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]Parents view schools as monetary transactions. Parents are willing to spend more money for real estate to live in districts with higher GreatSchool ratings.

They also don't want to believe that a child will still be successful even if a parent doesn't dump tons of money into a mortgage, and if the kid goes to one of those "lower-ranked" schools.

FCPS shouldn't be in the process of using GreatSchools as a means of making decisions regarding boundaries, but parents will fight to the death to keep their kids in certain schools. Because parents believe they paid for those schools. They believe they are entitled to them.

And that's why FCPS boundary changes won't happen. Because GreatSchools rules them all.[/quote]

I can only think of a few areas of the county where rich areas with 8-10 ratings directly border lower income areas with 1-4 school ratings. Like, very few. And if you then drill it down to “the 8-10 school is crowded and could stand to lose some students” and “the 1-4 school has low enrollment and could stand to pick up some students” it’s even fewer. And in a lot of these areas there is another move that could also make sense and wouldn’t result in as much of a drop in terms of SES of the schools.

The reality is that poverty is concentrated in a few areas. And if you start some kind of large scale bussing to more equally distribute the poverty, that has consequences too - longer bus rides, more busses on the roads, more absenteeism, kids/families not feeling connected to their school community because they’re being bussed to a school past 3 other closer schools because someone wanted to balance out the FARMS and ESOL rates.  [/quote]

West Springfield/Lewis
Langley/Herndon
McLean/Falls Church 
Woodson/Annandale

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It’s closer and a much easier commute for some of WSHS to attend South County or Lake Braddock if they need to.

McLean is over capacity but aren’t Marshall and Falls Church both basically at capacity? I’m looking at the current maps and they show McLean at 105% with their modular, Marshall at 98%, and FCHS at 102%. They can’t receive students at this point.

Langley doesn’t need to lose any students right now. But it will be interesting to see what happens in 5-10 years with their furthest west neighborhoods.

So you basically only have the Woodson/Annandale situation right now and that’s it. And as far as I can remember, capacity balancing between these two schools was never in any plans. [/quote]

West Springfield is overcrowded and Lewis has more surplus capacity than LB or SC.

McLean was overcrowded and you’re ignoring the big Falls Church expansion. They got sent to Langley instead.

They overcrowded Langley by moving hundreds of McLean kids there and Herndon is far closer to many Langley neighborhoods than Langley.

Woodson is overcrowded and Annandale is adjacent.

I’m not advocating for further changes at this point, just pointing out your BS when you claim these changes from lower to higher FARMS schools couldn’t have been made. [/quote]

Well again, the WS/Lewis thing goes to one of my original points. [b]Is it better to prioritize a shorter or better commute when moving neighborhoods, or better to prioritize filling up existing schools? The SB seems to think the former is preferred. [/b]It’s not an easy ride to Lewis from anywhere in West Springfield compared to the distance to WSHS itself.

They seem to think space will be needed at Falls Church and it seems like they always give a school an expansion when they do a renovation.

And the numbers don’t support the fact that Langley is currently overcrowded. But again, it may be/will probably be in the near future if they keep moving parts of McLean there.

But that’s what … 2-3 areas where they could easily make an “equity move” but aren’t? Most of the county would be unaffected. [/quote]

No, the SB seems to think placating wealthier, noisier parents is to the best way to go.  They haven't done "equity moves" since the 2008 South Lakes redistricting, but there are at least four situations (not 2-3) where they could have had they been so inclined.

You can't really say that leaving WS alone shows that the SB prioritizes a shorter or better commute over capacity utilization, when they leave Langley families with much longer commutes than they'd have if some moved to Herndon.  And they may be retreating now from moving Oakton families to Skyview even though the long commutes to Oakton were mentioned by several SB members (Frisch, McDaniel) as a reason to acquire KAA last year. 
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