Anonymous
10/20/2022 08:51
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
The solution for Lewis is this: allow academically inclined/college prep students to transfer to other schools and make Lewis a Vocational/Technical high school for students who want to learn building trades like HVAC, become an electrician or stone mason, or an auto mechanic, or heavy equipment operator. Those are well paying skills that are truly needed and would change the lives of students and their families by providing marketable skills. That’s what the vast majority of Lewis students need most!
Anonymous
10/20/2022 08:22
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A language magnet with an international focus makes SOOOOO much more sense than a ridiculous.left wing social justice indoctrination. I suggested this years ago before this politically biased new idea took root.
A language magnet within Lewis would immediately fix enrollment issues and raise test scores. It would be a huge win for this school.
The protest academy? Not so much.
See you make your point a lot more valid if you did t use Fox News buzz words. I have no skin in the game but I agree that FCPS should make Lewis more enticing to attend. Whether it be a language magnet or a school for someone who is interested in policy or something else.
Those words are based off the truth and the words of our school board, not fox news.
NO THEY ARE FOX NIGHTLY NEWS WORDS
Anyone starting with that terminology I know is a moron right off the bat.
The whole point of this academy is to create left wing social justice activists. You know this so quit being ridiculous.
Creating partisans is not the role of a public school.
GOP Word Salad. If teaching actual history and not “Lee was a patriot” and “not all slavery was bad” bothers you, you need to seek Jesus.
Jesus needs to stay out of public schools, as does the new left-wing religion of CRT, which at its core has many religious overtones.
Anonymous
10/20/2022 08:03
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A language magnet with an international focus makes SOOOOO much more sense than a ridiculous.left wing social justice indoctrination. I suggested this years ago before this politically biased new idea took root.
A language magnet within Lewis would immediately fix enrollment issues and raise test scores. It would be a huge win for this school.
The protest academy? Not so much.
See you make your point a lot more valid if you did t use Fox News buzz words. I have no skin in the game but I agree that FCPS should make Lewis more enticing to attend. Whether it be a language magnet or a school for someone who is interested in policy or something else.
Those words are based off the truth and the words of our school board, not fox news.
NO THEY ARE FOX NIGHTLY NEWS WORDS
Anyone starting with that terminology I know is a moron right off the bat.
The whole point of this academy is to create left wing social justice activists. You know this so quit being ridiculous.
Creating partisans is not the role of a public school.
GOP Word Salad. If teaching actual history and not “Lee was a patriot” and “not all slavery was bad” bothers you, you need to seek Jesus.
Anonymous
10/20/2022 06:52
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:For those of us in the southeastern part of the county, this academy presents a rare opportunity to create a program of lasting value for our kids that differs from the county's typical academy courses such as those offered by Edison (STEM) and West Potomac (health sciences). It's been well over a year now since the program development was initiated but there have been few updates and no opportunity for community input. I don't agree with the current focus of the academy based on the very little material that has been shared, but I believe it can pivot to be in line with their original vision while becoming a rigorous and desirable program.
Currently a multitude of words have been included in the proposed academy name including leadership, government, public policy, justice, and human rights.
...
Lewis has IB, a rigorous program. 4 IB diplomas and it's a 2 year course sequence. Edison STEM and WP Health Sciences are useful for students eventual employment whether they do comm college for 2 or end up with 2/2 or 4 year.
Immersion went into FCPS with little divisionwide planning. It was whatever school opted in and loads were chosen in Hunter Mill and Dranesville. Hunter mill had 1st Spanish dual as a way to bum more resources into ESL. Apparently the Lewis Pyramid has no Spanish Immersion or Spanish two way immersion in the pyramid? https://www.fcps.edu/academics/world-languages-immersion-programs
And none proposed by the Lee rep or at large members?
Anonymous
10/18/2022 19:14
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A language magnet with an international focus makes SOOOOO much more sense than a ridiculous.left wing social justice indoctrination. I suggested this years ago before this politically biased new idea took root.
