Anonymous
09/22/2025 13:13
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.
Bussing a low income neighborhood to a higher income school doesn’t work. Every neighborhood should be attending its closest school and this is extra true for lower income areas. Transportation is a real concern in high FARMS areas because not every household has a car, or maybe they only have 1 car for the whole household with multiple adults working in different areas. So if your kid misses the bus, there’s no way for them to get to school if walking isn’t realistic (which it absolutely is not from Hagel Circle to Halley). Parents are less likely to come to school conferences or events. Kids feel disconnected from the larger school community and it creates absenteeism.
I’m a South County parent although my kids are still in ES. If they move in Sangster’s small attendance island and most of HV south of the Parkway and don’t make any moves out, SCMS and HS are going to be overcrowded. No, I don’t really care which areas stay or go or come in to our boundaries in terms of the SES and which could give our school more “prestige,” I knew how the demographics were here when I bought and knew that it was a much larger income range compared to WS or Burke which seem more uniformly middle and UMC. But we can’t have a move in of a few hundred kids from WS and LB without a move out. Also worth noting there is significant room for development in Lorton - so a big new neighborhood could pop up at any moment, making the schools even more crowded and leading to “oops we need to make another boundary adjustment in 5-10 years” and a lot of instability.
Moving the kids from Halley to Gunston will not move a single kid out of SCMS or HS, so not sure what point you’re trying to make. Gunston is already a split feeder with the Mason Neck students going to SCMS/HS since it opened. Moving the Hagel Circle attendance island to Lorton Station would move those students to Hayfield. Additionally, there is a walking path in the back of Hagel Circle that leads to Lorton Station - getting to Gunston involves crossing Route 1 and walking down Gunston Road which doesn’t have sidewalks.
That is exactly my point. Moving kids from Halley to Gunston won’t move anyone out of SCMS/HS. The current proposals have up to 35% of Hunt Valley moving to SC and a small number of students from Sangster/LB (with a small corresponding move out to offset it, which may or may not actually happen). In keeping all of Hagel Circle at SC, and moving in a few hundred from HV, you immediately create an over 100% situation at both SCMS and HS. They need to either pick Hagel Circle to stay at SC, or part of HV to move to SC, but they can’t have both or we will be bursting at the seams. WSHS was built and expanded to a larger capacity, South County is not as large. They might as well take the trailers from WSHS and stick them in South County’s parking lots at that point.
And yes, putting that neighborhood at Lorton Station and Hayfield makes the most sense, especially if a walking path can be utilized between the back of Hagel Cir. And Lorton Rd. The initial maps before Thru got involved did have that change. No one knows why Thru did their own thing there.
Anonymous
09/22/2025 10:53
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.
Bussing a low income neighborhood to a higher income school doesn’t work. Every neighborhood should be attending its closest school and this is extra true for lower income areas. Transportation is a real concern in high FARMS areas because not every household has a car, or maybe they only have 1 car for the whole household with multiple adults working in different areas. So if your kid misses the bus, there’s no way for them to get to school if walking isn’t realistic (which it absolutely is not from Hagel Circle to Halley). Parents are less likely to come to school conferences or events. Kids feel disconnected from the larger school community and it creates absenteeism.
I’m a South County parent although my kids are still in ES. If they move in Sangster’s small attendance island and most of HV south of the Parkway and don’t make any moves out, SCMS and HS are going to be overcrowded. No, I don’t really care which areas stay or go or come in to our boundaries in terms of the SES and which could give our school more “prestige,” I knew how the demographics were here when I bought and knew that it was a much larger income range compared to WS or Burke which seem more uniformly middle and UMC. But we can’t have a move in of a few hundred kids from WS and LB without a move out. Also worth noting there is significant room for development in Lorton - so a big new neighborhood could pop up at any moment, making the schools even more crowded and leading to “oops we need to make another boundary adjustment in 5-10 years” and a lot of instability.
Moving the kids from Halley to Gunston will not move a single kid out of SCMS or HS, so not sure what point you’re trying to make. Gunston is already a split feeder with the Mason Neck students going to SCMS/HS since it opened. Moving the Hagel Circle attendance island to Lorton Station would move those students to Hayfield. Additionally, there is a walking path in the back of Hagel Circle that leads to Lorton Station - getting to Gunston involves crossing Route 1 and walking down Gunston Road which doesn’t have sidewalks.
Anonymous
09/22/2025 10:48
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.
Bussing a low income neighborhood to a higher income school doesn’t work. Every neighborhood should be attending its closest school and this is extra true for lower income areas. Transportation is a real concern in high FARMS areas because not every household has a car, or maybe they only have 1 car for the whole household with multiple adults working in different areas. So if your kid misses the bus, there’s no way for them to get to school if walking isn’t realistic (which it absolutely is not from Hagel Circle to Halley). Parents are less likely to come to school conferences or events. Kids feel disconnected from the larger school community and it creates absenteeism.
