Anonymous wrote:What were the main pieces of feedback from public meeting today?

Beech Tree probably had the most speakers, since their change was slipped in during the eleventh hour. Dr Anderson mentioned at the January 8 meeting that the community was upset about the changes being made without ANY community engagement. There will surely be an amendment to postpone those recommendations.

Next would be Vienna celebrating Vienna changes.

Tied would be Briarwood (?) wanting to get moved to Marshall Rd/Oakton and the Jefferson Davis neighborhood that thought they were all getting moved to Graham Road.

Herndon ES also pushed back against taking so many Coates students. Even Reid admitted at the school board meeting that their renovation/expansion isn’t complete which will cause growing pains.

Surprise was that one street in Crossfield that goes to Franklin/Chanitlly. Several people spoke about both wanting to move to Lees Corner.

Anonymous wrote:What were the main pieces of feedback from public meeting today?

Some elementary school of just 50 students per grade is very upset that they were turned into a split feeder at the last minute.

Lewis parents very upset that their school is untouched.

Herndon people upset that more poor students are getting moved into their school when they are getting renovated.

A lot of people happy that their schools were moved off the rezoning list.

A lot of people unhappy that their schools were last minute added to the rezoning list. They said they would have organized like everyone else, but since they were added over Christmas break with no notification from FCPS, their opportunity to give input was taken from them.

A lot of people unhappy that they remained on the rezoning list while most neighborhoods were moved off of the list.

A lot of people upset about the waste of money and time spent on this process.

A few people wanting more rezoning, off cycle, echoing rep Sandy Anderson.

A handful of people praising the school board for their transparency, leadership and hard work on making FCPS better

Anonymous wrote:What were the main pieces of feedback from public meeting today?

Lots of Glasgow families are upset.

A handful of speakers pushed to move other people’s kids based on equity grounds, but it mostly came across as cringey sour grapes.

What were the main pieces of feedback from public meeting today?

Anonymous wrote:Dear Sandy Anderson
You act flabbergasted when people call you out for being condescending and blowing us off. But we can see your rudeness when you shake your head during a speaker, when you pass notes to colleagues during the meeting and when you whisper and laugh during the short time your constituents have to share their perspectives. It is rude.

What were the speakers saying that caused her to laugh?

Anonymous wrote:Dear Sandy Anderson
You act flabbergasted when people call you out for being condescending and blowing us off. But we can see your rudeness when you shake your head during a speaker, when you pass notes to colleagues during the meeting and when you whisper and laugh during the short time your constituents have to share their perspectives. It is rude.

She’s awful.

Bunch of rude Falls Church folks who wanted to be rezoned into a wealthier Graham Road ES complaining today that Reid dropped a ridiculously bad Thru Consulting proposal that would have created an isolated new attendance island at Timber Lane and a new split feeder at Shrevewood.

I have more sympathy for those in the Justice pyramid complaining about the last minute proposal by Reid to move them to Poe and Falls Church.

Dear Sandy Anderson
You act flabbergasted when people call you out for being condescending and blowing us off. But we can see your rudeness when you shake your head during a speaker, when you pass notes to colleagues during the meeting and when you whisper and laugh during the short time your constituents have to share their perspectives. It is rude.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m halfway through the YouTube video of last night’s meeting.

I’m often critical of the school board on these forums, but, I’ll give praise where it is due - several board members now seem focused on increasing enrollment for under enrolled schools through programming decisions and transfers. That’s welcome news.

I personally would rather see them just address it with programming, but a look at transfers should come before further boundary changes, if programming decisions don’t fix the issue. Further boundary changes should be a last resort after these two approaches have been exhausted.

Anyway, hopefully this is a sea change in how they approach capacity issues in the future.

I have not listened yet. However, they need to be realistic in their programming.

For example, when they renamed Lee to Lewis and chose to put in a social justice program that was thinly veiled as a "leadership program" , did anyone consider that this was sending a "message" about the school?

The message that it sent was this it was more important for the 2019-23 School Board to humor Karen Keys Gamarra, who wanted to burnish her civil rights credentials by having Lee renamed Lewis and starting a social justice program than to enhance the STEM and other academic offerings at Lewis.

If you go to Lewis and sign up for this program, you may get a free field trip to the Capitol, courtesy of FCPS taxpayers, but not a strong academic program.

