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Anonymous wrote:OP here. So if the option has been removed yet the child still wants to take the language course and the course isn't available via FCPS Online or Virtual VA, what are the options for the child? My child is interested in Russian and we are in the Mclean HS district so we weren't thinking of doing this solely to get to Langley (because there's no difference in my mind between the two, except for capacity issues which I don't consider excessive) but my kid really wants to add Russian as a language when he gets to high school. What are the options on this?

My daughter went to Chantilly. They allowed her to take Russian at Nova via dual enrollment. They don't really tell you that this option is available but if you push for it your high school will let you do it. Some kids at Chantilly also take languages remotely at other schools (such as Chinese at Fairfax High School). This may be an option now as well - look into it.

OP again. Thank you for this info. The Longfellow counselors didn't mention this to me as a choice. What sucks even more than the abrupt change is that many FCPS schools don't even operate on the same rules. I have an older child at Mclean and I'm being told that my child cannot take Virtual Virginia classes at Mclean because Mclean doesn't "support it". And, then I hear that the same classes are being taken via VVa at other FCPS high schools. It's such a disjointed system. I've read on this board that FCPS should really be split up and I'm starting to agree more and more that it may indeed be warranted. It's a mess.

If she is at Lingfellow, then she is not a sophomore but an 8th grader picking freshman classes?

Then your solution is very easy.

She simply starts a new language at her zoned high school, McLean, when she begins high school in 9th grade.

She will end up with 4 years of one language for her college applications.

This is completely a non issue if she is currently an 8th grader at Longfellow.

Not the OP but it is an issue because they just changed the rules on language transfers and have not advertised that change clearly. Kids had been allowed to pupil place for languages up to this year. OPs DD wanted to take Russian, which required a change. It might not be a huge issue for some people but it sounds like the child was really interested in this language. Yes, the kid can take a different language but I am sure that is a disappointment to the child and the family.

That’s OK. 🤷‍♀️

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Anonymous wrote:I’m a world language teacher in FCPS. We have been told that language is no longer a reason that will be accepted for high school transfers.

But they are still accepting transfers for AP or IB.
Seems unfair to limit it to the closest school if the closest school doesn’t offer the student’s language that they already started in high school, considering that can affect getting into schools like UVA.

Starting a new language freshman year will have zero negative impact on college admissions.

How are they going to do this with Immersion kids? The kids started in K or 1st grade with the language and suddenly they can’t transfer to a school with that language? Ridiculous. By 9th grade, the kids and families have already committed 8-9 years to developing that language and suddenly they won’t be able to continue?

If the student hasn't learned the language well enough after 8 or 9 years of immersion to be able to continue that language online, then they probably are not learning it well.

Kids who have been involved in immersion programs will have attended school for 8-9 years with the same groups of kids. Telling them to attend a HS with kids they don’t know and to take the language online is BS. Unless they explicitly tell parents that immersion participants will not be allowed to pupil place to the HS that their peers will be attending is not right.

A kid asking to move for a language they are starting as a freshman is a different story. They don’t have a history with the language and they have not been attending a different school then their peers since ES.

Irrelevant.

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Anonymous wrote:OP here. So if the option has been removed yet the child still wants to take the language course and the course isn't available via FCPS Online or Virtual VA, what are the options for the child? My child is interested in Russian and we are in the Mclean HS district so we weren't thinking of doing this solely to get to Langley (because there's no difference in my mind between the two, except for capacity issues which I don't consider excessive) but my kid really wants to add Russian as a language when he gets to high school. What are the options on this?

A pp posted this: “ Or, you could ask for your student to be allowed to go to the school for just one period like students do for academy classes, then return to your neighborhood school for everything else. You would need to provide transportation to and fro, which can be a hassle, but if your kid has a strong interest in the language the hassle might be worth it to you.”

I believe in the past, there were a few McLean students who took Russian first period at Langley, and then took the rest of their classes at McLean. I think the transfer time was during Highlander time- so they did not have to give up class time to facilitate it or possibly, they did it around the lunch periods. Schedules may have changed and the practice may have been eliminated a while ago.

OP here: that's a bigger problem for me. I work. I would have been able to do drop off and pick up from Langley if it were the whole day, but I can't do that just for 1 period. Some folks are saying it can be done online. I'm hoping that is a path we can explore. I'd hate to tell him that taking Russian for credit in FCPS is no longer possible for him.

Why Russian?

