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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What are the main takeaways from the McLean Madison meeting tonight? I heard several hundred people attended between in person and online![/quote]

It was fairly calm.

Ratio of Madison comments to McLean comments felt like 3:1.

Lots of Westbriar parents zoned to Madison objecting to getting moved to Marshall under Scenario 4.  Sounds like they’ll get their wish.

Lots of Wolftrap parents zoned to Marshall favoring getting moved to Madison under Scenario 4.  Sounds like they’ll get their wish.

Lots of Timber Lane parents north of 29 expressing appreciation that Scenario 4 keeps them at Longfellow/McLean.  Sounds like they’ll get their wish.

A few Fairhill ES parents advocating to get moved from Falls Church to Madison or Oakton.  Reid was non-committal because the parents couldn’t say how many kids were involved.

A fair number of Lemon Road parents zoned for McLean and Marshall spoke in favor of retaining the split feeder, which Scenario 4 does.  They are a bit unsettled because there are some Lemon Road parents in Pimmit Hills lobbying to get moved from Marshall to McLean by eliminating the split feeder, which in turn has prompted some other parents at Lemon Road to argue that, if the split feeder is to be eliminated, FCPS should move the McLean families at Lemon Road to Marshall, rather than vice versa. The parents speaking tonight want to keep the current split feeder.

No comments at all that I can recall from anyone in the Spring Hill island, so it seems fair to assume they’re happy to move from McLean to Langley.

The most interesting part of the meeting may have been when Meren, who was there, seemed to chastise Reid about Reid’s answer to a question about whether current 8th graders would have a choice between their current high school and the high school to which they may be rezoned.

Lots of comments about whether split feeders are bad or ok, and it came across as rather contrived and dependent on how it impacted the schools that people want their kids to attend. Reid said they are looking at split feeders on a case-by-case basis now, depending on the feedback provided, and backing away from a one-size-fits-all approach.

[/quote]

I was surprised Meren didn’t seem aware of the transfer/pupil placement process. She seemed clueless and uninformed while Reid correctly informed the father of his options for his son. Didn’t give me much confidence in Meren.[/quote]

Meren posted a video on her Facebook page last night basically throwing Reid under the bus, saying that the school board supervises Reid and that Reid was operating outside of her lane by saying information that had not been authorized or agreed upon by the board. [/quote]

Good for Meren.

I was at the WSHS meeting.

Brac map 4 is probably the best map they could have created for WSHS.  Even though I think no one should be moved into WSHS, if I were honest, I would have to say that even tho RV part makes sense.

But as the night went on, Reid started to overtly imply that if they complained loudly enough on the boundary map tool, that Sangster would get to stay at WSHS and they might need to revisit map 3. (Creating a split feeder at Hunt Valley?)

For every complaint and point that speakers made, Reid just smiled, nodded affirmatively, and implied that she agreed with the poster.  Every single time.

She is the figurehead of FCPS and is paid $400,000 each year by us the taxpayers to do the hard thing.

We are 2 years into this process and on our 4th map revision.

At this point,  Dr. Reid should have had hard factual answers to parents questions that have been asked for 2 years straight, not "I just looked at the transfer data into WSHS yesterday becsuse I knew someone would ask."

At this point in the process, she should have stood up like a leader in front of the very civil and respectful WSHS parents, and told them what FCPS told the BRAC committee reps, which is " Unfortunately,  someone is going to get rezoned out of WSHS.  If the Brac committee does not come up with enough students to meet our satisfaction,  then the schoolboard and superintendent will pick who gets rezoned."  Then stand up for the BRAC committee and tell those parents that the BRAC committee tried to pick the smallest number of houses to be rezoned to meet their mandate,  and tried to find neighborhoods that could go to the most equivalent high school (Lake Braddock) with the biggest community connection to WSHS and the students getting moved, with the best transportation options.

Stand by the BRAC committee.

The Springfield BRAC members created the best possible map for WSHS with Map 4.  Any one who knows the area, knows the schools, and knows the communities involved knows this, if they were perfectly honest, as long as the Irving 8th graders get the same grandfathering as the LB secondary school 8th graders get.

Show some leadership and support the volunteers who have managed to pull off an impossible tasking in a way that gives the best possible outcome for ALL of the WSHS students, including the Sangster split feeder, even if it will be a big disappointment to them.  By next year, when all the Sangster 6th graders move to Lake Braddock together for midfle school, and with the Sangster elementary classes going forward, this will be just a blip in their memory, other than people wondering why they fought this at all.

If Reid caved this immediately to the very, very civil WSHS parents, what on earth is she doing when she faces parents who are riled up?[/quote]

All of this is so accurate. I went to the meeting too and the more I thought about it afterwards, the more upset I got about the way these parents talked about LBSS, the rest of Sangster, and the other families they live near (even if you can’t walk to their house). I would like to hear from the actual elementary kids at Sangster, and hear how they feel about splitting from most of their cohort. My child would have been incredibly upset if the HV split had gone through, because she doesn’t care about going to Irving, but she would have cared deeply about her best buddies being moved to a different school after 6. She had a hard time making friends and the few she has are south of 286 (yep, we are friends across a natural boundary!).

If they could grandfather all middle schoolers, this should be a no-brainer. I still don’t like the RV move (think moving it all to Lewis made more sense but not going to throw them under the bus and understand why they wouldn’t want to do that) since it offsets the gains from the LBSS shifts. But I don’t get the outrage. The time difference is so small as to be negligible (45 hours a year?!). LBSS and WSHS are really two schools in one community. We are friends with people from both school pyramids and do activities in both addresses (in fact some maps call our West Springfield address Burke!). It’s a losing argument.[/quote]

Do you know the boundaries of Rolling Valley? There is no way you could move that school all to Lewis. It literally carves out the whole center of the circle that is the WSHS boundary. Kids who go to Rolling Valley literally live in WSHS's backyard. 
But I agree with using scenario 3 for Rolling Valley (not for Hunt Valley) that takes the split feeder kids out of Rolling Valley and moves them to Saratoga where they would move on to Key and Lewis as they always have, but now with a real cohort of kids. [/quote]

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