Actually, Lewis has fantastic teachers and a strong academic environment, and it has given our child numerous opportunities that weren't available when our child attended a more prestigious school in FCPS. This is coming from an UMC family with two adults, both with post-graduate degrees, and we care deeply about education.

It's fine if you feel like Lewis is not the school for you. But kindly refrain from making false statements about schools you know nothing about.

There was a student representative on the School Board from Lewis a few years ago, and she often used her allotted time to complain about the limited academic offerings at Lewis compared to other area schools.

I am a parent of a Lewis student now (as opposed to a few years ago), and my experience has been the education has been excellent. The teachers are passionate and dedicated to their job. The school had a great community, and it’s probably as close as you can come to a small-town-school feel in FCPS.

I'm sure nothing makes for a small-town feel quite like being the high school that serves the areas closest to the intersection of the Capital Beltway and the biggest highway on the entire East Coast, but please go on.

Quite, quite. If a community has a road with too many lanes or speeds over 50, it is automatically unable to have caring citizens. So says King PP and so it must be.

+1000

And all the public intoxication charges; indecent exposure charges; domestic violence calls; kidnappings; human, drug and weapons trafficking; rapes; manslaughters; and murders that happen in an area with that type of population.

Oh FFS. It’s Springfield. We don’t have tons of manslaughters and murders. There’s petty crime and garden variety stuff most of the time. Cut it out.

I’m looking at it this way. That poster said +1,000 when I called him King PP. He isn’t all there.

DP. Are we really supposed to pretend a run-down part of the county with so much crime is Mayberry? There are reasons that Reid ended up not touching Lewis. No one wanted to be moved there, just like next to no one pupil places there now.

Yes, that new Whole Foods and giant are completely run down! Not safe. Well, actually the parking lot with the shiny new Land rovers is a big unsafe, but that isn’t the population you are worried about.

You are an imbecile. Springfield Plaza is run down, unsafe…?? Just because a lot of the customers there are non-white? Are you aware that Fairfax County public school students are less than 37%? In the 90s it was over 75% white, things are changing. The children of those immigrants are now educated and taking the high paying jobs which were dominated by the whites.

I don’t like bringing up race but you started it with an idiotic statement.

Springfield Plaza is not much different than most shopping centers in Fairfax county.

Anyhow, Lewis gets a bad reputation because of reasons which you all know. Let’s cut it out.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m halfway through the YouTube video of last night’s meeting.

I’m often critical of the school board on these forums, but, I’ll give praise where it is due - several board members now seem focused on increasing enrollment for under enrolled schools through programming decisions and transfers. That’s welcome news.

I personally would rather see them just address it with programming, but a look at transfers should come before further boundary changes, if programming decisions don’t fix the issue. Further boundary changes should be a last resort after these two approaches have been exhausted.

Anyway, hopefully this is a sea change in how they approach capacity issues in the future.

I have not listened yet. However, they need to be realistic in their programming.

For example, when they renamed Lee to Lewis and chose to put in a social justice program that was thinly veiled as a "leadership program" , did anyone consider that this was sending a "message" about the school?

The message that it sent was this it was more important for the 2019-23 School Board to humor Karen Keys Gamarra, who wanted to burnish her civil rights credentials by having Lee renamed Lewis and starting a social justice program than to enhance the STEM and other academic offerings at Lewis.

If you go to Lewis and sign up for this program, you may get a free field trip to the Capitol, courtesy of FCPS taxpayers, but not a strong academic program.

Actually, Lewis has fantastic teachers and a strong academic environment, and it has given our child numerous opportunities that weren't available when our child attended a more prestigious school in FCPS. This is coming from an UMC family with two adults, both with post-graduate degrees, and we care deeply about education.

It's fine if you feel like Lewis is not the school for you. But kindly refrain from making false statements about schools you know nothing about.

There was a student representative on the School Board from Lewis a few years ago, and she often used her allotted time to complain about the limited academic offerings at Lewis compared to other area schools.

I am a parent of a Lewis student now (as opposed to a few years ago), and my experience has been the education has been excellent. The teachers are passionate and dedicated to their job. The school had a great community, and it’s probably as close as you can come to a small-town-school feel in FCPS.

