Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF is TJ underenrolled?

Change it to an Academy

They expanded the school when it was renovated and now they are increasing the class sizes (there are substantially more freshmen and sophomores than juniors and seniors). In two more years it will be closer to full capacity.

I don’t think this is correct. TJ has specialized rooms like labs so capacity is lower for the same physical area compared to other high schools. Not sure that’s reflected in the cup.

It is correct that TJ's capacity was expanded when it was renovated and that its freshmen and sophomore classes are bigger than its junior and senior classes.

It appears that TJ's enrollment will max out in a few years at about 2200, which would put it at about 92% of design capacity as opposed to the current 82%. FCPS generally measures utilization against design capacity rather than the adjusted program capacity, which in TJ's case may reflect things like lab space. That is appropriate, since the comparisons might otherwise imply TJ students are entitled to more space per student than students at other schools.

It is inappropriate to consider design capacity for a Governor’s school with specialized spaces. Program capacity is what’s relevant. The increases to the entering class size was not based in underenrollment but was part of changing the student body demographics.

You can colocate another program on the campus and keep the schools separate. It seems like they have plenty of space for an academy program

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF is TJ underenrolled?

Change it to an Academy

They expanded the school when it was renovated and now they are increasing the class sizes (there are substantially more freshmen and sophomores than juniors and seniors). In two more years it will be closer to full capacity.

I don’t think this is correct. TJ has specialized rooms like labs so capacity is lower for the same physical area compared to other high schools. Not sure that’s reflected in the cup.

It is correct that TJ's capacity was expanded when it was renovated and that its freshmen and sophomore classes are bigger than its junior and senior classes.

It appears that TJ's enrollment will max out in a few years at about 2200, which would put it at about 92% of design capacity as opposed to the current 82%. FCPS generally measures utilization against design capacity rather than the adjusted program capacity, which in TJ's case may reflect things like lab space. That is appropriate, since the comparisons might otherwise imply TJ students are entitled to more space per student than students at other schools.

It is inappropriate to consider design capacity for a Governor’s school with specialized spaces. Program capacity is what’s relevant. The increases to the entering class size was not based in underenrollment but was part of changing the student body demographics.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone see how hard WS posters are fighting the suggestions that any WS kids ever get zoned to Lewis? Any of the other surrounding schools would be fine.

That is what happens when you concentrate all of the poor and ESL students.

FCPS needs a reckoning on this.

Sorry, but this is crazy.

There are several schools in the 30% overenrollment range.

Most of the schools are slightly below or slightly above capacity by 5% or so.

That is nominal, and an amount that will fluctuate up and down depending on class/grade size.

It is beyond silly to keep dragging WSHS into this discussion when it is in the same enrollmemt range as the majority of FCPS high schools, and when there is so much over capacity over in the other parts of the county

Focusing on one school that is at average enrollment, when there are several schools that are 30% over capacity, is really, really silly and misguided.

Nobody here saying that those grossly overcrowded schools don't need relief.

But there are also under utilized schools (like Lewis) facing issues. And the fact that FCPS chose to give WS a larger than approved renovation when there was space next door is telling.

Don't worry though. Nobody will be moved from WS to Lewis.

What nonsense.

WSHS was renovated on its scheduled fcps renovation cycle. There is a rolling queue of schoops that get renovated. I believe it is a 50 year cycle

The renovation had zero do do with Lewis high school.

When you do a full renovation, you expand where feasable. It saves taxpayer money.

Lewis enrollment or under enrollment is completely irrelevant to any other high school's renovation.

The only one speaking nonsense here is you. Of course nearby excess capacity should be a factor in the size of school expansions. The county originally set out a smaller number for the capacity increase at WS and then increased that number twice in different CIPs. Meantime there was plenty of space next door at Lewis. How can that not be a factor? And they pulled students from Lewis that has contributed to the enrollment imbalance. In 2005 the two schools had and enrollment difference of less than 200. Now it is approaching 950.

Lewis was expanded in 2005 and immediately students were moved out and it has never been close to capacity. How was that a wise use of taxpayer money? And the expansion at West Potomac is also ridiculous. There are over 400 sears available at Mount Vernon.

Like I said, if you own real estate in the WS zone, don't worry, nobody is being moved to Lewis.

But the vast discrepancies in enrollments is due to people like you who refuse to think boundaries should ever be changed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect is any parts of WSHS are rezoned, it will be out to South Country or over to Lake Braddock.

