FCPS Ready to Screw Poorer/GenEd Kids Again

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is the responsibility of the School Board and FCPS Staff to do the right thing. It's not consistent with the One Fairfax resolution to always put the burden on the people who are getting the short end of the stick to complain, especially when FCPS did not reach out to them previously.

So you have the right to complain and whine about things but not the obligation to do anything about it? The county management works for you (theoretically). Most of them are limited when it comes to brain power/empathy. Unless you tell them what you want, they don't care. That's your responsibility as an affected citizen. Have you done that?

DP here. After reading these threads, I did contact the School Board members and ask them to put this on hold until they consider other options. I didn't whine. I just pointed out the considerations that weigh in favor of a different approach.

But I do think it's their responsibility in the first instance to make sure that FCPS staff is both acting transparently and soliciting input from all affected parties. That hasn't happened here.

[Anonymous]

They have already adopted One Fairfax? They should go by their own policy and shouldn't hide behind whoever shows up to a meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many of those on here that are against this move will be at the hearing on the 22nd when this will be voted on? Raise your hands please..

Not living in the area, I may not show up. I know the school board has read these threads and have talked to them personally about the issues. I have also talked to facilities. It's their responsibility to make a sound decision. I do not feel obligated to show up just to make sure they do the right thing. I cannot show up to every hearing and it is not my responsibility. What if I was sick or had an obligation? These are the people we elected. The responsibility is on their shoulders.

But you are not the only one carrying the weight of the opposition on your shoulders, pp (or are you?). I thought there were a few hundred based on the length of this thread.

While I get your point about the county needing to worry about this vs us, they cannot make any decisions if they have to worry about 3rd and 4th order consequences of every decision.

The issue they are addressing is overcrowding at LJ.
Potential solutions - Move kids to Thoreau (which has overcapacity). I'm sure parents were involved in pushing for this solution (OES and the other two schools).
Move kids to Poe - Where are the parents asking for this? If not them, who else will? You will not find OES parents asking for this. In fact, if someone had proposed this, they would have vehemently shot it down because the school is just too far away!

I don't think it's fair for someone to pontificate on this when they are not personally involved.

Other issues you and other bring up such as :LJ will become a "poor people" school, performance will decrease, property values will decrease, etc are second/third order issues that FCPS just doesn't have the mental bandwidth/capacity/ability to address. Once you bring those issues in you will not be able to change anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many of those on here that are against this move will be at the hearing on the 22nd when this will be voted on? Raise your hands please..

Not living in the area, I may not show up. I know the school board has read these threads and have talked to them personally about the issues. I have also talked to facilities. It's their responsibility to make a sound decision. I do not feel obligated to show up just to make sure they do the right thing. I cannot show up to every hearing and it is not my responsibility. What if I was sick or had an obligation? These are the people we elected. The responsibility is on their shoulders.

But you are not the only one carrying the weight of the opposition on your shoulders, pp (or are you?). I thought there were a few hundred based on the length of this thread.

While I get your point about the county needing to worry about this vs us, they cannot make any decisions if they have to worry about 3rd and 4th order consequences of every decision.

The issue they are addressing is overcrowding at LJ.
Potential solutions - Move kids to Thoreau (which has overcapacity). I'm sure parents were involved in pushing for this solution (OES and the other two schools).
Move kids to Poe - Where are the parents asking for this? If not them, who else will? You will not find OES parents asking for this. In fact, if someone had proposed this, they would have vehemently shot it down because the school is just too far away!

I don't think it's fair for someone to pontificate on this when they are not personally involved.

Other issues you and other bring up such as :LJ will become a "poor people" school, performance will decrease, property values will decrease, etc are second/third order issues that FCPS just doesn't have the mental bandwidth/capacity/ability to address. Once you bring those issues in you will not be able to change anything.

You are ridiculous. I hope you don't work for FCPS because, if you do, we are completely doomed.