Is it just trying yo find any possible loophole to attend Langley?

OP was very clear in a prior post that her kid had a sincere issue in Russian and wasn’t just looking to transfer to Langley.

A Langley student wanting to take German would be in a similar situation, since Langley doesn’t offer German.

The elimination of a pupil placement option for foreign language because it has been “abused” by some is just another example of the type of half-assed decisions made under Reid. And of course a School Board member like Robyn Lady will likely be of little help.

I disagree.

I think eliminating language transfers but offering online or virtual is a great solution.

DP. Online or virtual is not equivalent to in the classroom.

Mmkay. Well, then the kid takes a language offered at their home school in person. Done.

Anonymous wrote:This seems to have what I would assume as unintended affect of preventing some LI kids from being able to continue in their language.
This is actually awful, and unfair. It may be that some schools need to remain closed to transfers due to capacity, but there should not be an across-the-board ban that seriously affects LI kids.
Anyone else planning to write their school board rep?

If your kid is at Irving, then a 9th grade transition over to Robinson would be a good way to continue with the language.

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Anonymous wrote:I have the other post on this topic. My daughter started German immersion at first grade. We went to Orange Hunt for elementary, and Irving right now for middle, and we were supposed to go to West Springfield to continue on in German. Our base school does not have German. I’ve been emailing back-and-forth to the transfer office in the basic messages so out of luck.
German is my daughter’s favorite class, all her friends have been together in it since first grade, and now she has to change in high school

If they had let me know, maybe we would’ve changed her mind about middle school and she is an anxious and shy child as well her friends are important to her

There’s no German Immersion at WSHS. Your special program ended. Back to base school. You should have established residency in the Orange Hunt boundary back in 2018 if you cared so much about the high school.

Bless your heart.

We own a home in WSHS boundary that was going to be rezoned out because of all these language transfers in. Of course I’m salty.

German Immersion in an elementary level program. There is no German Immersion at the middle school and high school level and no room in the neighborhood schools for extra students.

Immersion 100% continues in 8th grade, there is a language immersion specific class at the MS that the ESLI program feeds into. I know this is the case for Japanese and Korean. Maybe it is different for Spanish, French, and German and the kids move into the regular language class but at least Japanese and Korean Immersion continues in MS and then into HS as the kids need two additional years of language if they taake language all 4 years.

Bullshit. No one at Irving is teaching middle school math and science in German. Immersion ends.

The language continues. My kids report card reads Japanese Immersion 2. No, math and science is not in German but the language class is different for the immersion kids then the non-Immersion kids. They call the language Immersion, hence the program continues.

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Anonymous wrote:I have the other post on this topic. My daughter started German immersion at first grade. We went to Orange Hunt for elementary, and Irving right now for middle, and we were supposed to go to West Springfield to continue on in German. Our base school does not have German. I’ve been emailing back-and-forth to the transfer office in the basic messages so out of luck.
German is my daughter’s favorite class, all her friends have been together in it since first grade, and now she has to change in high school

If they had let me know, maybe we would’ve changed her mind about middle school and she is an anxious and shy child as well her friends are important to her

There’s no German Immersion at WSHS. Your special program ended. Back to base school. You should have established residency in the Orange Hunt boundary back in 2018 if you cared so much about the high school.

Bless your heart.

We own a home in WSHS boundary that was going to be rezoned out because of all these language transfers in. Of course I’m salty.

German Immersion in an elementary level program. There is no German Immersion at the middle school and high school level and no room in the neighborhood schools for extra students.

Immersion 100% continues in 8th grade, there is a language immersion specific class at the MS that the ESLI program feeds into. I know this is the case for Japanese and Korean. Maybe it is different for Spanish, French, and German and the kids move into the regular language class but at least Japanese and Korean Immersion continues in MS and then into HS as the kids need two additional years of language if they taake language all 4 years.

Bullshit. No one at Irving is teaching middle school math and science in German. Immersion ends.

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Anonymous wrote:This seems to have what I would assume as unintended affect of preventing some LI kids from being able to continue in their language.
This is actually awful, and unfair. It may be that some schools need to remain closed to transfers due to capacity, but there should not be an across-the-board ban that seriously affects LI kids.
Anyone else planning to write their school board rep?

As the one poster has pointed out, there is a school that is open to transfer and has German, Robinson. It has the bonus of being an IB school so right now kids would be able to pupil place for IB. They could do IB German and some IB elective classes to meet the IB requirement while taking some of the more common AP classes.