I hope not. I'm shocked LB is listed so low. My kids can't get into a bathroom ever so have to get e=pass during class and neither got a locker they requested. I assumed we were way over and hoped they'd stop transfers in.

They had to rip the lockers out of McLean to create more space for students in the hallways. And no idea how they fit over 2900 kids into Chantilly, which has a much smaller footprint than Lake Braddock.

There is no room to expand Chantilly unless they build across the road. A new western HS is needed but that won’t happen ‘cause reasons.

I never realized quite how much I disliked Elaine Tholen until I listened to her pooh-pooh the idea that a new western high school would ever get built during the last brief School Board discussion of a CIP.

The Herndon area (more the part that feeds into Westfield than Herndon) could see an enormous increase in students if the growth associated with the new Silver Line stations materializes. Add to that the existing crowding at Centreville, Chantilly, and Oakton and it's a ticking time bomb.

But she felt duty-bound to toss cold water on the idea of a new high school because the one thing some people in Great Falls care about more than anything else is making sure that they never get moved back from Langley to Herndon, which theoretically could happen if a new school were built in western Fairfax and space opened up at Herndon. So then you end up with rich people at an under-enrolled, renovated school trying to dictate the decisions that affect kids miles away in overcrowded schools. It's obscene, and the likes of Tholen just roll over and play along.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Edison on the other side of Lewis is essentially equal enrollment at West Springfield.

Edison HS is much closer to Lewis HS than West Springfield. WS is twice as many miles as Edison to Lewis, and a more than double the driving time due to having to cross the Mixing Bowl.

Perhaps rezoning from Edison to Lewis should be your focus instead of this odd fixation on WSHS.

In terms of student driving time and limiting fcps environmental footprint, Edison to Lewis just makes more sense.

OK. I'm not fixated on West Springfield. It's odd that it got expanded but is already over-capacity again while Lewis remains well below capacity and has the lowest enrollment of any high school in the county. You're right that part of Edison could theoretically be moved to Lewis as well, although its enrollment this fall (2250) is 400 students lower than West Springfield's (2650).

The Board is hesitant to rezone students into the worst schools because they know that will piss off parents and homeowners to the point of caring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone see how hard WS posters are fighting the suggestions that any WS kids ever get zoned to Lewis? Any of the other surrounding schools would be fine.

That is what happens when you concentrate all of the poor and ESL students.

FCPS needs a reckoning on this.

Sorry, but this is crazy.

There are several schools in the 30% overenrollment range.

Most of the schools are slightly below or slightly above capacity by 5% or so.

That is nominal, and an amount that will fluctuate up and down depending on class/grade size.

It is beyond silly to keep dragging WSHS into this discussion when it is in the same enrollmemt range as the majority of FCPS high schools, and when there is so much over capacity over in the other parts of the county

Focusing on one school that is at average enrollment, when there are several schools that are 30% over capacity, is really, really silly and misguided.

Nobody here saying that those grossly overcrowded schools don't need relief.

But there are also under utilized schools (like Lewis) facing issues. And the fact that FCPS chose to give WS a larger than approved renovation when there was space next door is telling.

Don't worry though. Nobody will be moved from WS to Lewis.

What nonsense.

WSHS was renovated on its scheduled fcps renovation cycle. There is a rolling queue of schoops that get renovated. I believe it is a 50 year cycle

The renovation had zero do do with Lewis high school.

When you do a full renovation, you expand where feasable. It saves taxpayer money.

Lewis enrollment or under enrollment is completely irrelevant to any other high school's renovation.

You make it sound like everything is done consistently, pursuant to a planned schedule made available to the public in advance and executed faithfully.

Bullshit.

Some schools (West Springfield, for example) get expanded during a renovation. Others (most recently, South Lakes, Justice, Madison, and West Potomac) have been expanded when they weren't on the queue for the renovation.

Some schools (West Springfield, for example) get larger renovations (to over 2500 seats). Others (for example, Marshall) got smaller expansions, even though they are in higher-growth areas.

Some schools get expanded by the exact amounts set forth in the Capital Improvement Plans before the related school bonds were issued. Others (for example, Langley) end up getting larger expansions (from the originally disclosed 2100 seats to 2370 seats) than previously announced.

Some schools (South Lakes, for example) have their boundaries redrawn to pull in more students when their enrollments decline. Others (for example, Lewis) are allowed to see their enrollments decline and remain at much lower levels than other schools for years.

Other schools (Chantilly and McLean, for example) remain overcrowded for years, and FCPS does next to nothing for them, either because the School Board is too consumed with social issues or because some of the School Board members actually like screwing them over.

Just expanding schools willy-nilly because they happen to be next on a renovation queue may take advantage of some economies of scale during a renovation, but it can add transportation costs down the road if student then end up bused longer distances to attend school.

We get it. West Springfield deserved a renovation, and it got a nice one and a big expansion, at a time when a West Springfield graduate headed FCPS Facilities. But let's not pretend other schools have received equal treatment over the years, because FCPS decision-making is frequently arbitrary and anything but disciplined, consistent, or truly equitable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect is any parts of WSHS are rezoned, it will be out to South Country or over to Lake Braddock.

I hope not. I'm shocked LB is listed so low. My kids can't get into a bathroom ever so have to get e=pass during class and neither got a locker they requested. I assumed we were way over and hoped they'd stop transfers in.

They had to rip the lockers out of McLean to create more space for students in the hallways. And no idea how they fit over 2900 kids into Chantilly, which has a much smaller footprint than Lake Braddock.

There is no room to expand Chantilly unless they build across the road. A new western HS is needed but that won’t happen ‘cause reasons.

If you sum up the % over-enrollment at all over-enrolled schools, it adds up to over 100% over-enrollment. If you add up % capacity at under-enrolled schools, it adds up to over 100% in capacity. Of course this isn't exact science and numbers because it's percentages instead of true raw capacity, but the point is that FCPS has significant space available at all of their under-capacity schools. Yet here we are looking to fund tens of millions for a new HS.

In reality, a comprehensive boundary-wide adjustment would be a valid and fiscally-responsible solution that would address overcrowding as well as accomplishing a rebalancing of programming across FCPS. County decisions should not be held hostage by someone's paper value of real estate investments, which is obviously the main driving force behind making changes as we learned from the community survey comments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are at Chantilly HS. It is truly ridiculous. You guys complaining about West Springfield HS truly have no idea.

West springfield people are not complaining.

There is a poster from Lewis who regularly starts threads about WSHS and how they think that WSHS needs to be rezoned to Lewis. There is at least one thread started each month about this, and any time anyone starts a thread about one of the overcrowded schools like WestPo, McLean or the western high schools, they try to redirect the thread to West Springfield and Lewis.

It happens like clockwork.

No one from WSHS is complaining online about this.

Really, when there are multiple schools around 30% over capacity, the schools that are just barely over capacity should not even be part of this discussion.

For one thing, the disparity in population between Lewis and WS is unmatched by any other pair of neighboring schools that are frequently compared. Annandale vs. Woodson, Herndon vs. Langley, MVHS vs. West Potomac. MVHS would be the most similar situation, but even they have nearly 300 more students than Lewis. All the other schools such as Annandale, Herndon, Justice have 2100+ students. Lewis started the year at 1685 while WS is at 2600 and Edison at 2250. Not saying WS should be rezoned, but Lewis is clearly an outlier in size not just in FCPS but in the region. It's one of the only VHSL Class 5 schools other than TJ.

Capacity wise, Edison is essentially equal to WSHS. Both are around 5% above capacity. Edison is half the distance and over twice the driving time to Lewis as WSHS.

Rezoning a neighborhood or two from WSHS to Lewis or Edison to Lewis will not make a difference to anyone's enrollment except for Bishop Ireton and all the other Virginia Catholic high schools.

+1 and at any rate, South County is also fairly under-enrolled so if they were really concerned about massive overcrowding at West Springfield, it would be easy to pick off a few neighborhoods from the southern boundaries of WS and send them to SoCo instead. Would be a much easier drive than crossing the mixing bowl in a school bus.

The School Board made some kids in the Edsall Park neighborhood who used to go to Annandale cross both 395 and 495 to get to Edison now.

How long ago was that?

FCPS has put a priority on green policies the past few years. Expanding a commute like that should not happen, especially since they are doing things like purchasing electric school busses to cut back on emissions.

Making kids deal with the traffic of crossing over interstates like that is bad policy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect is any parts of WSHS are rezoned, it will be out to South Country or over to Lake Braddock.