Some options that merited discussion:

1) Turning Thoreau into an AAP center (similar to the recent decisions to turn Cooper and Lanier into AAP centers) without changing the base boundaries. That would increase enrollment at Thoreau and reduce enrollment at Jackson.

2) Moving Kilmer/Madison students to Thoreau. That would increase enrollment at Thoreau.

3) Moving Camelot and/or Woodburn students to Poe. That would increase enrollment at Poe, which has more excess capacity than Thoreau, and also reduce the ESOL/FARMS rates at Poe, while reducing enrollment at Jackson.

Instead, FCPS proposed to move the highest-income areas zoned for Jackson to Thoreau, ignore Poe, and continue to give Thoreau AAP families the option to send their kids to Jackson for AAP or Thoreau for LLIV. The losers in all of this will be the Gen Ed population at Jackson and, over time, the entire Falls Church HS pyramid. To suggest that FCPS doesn't have the ability or bandwidth to consider such effects is completely ludicrous, because they are sitting on a ton of data that shows exactly what has happened to the Annandale and Lee HS pyramids after they start making incremental boundary changes that drive up ESOL/FARMS rates at schools like Jackson.

When FCPS decided to start moving single-family neighborhoods out of Poe MS/Annandale HS to Lake Braddock SS and then Frost MS/Woodson HS a few years ago to address temporary overcrowding at Annandale HS, FCPS predicted modest increases in the ESOL/FARMS rates at those schools, and the planned reduction in enrollment. Instead, what happened was a huge spike in the ESOL/FARMS rates and major declines in enrollment, because people took the decision as a signal that FCPS was more than happy to accommodate the wishes of higher-income families and concentrate poverty in select schools. If the FCPS Facilities staff doesn't know that happened, and will happen again under this proposal, they are beyond incompetent. In fact, they do know what happened at Poe/Annandale, but they don't care, because they just want to move bodies as soon as possible while ruffling the least feathers. And we all know that wealthier parents and the parents of AAP children consistently make more noise than lower-income parents and the parents of Gen Ed students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many of those on here that are against this move will be at the hearing on the 22nd when this will be voted on? Raise your hands please..

Not living in the area, I may not show up. I know the school board has read these threads and have talked to them personally about the issues. I have also talked to facilities. It's their responsibility to make a sound decision. I do not feel obligated to show up just to make sure they do the right thing. I cannot show up to every hearing and it is not my responsibility. What if I was sick or had an obligation? These are the people we elected. The responsibility is on their shoulders.

But you are not the only one carrying the weight of the opposition on your shoulders, pp (or are you?). I thought there were a few hundred based on the length of this thread.

While I get your point about the county needing to worry about this vs us, they cannot make any decisions if they have to worry about 3rd and 4th order consequences of every decision.

The issue they are addressing is overcrowding at LJ.
Potential solutions - Move kids to Thoreau (which has overcapacity). I'm sure parents were involved in pushing for this solution (OES and the other two schools).
Move kids to Poe - Where are the parents asking for this? If not them, who else will? You will not find OES parents asking for this. In fact, if someone had proposed this, they would have vehemently shot it down because the school is just too far away!

I don't think it's fair for someone to pontificate on this when they are not personally involved.

One Fairfax is specifically set up so that people aren't just looking out for their own interest, but those of the entire County. I really can't say whether this proposal meets One Fairfax because I haven't seen any data analyzing it. So what would I argue about other than the lack of data? FCPS is supposed to listen to constituents but make decisions based on the entire county. Of course even though I'm not directed affected by the move, I'm indirectly affected by schools that have very high FARMS rates and low achievement rates. We have some schools that are on the brink of the state getting involved. Those schools are pulling resources from other schools. We do live nearby to these schools and they will affect me, but either way, I expect FCPS to adhere to their own policies for the betterment of the entire county. FYI, I've only posted a couple of times here. There are others that see issues. But this was why One Fairfax was created. To have an overarching policy that super-ceded whatever individual request was made.

