Reply to FCPS Skyview Boundary Revised Scenario 1 / 2

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm not a Westfield parent but I agree that FCPS needs to put some kind of high level academic programming into the building to get kids wanting to attend. Adding academy classes doesn't help the Westfield community b/c those kids just come in for one class.

Also, its refreshing that they aren't out whining like all these other groups had/were/did. Makes me much more sympathetic to how they are getting d!cked over here by FCPS.

[/quote]
I'm a Floris/Westfield parent with one kid attending Westfield next year and the other attending Skyview. After three years there the older one has pretty much given up on getting a quality education so the bar is set pretty low.[/quote]

All the more reason to put some more academic programming in at Westfield. It sounds like for whatever reason, this school has not gotten sufficient resources or attention from FCPS.[/quote]

You're smoking crack if you think they are going to reduce the enrollment at Westfield by 25% (2800 to 2100) and give the school more academic resources.  It will lose teachers and it will have to fight to retain some of its current electives.  There's a fixed pot of money and now some of that money will be going to Skyview instead, and that could be an expensive start-up given the types of electives they want to offer there.

The complaints around Westfield seem to relate to the commutes (being addressed), the demographics (although WHS mirrors the HS demographics in FCPS now fairly closely) and the senior leadership.  They should revisit the demographic impact of the boundary changes they are now considering, and they can and should make sure it has a better administrative team than it's had for past decade or so.      [/quote]

But why should the kids in boundary for Westfield suffer or be given less access? If the SB is willing to finish this process without adequately addressing utilization rates, including demographics,  which was the whole point of this, they should be willing to ensure all FCPS students have equal access to programming.  [/quote]

Those are different concepts.

[u]Utilization[/u]:  They could establish a clear range and say that every high school within the scope of the Skyview boundary study should end up above 85% utilization and below 105% utilization.  That would have been reasonable, but they haven't done that.  The failure to do so strikes many of us as a serious flaw.

[u]Demographics[/u]:  They will tell you, presumably in part for legal reasons, that they don't consider demographics when considering boundary adjustments.  They will claim they just look at the number of kids living in various SPAs (School Planning Areas).  But that's kind of a hollow claim, because even if they don't consider demographics directly, they allow themselves to be heavily influenced by parents and residents who are very much influenced by demographics.  Other school systems like APS and MCPS are far more transparent than FCPS has been about the impact of potential boundary changes on racial demographics and FARMS rates.  That tells me that there's no legal impediment to preparing and sharing that information - which people will try to figure out on their own - so long as they don't create a paper trail that they are making decisions based on race.

[u]Equal Access to Programming[/u]:  This phrase is used in FCPS's boundary policy (Policy 8130), but no one really knows what it means.  It seems to mean assurance that all kids will have access to some basic level of programming.  But kids don't have equal access to programming today - TJ kids have access to STEM courses not available to other students, Langley students have access to foreign language courses that is not available to other students, etc.  One thing we know for sure is that if they slash Westfield's enrollment significantly, they are not somehow going to feel obligated to "make it up" to Westfield by offering things there that weren't available there before.  They have a fixed budget and some of the money that was being spent on academics at Westfield is now going to get spent at Skyview instead.  Over time, they could offer something new at Westfield, but most likely it will mean something else has been or will be taken away.    [/quote]

Every school plans based on interest and availability.  Just because it is a very large school, does not mean your child gets in the class.  DD wanted to take two classes that were offered once a day: a drama class and an AP language class that was not Spanish.  They were taught at the same time and so she took a different elective instead of drama.  This happens across lots of disciplines.

If there is a greater demand for a language, the school is more likely to offer it.  But, not always.

I would expect that all core AP classes would be offered at every school.  Is this not true?
I do think that some advanced math classes are problematic at IB schools.

When I went to high school, we did not have so many options.
276 in my graduating class.  One member ended up with 2 championship Super Bowl rings and another (the valedictorian) became a leading AIDS researcher as an MD.  All things are possible.  
By the way, this was a brand new high school.  No senior class until I was a junior.[/quote]

I appreciate the personal biography and am in no way suggesting students who attend smaller schools cannot succeed, but larger schools with more affluent demographics are going to be able to offer more sessions of AP/IB courses and more electives than smaller schools with higher levels of poverty.

FCPS has finite resources and there are tradeoffs.  This School Board has made the decision, expressly or implicitly, that opening a new high school that will offer some students a shorter commute and interesting electives justifies removing students, teachers, and other resources away from other schools.  Now we are all gradually coming to terms with the implications of that decision.   [/quote]

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