I'm sure nothing makes for a small-town feel quite like being the high school that serves the areas closest to the intersection of the Capital Beltway and the biggest highway on the entire East Coast, but please go on.

Quite, quite. If a community has a road with too many lanes or speeds over 50, it is automatically unable to have caring citizens. So says King PP and so it must be.

+1000

And all the public intoxication charges; indecent exposure charges; domestic violence calls; kidnappings; human, drug and weapons trafficking; rapes; manslaughters; and murders that happen in an area with that type of population.

Oh FFS. It’s Springfield. We don’t have tons of manslaughters and murders. There’s petty crime and garden variety stuff most of the time. Cut it out.

I’m looking at it this way. That poster said +1,000 when I called him King PP. He isn’t all there.

DP. Are we really supposed to pretend a run-down part of the county with so much crime is Mayberry? There are reasons that Reid ended up not touching Lewis. No one wanted to be moved there, just like next to no one pupil places there now.

Have you ever been in that area?

The houses immediately surrounding Lewis are modest and older, but they are well taken care of with nice yards and full of working class families. There are many nice upper middle class neighborhoods that feed into Lewis, especially along the parkway, with large, new homes. The area is safe and clean, with a wide variety of homes. The apartments over by the library show community pride; they had a great Christmas light display on all their balconies. That area might be much poorer than much of Fairfax County, but they they take care of their homes and neighborhoods.

Exactly. We're in West Springfield and I don't want my kid to go that school because driving over there every day would be a nightmare, but we certainly shop over there on weekends and to go Mike's Great American or the Whole Foods or Total Wine etc. Crime is worse over in Mount Vernon off Route 1. People need to stop bashing Lewis. It's not okay.

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Anonymous wrote:I thought there were supposed to be cracking down on transferring for sports.

You have to sit a year if you pupil place to a new school. If your family moves and your school changes you can play.

If you use an old address from when your kid was in kindergarten, that you never changed when you moved to a bigger house in a lower ranked pyramid, then your kids can just continue through to graduation, sports and all.

FCPS does not check residency after the first time you enroll your kid in the school system, whether it is kindergarten or high school. You can move to any school in FCPS or one of the surrounding counties, and as long as you don't change your address with the school system, FCPS doesn't care.

Dr. Reid and the school board are very open that they know about and don't care about this loophole.

I received a letter verifying residency a couple of months back. First time we had ever gotten it. We aren’t new to the school or county, so not sure why the random check. ES in the Western part of the county.

So even when they do a random residency check they do it backwards. They need to do the residency checks for the high schools. Many people start out in elementary in a pyramid they want, but then never update the record when they move to a different house with a less favorable middle or high school.

We get residency verification mailings every year. People on this board accused me of lying when I gave posted this before.

What school?

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Anonymous wrote:I’m halfway through the YouTube video of last night’s meeting.

I’m often critical of the school board on these forums, but, I’ll give praise where it is due - several board members now seem focused on increasing enrollment for under enrolled schools through programming decisions and transfers. That’s welcome news.

I personally would rather see them just address it with programming, but a look at transfers should come before further boundary changes, if programming decisions don’t fix the issue. Further boundary changes should be a last resort after these two approaches have been exhausted.

Anyway, hopefully this is a sea change in how they approach capacity issues in the future.

I have not listened yet. However, they need to be realistic in their programming.

For example, when they renamed Lee to Lewis and chose to put in a social justice program that was thinly veiled as a "leadership program" , did anyone consider that this was sending a "message" about the school?

The message that it sent was this it was more important for the 2019-23 School Board to humor Karen Keys Gamarra, who wanted to burnish her civil rights credentials by having Lee renamed Lewis and starting a social justice program than to enhance the STEM and other academic offerings at Lewis.

If you go to Lewis and sign up for this program, you may get a free field trip to the Capitol, courtesy of FCPS taxpayers, but not a strong academic program.

Actually, Lewis has fantastic teachers and a strong academic environment, and it has given our child numerous opportunities that weren't available when our child attended a more prestigious school in FCPS. This is coming from an UMC family with two adults, both with post-graduate degrees, and we care deeply about education.

It's fine if you feel like Lewis is not the school for you. But kindly refrain from making false statements about schools you know nothing about.