I’m a South County parent although my kids are still in ES. If they move in Sangster’s small attendance island and most of HV south of the Parkway and don’t make any moves out, SCMS and HS are going to be overcrowded. No, I don’t really care which areas stay or go or come in to our boundaries in terms of the SES and which could give our school more “prestige,” I knew how the demographics were here when I bought and knew that it was a much larger income range compared to WS or Burke which seem more uniformly middle and UMC. But we can’t have a move in of a few hundred kids from WS and LB without a move out. Also worth noting there is significant room for development in Lorton - so a big new neighborhood could pop up at any moment, making the schools even more crowded and leading to “oops we need to make another boundary adjustment in 5-10 years” and a lot of instability.
The only elementary school within walking distance to Halley is Lorton Station. The Halley attendance island is carved from Lorton Station borders. Wouldn’t the solution be to send Halley to Lorton Station?
Anonymous
09/22/2025 09:18
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Agree Ricardy Anderson and Melanie Meren are the SB members actively trying to get and use real information to make decisions, be realistic about timelines and SB responsibilities, etc. (And maybe Mateo Dunne? Don't know about him as much but people post his emails in this board.)
The only member who pushed back on the comprehensive review last year was Mcelveen. At the time he saw the train wreck coming but was quickly muzzled. He’s the only one of this lot that I’ll ever vote for again.
The rest of the school board members own this. It was entirely foreseeable that we’d end up here, but the eleventh hour change of heart for a handful of the board members is just because they F’ed around, and now they are finding out in the form of constituent anger that we all saw coming a mile away.
Sandy and her minions all own this.
McElveen, for all his idiocy about the snow days back in the day, is surprisingly competent. I don't agree with his politics all that much but voted for him just because I figured he can actually govern.
Anonymous
09/22/2025 09:10
Subject: Re:Boundary Review Meetings
Bussing a low income neighborhood to a higher income school doesn’t work. Every neighborhood should be attending its closest school and this is extra true for lower income areas. Transportation is a real concern in high FARMS areas because not every household has a car, or maybe they only have 1 car for the whole household with multiple adults working in different areas. So if your kid misses the bus, there’s no way for them to get to school if walking isn’t realistic (which it absolutely is not from Hagel Circle to Halley). Parents are less likely to come to school conferences or events. Kids feel disconnected from the larger school community and it creates absenteeism.
I am not familiar with the South County area, however, every word of this is true.
I taught in a school where kids from the projects lived a greater distance than the kids in the neighborhood. While all my students, with a couple of exceptions in that school were very poor, the ones who lived close came for conferences. Few of those who had to ride the bus had their parents come for conferences.
It makes a huge difference for poor families to have a school close by.
Anonymous
09/22/2025 09:03
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.
Bussing a low income neighborhood to a higher income school doesn’t work. Every neighborhood should be attending its closest school and this is extra true for lower income areas. Transportation is a real concern in high FARMS areas because not every household has a car, or maybe they only have 1 car for the whole household with multiple adults working in different areas. So if your kid misses the bus, there’s no way for them to get to school if walking isn’t realistic (which it absolutely is not from Hagel Circle to Halley). Parents are less likely to come to school conferences or events. Kids feel disconnected from the larger school community and it creates absenteeism.
I’m a South County parent although my kids are still in ES. If they move in Sangster’s small attendance island and most of HV south of the Parkway and don’t make any moves out, SCMS and HS are going to be overcrowded. No, I don’t really care which areas stay or go or come in to our boundaries in terms of the SES and which could give our school more “prestige,” I knew how the demographics were here when I bought and knew that it was a much larger income range compared to WS or Burke which seem more uniformly middle and UMC. But we can’t have a move in of a few hundred kids from WS and LB without a move out. Also worth noting there is significant room for development in Lorton - so a big new neighborhood could pop up at any moment, making the schools even more crowded and leading to “oops we need to make another boundary adjustment in 5-10 years” and a lot of instability.
Anonymous
09/22/2025 08:05
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Agree the inconsistency and lack of transparency has been an issue - also this whole effort is finding problems to solve versus solving the actual problems and moving on
Anonymous
09/22/2025 06:42
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Agree Ricardy Anderson and Melanie Meren are the SB members actively trying to get and use real information to make decisions, be realistic about timelines and SB responsibilities, etc. (And maybe Mateo Dunne? Don't know about him as much but people post his emails in this board.)
The only member who pushed back on the comprehensive review last year was Mcelveen. At the time he saw the train wreck coming but was quickly muzzled. He’s the only one of this lot that I’ll ever vote for again.
The rest of the school board members own this. It was entirely foreseeable that we’d end up here, but the eleventh hour change of heart for a handful of the board members is just because they F’ed around, and now they are finding out in the form of constituent anger that we all saw coming a mile away.
