FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

There’s not going to be any county-wide reorg. It would be political suicide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It has been something like 30 years since FCPS did a boundary study and reorg, it is needed. I understand that people don’t want to change schools, especially if they are going from a strong school to a school to a weaker school. That doesn’t mean that a boundary study isn’t needed.

There are over-enrolled schools and under-enrolled schools. Boundaries should be adjusted to use the space that we have.

That does not mean that boundaries should be drawn to balance FARMs rates. It does mean that there will be some adjustments because there are high FARMs schools that are under-enrolled near low FARMs schools that are close to capacity or at capacity. Langley is not going to have kids bussed from Lewis. Lewis is not going to have kids bussed from Langley.

I wold prefer that they handle the entire county at once then do the stupid school by school with ripple effects so that it is done with at one time. Then set periodic reviews every 10 years, or something like that.

I think this is also the time to drop IB and make every school AP. Maybe take the empty space in one of the under-enrolled schools and make an IB magnate school for the kids who really want it. You have to be willing to work towards the diploma to attend that magnate school. It would probably increase the number of kids working towards the diploma because they would all be together instead of small numbers at each of the IB schools.

It would be far better to drop IB entirely (save for potentially one IB magnet at Lewis) and wait a while to see what impact that has on pupil placements and potentially attracting some families back to FCPS. At the same time, they need to come up with a new renovation queue to attend to the older schools that got crappy renovations in the early 2000s, while other schools built later subsequently received much nicer renovations.

Then, and only then, should they be pushing a county-wide redistricting, and that plan should take future expansions of the previously short-changed schools into account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if current classes at the time of redistricting are grandfathered in to their school? So if it happens when my youngest is a sophomore, his would be the last incoming class at his school?

With a countywide reboundary they would have to make everyone move right away, there just wouldn’t be the buses to do it any other way.

Likely new boundaries would be announced the summer before the start of school one year and take effect a year later so everyone has time to get used to the idea.

And McDaniel wants this done asap. He was quoted in a recent article as wanting this done for next school year. That’s never gonna happen, but they’ll shoot to get it done in 2025 to implement changes by fall 2026 to give themselves a year to try to shore up their votes for the next election cycle.

There is a long procedure that must be followed and cannot be rushed through just by McDaniel waving his magic wand.

Yes, that’s part of the reason they are changing the boundary policy later this month. The boundary policy change is primarily to facilitate the massive, ill-conceived county wide boundary reset.

Go back a few posts and look at the direct quote from Lady’s newsletter: “Once the policy has been approved by the Board, the next step is operationalizing this new policy.” That is a direct quote from the newsletter.

They are going to move quickly to try to get this through before they have to start taking the hugely unpopular, career-killing votes in 2027.

It wasn't that long ago that they killed a proposed boundary study for Glasgow MS that clearly hadn't been thought through very carefully. On the one hand, there was a desire on the part of Ricardy Anderson to reduce the enrollment at Glasgow, but on the other hand, moving kids to other middle schools was going to drive up the FARMS percentage at Glasgow.

These types of trade-offs and challenges will present themselves again and again if they try to push through county-wide changes. Their only hope will be that it will be so pervasively bad in the aggregate that no single bad judgment will cry out for special attention. They want to act like it's 1984 all over again, when county-wide changes were last adopted, but many things have changed since then that will make it much harder to convince parents county-wide changes are a good idea.

One hates to resort to hyperbole, but if this is done wrong it will be the final nail in the coffin for FCPS. You'll have thousands of parents who previously viewed themselves as staunch supporters of FCPS running for the exits and demanding new voucher programs.

So to summarize, your implication is that FCPS has had staunch support up until now only because thus far FCPS has been willing and able to, for the most part, segregate poor and undesired races into select pyramids while keeping premiere pyramids at high White/Asian percentage. And new policy which disturbs that ratio means the downfall of FCPS.

You completely miss the point. The implication of the Glasgow situation was that a proposal to reduce overcrowding at that school actually would have had the unintended consequences of further concentrating poverty there.