Most of the LI programs are Spanish. There are 2 Japanese, one that is really small and the other feeds into SLHS which has IB for transfer and Japanese. There is one school that offers Korean, one offering German, and one offering French. French and Spanish are easily available. Japanese and German have an IB transfer option. Kids can continue with their language. Korean might be tricky but I don't know how big that program is.

People might not be able to choose the HS that is their ideal HS or continue on with classmates from ES but there are options. I do think there was an unintended impact on the LI schools but that is a really small number of kids.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. We are at SLHS and in Japanese. There is no AP transfer school with Japanese, only Herndon now because that is the closest school. That means rising sophomore DC has to choose between switching to AP and dropping Japanese, or continuing in Japanese and staying in IB, which feels very unfair.

These are the schools with Japanese:

Falls Church HS
Hayfield HS
Lake Braddock HS
Langley HS
Oakton HS
South County HS
South Lakes HS
TJHSST
Westfield HS

For you, the nearest AP/Japanese schools would be Westfield and Oakton, probably.

It doesn’t matter. We are only allowed to transfer to Herndon now and Herndon doesn’t have Japanese.

Opt in to Skyview. There is space, they have Japanese, and they are AP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to have what I would assume as unintended affect of preventing some LI kids from being able to continue in their language.
This is actually awful, and unfair. It may be that some schools need to remain closed to transfers due to capacity, but there should not be an across-the-board ban that seriously affects LI kids.
Anyone else planning to write their school board rep?

As the one poster has pointed out, there is a school that is open to transfer and has German, Robinson. It has the bonus of being an IB school so right now kids would be able to pupil place for IB. They could do IB German and some IB elective classes to meet the IB requirement while taking some of the more common AP classes.

Most of the LI programs are Spanish. There are 2 Japanese, one that is really small and the other feeds into SLHS which has IB for transfer and Japanese. There is one school that offers Korean, one offering German, and one offering French. French and Spanish are easily available. Japanese and German have an IB transfer option. Kids can continue with their language. Korean might be tricky but I don't know how big that program is.

People might not be able to choose the HS that is their ideal HS or continue on with classmates from ES but there are options. I do think there was an unintended impact on the LI schools but that is a really small number of kids.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. We are at SLHS and in Japanese. There is no AP transfer school with Japanese, only Herndon now because that is the closest school. That means rising sophomore DC has to choose between switching to AP and dropping Japanese, or continuing in Japanese and staying in IB, which feels very unfair.

These are the schools with Japanese:

Falls Church HS
Hayfield HS
Lake Braddock HS
Langley HS
Oakton HS
South County HS
South Lakes HS
TJHSST
Westfield HS

For you, the nearest AP/Japanese schools would be Westfield and Oakton, probably.

It doesn’t matter. We are only allowed to transfer to Herndon now and Herndon doesn’t have Japanese.

You all realize the fall out from the wining will be every school in the whole county offering only Spanish and no one having any choice anymore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to have what I would assume as unintended affect of preventing some LI kids from being able to continue in their language.
This is actually awful, and unfair. It may be that some schools need to remain closed to transfers due to capacity, but there should not be an across-the-board ban that seriously affects LI kids.
Anyone else planning to write their school board rep?

As the one poster has pointed out, there is a school that is open to transfer and has German, Robinson. It has the bonus of being an IB school so right now kids would be able to pupil place for IB. They could do IB German and some IB elective classes to meet the IB requirement while taking some of the more common AP classes.

Most of the LI programs are Spanish. There are 2 Japanese, one that is really small and the other feeds into SLHS which has IB for transfer and Japanese. There is one school that offers Korean, one offering German, and one offering French. French and Spanish are easily available. Japanese and German have an IB transfer option. Kids can continue with their language. Korean might be tricky but I don't know how big that program is.

People might not be able to choose the HS that is their ideal HS or continue on with classmates from ES but there are options. I do think there was an unintended impact on the LI schools but that is a really small number of kids.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. We are at SLHS and in Japanese. There is no AP transfer school with Japanese, only Herndon now because that is the closest school. That means rising sophomore DC has to choose between switching to AP and dropping Japanese, or continuing in Japanese and staying in IB, which feels very unfair.

These are the schools with Japanese:

Falls Church HS
Hayfield HS
Lake Braddock HS
Langley HS
Oakton HS
South County HS
South Lakes HS
TJHSST
Westfield HS

For you, the nearest AP/Japanese schools would be Westfield and Oakton, probably.

