Reply to Western High School Boundary Map options (A/B/C/D)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Serious question…why do people with kids already in Oakton HS care? [/quote]

I don't have any high schoolers but perhaps property value concerns?

[/quote]

It’s impossible to account for siblings forever - I had a kid in elementary when others were in college.   If they follow through with the AI sub school (robotics, computer vision, machine learning) Western will be THE coveted school, full stop.  God knows leaving that in FCPS hands is risky but if it happens it will be national news.  The demographics are always mixed in this area - we have lots of immigrant families - by the same token there are lots of parents who are serious about academics.  Personally I’d like to see Fox Mill in there since they send the kids to Carson with the Oak Hill AAP kids - it’s be nice to keep them together. I also feel bad for Emerald Chase who is at Oak Hill then cast off elsewhere. The neighborhood is often visited by Chantilly Highlands kids via the woods and basketball courts.  That said if I were in charge I’d draw a demographic radius circle around neighborhoods and that is who would be going. Forget agendas- [b]public high school are intended to be primarily proximity[/b]. The lobbying to stay or go is next level. We go in all scenarios so Let’s go Western! Stop spending time on personal agendas and property value woes and get the AI and AE programs going.[/quote]

Thank you. Too many people forgetting this. It's one thing to argue that you don't want your kids attending a school that won't have access to the same programming as others while it's still very new. It's another thing to say your neighborhood should always get to be zoned for a school far away when several others are closer, just because you like that school better. [/quote]

That is part of the wacky county model we have down south.

If you go to the north east, schools are town based so people just move to whatever town's high schools they want to go to. [/quote]

And there are towns with great schools, because of a wealthier population, and towns with poor schools, because of an impoverished population. And there are parents looking for the least expensive house or apartment that gets them into the town with the better school because it is important to them. Kind of like parents moving into the pyramids that they want their kids to attend. The people most likely affected by the boundary changes are the people who bought at the edges of the pyramid they wanted to attend because that is where the houses were more affordable. It is the fight over being moved from Langley to Herndon or WSHS to Lewis.

[b]The issue here is that many people at Oakton, SLHS, Chantilly, Westfield, and Centerville are not sure what the new school is going to be like because it is new, that causes concern for folks. [/b]It makes sense. [/quote]

That's not quite right.  The issue is that the new school is going to be perceived as comparable to something similar to Fairfax HS and a tad shy of Chantilly HS, because of the lower-income kids from Coates and McNair, and that's not good enough for some Oakton HS parents.

That will be the case when Western opens, and it will remain the case when Western is 100% full and operating on all cylinders.  People would be happy if it it had the standing of Carson, but it won't because Carson is pumped up by all the AAP kids from Franklin, and without those AAP kids Carson will be an above-average school but not what it's been for the past several decades.

People from Floris and Oak Hill - the higher-income areas most likely to attend Western - find that grating because, while they can understand why Langley parents might chafe at moving to Herndon, they think it's weird that parents now at Oakton would subject themselves and their kids to longer trips to school when they might have a much closer and perfectly acceptable option closer to their homes.  People from Fox Mill find it annoying as well, but some are happy that some of the Oakton parents are working overtime to avoid Western because they'd prefer a new AP school for their kids over South Lakes. [/quote]

Spot on.

Carson won’t be as special once AAP kids go back to base school.

We don’t know how good the new school will be in terms of academics.  But in terms of poverty rate and wealth, it’s probably comparable to that of Chantilly High School.

Oakton and Floris are not poor, and they are almost certainly going to KAA.

There are many wealthy families in Crossfield. If Crossfield stays at Oakton, Fox Mill is likely in. Fox Mill is comparable to Oak Hill and Floris.

Coates has some poor families.

So the school is not going to be as rich as Oakton especially if Crossfield gets to stay.

[/quote]

Carson parent here. I am fine with Carson not being "special" if the AAP students return to their base. There are more than enough kids at Carson to continue a strong AAP program at the school. Fewer kids trying out for the Mathcounts and Science Olympiad teams is not a bad thing. I suspect that the Mathcounts club and team will look different, since I know that there are a lot of Navy kids in the club and on the team but there is nothing wrong with a different group of kids having a chance to make the team. Good kids, I have no issues with them but Carson will still have a Mathcounts team, there might be different kids on it. I am not sure if Franklin has a Mathcounts team, adding one there would be great for the school.

Chantilly is a great HS, I have no issues with the new school being like Chantilly. I don't have an issue with the school looking like SLHS demographically, I just don't want the IB.

What the Oakton families seem to miss is that their insistence that Oakton is so amazing is that they are implying that other schools, like Chantilly, are lesser and that the new school will be lesser. That is offensive to families whose kids attend those schools, most of whom have a great experience and do well in their college hunts. [/quote]

The pro Oakton people are pissed that this new school was purchased at all. They are echoing Pat Herrity‘s talking points just like the Great Falls people are doing. That tells you it’s not about stability for their kids. It’s about perceiving the new school as a lesser school that they don’t want their kids attending even if it were five years in the future.[/quote]

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