years ago. These people will just keep voting for the same types on the school board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The comments in the FCPS discussion Facebook group are interesting. A mix of delusional people saying there are no bad schools in the entire district and people with older kids who seem to have no idea that things may have changed for the worse since their kids were in elementary school over 10 years ago. These people will just keep voting for the same types on the school board.

This is the thing, for sure. People who remember FCPS the way it was think everything is great. They have no idea how much the bad ideas from the earliest grades (ahem...Lucy Calkins and the proliferation of one-to-one devices) have finally trickled up and made an impact on the older grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The comments in the FCPS discussion Facebook group are interesting. A mix of delusional people saying there are no bad schools in the entire district and people with older kids who seem to have no idea that things may have changed for the worse since their kids were in elementary school over 10 years ago. These people will just keep voting for the same types on the school board.

It's hard to be honest if you aren't anonymous. Calling certain schools good and bad (even when they are good and bad) can easily be portrayed as racist because the bad school tend to have more black and hispanic students and the good schools more asian and white students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the school board work session, Representative Dunne just said that he expects every high school pyramid to be impacted by the review, and the consultant concurred.

The changes will likely be much broader than the frequently discussed possibilities on DCUM.

Is it because the capacity vs enrollment among the pyramids is so uneven?

Is there a single high school pyramid without a split feeder or out of pyramid AAP feeder?

HHS

Wrong (and discussed earlier). Coates splits to Westfield and Herndon. And Hughes is an out-of-pyramid AAP center for Herndon MS students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The comments in the FCPS discussion Facebook group are interesting. A mix of delusional people saying there are no bad schools in the entire district and people with older kids who seem to have no idea that things may have changed for the worse since their kids were in elementary school over 10 years ago. These people will just keep voting for the same types on the school board.

It's hard to be honest if you aren't anonymous. Calling certain schools good and bad (even when they are good and bad) can easily be portrayed as racist because the bad school tend to have more black and hispanic students and the good schools more asian and white students.

It's also very easy to post false and misleading information when you can do so anonymously. Jeff might delete the post if asked but otherwise there are no consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child was not in AAP. I don't hate it, what I don't like is the center model as I think it skews what areas over vs under enrolled. Other much smaller programs contribute, but not to the extent that AAP does. I would love to see the consultant run the numbers if everyone was put back at their base schools with a LLIV and give recommendations on changing boundaries based on that.

It appeared to me from the presentation that Thru Consulting made to the School Board last week that they have access to third-party software that ought to allow them to come up with a lot of different models. Agree with you that one model ought to be one that assumes no stand-alone AAP centers. That's not their decision to make, but they ought to be able to show what it would look like for a school like Carson to serve a base population as opposed to continuing to serve as an AAP center for feeders to so many other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If there are widespread and unpopular boundary changes it’s going to have political consequences for Democratic School Board and supervisor candidates whether it happens in 2026 or 2027.

The problem is that it actually won’t.

So many people just vote down party lines no matter what. In this area, there are so many voters without kids affected by boundary changes, they won’t care about it and will continue to vote all D.