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

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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][quote=Anonymous]What about the homeowners and non-ESL students that live in the Lewis boundaries? They should be forced to move to other schools and see their home values suffer? Doesn't seem right to me.[/quote]

Wtf are you babbling about? How would their home values suffer going to a better performing school with more kids? Seems like it would be a win for them.

But, to be fair, I don’t think they should have to move if they don’t want to. 1,500 students is only a critical shortfall if you are trying to make a blatant equity play. It’s the people in Lewis pyramid trying to bolster their own house value at the expense of their neighbors.[/quote]

I'm asking why people in the Lewis pyramid who are not ESL should have to transfer to other schools to find similar cohorts and challenging classes. That is the situation now and will continue to be unless something is done to help the school. Why are some pyramids designated as the permanent home of the poor and ESL populations? That is how FCPS is treating them. How is that fair to the homeowners in the Lewis pyramid? They moved higher income areas from Gambrill Road and Daventry to West Springfield. That helped their property values. Was that fair to the homeowners still zoned to Lewis? Maybe some people are tired of being dumped on.[/quote]
Did you not know your school pyramid before you bought your house?

And as for being dumped on, yeah, FCPS families are overwhelmingly tired of this boundary change crap. The school board wasted years on it instead of working to improve the school system. The opportunity cost is through the roof on boundary changes, and they’re going to run it back in four years. It’s insanity.[/quote]

I’m so tired of this argument. So the “poors” should be the ones that suffer and their kids get a worse education than others?
Things will never be truly equal, but comparing Lewis to say Langley is a huge difference. Why should people in the Lewis pyramid have their backs turned on them by the school board because “they’re too poor to buy a house in a better neighborhood”

And by example, we bought our house in the Lewis pyramid in 2020 thinking we’d move when our kids are older, or things could change in the next ten-ish years. Fast forward to now, we’ve got a kid in kindergarten at Springfield Estates, which is a very good school, but it looks like the school board gives zero Fs about Key and Lewis. We have a very low interest rate on our mortgage, one spouse is fed, and one is a contractor. Mortgage rates are now high, prices are high, gas is expensive, food is expensive. Fed feels like they could be RIFed at any moment. But I guess according to DCUM trolls we should just move in order to have our kids get an equitable education? Noted, sounds so easy I’ll hop right on that.  /s[/quote]

Yes, this is exactly what you can expect to hear from this crowd…

“Suck it up” 
“You knew what schools you were zoned for 15 years ago when you bought and should not have expected any improvement” 
“Lewis is thriving as a small school!”
“It shouldn’t matter that the school can’t fill basic sports, academic programs” 
“ MENTAL HEALTH!” 
“Just give it a few more years…”

We pulled our kid last year and are in the process of moving. [/quote]
Make sure you check out the schools that your new home is zoned for so that you don’t have to continue to try to mooch off your neighbors there. Life is easier when you put in the effort on the front end.

Bon voyage![/quote]

+1. The PP took a gamble on buying a house zoned for the worst high school in Fairfax County. They could have either purchased less house in a more well regarded school, but they chose not too. They even acknowledge that they knew about the issues with the school when they purchased. Sorry, let me get out my violin for you. My house has downsides, but when we purchased the number 1 consideration  was the schools. That area of Fairfax County was a nonstarter. [/quote]

I’m not disputing your points. I also didn’t ask for sympathy, and the “we win, you lose” tone isn’t helpful.

We live in a 1200 sq ft townhouse, which is what we could afford. The idea that we should have “downgraded” more, or somehow predicted this, isn’t realistic.

We moved to the county expecting access to good schools. Instead, we’re watching our assigned school fall continue to fall behind with little action to address it. That’s the issue.

If your kids are in a good position, great for you. But dismissing other families’ concerns instead of pushing for better across the board is part of the problem.
[/quote]

DP but there are affordable TH’s in almost every pyramid except like, Langley/McLean/Oakton/Madison. This is really coming across like, “[b]I bought an inexpensive, convenient home, but don’t want to make a schools trade-off, so now I’m hoping a bunch of people get moved to my school so they can pull it up by osmosis[/b].”[/quote]

That’s your small minded framing. From my side, it sounds like anything that might impact your kids is off the table.

Please point me to townhomes at similar price points in higher-performing Fairfax pyramids. I’ll wait.

Expecting the school board to ensure a baseline level of quality across the schools we all pay into shouldn’t be controversial. It only becomes controversial when it requires difficult changes.
[/quote]

By what metric(s) is FCPS failing to ensure a baseline level of quality at Lewis?  Be specific.

In my experience the default position of every School Board member and senior FCPS is that every kid can get a great education in every high school, bar none.  You have to have specific evidence that’s no longer the case.

If your response is simply to keep saying Lewis couldn’t field a baseball team a few years ago, or that FCPS has to change the demographics at Lewis, you will get nowhere.  FCPS has been a whipping boy of the Trump administration for a long time.  Their employees now tell people in public that they do not consider demographics when considering potential boundary changes.  It’s not 2018 when the likes of Pat Hynes and Tamara Derenak-Kaufax were openly pushing boundary changes to spread the dwindling number of UMC white and Asian families around like magic pixie dust. [/quote]

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