And it was just illustrative of the types of trade-offs they’ll be making, quite possibly unwittingly, if they barge into changing boundaries. For example they might reduce overcrowding at a HS but in the process increase overcrowding at a MS. They may inadvertently lock themselves into their current AAP model for another decade without really having considered whether they want to scale back on AAP “centers.” And so on.

+1. And PP is the only one that believes this is a race war. The rest of us just want our kids in the best schools possible. For her, unless every school has the exact same composition no matter the cost, she’ll claim you’re a racist.

In FCPS, there is a 100% correlation between the best schools and the lowest FARMs rates.

But I thought all the schools are equal and parents should be happy sending their kids from low farms to high farms because it’ll be an enriching experience for them? Why in the world does anyone think a parent would be okay with sending her kids from a “best school” to one that isn’t, just because the country wants to equatize?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if current classes at the time of redistricting are grandfathered in to their school? So if it happens when my youngest is a sophomore, his would be the last incoming class at his school?

With a countywide reboundary they would have to make everyone move right away, there just wouldn’t be the buses to do it any other way.

Likely new boundaries would be announced the summer before the start of school one year and take effect a year later so everyone has time to get used to the idea.

And McDaniel wants this done asap. He was quoted in a recent article as wanting this done for next school year. That’s never gonna happen, but they’ll shoot to get it done in 2025 to implement changes by fall 2026 to give themselves a year to try to shore up their votes for the next election cycle.

There is a long procedure that must be followed and cannot be rushed through just by McDaniel waving his magic wand.

Yes, that’s part of the reason they are changing the boundary policy later this month. The boundary policy change is primarily to facilitate the massive, ill-conceived county wide boundary reset.

Go back a few posts and look at the direct quote from Lady’s newsletter: “Once the policy has been approved by the Board, the next step is operationalizing this new policy.” That is a direct quote from the newsletter.

They are going to move quickly to try to get this through before they have to start taking the hugely unpopular, career-killing votes in 2027.

It wasn't that long ago that they killed a proposed boundary study for Glasgow MS that clearly hadn't been thought through very carefully. On the one hand, there was a desire on the part of Ricardy Anderson to reduce the enrollment at Glasgow, but on the other hand, moving kids to other middle schools was going to drive up the FARMS percentage at Glasgow.

These types of trade-offs and challenges will present themselves again and again if they try to push through county-wide changes. Their only hope will be that it will be so pervasively bad in the aggregate that no single bad judgment will cry out for special attention. They want to act like it's 1984 all over again, when county-wide changes were last adopted, but many things have changed since then that will make it much harder to convince parents county-wide changes are a good idea.

One hates to resort to hyperbole, but if this is done wrong it will be the final nail in the coffin for FCPS. You'll have thousands of parents who previously viewed themselves as staunch supporters of FCPS running for the exits and demanding new voucher programs.

So to summarize, your implication is that FCPS has had staunch support up until now only because thus far FCPS has been willing and able to, for the most part, segregate poor and undesired races into select pyramids while keeping premiere pyramids at high White/Asian percentage. And new policy which disturbs that ratio means the downfall of FCPS.

You completely miss the point. The implication of the Glasgow situation was that a proposal to reduce overcrowding at that school actually would have had the unintended consequences of further concentrating poverty there.

And it was just illustrative of the types of trade-offs they’ll be making, quite possibly unwittingly, if they barge into changing boundaries. For example they might reduce overcrowding at a HS but in the process increase overcrowding at a MS. They may inadvertently lock themselves into their current AAP model for another decade without really having considered whether they want to scale back on AAP “centers.” And so on.

+1. And PP is the only one that believes this is a race war. The rest of us just want our kids in the best schools possible. For her, unless every school has the exact same composition no matter the cost, she’ll claim you’re a racist.

Stop thinking only one person thinks differently from you. There are many different posters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It has been something like 30 years since FCPS did a boundary study and reorg, it is needed. I understand that people don’t want to change schools, especially if they are going from a strong school to a school to a weaker school. That doesn’t mean that a boundary study isn’t needed.

There are over-enrolled schools and under-enrolled schools. Boundaries should be adjusted to use the space that we have.

That does not mean that boundaries should be drawn to balance FARMs rates. It does mean that there will be some adjustments because there are high FARMs schools that are under-enrolled near low FARMs schools that are close to capacity or at capacity. Langley is not going to have kids bussed from Lewis. Lewis is not going to have kids bussed from Langley.