You cannot choose based on language any more. Herndon is the closest AP school right now, so Herndon is the AP option and it doesn't have Japanese. Most of the SLHS Japanese AP kids pupil placed to Westfield or Oakton. As I pointed out in the post above, Skyview is planning on having Japanese and there are kids from SLHS 10th grade that are transfering to Skyview, it would be the option for next year. Hoenstly, I am surprised that someone waited to potentially transfer for AP until 10th grade, most people make that choice in 9th grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to have what I would assume as unintended affect of preventing some LI kids from being able to continue in their language.
This is actually awful, and unfair. It may be that some schools need to remain closed to transfers due to capacity, but there should not be an across-the-board ban that seriously affects LI kids.
Anyone else planning to write their school board rep?

As the one poster has pointed out, there is a school that is open to transfer and has German, Robinson. It has the bonus of being an IB school so right now kids would be able to pupil place for IB. They could do IB German and some IB elective classes to meet the IB requirement while taking some of the more common AP classes.

Most of the LI programs are Spanish. There are 2 Japanese, one that is really small and the other feeds into SLHS which has IB for transfer and Japanese. There is one school that offers Korean, one offering German, and one offering French. French and Spanish are easily available. Japanese and German have an IB transfer option. Kids can continue with their language. Korean might be tricky but I don't know how big that program is.

People might not be able to choose the HS that is their ideal HS or continue on with classmates from ES but there are options. I do think there was an unintended impact on the LI schools but that is a really small number of kids.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. We are at SLHS and in Japanese. There is no AP transfer school with Japanese, only Herndon now because that is the closest school. That means rising sophomore DC has to choose between switching to AP and dropping Japanese, or continuing in Japanese and staying in IB, which feels very unfair.

SLHS is the home of Japanese Immersion, so technically you don't need to transfer to continue the program. I know people moved for AP/Japanese to Oakton but yes, that is no longer possible. I believe Western will have Japanese and is closer then Herndon for many families, so that might be an option in a few years. I know Fox Mill kids attending Skyview next year, I believe that there are enough for the JI class to be held for the 9th graders. I know 10th graders from Fox Mill who opted in to Skyview as well, that was an option and still could be an option since they did not fill up all the slots.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to have what I would assume as unintended affect of preventing some LI kids from being able to continue in their language.
This is actually awful, and unfair. It may be that some schools need to remain closed to transfers due to capacity, but there should not be an across-the-board ban that seriously affects LI kids.
Anyone else planning to write their school board rep?

As the one poster has pointed out, there is a school that is open to transfer and has German, Robinson. It has the bonus of being an IB school so right now kids would be able to pupil place for IB. They could do IB German and some IB elective classes to meet the IB requirement while taking some of the more common AP classes.

Most of the LI programs are Spanish. There are 2 Japanese, one that is really small and the other feeds into SLHS which has IB for transfer and Japanese. There is one school that offers Korean, one offering German, and one offering French. French and Spanish are easily available. Japanese and German have an IB transfer option. Kids can continue with their language. Korean might be tricky but I don't know how big that program is.

People might not be able to choose the HS that is their ideal HS or continue on with classmates from ES but there are options. I do think there was an unintended impact on the LI schools but that is a really small number of kids.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. We are at SLHS and in Japanese. There is no AP transfer school with Japanese, only Herndon now because that is the closest school. That means rising sophomore DC has to choose between switching to AP and dropping Japanese, or continuing in Japanese and staying in IB, which feels very unfair.

These are the schools with Japanese:

Falls Church HS
Hayfield HS
Lake Braddock HS
Langley HS
Oakton HS
South County HS
South Lakes HS
TJHSST
Westfield HS

For you, the nearest AP/Japanese schools would be Westfield and Oakton, probably.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems to have what I would assume as unintended affect of preventing some LI kids from being able to continue in their language.
This is actually awful, and unfair. It may be that some schools need to remain closed to transfers due to capacity, but there should not be an across-the-board ban that seriously affects LI kids.
Anyone else planning to write their school board rep?

As the one poster has pointed out, there is a school that is open to transfer and has German, Robinson. It has the bonus of being an IB school so right now kids would be able to pupil place for IB. They could do IB German and some IB elective classes to meet the IB requirement while taking some of the more common AP classes.