A language magnet within Lewis would immediately fix enrollment issues and raise test scores. It would be a huge win for this school.
The protest academy? Not so much.
See you make your point a lot more valid if you did t use Fox News buzz words. I have no skin in the game but I agree that FCPS should make Lewis more enticing to attend. Whether it be a language magnet or a school for someone who is interested in policy or something else.
Those words are based off the truth and the words of our school board, not fox news.
NO THEY ARE FOX NIGHTLY NEWS WORDS
Anyone starting with that terminology I know is a moron right off the bat.
You watch Fox?
Anonymous
10/18/2022 19:04
Subject: Re:Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:At today's work session the Board met with the Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee to have their annual discussion. McLaughlin and Cohen mentioned how WSHS and LBSS are in an unfair position because their students can't access academies easily without losing 3 class periods. Other Board members agreed that the CTE academies are too far and too much class time is lost in travel for most base schools.
More reasons to place a real CTE academy at Lewis to take advantage of available space, yet nobody even remembered or thought about such a possibility.
I won't lose much sleep worrying about how LBSS and WSHS students are suffering from a lack of fairness...
Anonymous
10/18/2022 16:21
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A language magnet with an international focus makes SOOOOO much more sense than a ridiculous.left wing social justice indoctrination. I suggested this years ago before this politically biased new idea took root.
A language magnet within Lewis would immediately fix enrollment issues and raise test scores. It would be a huge win for this school.
The protest academy? Not so much.
If a school already offers Chinese, does that mean FCPS is going to force kids to go to Lewis to take it?
I guess they could look at languages that aren't offered at many schools (for example, Russian, Arabic, Vietnamese) or aren't offered at all (for example, Hindi, Urdu, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian).
No. But an academy offering less frequently offered languages and maybe history classes and government classes for the countries those languages are from would be cool. And then kids who want to take Chinese or Russian or Japanese or Hindi or whatever languages are there would be able to take a bus to school instead of parents driving them. And it would reduce the need for kids to find a school that has room and can allow students to attend for the language they are interested in. It would be a pretty cool concept.
We already have a shortage of bus drivers, ridiculous bus routes/times, and enough pollution from buses. Are we really supposed to start running extra buses to get kids from Herndon and Great Falls to Springfield and back?
I hope a new School Board is elected next year and that they jettison this academy idea and start reforming Lewis by first eliminating IB.
The buses for Academies run during the school day so it would not add to the bus issue.
That limits the window during which students from other schools can avail of Academy courses and makes additional demands on the fleet (and schools end at different hours as well).
This is going to be an expensive boondoggle to try and make Lewis look more attractive without grappling with some of the more fundamental reasons why this is the case.
The fundamental reason is that Lewis, Herndon, Justice, Falls Church, Annandale, and MVHS have large amounts of affordable housing complexes inside their boundaries that draw immigrants and ESOL newcomers to live in those apartments. No amount of traditional schooling is going to transform a young adult ELL student into a top-tier graduate. Regardless of the miraculous achievements FCPS makes with ESOL students, the traditional SAT/AP/IB/SOL scores will always suffer at these schools. It's truly as simple as that.
If your main concern is buses, I would argue that Chantilly and West Potomac are poorly designated as academies because they are on the extremities of the county and don't make sense geographically like Lewis does.
But that's all besides the point. This is an opportunity to create a worthy academy in a centrally-located, significantly under-enrolled school building in a county that is hungry for selective and advanced programs. The opportunity is there but the implementation needs work.
Chantilly is not on the "extremities" of the county by any stretch. You'd have to be living in a prior decade to think that was the case.
And there is already an Academy program down Franconia Road at Edison. They don't need another one at Lewis, unless the intent - which it is - is to just to spend more money on Lewis and not grapple with the fact that the IB program there is particularly ill-suited to the student population and largely serves to give families an option to transfer to other schools.
