Reply to How did Herndon/Westfield HS go from top to bottom?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My god some of you really need to take a look at this map. On all sides the  Hutchinson site is surrounded by low income areas. Clearview, lake Anne, Herndon to the north and Dogwood/Coates to the south. Other poster is correct in asserting that Hutchinson HS will be the Mount Vernon of Western Fairfax. And in turn the closest areas from overcrowded Centreville/Chantilly to Westfield are the low income areas of Brookfield/Centre ridge/Bull Run. It seems all but likely that Hutchinson HS will be built and Westfield HS will be triaged to improve the other pyramids in Western Fairfax.

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/Elementary%20School%20Boundaries%20With%20High%20School%20Boundaries.pdf

https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/Elementary%20School%20Boundaries%20With%20High%20School%20Boundaries.pdf[/quote]

Except that's not how they'd draw the boundaries.

They aren't going to load up Western HS with all those schools.  More likely it would be Hutchison, Coates, McNair, part of Floris, Oak Hill, and Fox Mill.

Pulling Hutchison out of Herndon will allow them to move Forestville and part of Great Falls to Herndon.  That would reduce the concentration of poverty at Herndon and create space at Langley to accommodate growth further east planned in Tysons.

Pulling Coates, McNair, and part of Floris out of Westfield would allow them to move Bull Run from Centreville and potentially move Willow Springs out of Fairfax to Centreville.

Moving Oak Hill out of Chantilly would relieve overcrowding there.

Pulling Fox Mill out of South Lakes would enable South Lakes, if necessary, to take more of Crossfield if Oakton were overcrowded.

Of course this is conjecture, but (1) they won't create "Mount Vernon West" if they build at Hutchison and (2) any new high school will inevitably result in many boundary changes. [/quote]

We will have to check back on this thread in four years to see who is right! Will proximity and the standard of concentrating Poverty be the standard or will the school board truly embrace an “equity” model for once? [/quote]

We won't know in four years.  Maybe eight if they plan ahead.

But the "Hutchison, Coates, McNair, part of Floris, Oak Hill, and Fox Mill" model isn't one or the other. It would be a relatively compact and contiguous area that might be somewhat higher than average FARMS for FCPS but not at Mount Vernon/Lewis/Justice levels with two high-FARMS feeders (Hutchison, Coates), one average FARMS feeder (McNair), and two and a half low-FARMS feeders (Oak Hill, Fox Mill and 1/2 of Floris).

[/quote]

But even more compact and closer would be including Dogwood/Herndon/Clearview. Wouldn’t it? South Lakes PTA/Chantilly PTA/ Herndon PTA will fight like hell, especially south lakes after they fought so hard for Fox mill/Floris.It isn’t fair to those neighborhoods as this would become their FOURTH redistricting in as many years from Oakton>Westfield>South Lakes>Hutchinson, why must we keep moving around high performing Asians who can’t advocate for themselves, to mask the failure to educate hispanic kids from Herndon/Reston? [/quote]

I don't think compactness should override some demographic balance, especially when we are talking about a set of schools that would also create a contiguous, relatively compact attendance area.

Herndon ES and Clearview ES are very close to Herndon HS, so there's not much of a case to be made for moving them.  Assigning Dogwood to the new school, along with Hutchison and Coates, would concentrate poverty at the new school, and in any event Dogwood is in Reston and has close ties to South Lakes.

Yes, some neighborhoods that would be reassigned have been redistricted before.  That was part of the original rationale for a new high school in the Floris/Oak Hill area - to finally have a high school closer to those neighborhoods and put an end to the frequent redistricting.  But, in any case, it wouldn't be their fourth redistricting "in as many years" or that they might not be redistricted yet again if a new school isn't built.

If they build a new high school near Hutchison, there will be people happy with the opportunity to send their kids to a brand-new school that may also be closer to their homes.  There will be people happy with the effect that it might have on other schools like Herndon.  There will be people who are indifferent.  And there will be people who are opposed and will keep trying to kill this school and/or a Hutchison location long before it's built. Right now, some have an ally in Elaine Tholen, who has already demonstrated that she puts the interests of Great Falls over those of everyone else in her district, but she's unpopular, barely survived a recall petition, and will likely be gone by the time any final decisions are made about the new school or its boundaries.

But one way or the other, given all the housing approved near the Silver Line extension, they will have to sort it out and decide if they are prepared to have multiple high schools in western Fairfax with close to 3000 kids or more, all because some people are so averse to sending their kids to school with poorer kids. [/quote]

Bringing down Forestville/Great Falls to Herndon HS with only removing Hutchinson will turn Herndon HS into McLean HS level overcapacity. Why are people who are literally ONE MILE from Hutchinson HS form Clearview/Herndon ES still going to Herndon HS instead of Hutchinson? At minimum you need to add Herndon ES to Hutchinson HS to relieve Herndon HS. Pulling that and advocating for relatively far away Oak Hill to Hutchinson is just stretching things to achieve racial/economical balance. You purposefully skipped over Dogwood to take Fox Mill when the former is closer. Simply saying Dogwood is in Reston for an excuse as such is just lazy. Armstrong ES has a Reston address and yet is justly and rightly zoned for Herndon HS which is four times closer than it is to the next closest that is South Lakes, aka the "Reston School". 
 [/quote]

You really should save that level of anxiety and invective for when, you know, there's actually a site fully assembled at a specific location to build a real school, not the Minecraft version being discussed now.

But I am very confident that, whatever happens, FCPS is not going to build a new high school, assign all three of Hutchison, Coates and Dogwood to that school, and exclude Oak Hill and/or Fox Mill.  They are crass and often outright venal, but not that stupid.

As for pulling Hutchison out of Herndon but adding Forestville and part of Great Falls, note that Hutchison has a current enrollment of 1073, whereas Forestville has 565 students and Great Falls 534.  While you'd have to make other adjustments based on students attending AAP centers to know the exact number of kids living within the boundaries of those schools, it might actually reduce Herndon's enrollment, especially if, as suggested, only part of Great Falls were reassigned. [/quote]

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