Other issues you and other bring up such as :LJ will become a "poor people" school, performance will decrease, property values will decrease, etc are second/third order issues that FCPS just doesn't have the mental bandwidth/capacity/ability to address. Once you bring those issues in you will not be able to change anything.

[Anonymous]

One Fairfax is specifically set up so that people aren't just looking out for their own interest, but those of the entire County. I really can't say whether this proposal meets One Fairfax because I haven't seen any data analyzing it. So what would I argue about other than the lack of data? FCPS is supposed to listen to constituents but make decisions based on the entire county. Of course even though I'm not directed affected by the move, I'm indirectly affected by schools that have very high FARMS rates and low achievement rates. We have some schools that are on the brink of the state getting involved. Those schools are pulling resources from other schools. We do live nearby to these schools and they will affect me, but either way, I expect FCPS to adhere to their own policies for the betterment of the entire county. FYI, I've only posted a couple of times here. There are others that see issues. But this was why One Fairfax was created. To have an overarching policy that super-ceded whatever individual request was made.

[Anonymous]

I would have just been happy at this point if FCPS decided at least to start renovating Falls Church High. It's such a shame that school keeps getting put on the back burner to other schools and this boundary change will make things even harder.

[Anonymous]

They'd never turn a middle school into a three-way split feeder like they are proposing to do here, if it involved moving wealthier kids to a lower SES middle school. People would jump up and down about how awful it would be when their kids were torn apart from their middle school classmates from the other two schools, and so on. The hypocrisy is over the top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many of those on here that are against this move will be at the hearing on the 22nd when this will be voted on? Raise your hands please..

It will be a waste of time to go. The public hearing for the school board already happened.... after at least four community engagement meetings. They won't be taking public comments at the meeting on Feb. 22.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is the responsibility of the School Board and FCPS Staff to do the right thing. It's not consistent with the One Fairfax resolution to always put the burden on the people who are getting the short end of the stick to complain, especially when FCPS did not reach out to them previously.

So you have the right to complain and whine about things but not the obligation to do anything about it? The county management works for you (theoretically). Most of them are limited when it comes to brain power/empathy. Unless you tell them what you want, they don't care. That's your responsibility as an affected citizen. Have you done that?

DP here. After reading these threads, I did contact the School Board members and ask them to put this on hold until they consider other options. I didn't whine. I just pointed out the considerations that weigh in favor of a different approach.

But I do think it's their responsibility in the first instance to make sure that FCPS staff is both acting transparently and soliciting input from all affected parties. That hasn't happened here.

Did you consider the fact that rising 7th graders have to make decisions right now about their classes and need to know where they are going to school in Aug.? Did you consider the fact that the kids AT LJ right now (and the ones going there next year) should not have to live with super crowded conditions? The school board SHOULD have resolved this issue 2 + years ago. But, something has to be done now. FWIW, it doesn't harm my kids. But, it is not acceptable to keep things as they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many of those on here that are against this move will be at the hearing on the 22nd when this will be voted on? Raise your hands please..

Not living in the area, I may not show up. I know the school board has read these threads and have talked to them personally about the issues. I have also talked to facilities. It's their responsibility to make a sound decision. I do not feel obligated to show up just to make sure they do the right thing. I cannot show up to every hearing and it is not my responsibility. What if I was sick or had an obligation? These are the people we elected. The responsibility is on their shoulders.

But you are not the only one carrying the weight of the opposition on your shoulders, pp (or are you?). I thought there were a few hundred based on the length of this thread.

While I get your point about the county needing to worry about this vs us, they cannot make any decisions if they have to worry about 3rd and 4th order consequences of every decision.

The issue they are addressing is overcrowding at LJ.
Potential solutions - Move kids to Thoreau (which has overcapacity). I'm sure parents were involved in pushing for this solution (OES and the other two schools).
Move kids to Poe - Where are the parents asking for this? If not them, who else will? You will not find OES parents asking for this. In fact, if someone had proposed this, they would have vehemently shot it down because the school is just too far away!