Anonymous
10/18/2022 16:10
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A language magnet with an international focus makes SOOOOO much more sense than a ridiculous.left wing social justice indoctrination. I suggested this years ago before this politically biased new idea took root.
A language magnet within Lewis would immediately fix enrollment issues and raise test scores. It would be a huge win for this school.
The protest academy? Not so much.
See you make your point a lot more valid if you did t use Fox News buzz words. I have no skin in the game but I agree that FCPS should make Lewis more enticing to attend. Whether it be a language magnet or a school for someone who is interested in policy or something else.
Those words are based off the truth and the words of our school board, not fox news.
NO THEY ARE FOX NIGHTLY NEWS WORDS
Anyone starting with that terminology I know is a moron right off the bat.
The whole point of this academy is to create left wing social justice activists. You know this so quit being ridiculous.
Creating partisans is not the role of a public school.
Anonymous
10/18/2022 16:02
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Generally, in my experience, the "community engagement" sessions are pro forma and the plan is already set by the school board. They don't actually intend to take any of your ideas.
This is such a silly take. There are 180,000 kids and their families in FCPS. Just because they didn’t take your idea doesn’t mean they didn’t take feedback from the community.
I'm the PP to whom you are responding. I didn't submit an idea to FCPS when there was community engagement. But, I watched how they responded to those who did. I heard the FCPS people claim that they were there to get community input, but in reality, they had a plan that they were already going to implement. It actually worked out for me b/c I wanted them to implement the plan they started with. But, it seemed like a sham to post re-zoning map options all over the cafeteria and break into groups and elicit "feedback" -- and then do the same thing at another school for that community input -- and then go right ahead and follow the plan they had intended to do all along. I seemed pro forma ... but hey, I was fine with the rezoning as it worked out. Those who actually came to the meetings with ideas probably didn't feel like they were listened to.
Anonymous
10/18/2022 15:36
Subject: Re:Lewis Academy - community input?
At today's work session the Board met with the Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee to have their annual discussion. McLaughlin and Cohen mentioned how WSHS and LBSS are in an unfair position because their students can't access academies easily without losing 3 class periods. Other Board members agreed that the CTE academies are too far and too much class time is lost in travel for most base schools.
More reasons to place a real CTE academy at Lewis to take advantage of available space, yet nobody even remembered or thought about such a possibility.
More reasons to place a real CTE academy at Lewis to take advantage of available space, yet nobody even remembered or thought about such a possibility.
Anonymous
10/18/2022 15:29
Subject: Re:Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:The Maggie Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies down in Richmond is the perfect model for this type of program. At Maggie Walker they require 140 hours of community service, four years of one language and two years of another language (they offer 10 languages at the school), and they offer sponsored spring and summer travel abroad opportunities. Their social studies department focuses on global society and government with unique courses in those topics.
I even remember one of the school board members mentioned Maggie Walker during the meeting last December when this academy was discussed. So much potential exists to create a useful academy.
Yes, and MW is a destination school for talented teachers, all while being located in a neighborhood that makes Springfield Estates look like west Springfield.
Anonymous
10/18/2022 14:10
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Generally, in my experience, the "community engagement" sessions are pro forma and the plan is already set by the school board. They don't actually intend to take any of your ideas.
This is such a silly take. There are 180,000 kids and their families in FCPS. Just because they didn’t take your idea doesn’t mean they didn’t take feedback from the community.
DP - a more refined take would be that they take feedback when it aligns with their existing preferences.
But still one without a factual basis, just based on an axe to grind.
Anonymous
10/18/2022 14:09
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A language magnet with an international focus makes SOOOOO much more sense than a ridiculous.left wing social justice indoctrination. I suggested this years ago before this politically biased new idea took root.
A language magnet within Lewis would immediately fix enrollment issues and raise test scores. It would be a huge win for this school.
The protest academy? Not so much.
If a school already offers Chinese, does that mean FCPS is going to force kids to go to Lewis to take it?