I wold prefer that they handle the entire county at once then do the stupid school by school with ripple effects so that it is done with at one time. Then set periodic reviews every 10 years, or something like that.

I think this is also the time to drop IB and make every school AP. Maybe take the empty space in one of the under-enrolled schools and make an IB magnate school for the kids who really want it. You have to be willing to work towards the diploma to attend that magnate school. It would probably increase the number of kids working towards the diploma because they would all be together instead of small numbers at each of the IB schools.

Do you know why schools are under-enrolled? Because net student transfers out are in the hundreds. If you care about using available seats, rather than disrupt the whole system, just turn off the damn spigot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if current classes at the time of redistricting are grandfathered in to their school? So if it happens when my youngest is a sophomore, his would be the last incoming class at his school?

With a countywide reboundary they would have to make everyone move right away, there just wouldn’t be the buses to do it any other way.

Likely new boundaries would be announced the summer before the start of school one year and take effect a year later so everyone has time to get used to the idea.

And McDaniel wants this done asap. He was quoted in a recent article as wanting this done for next school year. That’s never gonna happen, but they’ll shoot to get it done in 2025 to implement changes by fall 2026 to give themselves a year to try to shore up their votes for the next election cycle.

There is a long procedure that must be followed and cannot be rushed through just by McDaniel waving his magic wand.

Yes, that’s part of the reason they are changing the boundary policy later this month. The boundary policy change is primarily to facilitate the massive, ill-conceived county wide boundary reset.

Go back a few posts and look at the direct quote from Lady’s newsletter: “Once the policy has been approved by the Board, the next step is operationalizing this new policy.” That is a direct quote from the newsletter.

They are going to move quickly to try to get this through before they have to start taking the hugely unpopular, career-killing votes in 2027.

It wasn't that long ago that they killed a proposed boundary study for Glasgow MS that clearly hadn't been thought through very carefully. On the one hand, there was a desire on the part of Ricardy Anderson to reduce the enrollment at Glasgow, but on the other hand, moving kids to other middle schools was going to drive up the FARMS percentage at Glasgow.

These types of trade-offs and challenges will present themselves again and again if they try to push through county-wide changes. Their only hope will be that it will be so pervasively bad in the aggregate that no single bad judgment will cry out for special attention. They want to act like it's 1984 all over again, when county-wide changes were last adopted, but many things have changed since then that will make it much harder to convince parents county-wide changes are a good idea.

One hates to resort to hyperbole, but if this is done wrong it will be the final nail in the coffin for FCPS. You'll have thousands of parents who previously viewed themselves as staunch supporters of FCPS running for the exits and demanding new voucher programs.

So to summarize, your implication is that FCPS has had staunch support up until now only because thus far FCPS has been willing and able to, for the most part, segregate poor and undesired races into select pyramids while keeping premiere pyramids at high White/Asian percentage. And new policy which disturbs that ratio means the downfall of FCPS.

You completely miss the point. The implication of the Glasgow situation was that a proposal to reduce overcrowding at that school actually would have had the unintended consequences of further concentrating poverty there.

And it was just illustrative of the types of trade-offs they’ll be making, quite possibly unwittingly, if they barge into changing boundaries. For example they might reduce overcrowding at a HS but in the process increase overcrowding at a MS. They may inadvertently lock themselves into their current AAP model for another decade without really having considered whether they want to scale back on AAP “centers.” And so on.

+1. And PP is the only one that believes this is a race war. The rest of us just want our kids in the best schools possible. For her, unless every school has the exact same composition no matter the cost, she’ll claim you’re a racist.

In FCPS, there is a 100% correlation between the best schools and the lowest FARMs rates.

But I thought all the schools are equal and parents should be happy sending their kids from low farms to high farms because it’ll be an enriching experience for them? Why in the world does anyone think a parent would be okay with sending her kids from a “best school” to one that isn’t, just because the country wants to equatize?

Because they voted for it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if current classes at the time of redistricting are grandfathered in to their school? So if it happens when my youngest is a sophomore, his would be the last incoming class at his school?