I don't think it's fair for someone to pontificate on this when they are not personally involved.

Other issues you and other bring up such as :LJ will become a "poor people" school, performance will decrease, property values will decrease, etc are second/third order issues that FCPS just doesn't have the mental bandwidth/capacity/ability to address. Once you bring those issues in you will not be able to change anything.

This is nothing more than your conspiracy theory. The plan to move these particular schools into Thoreau was hatched by the facilities people long ago in the CIP. Parents at OES, MWES and MRES had nothing to do with it. OES parents were more unhappy with LJ b/c they were a split ES... so some kids were going to TMS and some to LJ. That did drive a feeling of some kids getting a higher end school while their friends got somethign else. MWES was not a split feeder.... people there were fully on-board with LJ and weren't agitating to leave. Not sure about the MRES kids. They were a much smaller part of the MRES population.

There was no effort on the part of the ES to get themselves picked to be rezoned. FCPS simply looked at the map and it was obvious who should move. You want to social engineer the situation to suit your property values. Admit that.

[Anonymous]

14:01 No on is saying the vote shouldn't be taking place on Feb. 22nd. We are just frustrated with the process and the outcome. There are many boundary decisions that are decided days before people have to make decisions on schools. This is not a unique situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many of those on here that are against this move will be at the hearing on the 22nd when this will be voted on? Raise your hands please..

Not living in the area, I may not show up. I know the school board has read these threads and have talked to them personally about the issues. I have also talked to facilities. It's their responsibility to make a sound decision. I do not feel obligated to show up just to make sure they do the right thing. I cannot show up to every hearing and it is not my responsibility. What if I was sick or had an obligation? These are the people we elected. The responsibility is on their shoulders.

But you are not the only one carrying the weight of the opposition on your shoulders, pp (or are you?). I thought there were a few hundred based on the length of this thread.

While I get your point about the county needing to worry about this vs us, they cannot make any decisions if they have to worry about 3rd and 4th order consequences of every decision.

The issue they are addressing is overcrowding at LJ.
Potential solutions - Move kids to Thoreau (which has overcapacity). I'm sure parents were involved in pushing for this solution (OES and the other two schools).
Move kids to Poe - Where are the parents asking for this? If not them, who else will? You will not find OES parents asking for this. In fact, if someone had proposed this, they would have vehemently shot it down because the school is just too far away!

I don't think it's fair for someone to pontificate on this when they are not personally involved.

Other issues you and other bring up such as :LJ will become a "poor people" school, performance will decrease, property values will decrease, etc are second/third order issues that FCPS just doesn't have the mental bandwidth/capacity/ability to address. Once you bring those issues in you will not be able to change anything.

This is nothing more than your conspiracy theory. The plan to move these particular schools into Thoreau was hatched by the facilities people long ago in the CIP. Parents at OES, MWES and MRES had nothing to do with it. OES parents were more unhappy with LJ b/c they were a split ES... so some kids were going to TMS and some to LJ. That did drive a feeling of some kids getting a higher end school while their friends got somethign else. MWES was not a split feeder.... people there were fully on-board with LJ and weren't agitating to leave. Not sure about the MRES kids. They were a much smaller part of the MRES population.

There was no effort on the part of the ES to get themselves picked to be rezoned. FCPS simply looked at the map and it was obvious who should move. You want to social engineer the situation to suit your property values. Admit that.

The whole zoning in the county is social engineering. The Town of Vienna itself is manufactured social engineering. One Fairfax IS a social engineering principle based on previous social engineering that congregated low income properties together. You seem to have a problem with One Fairfax.

[Anonymous]

As long as LJ becomes less crowded then this is a fine solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As long as LJ becomes less crowded then this is a fine solution.

Winner!

And how about a little faith that kids who remain at LJ are capable of doing well in school? Why does the opposition (to the rezoning) assume that these kids (at LJ) are just going to fail and drive the school into the ground?