Sandy and her minions all own this.
Anonymous
09/21/2025 20:37
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Meren’s spineless. She purports to represent half of the ES feeders to KAA but abstained on the purchase because it would affect South Lakes. Vote one way or the other and accept the consequences.Anonymous wrote:Agree Ricardy Anderson and Melanie Meren are the SB members actively trying to get and use real information to make decisions, be realistic about timelines and SB responsibilities, etc. (And maybe Mateo Dunne? Don't know about him as much but people post his emails in this board.)
Anonymous
09/20/2025 21:56
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Agree Ricardy Anderson and Melanie Meren are the SB members actively trying to get and use real information to make decisions, be realistic about timelines and SB responsibilities, etc. (And maybe Mateo Dunne? Don't know about him as much but people post his emails in this board.)
Anonymous
09/20/2025 21:17
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.
Are they doing this in order to make it a Title I school?
That should not play into the decisions, but........
FCPS's web site says that the FARMS threshold for designating an ES as Title 1 is 57%. Most schools in FCPS reported a significant drop in their FARMS rates last year; explanations as to the reasons why differ.
In any event, if Hagel Circle gets moved to Gunston it's possible the FARMS rate could increase from around 32% (the FARMS rate last year) to something around 47%, which would be under 57%. FCPS hasn't updated its list of Title I schools for 2025-26.
I don't have the answer, but there needs to be a better way to decide this Title I issue.
When Title I first started, the individual students were identified as Title I. That also had its issues. I taught Title I children and we were not supposed to use materials purchased with Title I funds with our non-Title I students. That was not practical at all. 95% of my class was Title I and I was supposed to keep materials from the 5%?
But, a better balance needs to be found. There are many very poor, disadvantaged kids in a number of schools not designated as Title I. There are also affluent kids benefiting from being in a Title I school these days.
Anonymous
09/20/2025 21:02
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.
Are they doing this in order to make it a Title I school?
That should not play into the decisions, but........
FCPS's web site says that the FARMS threshold for designating an ES as Title 1 is 57%. Most schools in FCPS reported a significant drop in their FARMS rates last year; explanations as to the reasons why differ.
In any event, if Hagel Circle gets moved to Gunston it's possible the FARMS rate could increase from around 32% (the FARMS rate last year) to something around 47%, which would be under 57%. FCPS hasn't updated its list of Title I schools for 2025-26.
Anonymous
09/20/2025 20:42
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.
The Hagel Circle area is currently an attendance island at Halley but they would not consider it an attendance island at Gunston. It is connected to the rest of the Gunston attendance area, even if the area juts out and is on the other side of Route 1.
They aren't doing this because they want to turn Gunston into a Title I school. They are only doing it because their consultants, who don't know anything about Fairfax County, understood they were tasked with eliminating attendance islands, and they moved various SPAs (Student Planning Areas) around to accomplish that narrow goal without pushing schools above 105% capacity.
In other words, it's not a question of someone with nefarious motives out to benefit Halley or hurt Gunston in terms of reducing/increasing FARMS rates. It's just consultants coming up with something they can say fixes what the School Board initially identified as a problem.
If you take issue with that, you should be directing your ire in the first instance at the current School Board, which revised Policy 8130 without obtaining sufficient public input in advance, and then directed Reid to operationalize Policy 8130. They are backing off now about eliminating some of the existing attendance islands, in response to feedback in some cases, but the Region 4 BRAC members (which includes South County) have expressed support for moving Hagel Circle from Halley to Gunston.
Anonymous
09/20/2025 19:24
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.
Are they doing this in order to make it a Title I school?
That should not play into the decisions, but........
Anonymous
09/20/2025 19:23
Subject: Boundary Review Meetings
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It was Crestwood.
Listening on line and the Board seems to not know what is going on or even to have any power. The consultants appear to be running the show.
That’s shocking. That wasn’t on any of the maps and they are pretty close to Lewis (well, all of Lewis’s boundaries are fairly close except perhaps the furthest ends of Saratoga).
Do we think this is some kind of move of Crestwood to WSHS and Hunt Valley to Lewis?
makes sense. HV is 200 more students than crestwood. so that adds students to Lewis which is underenrolled and reduces WSHS by 200 which is overenrolled. crestwood is also 50% FARMs and ESL while HV is like 10%. this helps with equitable outcomes between the schools.
Can someone explain how what they’re proposing to Halley and Gunston is equitable? They’re moving the Hagel Circle attendance island from Halley to Gunston (even though it’s still going to technically be an island). Hagel Circle is almost entirely FARMS. Halley will lose the majority of FARMS kids while Gunston will likely become a Title 1 school. In exchange for the increased students from Hagel Circle, they’re planning to move out a middle class neighborhood to Island Creek.