With a countywide reboundary they would have to make everyone move right away, there just wouldn’t be the buses to do it any other way.

Likely new boundaries would be announced the summer before the start of school one year and take effect a year later so everyone has time to get used to the idea.

And McDaniel wants this done asap. He was quoted in a recent article as wanting this done for next school year. That’s never gonna happen, but they’ll shoot to get it done in 2025 to implement changes by fall 2026 to give themselves a year to try to shore up their votes for the next election cycle.

There is a long procedure that must be followed and cannot be rushed through just by McDaniel waving his magic wand.

Yes, that’s part of the reason they are changing the boundary policy later this month. The boundary policy change is primarily to facilitate the massive, ill-conceived county wide boundary reset.

Go back a few posts and look at the direct quote from Lady’s newsletter: “Once the policy has been approved by the Board, the next step is operationalizing this new policy.” That is a direct quote from the newsletter.

They are going to move quickly to try to get this through before they have to start taking the hugely unpopular, career-killing votes in 2027.

It wasn't that long ago that they killed a proposed boundary study for Glasgow MS that clearly hadn't been thought through very carefully. On the one hand, there was a desire on the part of Ricardy Anderson to reduce the enrollment at Glasgow, but on the other hand, moving kids to other middle schools was going to drive up the FARMS percentage at Glasgow.

These types of trade-offs and challenges will present themselves again and again if they try to push through county-wide changes. Their only hope will be that it will be so pervasively bad in the aggregate that no single bad judgment will cry out for special attention. They want to act like it's 1984 all over again, when county-wide changes were last adopted, but many things have changed since then that will make it much harder to convince parents county-wide changes are a good idea.

One hates to resort to hyperbole, but if this is done wrong it will be the final nail in the coffin for FCPS. You'll have thousands of parents who previously viewed themselves as staunch supporters of FCPS running for the exits and demanding new voucher programs.

So to summarize, your implication is that FCPS has had staunch support up until now only because thus far FCPS has been willing and able to, for the most part, segregate poor and undesired races into select pyramids while keeping premiere pyramids at high White/Asian percentage. And new policy which disturbs that ratio means the downfall of FCPS.

You completely miss the point. The implication of the Glasgow situation was that a proposal to reduce overcrowding at that school actually would have had the unintended consequences of further concentrating poverty there.

And it was just illustrative of the types of trade-offs they’ll be making, quite possibly unwittingly, if they barge into changing boundaries. For example they might reduce overcrowding at a HS but in the process increase overcrowding at a MS. They may inadvertently lock themselves into their current AAP model for another decade without really having considered whether they want to scale back on AAP “centers.” And so on.

+1. And PP is the only one that believes this is a race war. The rest of us just want our kids in the best schools possible. For her, unless every school has the exact same composition no matter the cost, she’ll claim you’re a racist.

In FCPS, there is a 100% correlation between the best schools and the lowest FARMs rates.

This simply isn't true. You could come up with a model that would be highly predictive of which schools have the highest test scores, but it would need to take into account other factors besides FARMS rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if current classes at the time of redistricting are grandfathered in to their school? So if it happens when my youngest is a sophomore, his would be the last incoming class at his school?

With a countywide reboundary they would have to make everyone move right away, there just wouldn’t be the buses to do it any other way.

Likely new boundaries would be announced the summer before the start of school one year and take effect a year later so everyone has time to get used to the idea.

And McDaniel wants this done asap. He was quoted in a recent article as wanting this done for next school year. That’s never gonna happen, but they’ll shoot to get it done in 2025 to implement changes by fall 2026 to give themselves a year to try to shore up their votes for the next election cycle.

There is a long procedure that must be followed and cannot be rushed through just by McDaniel waving his magic wand.

Yes, that’s part of the reason they are changing the boundary policy later this month. The boundary policy change is primarily to facilitate the massive, ill-conceived county wide boundary reset.

Go back a few posts and look at the direct quote from Lady’s newsletter: “Once the policy has been approved by the Board, the next step is operationalizing this new policy.” That is a direct quote from the newsletter.

They are going to move quickly to try to get this through before they have to start taking the hugely unpopular, career-killing votes in 2027.

It wasn't that long ago that they killed a proposed boundary study for Glasgow MS that clearly hadn't been thought through very carefully. On the one hand, there was a desire on the part of Ricardy Anderson to reduce the enrollment at Glasgow, but on the other hand, moving kids to other middle schools was going to drive up the FARMS percentage at Glasgow.

These types of trade-offs and challenges will present themselves again and again if they try to push through county-wide changes. Their only hope will be that it will be so pervasively bad in the aggregate that no single bad judgment will cry out for special attention. They want to act like it's 1984 all over again, when county-wide changes were last adopted, but many things have changed since then that will make it much harder to convince parents county-wide changes are a good idea.

One hates to resort to hyperbole, but if this is done wrong it will be the final nail in the coffin for FCPS. You'll have thousands of parents who previously viewed themselves as staunch supporters of FCPS running for the exits and demanding new voucher programs.

So to summarize, your implication is that FCPS has had staunch support up until now only because thus far FCPS has been willing and able to, for the most part, segregate poor and undesired races into select pyramids while keeping premiere pyramids at high White/Asian percentage. And new policy which disturbs that ratio means the downfall of FCPS.

You completely miss the point. The implication of the Glasgow situation was that a proposal to reduce overcrowding at that school actually would have had the unintended consequences of further concentrating poverty there.

And it was just illustrative of the types of trade-offs they’ll be making, quite possibly unwittingly, if they barge into changing boundaries. For example they might reduce overcrowding at a HS but in the process increase overcrowding at a MS. They may inadvertently lock themselves into their current AAP model for another decade without really having considered whether they want to scale back on AAP “centers.” And so on.

+1. And PP is the only one that believes this is a race war. The rest of us just want our kids in the best schools possible. For her, unless every school has the exact same composition no matter the cost, she’ll claim you’re a racist.

In FCPS, there is a 100% correlation between the best schools and the lowest FARMs rates.

This simply isn't true. You could come up with a model that would be highly predictive of which schools have the highest test scores, but it would need to take into account other factors besides FARMS rates.

If you want a balance of high test scores, available extra curriculars (especially the kind that require a PTA with money), lack of serious disciplinary issues, and low teacher turnover, FARMs rate is going to be the best predictor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has been something like 30 years since FCPS did a boundary study and reorg, it is needed. I understand that people don’t want to change schools, especially if they are going from a strong school to a school to a weaker school. That doesn’t mean that a boundary study isn’t needed.

There are over-enrolled schools and under-enrolled schools. Boundaries should be adjusted to use the space that we have.

That does not mean that boundaries should be drawn to balance FARMs rates. It does mean that there will be some adjustments because there are high FARMs schools that are under-enrolled near low FARMs schools that are close to capacity or at capacity. Langley is not going to have kids bussed from Lewis. Lewis is not going to have kids bussed from Langley.

I wold prefer that they handle the entire county at once then do the stupid school by school with ripple effects so that it is done with at one time. Then set periodic reviews every 10 years, or something like that.

I think this is also the time to drop IB and make every school AP. Maybe take the empty space in one of the under-enrolled schools and make an IB magnate school for the kids who really want it. You have to be willing to work towards the diploma to attend that magnate school. It would probably increase the number of kids working towards the diploma because they would all be together instead of small numbers at each of the IB schools.

Do you know why schools are under-enrolled? Because net student transfers out are in the hundreds. If you care about using available seats, rather than disrupt the whole system, just turn off the damn spigot.

The reason there is a spigot in the first place is because parents are bailing on failing schools. Why are the schools failing? It’s because FCPS has created a system of “good” (high SES) schools adjacent to “bad” (low SES) schools. The “bad” schools do not offer the same variety of classes, extracurriculars, or educational opportunities as the “good” schools right down the street. So, you think we should just make students stay in the “bad” schools because they happen to live just outside the “good” zone?

The county needs to do a county-wide reassessment of boundaries, which hasn’t been done in a very long time. It should include a comprehensive inventory of facilities, space, and programs offered at each school. Maybe it would conclude that some schools could be closed and consolidated to offer better economy of scale and similarity of course offerings. No county resident should have the idea that their school district is set in stone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has been something like 30 years since FCPS did a boundary study and reorg, it is needed. I understand that people don’t want to change schools, especially if they are going from a strong school to a school to a weaker school. That doesn’t mean that a boundary study isn’t needed.

