Reply to FCPS' plans to address concerns at under-enrolled and over-enrolled schools.

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "FCPS' plans to address concerns at under-enrolled and over-enrolled schools. "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't live anywhere near this area, but here is an idea:

Improve Lewis where it is:

1. Eliminate IB.  It is clearly not the right fit for Lewis (really not the right fit for FCPS.)  It will eliminate some of the outplacement to AP.
2. Look at the programs offered.  Is the leadership program costing more than it is worth?  I've no idea, but someone know whether it is working or not.  Is it attracting the kids?  Is it improving performance?  If not, then scale it way back.
3. Offer strong direct instruction to all students.  Provide tutoring to those who are struggling.
4. Look at your extracurriculars.  Those are important to keep kids involved.  Are they adaptable to the whole community?  Do they bring students together?  Do they have strong teacher sponsors?

To FCPS leadership:  what can you do to attract strong professionals to the school?  Is the school clean?  Do the administrators provide strong support?  
What can you do to keep talented students there?  Do they feel ignored?

You have got to find something that unifies the school.  In some schools it is football teams.  In others, it may be something else, but you need something that keeps the students attending and working.

Do you have a strong onboarding of freshmen?  That could be a start.
Could you get local businesses involved to give free coupons for activities?  [/quote]

Lewis needs more students. This does not address the problem.

To offer classes, or even extracurricular activities, Lewis needs a minimum number of students. You need at least 9 kids to field a baseball team. You need a certain number of kids to offer a class.

FCPS doesn't offer classes when not enough students enroll. And with declining enrollment at Lewis, it's harder to offer some of the more specialized programs that other schools offer. And without those specialized programs, parents don't want to send their kids to Lewis, so the enrollment drops even more. The cycle continues.

You have to get a certain number of students in the schools to get the programs. You can't offer programs first, then hope students will join. You need a large, healthy student population in a school.

When it reaches the point where WSHS teachers are teaching 12 classes with 30 students, while Lewis teachers are teaching 3 classes with 12 students, that's a problem. WSHS parents may say it's fine, but it's not fine for some teachers to be overloaded and teachers at neighboring schools are not, all while teachers are receiving the same pay. That's a poor use of resources, when the workload among teachers could be more easily balanced.

There's the option to close Lewis, but no FCPS school system nearby is able to absorb a couple hundred kids with one fell swoop. FCPS knows that's not an option.

And IB gets a bad rep with Lewis, but really, a lot of Lewis kids are moving to another IB school: Edison. Many of the AAP students who attend Mark Twain Middle School then go on to attend the STEM program at Edison so they can stay with their friends.[/quote]

More students is not going to make the school better.  It will only make the school look better.
First things, first.  Get rid of IB.  It is not working.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics