Back again with snappier wording: The 3 C's, capacity, convenience, and continuity. Are we ready to present this to the school board?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No just keep cluster 8 all together from ES to MS to HS. Make Carson the cluster 8 MS, and maybe change the center to Oakton or Waples Mill ES from Mosby Woods, as they are more centrally located within cluster 8. Or, just do away with centers and make LLIV a must at every ES within each cluster.

The clusters are for administrative purposes. The cluster map itself should be reconfigured, to provide students with convenient locations (first priority) and continuity (second priority), rather than moving students and centers to suit the cluster map.

I agree with these priorities. Would add consideration of how crowded the school is, either first or second priority. Continuity last.

Anonymous wrote:No just keep cluster 8 all together from ES to MS to HS. Make Carson the cluster 8 MS, and maybe change the center to Oakton or Waples Mill ES from Mosby Woods, as they are more centrally located within cluster 8. Or, just do away with centers and make LLIV a must at every ES within each cluster.

The clusters are for administrative purposes. The cluster map itself should be reconfigured, to provide students with convenient locations (first priority) and continuity (second priority), rather than moving students and centers to suit the cluster map.

in advance.

Anonymous wrote:No just keep cluster 8 all together from ES to MS to HS. Make Carson the cluster 8 MS, and maybe change the center to Oakton or Waples Mill ES from Mosby Woods, as they are more centrally located within cluster 8. Or, just do away with centers and make LLIV a must at every ES within each cluster.

This change for ES center may make sense. But Carson would be quite far for Mosby Woods families. It would be more than 11 miles from our house. Mapblasting with address of an even farther-away MW family I know, it would be about 14 miles! Well, maybe the current configuration is best, as imperfect as it is. I don't know that my kids would even care that much about or remember for a long time ES friends they would have to part with, but the long bus ride would be a sure thing. If they know in advance they will have to say goodbye to certain friends from a different neighborhood, maybe they can prepare themselves for this advance.

No just keep cluster 8 all together from ES to MS to HS. Make Carson the cluster 8 MS, and maybe change the center to Oakton or Waples Mill ES from Mosby Woods, as they are more centrally located within cluster 8. Or, just do away with centers and make LLIV a must at every ES within each cluster.

Anonymous wrote:While it is true that we would like to keep younger kids from long bus rides, the more pertinent thing is school start time. There isn't nearly as much traffic on Jermantown Road crossing 123 to get to Oakton HS for an early start time. But for Mosby Wood's 8:15 start time, it can and will take 25-30 minutes to cross 123 (I know-- I do it every morning). Add to that the time it takes to pick up all the kids in the Waples Mill area, and you are looking at a 1-hour bus ride for many.

That's true, the factor of buses stopping to drop off and pick up makes the time longer than what you would think from simply mapblasting the time door to door. Kids would have to board the school bus extremely early to make it to Mosby Woods by 8:15, with not just the bus stops but also the traffic at that time. Okay, maybe it is seeming that Waples Mill should not come to Mosby Woods, and there is a good reason for protests by Waples Mill parents. It is looking like parts of Oakton ES base are also too far away to come to Mosby Woods, if you look at a boundary overview map. Of the schools currently coming to Mosby Woods, Providence, Daniel's Run, and Marshall Road seem close but Fairfax Villa seems farther away.

New suggestion: Keep Providence, Daniel's Run, and Marshall Road at Mosby Woods, but send all of Fairfax Villa (currently split?) to Willow Springs. In exchange for Fairfax Villa, send closest parts of Oakton ES base to Mosby Woods. Thoughts?

Oh. In that case why eliminate centers in ES and just offer LLIV everywhere?

Anonymous wrote:Ditto to above from 9:46. Can Waples Mill base school families not have their AAP middle school changed to Jackson at the same time that their AAP elementary school is changed to Mosby Woods? That way the same AAP kids could stay together through elementary, middle, and high school (already all will go to Oakton High School). In at least some cases Jackson would be significantly closer than Franklin or Carson for Waples Mill families. Not sure of the space available at Jackson though or if any attending there could be moved to a different middle school that would also make more sense for them.

