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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The amendment to the policy to allow such substantial grandfathering was so stupid. Especially considering there will be another review in five years. The boundary changes will barely be done when more changes might happen. They definitely can’t provide transportation to all who choose to stay. Would be highly irresponsible to waste money that way.[/quote]

Grandfathering makes sense.

The stupid part is countywide rezoning every 5 years.

No one wants that for our kids and communities. [/quote]

Tweaks have been made every time. A review of the data every 5 years is prudent. Doesn’t mean sweeping changes user necessary every 5 years. Not reviewing them every 5 years seems irresponsible.  [/quote]

No one wants rezoning every five years.

The rezoning is a 2 year process, followed by a year of fighting the rezoning and disrupting the kids.  Then it starts up again as everyone gears up for the next rezoning fight in 1-2 years.

Best case scenario, the five year rezoning fight gives kids and families only 1 year of stability per 5 year cycle.

A set county wide 5 year cycle is one of the stupidest ideas this school board and superintendent ever created, and there are a lot of stupid ideas from this school board.

A sensible change would have been to put in policy an automatic boundary review once a school hits 105% capacity, starting with a residency check, then sending all kids not living in the boundaries back to their neighborhood schools or whatever schools are open to pupil placement.  Rezoning should be minimal,  on the fringes only, and the last case scenario only after exhausting all other options including sending back all studdnts who do not live in bounds, excluding teachers' kids, and bringing the incoming transfer number to zero.

BTW, that is how the pupil placement is supposed to work.  It is only supposed to be one year at a time, with no ability to stay if the school is overcapacity and closed to transfers. Start enforcing transfer policies. [/quote]

This largely seems sensible to me, although I think they need a trigger for under-enrolled schools to determine if they can operate efficiently and, if not, whether the school should be closed or the boundaries adjusted.  With enrollments likely to continue to decline, they need to pay as much attention to potential consolidation (and, yes, the boundary changes associated with that) as potential overcrowding. [/quote]

Fun fact: a 1,500 student high school is three times the size of a lot of high schools across the country.  We all focus on capacity and percentages and pretend that a 1,500 membership means that the school is a ghost town, but you’d really have to have enrollment cut by a lot more to see it actually impact programming. In fact, lower membership can be a really good thing for making teams/clubs and generally being a big fish in a small pond.

Regardless, no high school in the county is even close to a concerning threshold.[/quote]

You need to check the enrollments of Jefferson and Fort Hunt when they closed.  It was probably around 1200 kids each.  And they toyed with the idea a few years later of closing Marshall when it was around 1100 but decided against it.  FCPS is not going to operate a 500-student high school.  [/quote]
Context matters though. What was the enrollment at neighboring schools when these schools were closed? High schools in other parts of the country can operate with a small student body just fine, but it makes sense for a huge school district to operate with a somewhat even distribution of school sizes. That way they can offer the similar programming. That’s why when you see two schools sitting next to each other with 3000 students at one and 1500 at the other, you wonder if the plan is to close or redistribute. Fairfax has been leaning toward 2500-3000 student enrollments. [/quote]

Years ago before FCPS revamped its web site I pulled some archived enrollment reports from 30 years ago for historical interest.  As far as I'm aware, these reports are no longer online.

It looks like the enrollment dropped from around 137,000 in 1975 to a low of around 126,000 in 1985 and then started to steadily increase again until Covid.  So the enrollment in 1985 was about 70% of the enrollment this fall.

By 1995, the enrollment was back to 142,000 (about 80% of the current enrollment).  Enrollment among the high/secondary schools varied quite a bit:

Lake Braddock 2516
Robinson 2451
Chantilly 2447
Herndon 2305
Centreville 2299
Oakton 2156
West Springfield 2093
Annandale 1939
Hayfield 1865
South Lakes 1740
Fairfax 1661
Woodson 1655
Lee (now Lewis) 1653
TJHSST 1624
Madison 1518
West Potomac 1488
Langley 1463
Mount Vernon 1452
McLean 1379
Falls Church 1303
Stuart (now Justice) 1272
Edison 1161
Marshall 1087

So the range for high/secondary schools was 1087 to 2516, with Marshall having an enrollment only 43% of Lake Braddock.  Keep in mind this was 1995, so after the last "county-wide" redistricting in the mid-1980s.  There weren't boundary changes within a year or two to adjust the enrollments.  In comparison, in 2025, the school with the lowest enrollment, Lewis, has an enrollment (1539) that is 53% of the enrollment of the school with the highest 9-12 enrollment, again Lake Braddock (2907).  [/quote]
Interesting stuff. The average school size used to be around 1750 and now it’s 2300 (median 1650 vs 2190.) When they considered closing Marshall, it was about 65% the size of a typical FCPS school. While today, Lewis is about 70%. So the situations aren’t quite comparable, but it’s getting there. [/quote]Interesting.  Note, in the mid-80s, FCPS relied on the results of an outside contractor study when they came up with the original maximum 2000 seat policy for new HSes.  A key consideration in getting to the 2000 policy was it allowed a full program of classes.   2000 was the policy until sometime in the 2010s when they updated the size to 2500.  It's unclear to me what they based the increase on.[/quote]

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