I guess they could look at languages that aren't offered at many schools (for example, Russian, Arabic, Vietnamese) or aren't offered at all (for example, Hindi, Urdu, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian).
No. But an academy offering less frequently offered languages and maybe history classes and government classes for the countries those languages are from would be cool. And then kids who want to take Chinese or Russian or Japanese or Hindi or whatever languages are there would be able to take a bus to school instead of parents driving them. And it would reduce the need for kids to find a school that has room and can allow students to attend for the language they are interested in. It would be a pretty cool concept.
We already have a shortage of bus drivers, ridiculous bus routes/times, and enough pollution from buses. Are we really supposed to start running extra buses to get kids from Herndon and Great Falls to Springfield and back?
I hope a new School Board is elected next year and that they jettison this academy idea and start reforming Lewis by first eliminating IB.
The buses for Academies run during the school day so it would not add to the bus issue.
That limits the window during which students from other schools can avail of Academy courses and makes additional demands on the fleet (and schools end at different hours as well).
This is going to be an expensive boondoggle to try and make Lewis look more attractive without grappling with some of the more fundamental reasons why this is the case.
The fundamental reason is that Lewis, Herndon, Justice, Falls Church, Annandale, and MVHS have large amounts of affordable housing complexes inside their boundaries that draw immigrants and ESOL newcomers to live in those apartments. No amount of traditional schooling is going to transform a young adult ELL student into a top-tier graduate. Regardless of the miraculous achievements FCPS makes with ESOL students, the traditional SAT/AP/IB/SOL scores will always suffer at these schools. It's truly as simple as that.
If your main concern is buses, I would argue that Chantilly and West Potomac are poorly designated as academies because they are on the extremities of the county and don't make sense geographically like Lewis does.
But that's all besides the point. This is an opportunity to create a worthy academy in a centrally-located, significantly under-enrolled school building in a county that is hungry for selective and advanced programs. The opportunity is there but the implementation needs work.
Anonymous
10/18/2022 13:54
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Generally, in my experience, the "community engagement" sessions are pro forma and the plan is already set by the school board. They don't actually intend to take any of your ideas.
This is such a silly take. There are 180,000 kids and their families in FCPS. Just because they didn’t take your idea doesn’t mean they didn’t take feedback from the community.
DP - a more refined take would be that they take feedback when it aligns with their existing preferences.
Anonymous
10/18/2022 13:53
Subject: Lewis Academy - community input?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A language magnet with an international focus makes SOOOOO much more sense than a ridiculous.left wing social justice indoctrination. I suggested this years ago before this politically biased new idea took root.
A language magnet within Lewis would immediately fix enrollment issues and raise test scores. It would be a huge win for this school.
The protest academy? Not so much.
If a school already offers Chinese, does that mean FCPS is going to force kids to go to Lewis to take it?
I guess they could look at languages that aren't offered at many schools (for example, Russian, Arabic, Vietnamese) or aren't offered at all (for example, Hindi, Urdu, Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian).
No. But an academy offering less frequently offered languages and maybe history classes and government classes for the countries those languages are from would be cool. And then kids who want to take Chinese or Russian or Japanese or Hindi or whatever languages are there would be able to take a bus to school instead of parents driving them. And it would reduce the need for kids to find a school that has room and can allow students to attend for the language they are interested in. It would be a pretty cool concept.
We already have a shortage of bus drivers, ridiculous bus routes/times, and enough pollution from buses. Are we really supposed to start running extra buses to get kids from Herndon and Great Falls to Springfield and back?
I hope a new School Board is elected next year and that they jettison this academy idea and start reforming Lewis by first eliminating IB.
The buses for Academies run during the school day so it would not add to the bus issue.
That limits the window during which students from other schools can avail of Academy courses and makes additional demands on the fleet (and schools end at different hours as well).
This is going to be an expensive boondoggle to try and make Lewis look more attractive without grappling with some of the more fundamental reasons why this is the case.