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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]One of the PP’s briefly touched on one of the most important points - the area zoned for Lewis is not generally an area that attracts families. Especially families of school-aged (let alone HS-aged) kids. People buy a starter home and then move and sell when their kid hits K or 1st. Or they live in one of the various apartment buildings and don’t have kids. Much of the area is industrial or commercial. Just moving in a few more SPA’s isn’t going to do anything in the long term because people will place out to Edison for their programs or one of the AP schools for AP classes.

And even moving schools in runs into problems because Franconia ES (zoned for Edison) has Edison’s walkers in its attendance area. Bren Mar Park (also Edison) would likely have to drive past Edison on its way to Lewis and should probably be up at Annandale with the rest of the K-5 schools. North Springfield (Annandale) is also a K-5 situation and sits pretty close to Annandale HS. In West Springfield, West Springfield and Keene Mill elementaries have Irving’s walkers. West Springfield HS boundaries are so compact that just about anyone leaving there is going to have a longer commute wherever they go. Lewis is in a really bad location unfortunately. [/quote]

The Daventry community is in a really great location for Lewis -- they just go right up Keene Mill Road. There are communities zoned for WSHS that work well for Lewis. Yes, those communities are closer to Irving Middle School, but there are also Lewis communities closer to Irving Middle School that are zoned for Key.

Lewis already gets an exemption from the VHSL to play other Division 6 schools -- because it is so small, it qualifies for Division 5, but every other school in the region is Division 6. When Lewis gets so small that sports aren't sustainable, the drama and arts programs aren't sustainable, the classroom sizes drop to below threshold -- that's a problem for more than just Lewis.

At that point, the school may need to close, which means that all the surrounding high schools will have to absorb the the student population. And all the surrounding high schools are over capacity already. Which means expensive renovations, overcrowded classrooms, trailers, and so on to ensure those high schools can absorb the student populations.

Or, the school board needs to take action in advance to prevent reaching that point, which means moving school populations into Lewis.

People complain that they don't want to move into Lewis. But would WSHS and Edison rather the Lewis population move into their schools? How would they feel about that? [/quote]

Just as a lot of students suddenly “appeared” when Daventry was moved to WSHS, a lot of students will “disappear” if it is moved back to Lewis. FCPS always fails to account for this. A neighborhood gets their assigned school(s) changed, suddenly becomes more or less desirable, and the population of children increases or decreases accordingly.

With Daventry, people would buy there, send their kids to elementary, and then move before the middle and HS years to another home in West Springfield. Or homes would be used for military renters with elementary age kids for a few years. It worked out because Daventry was essentially used as starter homes and the neighborhood was priced a little less, accordingly. Now people just don’t move once the kids hit the upper grades.

If they moved, say, the old neighborhoods south of the Parkway that were zoned for Lewis in the early 2000s, they’d get fewer kids than they expect because people would move, pupil place, Catholic school, lie and use another address, etc. Likewise if they moved a neighborhood out of Lewis to another school, the student yield would be larger after a few years than it was on paper. FCPS is in denial about how this happens. [/quote]

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