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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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It was Crestwood.

Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power.  The consultants appear to be running the show.  [/quote]

That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).

Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis? [/quote]
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.[/quote]

Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek. [/quote]

Bussing a low income neighborhood to a higher income school doesn’t work. Every neighborhood should be attending its closest school and this is extra true for lower income areas. Transportation is a real concern in high FARMS areas because not every household has a car, or maybe they only have 1 car for the whole household with multiple adults working in different areas. So if your kid misses the bus, there’s no way for them to get to school if walking isn’t realistic (which it absolutely is not from Hagel Circle to Halley). Parents are less likely to come to school conferences or events. Kids feel disconnected from the larger school community and it creates absenteeism.

I’m a South County parent although my kids are still in ES. If they move in Sangster’s small attendance island and most of HV south of the Parkway and don’t make any moves out, SCMS and HS are going to be overcrowded. No, I don’t really care which areas stay or go or come in to our boundaries in terms of the SES and which could give our school more “prestige,” I knew how the demographics were here when I bought and knew that it was a much larger income range compared to WS or Burke which seem more uniformly middle and UMC. But we can’t have a move in of a few hundred kids from WS and LB without a move out. Also worth noting there is significant room for development in Lorton - so a big new neighborhood could pop up at any moment, making the schools even more crowded and leading to “oops we need to make another boundary adjustment in 5-10 years” and a lot of instability. [/quote]

Moving the kids from Halley to Gunston will not move a single kid out of SCMS or HS, so not sure what point you’re trying to make. Gunston is already a split feeder with the Mason Neck students going to SCMS/HS since it opened. Moving the Hagel Circle attendance island to Lorton Station would move those students to Hayfield. Additionally, there is a walking path in the back of Hagel Circle that leads to Lorton Station - getting to Gunston involves crossing Route 1 and walking down Gunston Road which doesn’t have sidewalks. [/quote]

Hagel circle is fenced in. There is no proper path from the back of Hagel Circle. There are no trespassing signs posted all along there sir [/quote]

FCPS adds entrances to fences to allow elementary kids to walk to their neighborhood schools.

Surely FCPS could work with that development to find a way to create a safe walking path from Hagel Circle to Lorton Station.[/quote]

DP, and I don’t know that that’s a walkable distance BUT it’s certainly closer than Halley, and probably a little easier on the bus than the trip to Gunston. I’d imagine the bus would go from Hagel Cir. a little down Rt. 1 to Gunston Cove/Lorton Market, which never seems to be a hugely busy road, and then onto Lorton Road and Lorton Station Elementary is right there. [/quote]

Distance wise, there are both about the same from Hagel Circle. Easier to get to Gunston since you just take a left and it leads you right to Gunston Elementary. But the main point made at the last boundary meeting and parents from Gunston was that Hagel Circle was walkable. Dr. Reid was misled and the board members are being made aware that it is a 30-40 minute walk. [/quote]

Lorton Station is a much larger school than Gunston. The Gunston parents being forced out of Gunston to make room for the Hagel Circle by being moved to Island Creek are not happy. Halley’s Capacity will be at 68% without the Hagel Circle kids.

Suggestions:
1.) Add a gate to the back of Hagel Circle for the students to easily reach Lorton Station. This turns a 40 minute walk to 10 minutes. FCPS can facilitate this with the county.

2) Create an AAP center at Halley for the South County schools using Lorton Station. This will provide Lorton Station with the necessary capacity (despite them already currently having enough capacity without moving a single student) to accept the Hagel Circle students to their own neighborhood school.

Gunston families should not be sent to an elementary school much further away when Lorton Station is an option.

[/quote]

Go visit Hagel Circle before you make a suggestion.

1. The fence there separates Hagel Circle property from private property, not County Property. Good luck getting around that! 
2. The fence also separates the businesses, good luck getting them to cooperate. That is also private property, not county property. 
3. My child is in the AAP program, I’d like to keep him there. Why should Lorton station lose that because Gunston Parents don’t want Hagel Circle at Gunston Elementary? 
4. Why do you keep mentioning “their own neighborhood school”? Hagel Circle has never been a part of Lorton Station, it’s still technically on what is referred to as Gunston land. Even the homes in Hagel Circle are called, “Terrace Town Homes of Gunston”.  Half of Lorton Station is newly developed. Hagel Circle was zoned for Gunston Elementary before the change to Halley Elementary for many years so they have much more ties to Gunston Elementary than Lorton Station.

[/quote]

No one is saying that the AAP center at Lorton Station should be taken away. It’s a shared center for Hayfield/SoCo. Give SoCo its own with the extra capacity at Halley. Or better yet get rid of AAP centers entirely so that you don’t have this capacity nonsense.

Also, the only reason Hagel Circle was zoned for Gunston was because it’s an older neighborhood that existed prior to Lorton Station being built. It’s physically part of the Lorton Station area. Gunston is the oldest elementary school in Lorton, it used to be the only school for Lorton so your argument holds little weight. The school board knows this. [/quote]

If you study your response, or anyone that is reasonable, you can see your argument makes no sense. What does “physically a part of the Lorton Station area” mean? Look on the map and you will see exactly where Lorton Station is, it’s not part of or connected to Hagel Circle.

You’re missing the point, Hagel Circle is fenced in. There is no way there except for a long walk between 30-40 min.

Stop dragging this nonsense by trying to push Hagel Circle out of Gunston Elementary. It’s not right and actually it’s discriminatory. You know the real reason why it’s being done and once again, if analyzed, not one of the arguments made on the 22nd of October held any weight. Dr. Reid, parents, and other FCPS officials were misled about the walkability aspect of it. [/quote]

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