Most of the LI programs are Spanish. There are 2 Japanese, one that is really small and the other feeds into SLHS which has IB for transfer and Japanese. There is one school that offers Korean, one offering German, and one offering French. French and Spanish are easily available. Japanese and German have an IB transfer option. Kids can continue with their language. Korean might be tricky but I don't know how big that program is.

People might not be able to choose the HS that is their ideal HS or continue on with classmates from ES but there are options. I do think there was an unintended impact on the LI schools but that is a really small number of kids.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. We are at SLHS and in Japanese. There is no AP transfer school with Japanese, only Herndon now because that is the closest school. That means rising sophomore DC has to choose between switching to AP and dropping Japanese, or continuing in Japanese and staying in IB, which feels very unfair.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I have the other post on this topic. My daughter started German immersion at first grade. We went to Orange Hunt for elementary, and Irving right now for middle, and we were supposed to go to West Springfield to continue on in German. Our base school does not have German. I’ve been emailing back-and-forth to the transfer office in the basic messages so out of luck.
German is my daughter’s favorite class, all her friends have been together in it since first grade, and now she has to change in high school

If they had let me know, maybe we would’ve changed her mind about middle school and she is an anxious and shy child as well her friends are important to her

There’s no German Immersion at WSHS. Your special program ended. Back to base school. You should have established residency in the Orange Hunt boundary back in 2018 if you cared so much about the high school.

Bless your heart.

We own a home in WSHS boundary that was going to be rezoned out because of all these language transfers in. Of course I’m salty.

German Immersion in an elementary level program. There is no German Immersion at the middle school and high school level and no room in the neighborhood schools for extra students.

Where other schools were concerned, FCPS rezoned kids to get schools down to 105% capacity. To get WSHS down to 105% capacity, based on 2025-26 enrollment, they should be moving 218 kids out of WSHS. But, there are only 51 transfers into WSHS this year.

So if they'd treated WSHS fairly, like they treated some other schools, they still would have needed to move 167 kids out of WSHS even if all the language transfers were eliminated.

Start with sending all the language transfers to Robinson or back to their base school.

Then do a residency check after class of 2026 graduates.

So much gatekeeping. Maybe WSHS should just be an ICE training academy.

You are against enforcing district transfer policy?

I am against parents at West Springfield who scapegoat other kids, especially since the school would be overcrowded enough to warrant a boundary change under FCPS policy regardless of the small number of kids continuing with German in that pyramid. You’re disgusting.

Not one person is s scapegoating kids.

In fact, the people posting about this are all stating that FCPS is being shortsighted and overzealous

They are stating repeatedly that the old policy allowing language transfers in schools with space should stay in place, with the Germsn transfers going to Robinson, not Irving or WSHS, since Robinson is open to transfers and WSHS has been closed to transfers for over a decade.

The 50-60 transfers into WSHS are students who never should have been allowed to transfer into WSHS based on transfer policy. Those students have a wonderful option with nearby Robinson.

50-60 inbound transfers is around the same number of students of both the Sangster neighborhood and the Shannon Station neighborhood. Moving students out of WSHS needs to start with the transfer students who don't live in bounds, not families that purchased homes zoned to the school.

The only people who would disagree with this statement are those who intended to use the loophole to transfer into the school in hopes that Gatehouse ignores written policy.

The old policy was fine. All they need to do is enforce transfer policy.

Now, because FCPS is unwilling to stand by their transfer policy for language transfers, no one gets to have nice things. It is so stupid and short sighted.

Anonymous wrote:This seems to have what I would assume as unintended affect of preventing some LI kids from being able to continue in their language.
This is actually awful, and unfair. It may be that some schools need to remain closed to transfers due to capacity, but there should not be an across-the-board ban that seriously affects LI kids.
Anyone else planning to write their school board rep?

As the one poster has pointed out, there is a school that is open to transfer and has German, Robinson. It has the bonus of being an IB school so right now kids would be able to pupil place for IB. They could do IB German and some IB elective classes to meet the IB requirement while taking some of the more common AP classes.

Most of the LI programs are Spanish. There are 2 Japanese, one that is really small and the other feeds into SLHS which has IB for transfer and Japanese. There is one school that offers Korean, one offering German, and one offering French. French and Spanish are easily available. Japanese and German have an IB transfer option. Kids can continue with their language. Korean might be tricky but I don't know how big that program is.

People might not be able to choose the HS that is their ideal HS or continue on with classmates from ES but there are options. I do think there was an unintended impact on the LI schools but that is a really small number of kids.