This would be a good idea, except that they want to eliminate MS centers. So all AAP students will attend the newly-created AAP programs at their base MS. For Waples Mill and Navy, that will be Franklin.

While it is true that we would like to keep younger kids from long bus rides, the more pertinent thing is school start time. There isn't nearly as much traffic on Jermantown Road crossing 123 to get to Oakton HS for an early start time. But for Mosby Wood's 8:15 start time, it can and will take 25-30 minutes to cross 123 (I know-- I do it every morning). Add to that the time it takes to pick up all the kids in the Waples Mill area, and you are looking at a 1-hour bus ride for many.

Anonymous wrote:Waples Mill is a large school, so I can see why they wouldn't want to have a LLIV option unless there was a boundary redistricting. Mosby Woods is pretty far to travel for a center. My goodness. The Stenwood Parents were complaining that Lemon Road was too far and it's only 2 1/2 miles away.

Is there any official limit for time that elementary-age children should spend on a bus? I could see high school kids being able to tolerate a longer bus ride (to Oakton High School) than younger kids (to Mosby Woods) for Waples Mill base. Which seems more important, shorter bus rides or staying in cluster? Just to look at all possible views. perhaps shorter bus ride is indeed more important (more time for homework and extracurriculars), and kids can just enjoy meeting new friends as they progress through the FCPS system. At least they would stay with a smaller core group of AAP friends that are from their own base school. And social media should make it easier to keep up with friends that are no longer in the same school, as compared to before the advent of FB, etc.

Ok, I like the idea. Maybe we, on DCUM, could put together a letter to Dr. Z (Fabio) about keeping Cluster 8 kids together. I am all game for this one.

Waples Mill is a large school, so I can see why they wouldn't want to have a LLIV option unless there was a boundary redistricting. Mosby Woods is pretty far to travel for a center. My goodness. The Stenwood Parents were complaining that Lemon Road was too far and it's only 2 1/2 miles away.

Anonymous wrote:I just realized that Franlin and Rachel Carson are 1.5 miles apart. Who came up with that plan?!

They need a middle school in the Oakton area, maybe near Oakton ES. That would balance alot of things out.

Sounds good to me.

Anonymous wrote:If Waples Mills kids can make the commute to Oakton HS, why can't they go to Mosby Woods? The schools are pretty close to each other. Not saying it's ideal, but the proposal does seem to make sense.

I also think that Mosby Woods isn't too far for Waples Mill base. After consulting the FCPS boundary map for Waples Mill, I used Zillow to pick a randomly chosen home that seemed farthest from Mosby Woods, and the distance from farthest-away homes seems to be about 6 miles. That is also the section that seems closest to the current AAP center for Waples Mill, Hunters Woods. The distance to Hunters Woods seems to be around 4 miles. So by switching to Mosby Woods instead of Hunters Woods a maximum of about 2 miles would be added; for other Waples Mill kids who live closer to 123 already, they would actually be traveling a shorter distance to Mosby Woods. I wouldn't think it would take 1 hour to go 6 miles, even in rush hour, on the roads involved?

For middle school, for the Waples Mill kids farthest away from Mosby Woods, the distance to Jackson would be on the order of 11 miles, and the distance to Carson would be on the order of 6 miles. So I could see a preference for Carson. However, if the goal is to keep the pyramid together, Mosby Woods base would also have to travel about 11 miles to get to Carson, versus only 5 miles to get to Jackson. So somebody would have to do the traveling.

Would a good compromise be for Mosby Woods and Waples Mill to go to Mosby Woods for ES and Carson for MS? As a Mosby Woods parent I'm not wedded to Jackson for MS since much of (most of?) Jackson will go to high schools other than Oakton anyway.

Let's reach a consensus and tell the school board that we figured it all out on DCUM!