Reply to Bren Mar Park to Key/Lewis

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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]If they move BMP to Key/Lewis then Holmes ends up seriously under capacity.  They just trade the problem at Lewis for a new problem at Holmes.

They should either be moving kids from Irving/West Springfield to Key/Lewis or leaving the boundaries alone and looking for other ways to improve Key/Lewis, such as adding AAP to Key and replacing IB at Lewis with AP. [/quote]

Moving some edge boundary kids from WS to Lewis isn’t going to yield the number of students needed to really bump up enrollment at Lewis. It will be the opposite of Daventry. They thought they were closing a small split feeder since there were very few HS students living there. In reality, when the area was moved from Lewis to WSHS, the number of HS students ballooned because people were no longer seeking pupil placements, moving right before high school started, or lying about their address. What looked like maybe 20-30 students on paper ended up being many more.

If you move some Keene Mill or West Springfield border neighborhoods, people will just start moving when they hit middle or high school age. You’ll think you’re getting maybe 75-100 high school students (which really is not a lot compared to the numbers at a whole elementary school …) but they’d be lucky to end up with 25 when all is said and done.  [/quote]

This is the exact logic employed to justify moving another group of people to Lewis who don’t want to go there:  “they won’t have the same options as we have, so you’ll get more bodies if you move BMP rather than us.”

Never mind that WSHS is the most overcrowded HS in the county and moving BMP would leave Holmes seriously under-capacity.

Our empress has no clothes. [/quote]

I’m sorry but it’s the truth. People zoned for West Springfield now have more options than Lewis if they are moved. They are going to disappear from the system. We’ve already seen the opposite happen. I don’t think Bren Mar Park should move either unless it’s to Annandale. But IF the goal is just getting more bodies into Lewis, Bren Mar Park is the low hanging fruit. [/quote]

It's a cop-out to pretend under-enrollment at Lewis is the only issue.  If they are going to change boundaries, they should be looking to solve both sides of the equation:  under-enrollment at Lewis and overcrowding at West Springfield.

Moving BMP (the "low hanging fruit") to Lewis only addresses one side of the equation, and it aggravates an existing problem, which is the low enrollment at Holmes.

Why is Michelle Reid so stunningly incompetent at addressing these issues? [/quote]

Also add the Franconia school board rep to the list of incompetent people. What exactly has she done to help the situation?[/quote]

Why do they default to boundary changes that redistrict people who do not want to be moved to Lewis, when there are obvious things that can be done in the Lewis pyramid to increase enrollment such as making Key an AAP center and replacing IB with AP at Lewis?

Ricardy Anderson and Marcia St. John-Cunning need to put their heads together and come up with something that isn't a band aid that leaves BMP families feeling like "low hanging fruit" and doesn't trash Holmes MS.  [/quote]

I think the school has such low enrollment that they need to do both things at the same time.

The BMP PTA rep at last nights meeting requested that the school board study specific SPAs in the WSHS and Edison pyramids that directly border Lewis being moved into Lewis before doing anything with BMP[/quote]

They could have done this. But they didn't during the last boundary review. [b]And now they've promised they won't move kids for 5 years unless there's some sort of emergency [/b]and I don't think Lewis qualifies as that. I understand the frustrations but they need to focus on making Lewis a more attractive school for more kids. Then maybe you won't have so many in-boundary kids getting pupil placed to other schools.[/quote]
I don't think that’s true. They have their January 2027 list, but then they also have another list of flagged sites that includes WSHS capacity. I don’t see it specified anywhere if those reviews are for the next 5 year cycle or if they’d be slated for mid-cycle, like these Jan 2027 examples.

Now, would they actually move any of WSHS? No. But they’ll pretend they’re considering it. [/quote]

Have you been following the rezoning over the past few years?

The flag on WSHS capacity is not about moving WSHS homes to Lewis

WSHS is flagged for moving Rolling Valley town houses (around 300 of them, inside the parkway) FROM Lewis INTO West Springfield.

They were unable to do this rezoning more students from Lewis to WSHS in the spring because there was immense pushback from both Lewis and WSHS families against moving houses out of Lewis to WSHS,  so FCPS tabled it to sneak it through on the off year while fewer people are paying attention.

The other area involving WSHS they are studying now is the Keene Mill attendance island.

There is a big neighborhood of townhouses off the north end of Huntsman Rd, around 300 of them, that is zoned for Keene Mill.  They pass through Cardinal Forest, Orange Hunt and Rolling Valley zones to get to Keene Mill, even though White Oaks elementary is in their back yard and almost walkable if you cut through the neighborhood.

They were slated to get rezoned to White Oaks and Lake Braddock, both fantastic options that are equivalent schools to Keene Mill>Irving>WSHS.  For some reason they fought it, and managed to get it tabled until this off cycle rezoning.

Both town house communities are roughly the same size.

The Keene Mill island would get a much  closer elementary and middle school, a slightly farther high school, and an equal quality school track that overlaps with sports, activities and communities.

The Rolling Valley split feeder would get a huge upgrade in quality, a much closer/easier commute, schools that are tied to their community thtough sports, scouts. Social events, etc, and the elimination of a tiny illogical split feeder.

If I were able to wager on this, I would put money on the 300-ish Keene Mill island townhouses going to White Oaks and Lake Braddock, and the 300-ish Rolling Valley split feeder townhouses going to Irving and West Springfield to close that split feeder.

If you look at it objectively,  it makes the most sense long term [i]except[/i] for the loss of students at Lewis

The only wild card is that FCPS shows much fewer than 10 kids per grade from that neighborhood attending Lewis.  In reality, the number of high school students from that neighborhood is many times more than that.  The 20 or so Lewis students that FCPS is using in its calculation will be 50 plus high schoolers once they are rezoned from Lewis to WSHS, just like Daventry.

Fcps needs to give Lewis some tlc, get rid of IB, and run small advanced classes like a private school. Even if their AP calculus or chemistry or AP language only has 6 qualifying kids, run the class and advertise the school's small class sizes.  Treat Lewis like a small private school and parents will keep their kids there.[/quote]

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