I hope not. I'm shocked LB is listed so low. My kids can't get into a bathroom ever so have to get e=pass during class and neither got a locker they requested. I assumed we were way over and hoped they'd stop transfers in.

They had to rip the lockers out of McLean to create more space for students in the hallways. And no idea how they fit over 2900 kids into Chantilly, which has a much smaller footprint than Lake Braddock.

That is really shocking to see that Chantilly and Centerville are so over enrolled. They need another high school. Is there any property out that way big enough for a high school campus?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone see how hard WS posters are fighting the suggestions that any WS kids ever get zoned to Lewis? Any of the other surrounding schools would be fine.

That is what happens when you concentrate all of the poor and ESL students.

FCPS needs a reckoning on this.

Sorry, but this is crazy.

There are several schools in the 30% overenrollment range.

Most of the schools are slightly below or slightly above capacity by 5% or so.

That is nominal, and an amount that will fluctuate up and down depending on class/grade size.

It is beyond silly to keep dragging WSHS into this discussion when it is in the same enrollmemt range as the majority of FCPS high schools, and when there is so much over capacity over in the other parts of the county

Focusing on one school that is at average enrollment, when there are several schools that are 30% over capacity, is really, really silly and misguided.

Nobody here saying that those grossly overcrowded schools don't need relief.

But there are also under utilized schools (like Lewis) facing issues. And the fact that FCPS chose to give WS a larger than approved renovation when there was space next door is telling.

Don't worry though. Nobody will be moved from WS to Lewis.

What nonsense.

WSHS was renovated on its scheduled fcps renovation cycle. There is a rolling queue of schoops that get renovated. I believe it is a 50 year cycle

The renovation had zero do do with Lewis high school.

When you do a full renovation, you expand where feasable. It saves taxpayer money.

Lewis enrollment or under enrollment is completely irrelevant to any other high school's renovation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect is any parts of WSHS are rezoned, it will be out to South Country or over to Lake Braddock.

I hope not. I'm shocked LB is listed so low. My kids can't get into a bathroom ever so have to get e=pass during class and neither got a locker they requested. I assumed we were way over and hoped they'd stop transfers in.

They had to rip the lockers out of McLean to create more space for students in the hallways. And no idea how they fit over 2900 kids into Chantilly, which has a much smaller footprint than Lake Braddock.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF is TJ underenrolled?

Change it to an Academy

They expanded the school when it was renovated and now they are increasing the class sizes (there are substantially more freshmen and sophomores than juniors and seniors). In two more years it will be closer to full capacity.

I don’t think this is correct. TJ has specialized rooms like labs so capacity is lower for the same physical area compared to other high schools. Not sure that’s reflected in the cup.

It is correct that TJ's capacity was expanded when it was renovated and that its freshmen and sophomore classes are bigger than its junior and senior classes.

It appears that TJ's enrollment will max out in a few years at about 2200, which would put it at about 92% of design capacity as opposed to the current 82%. FCPS generally measures utilization against design capacity rather than the adjusted program capacity, which in TJ's case may reflect things like lab space. That is appropriate, since the comparisons might otherwise imply TJ students are entitled to more space per student than students at other schools.

Anonymous wrote:I suspect is any parts of WSHS are rezoned, it will be out to South Country or over to Lake Braddock.

I hope not. I'm shocked LB is listed so low. My kids can't get into a bathroom ever so have to get e=pass during class and neither got a locker they requested. I assumed we were way over and hoped they'd stop transfers in.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone see how hard WS posters are fighting the suggestions that any WS kids ever get zoned to Lewis? Any of the other surrounding schools would be fine.

That is what happens when you concentrate all of the poor and ESL students.

FCPS needs a reckoning on this.

Sorry, but this is crazy.

There are several schools in the 30% overenrollment range.

Most of the schools are slightly below or slightly above capacity by 5% or so.

That is nominal, and an amount that will fluctuate up and down depending on class/grade size.

It is beyond silly to keep dragging WSHS into this discussion when it is in the same enrollmemt range as the majority of FCPS high schools, and when there is so much over capacity over in the other parts of the county

Focusing on one school that is at average enrollment, when there are several schools that are 30% over capacity, is really, really silly and misguided.

Nobody here saying that those grossly overcrowded schools don't need relief.

But there are also under utilized schools (like Lewis) facing issues. And the fact that FCPS chose to give WS a larger than approved renovation when there was space next door is telling.

Don't worry though. Nobody will be moved from WS to Lewis.