There was a student representative on the School Board from Lewis a few years ago, and she often used her allotted time to complain about the limited academic offerings at Lewis compared to other area schools.

I am a parent of a Lewis student now (as opposed to a few years ago), and my experience has been the education has been excellent. The teachers are passionate and dedicated to their job. The school had a great community, and it’s probably as close as you can come to a small-town-school feel in FCPS.

I'm sure nothing makes for a small-town feel quite like being the high school that serves the areas closest to the intersection of the Capital Beltway and the biggest highway on the entire East Coast, but please go on.

Quite, quite. If a community has a road with too many lanes or speeds over 50, it is automatically unable to have caring citizens. So says King PP and so it must be.

+1000

And all the public intoxication charges; indecent exposure charges; domestic violence calls; kidnappings; human, drug and weapons trafficking; rapes; manslaughters; and murders that happen in an area with that type of population.

Oh FFS. It’s Springfield. We don’t have tons of manslaughters and murders. There’s petty crime and garden variety stuff most of the time. Cut it out.

I’m looking at it this way. That poster said +1,000 when I called him King PP. He isn’t all there.

DP. Are we really supposed to pretend a run-down part of the county with so much crime is Mayberry? There are reasons that Reid ended up not touching Lewis. No one wanted to be moved there, just like next to no one pupil places there now.

Have you ever been in that area?

The houses immediately surrounding Lewis are modest and older, but they are well taken care of with nice yards and full of working class families. There are many nice upper middle class neighborhoods that feed into Lewis, especially along the parkway, with large, new homes. The area is safe and clean, with a wide variety of homes. The apartments over by the library show community pride; they had a great Christmas light display on all their balconies. That area might be much poorer than much of Fairfax County, but they they take care of their homes and neighborhoods.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought there were supposed to be cracking down on transferring for sports.

You have to sit a year if you pupil place to a new school. If your family moves and your school changes you can play.

If you use an old address from when your kid was in kindergarten, that you never changed when you moved to a bigger house in a lower ranked pyramid, then your kids can just continue through to graduation, sports and all.

FCPS does not check residency after the first time you enroll your kid in the school system, whether it is kindergarten or high school. You can move to any school in FCPS or one of the surrounding counties, and as long as you don't change your address with the school system, FCPS doesn't care.

Dr. Reid and the school board are very open that they know about and don't care about this loophole.

I received a letter verifying residency a couple of months back. First time we had ever gotten it. We aren’t new to the school or county, so not sure why the random check. ES in the Western part of the county.

So even when they do a random residency check they do it backwards. They need to do the residency checks for the high schools. Many people start out in elementary in a pyramid they want, but then never update the record when they move to a different house with a less favorable middle or high school.

We get residency verification mailings every year. People on this board accused me of lying when I gave posted this before.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m halfway through the YouTube video of last night’s meeting.

I’m often critical of the school board on these forums, but, I’ll give praise where it is due - several board members now seem focused on increasing enrollment for under enrolled schools through programming decisions and transfers. That’s welcome news.

I personally would rather see them just address it with programming, but a look at transfers should come before further boundary changes, if programming decisions don’t fix the issue. Further boundary changes should be a last resort after these two approaches have been exhausted.

Anyway, hopefully this is a sea change in how they approach capacity issues in the future.

I have not listened yet. However, they need to be realistic in their programming.

For example, when they renamed Lee to Lewis and chose to put in a social justice program that was thinly veiled as a "leadership program" , did anyone consider that this was sending a "message" about the school?

The message that it sent was this it was more important for the 2019-23 School Board to humor Karen Keys Gamarra, who wanted to burnish her civil rights credentials by having Lee renamed Lewis and starting a social justice program than to enhance the STEM and other academic offerings at Lewis.

If you go to Lewis and sign up for this program, you may get a free field trip to the Capitol, courtesy of FCPS taxpayers, but not a strong academic program.

Actually, Lewis has fantastic teachers and a strong academic environment, and it has given our child numerous opportunities that weren't available when our child attended a more prestigious school in FCPS. This is coming from an UMC family with two adults, both with post-graduate degrees, and we care deeply about education.

It's fine if you feel like Lewis is not the school for you. But kindly refrain from making false statements about schools you know nothing about.