There are over-enrolled schools and under-enrolled schools. Boundaries should be adjusted to use the space that we have.

That does not mean that boundaries should be drawn to balance FARMs rates. It does mean that there will be some adjustments because there are high FARMs schools that are under-enrolled near low FARMs schools that are close to capacity or at capacity. Langley is not going to have kids bussed from Lewis. Lewis is not going to have kids bussed from Langley.

I wold prefer that they handle the entire county at once then do the stupid school by school with ripple effects so that it is done with at one time. Then set periodic reviews every 10 years, or something like that.

I think this is also the time to drop IB and make every school AP. Maybe take the empty space in one of the under-enrolled schools and make an IB magnate school for the kids who really want it. You have to be willing to work towards the diploma to attend that magnate school. It would probably increase the number of kids working towards the diploma because they would all be together instead of small numbers at each of the IB schools.

Do you know why schools are under-enrolled? Because net student transfers out are in the hundreds. If you care about using available seats, rather than disrupt the whole system, just turn off the damn spigot.

The reason there is a spigot in the first place is because parents are bailing on failing schools. Why are the schools failing? It’s because FCPS has created a system of “good” (high SES) schools adjacent to “bad” (low SES) schools. The “bad” schools do not offer the same variety of classes, extracurriculars, or educational opportunities as the “good” schools right down the street. So, you think we should just make students stay in the “bad” schools because they happen to live just outside the “good” zone?

The county needs to do a county-wide reassessment of boundaries, which hasn’t been done in a very long time. It should include a comprehensive inventory of facilities, space, and programs offered at each school. Maybe it would conclude that some schools could be closed and consolidated to offer better economy of scale and similarity of course offerings. No county resident should have the idea that their school district is set in stone.

+1 If you can afford to live in a desirable pyramid, your kid doesn't deserve to attend a good high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It has been something like 30 years since FCPS did a boundary study and reorg, it is needed. I understand that people don’t want to change schools, especially if they are going from a strong school to a school to a weaker school. That doesn’t mean that a boundary study isn’t needed.

There are over-enrolled schools and under-enrolled schools. Boundaries should be adjusted to use the space that we have.

That does not mean that boundaries should be drawn to balance FARMs rates. It does mean that there will be some adjustments because there are high FARMs schools that are under-enrolled near low FARMs schools that are close to capacity or at capacity. Langley is not going to have kids bussed from Lewis. Lewis is not going to have kids bussed from Langley.

I wold prefer that they handle the entire county at once then do the stupid school by school with ripple effects so that it is done with at one time. Then set periodic reviews every 10 years, or something like that.

I think this is also the time to drop IB and make every school AP. Maybe take the empty space in one of the under-enrolled schools and make an IB magnate school for the kids who really want it. You have to be willing to work towards the diploma to attend that magnate school. It would probably increase the number of kids working towards the diploma because they would all be together instead of small numbers at each of the IB schools.

Do you know why schools are under-enrolled? Because net student transfers out are in the hundreds. If you care about using available seats, rather than disrupt the whole system, just turn off the damn spigot.

The reason there is a spigot in the first place is because parents are bailing on failing schools. Why are the schools failing? It’s because FCPS has created a system of “good” (high SES) schools adjacent to “bad” (low SES) schools. The “bad” schools do not offer the same variety of classes, extracurriculars, or educational opportunities as the “good” schools right down the street. So, you think we should just make students stay in the “bad” schools because they happen to live just outside the “good” zone?

The county needs to do a county-wide reassessment of boundaries, which hasn’t been done in a very long time. It should include a comprehensive inventory of facilities, space, and programs offered at each school. Maybe it would conclude that some schools could be closed and consolidated to offer better economy of scale and similarity of course offerings. No county resident should have the idea that their school district is set in stone.

If I were a parent with young kids looking to buy an home in the DC area and read your last sentence, I would simply stop looking for a home in Fairfax County. Home buyers overwhelmingly buy their homes for the schools - it’s a fundamental truth.

