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

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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]

Tearing apart the community is commonly presented as an excuse to keep everything the same. That works on the assumption that the current status of the situation is the "correct" status, and that it has "always been that way." It's a downward spiral when one pocket of poverty gets established, and it will stay that way without intervention.

Do we just give up and accept that Herndon will forever be a place where low-income families live, and poor kids have to be nearby so they can go to work after school, and we need to keep them in that state because that's just what poor people do? I'm sure many people would be in favor of that, but it's obvious that school boundaries are a significant factor in [i]further[/i] concentrating poverty.[/quote]

So, you think it is a good thing to tear apart communities?  Got it.[/quote]

Again, people conflate school location with community as if the school boundary lines are solid delineators, as if they are and have been the gospel that is correct as is which defines communities. I won't deny that school boundaries and neighborhoods are intertwined, but adjusting boundaries is hardly tearing communities apart. Nobody is forced to leave their home. What do Woodson families west of Ffx County Parkway share in community with Woodson families bordering 4-95, other than high SES?

The benefit is that teachers of one school pyramid don't have to do all the hard work of teaching ELL learners, it's as simple as that. [/quote]

I get the complaints about Langley's boundaries, but in Woodson's case the boundaries are largely driven by the fact that there are four high schools in central Fairfax (Madison, Oakton, Fairfax, and Woodson) that are all close to each other and the fact that as a matter of law all Fairfax City kids attend Fairfax HS. FCPS did increase the diversity at Woodson when they rezoned Fairfax Villa ES to Frost MS/Woodson HS after the City of Fairfax told FCPS it had to pull some county kids out of Lanier (now Johnson) MS and Fairfax HS.

In Herndon's case, they are barking up a tree if they think Elaine Tholen will ever take on the Langley/Herndon boundaries.  She is very big on defining "communities" in a way that happens to keep any poor kids and anyone living in apartments out of Langley.  You'll have to elect someone else if you want that revisited. [/quote]

Is Herndon overcrowded or under capacity?

You aren’t going to get anywhere complaining on DCUM. If you want Elaine to rid your pyramid of enough ELL learners to make it acceptable to you, organize some neighbors that share your views and tell the board what you want.[/quote]

Stop. There are at least 3 Herndon posters here, and I’m one. Herndon isn’t complaining about too many ESOL learners. Our kids are fine. We have better teachers than other pyramids DCUM swoon over within our district and elsewhere in FCPS. You can leave our boundaries alone. Generally speaking we object to some of our neighbors who think they deserve to be treated like a private school and consider themselves everyone else’s betters. If you want fences around who can be in your school, you need to go private. Otherwise you need to accept that FCPS may and should change boundaries and distribute resources fairly across the district — without regard to housing prices.[/quote]

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