There was a student representative on the School Board from Lewis a few years ago, and she often used her allotted time to complain about the limited academic offerings at Lewis compared to other area schools.

I am a parent of a Lewis student now (as opposed to a few years ago), and my experience has been the education has been excellent. The teachers are passionate and dedicated to their job. The school had a great community, and it’s probably as close as you can come to a small-town-school feel in FCPS.

I'm sure nothing makes for a small-town feel quite like being the high school that serves the areas closest to the intersection of the Capital Beltway and the biggest highway on the entire East Coast, but please go on.

Quite, quite. If a community has a road with too many lanes or speeds over 50, it is automatically unable to have caring citizens. So says King PP and so it must be.

+1000

And all the public intoxication charges; indecent exposure charges; domestic violence calls; kidnappings; human, drug and weapons trafficking; rapes; manslaughters; and murders that happen in an area with that type of population.

Oh FFS. It’s Springfield. We don’t have tons of manslaughters and murders. There’s petty crime and garden variety stuff most of the time. Cut it out.

I’m looking at it this way. That poster said +1,000 when I called him King PP. He isn’t all there.

DP. Are we really supposed to pretend a run-down part of the county with so much crime is Mayberry? There are reasons that Reid ended up not touching Lewis. No one wanted to be moved there, just like next to no one pupil places there now.

Yes, that new Whole Foods and giant are completely run down! Not safe. Well, actually the parking lot with the shiny new Land rovers is a big unsafe, but that isn’t the population you are worried about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m halfway through the YouTube video of last night’s meeting.

I’m often critical of the school board on these forums, but, I’ll give praise where it is due - several board members now seem focused on increasing enrollment for under enrolled schools through programming decisions and transfers. That’s welcome news.

I personally would rather see them just address it with programming, but a look at transfers should come before further boundary changes, if programming decisions don’t fix the issue. Further boundary changes should be a last resort after these two approaches have been exhausted.

Anyway, hopefully this is a sea change in how they approach capacity issues in the future.

I have not listened yet. However, they need to be realistic in their programming.

For example, when they renamed Lee to Lewis and chose to put in a social justice program that was thinly veiled as a "leadership program" , did anyone consider that this was sending a "message" about the school?

The message that it sent was this it was more important for the 2019-23 School Board to humor Karen Keys Gamarra, who wanted to burnish her civil rights credentials by having Lee renamed Lewis and starting a social justice program than to enhance the STEM and other academic offerings at Lewis.

If you go to Lewis and sign up for this program, you may get a free field trip to the Capitol, courtesy of FCPS taxpayers, but not a strong academic program.

Actually, Lewis has fantastic teachers and a strong academic environment, and it has given our child numerous opportunities that weren't available when our child attended a more prestigious school in FCPS. This is coming from an UMC family with two adults, both with post-graduate degrees, and we care deeply about education.

It's fine if you feel like Lewis is not the school for you. But kindly refrain from making false statements about schools you know nothing about.

There was a student representative on the School Board from Lewis a few years ago, and she often used her allotted time to complain about the limited academic offerings at Lewis compared to other area schools.

I am a parent of a Lewis student now (as opposed to a few years ago), and my experience has been the education has been excellent. The teachers are passionate and dedicated to their job. The school had a great community, and it’s probably as close as you can come to a small-town-school feel in FCPS.

I'm sure nothing makes for a small-town feel quite like being the high school that serves the areas closest to the intersection of the Capital Beltway and the biggest highway on the entire East Coast, but please go on.

Quite, quite. If a community has a road with too many lanes or speeds over 50, it is automatically unable to have caring citizens. So says King PP and so it must be.

+1000

And all the public intoxication charges; indecent exposure charges; domestic violence calls; kidnappings; human, drug and weapons trafficking; rapes; manslaughters; and murders that happen in an area with that type of population.

Oh FFS. It’s Springfield. We don’t have tons of manslaughters and murders. There’s petty crime and garden variety stuff most of the time. Cut it out.

I’m looking at it this way. That poster said +1,000 when I called him King PP. He isn’t all there.

DP. Are we really supposed to pretend a run-down part of the county with so much crime is Mayberry? There are reasons that Reid ended up not touching Lewis. No one wanted to be moved there, just like next to no one pupil places there now.