[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:Does anyone know if current classes at the time of redistricting are grandfathered in to their school? So if it happens when my youngest is a sophomore, his would be the last incoming class at his school?

With a countywide reboundary they would have to make everyone move right away, there just wouldn’t be the buses to do it any other way.

Likely new boundaries would be announced the summer before the start of school one year and take effect a year later so everyone has time to get used to the idea.

And McDaniel wants this done asap. He was quoted in a recent article as wanting this done for next school year. That’s never gonna happen, but they’ll shoot to get it done in 2025 to implement changes by fall 2026 to give themselves a year to try to shore up their votes for the next election cycle.

There is a long procedure that must be followed and cannot be rushed through just by McDaniel waving his magic wand.

Yes, that’s part of the reason they are changing the boundary policy later this month. The boundary policy change is primarily to facilitate the massive, ill-conceived county wide boundary reset.

Go back a few posts and look at the direct quote from Lady’s newsletter: “Once the policy has been approved by the Board, the next step is operationalizing this new policy.” That is a direct quote from the newsletter.

They are going to move quickly to try to get this through before they have to start taking the hugely unpopular, career-killing votes in 2027.

It wasn't that long ago that they killed a proposed boundary study for Glasgow MS that clearly hadn't been thought through very carefully. On the one hand, there was a desire on the part of Ricardy Anderson to reduce the enrollment at Glasgow, but on the other hand, moving kids to other middle schools was going to drive up the FARMS percentage at Glasgow.

These types of trade-offs and challenges will present themselves again and again if they try to push through county-wide changes. Their only hope will be that it will be so pervasively bad in the aggregate that no single bad judgment will cry out for special attention. They want to act like it's 1984 all over again, when county-wide changes were last adopted, but many things have changed since then that will make it much harder to convince parents county-wide changes are a good idea.

One hates to resort to hyperbole, but if this is done wrong it will be the final nail in the coffin for FCPS. You'll have thousands of parents who previously viewed themselves as staunch supporters of FCPS running for the exits and demanding new voucher programs.

So to summarize, your implication is that FCPS has had staunch support up until now only because thus far FCPS has been willing and able to, for the most part, segregate poor and undesired races into select pyramids while keeping premiere pyramids at high White/Asian percentage. And new policy which disturbs that ratio means the downfall of FCPS.

You completely miss the point. The implication of the Glasgow situation was that a proposal to reduce overcrowding at that school actually would have had the unintended consequences of further concentrating poverty there.

And it was just illustrative of the types of trade-offs they’ll be making, quite possibly unwittingly, if they barge into changing boundaries. For example they might reduce overcrowding at a HS but in the process increase overcrowding at a MS. They may inadvertently lock themselves into their current AAP model for another decade without really having considered whether they want to scale back on AAP “centers.” And so on.

+1. And PP is the only one that believes this is a race war. The rest of us just want our kids in the best schools possible. For her, unless every school has the exact same composition no matter the cost, she’ll claim you’re a racist.

In FCPS, there is a 100% correlation between the best schools and the lowest FARMs rates.

But I thought all the schools are equal and parents should be happy sending their kids from low farms to high farms because it’ll be an enriching experience for them? Why in the world does anyone think a parent would be okay with sending her kids from a “best school” to one that isn’t, just because the country wants to equatize?

Because they voted for it?

But they didn't. They may have voted for the School Board members who apparently want to ram this through over the next year, but none of them ran on that platform.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There’s not going to be any county-wide reorg. It would be political suicide.

The School Board members should not care. Who views being on the School Board as a stepping-stone to higher public office? That rarely happens.

[Anonymous]

It won't happen. If the school board tries it, Fairfax voters will protest either by staying home or by voting R. That means Virginia goes red for a few cycles. Youngkin is governor thanks to LCPS's incompetence. FCPS pissing off voters could cost democrats a senate seat or the governorship. The state party knows it and would quietly step in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s not going to be any county-wide reorg. It would be political suicide.

The School Board members should not care. Who views being on the School Board as a stepping-stone to higher public office? That rarely happens.

Lots of them end up running for the house of delegates or the county boards.