Anonymous wrote:Again, a special program is not guaranteed to be at a particular school forever.

It's not the system's problem that you bought out of district thinking that staying at another school was a given.

Want to go to GBW so bad? Move to Greenbriar.

How is your dumb real estate decision our problem?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't mind the volunteer base going down. We went to GBE before, and they managed just fine. Switching schools does seem like a bit of a bummer, but I would probably rather do that than deal with such overcrowding. Also, Poplar Tree kids would go back to a school they know, and Colin Powell kids could go back to CP for the local level IV classes.

Don't want to make this a Colin Powell / Poplar Tree discussion, but it can't be helped. The survey is about reducing overcrowding at GBW by moving ONLY kids that have Poplar Tree as their base. All things being equal, the same scenario has been going on at Colin Powell. Hordes of kids come in from Colin Powell, though they have a local level IV citing better clubs, losing friendships with AAP students, less challenging work etc., at Colin Powell. And yet., the proposal is to allow Colin Powell kids to have a choice in attending GBW / Local level IV. Of course they will choose the center. I was at the meeting that was held in November and the figures showed that the number of kids coming to the center (GBW) from either school were the almost same ( less than a difference of 5). The proposal to make Poplar Tree a center implies that the kids will be denied a choice of coming to GBW. I just love the principal and the teachers at GBW and it will take a very long time,if ever to establish such a team at Poplar tree. Well, you can take Colin Powell as an example since kids still choose GBW over their local level IV.

Added to this is the fact that the overcrowding is mainly due to the current grade 5 students (based on figures of AAP enrollment in the past few years) because the selection criteria including the test were a little eased.
How can one project that such figures will be in the future such that overcrowding will remain an issue? The figures of enrollment cited at the meeting were much less in the following two years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't mind the volunteer base going down. We went to GBE before, and they managed just fine. Switching schools does seem like a bit of a bummer, but I would probably rather do that than deal with such overcrowding. Also, Poplar Tree kids would go back to a school they know, and Colin Powell kids could go back to CP for the local level IV classes.

Don't want to make this a Colin Powell / Poplar Tree discussion, but it can't be helped. The survey is about reducing overcrowding at GBW by moving ONLY kids that have Poplar Tree as their base. All things being equal, the same scenario has been going on at Colin Powell. Hordes of kids come in from Colin Powell, though they have a local level IV citing better clubs, losing friendships with AAP students, less challenging work etc., at Colin Powell. And yet., the proposal is to allow Colin Powell kids to have a choice in attending GBW / Local level IV. Of course they will choose the center. I was at the meeting that was held in November and the figures showed that the number of kids coming to the center (GBW) from either school were the almost same ( less than a difference of 5). The proposal to make Poplar Tree a center implies that the kids will be denied a choice of coming to GBW. I just love the principal and the teachers at GBW and it will take a very long time,if ever to establish such a team at Poplar tree. Well, you can take Colin Powell as an example since kids still choose GBW over their local level IV.

Added to this is the fact that the overcrowding is mainly due to the current grade 5 students (based on figures of AAP enrollment in the past few years) because the selection criteria including the test were a little eased.
How can one project that such figures will be in the future such that overcrowding will remain an issue? The figures of enrollment cited at the meeting were much less in the following two years.

Anonymous wrote:It is interesting that knowing that some schools are overcrowding and other are under enrolled, FCPS is not focusing on issues with these under enrolled school.

It is important to understand that why parents and kids prefer one school over other. FCPS school standards and parent partcipations are so different in each school. There is a greater need for learning things that are working from good schools and implementing these in under performing schools. FCPS should focus initiatives which will enrich kids either they are in AAP or Gen Ed and create similar environment in each of the schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we received the email from FCPS to fill out the survey about GBW over crowing.

How are we supposed to response. We don't even know what FCPS is doing to get AAP teacher to Poplar Tree.

Why FCPS not thinking about Boundry Changes or moving non AAP kids to Poplar Tree or moving AAP kids to Collin Powell where local AAP has been there for few years now.

If they want to implement this they should do it one year at a time so they have enough time to get staff and facility ready.

Any thoughts?

I think GBW may be the only ES in the county where AAP kids outnumber Gen Ed kids - not just in the 3-6 grades, but for the school as a whole.

Moving non-AAP kids to Poplar Tree would skew the ratios even further, so it's really a non-starter. There are already families that avoid GBW and Rocky Run and move further west to South Riding because they think the AAP programs at those particular schools are way too big.

Anonymous wrote:we received the email from FCPS to fill out the survey about GBW over crowing.

How are we supposed to response. We don't even know what FCPS is doing to get AAP teacher to Poplar Tree.

Why FCPS not thinking about Boundry Changes or moving non AAP kids to Poplar Tree or moving AAP kids to Collin Powell where local AAP has been there for few years now.

If they want to implement this they should do it one year at a time so they have enough time to get staff and facility ready.

Any thoughts?

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't mind the volunteer base going down. We went to GBE before, and they managed just fine. Switching schools does seem like a bit of a bummer, but I would probably rather do that than deal with such overcrowding. Also, Poplar Tree kids would go back to a school they know, and Colin Powell kids could go back to CP for the local level IV classes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which FCPS schools have only 400 kids? I thought 800ish was the norm?

From the recently adopted 2016-20 CIP:

Armstrong 470
Vienna 433
Columbia 471
Graham Rd 504
Lemon Rd 508
Franklin Sherman 406
Sleepy Hollow 465
Beech Tree 391
Bush Hill 472
Mount Eagle 401
Garfielld 371
Bucknell 284
Kings Glen 440
West Springfield 484
Little Run 341
Olde Creek 433

Thant doesn't take into account the additional schools between 500-599. There are a lot of smaller schools in FCPS, and there doesn't seem to be any consistency in philosophy over time about the size of the schools that FCPS is creating (through programmatic changes) or building. Although two new elementary schools they've opened recently have capacities between 650-700 students.

The preferred maximum sizes, absent any extraordinary circumstance, for new school buildings are; 36 classrooms (approximately 900 student program capacity) for elementary, 1,000 student program capacity for middle (grades 7-8), and 2,000 student program capacity for high school.