A community meeting for the comprehensive school boundary review took place on Oct. 29. The meeting, which occurred at McLean High School, allowed parents, students and community members an opportunity to voice their opinions regarding the current boundary plan that is set to go into effect next year.
“I think it’s very important to involve the community as a thought partner,” Superintendent Michelle Reid said at the Oct. 29 meeting.
Fairfax County boundaries are being reviewed for the first time in 40 years. As part of the boundary review, meetings are being held to allow opportunities for community engagement.
The current plan being discussed, scenario four, incorporates feedback received from the first three scenarios for drawing new FCPS boundaries. In scenario four, an estimated 201 students would be reassigned from Mclean High School to Langley High School. Reductions in utilization percentage would also occur at Longfellow Middle School and Timber Lane Elementary School.
“Notably, McLean will go from significantly over capacity to a balance of 100%,” said David Irwin, co-founder of Thru Consulting.
Thru Consulting is a management consulting firm contracted by Fairfax County to provide oversight for the boundary review process.
Scenario four was designed to minimize split feeders, a situation where students from a single elementary or middle school are divided and sent to multiple different schools at the next level. Split feeders prevent students from remaining with their peers when they go to high school. Parents expressed concerns regarding the continuing presence of split feeders.
“Split feeders are not good for kids,” a Kilmer Middle School parent said in the meeting. “The county knows that. That’s why it’s one of the tenants of this whole boundary process.”
Parents of students from Wolf Trap Elementary School and Timber Lane Elementary School also shared their worries regarding their children potentially being separated from their friends in middle and high school.
“What you’re proposing is to split my kids apart during their elementary years, before the boundary change splits them again when they transition to middle school, and then split them again when they transition to high school,” a Wolf Trap Elementary School parent said in the meeting. “I don’t want my kids ripped apart from their friends over and over again.”
Parents also expressed concerns that their children would have to move schools during the formative years of high school and middle school because of boundary changes. In July, the school board decided unanimously that high school and middle school students do not have to switch schools if they do not wish to do so. This decision, however, would not guarantee transportation for all students.
“There are still transfer options,” Reid said. “The boundaries just determine transportation. I don’t think it’s impossible to [transfer students] in some cases.”
Edits will continue being made to scenario four based on feedback from parents and community members.
“As of [Oct. 29], there have been 7300 comments [online] on scenario four,” Irwin said. “Right now, they have been submitted by the entire county so far.
The meeting was one of the final opportunities for community feedback before the boundary committee meets to make the next iteration of changes. Following those edits to scenario four, Dr. Reid will receive the board’s recommendations and a series of meetings will take place for more feedback from the public. The final vote regarding the boundaries will take place in January.
“We are trying to find the sweet spot,” Reid said. “We are not perfect, but we are trying to find a [solution] that makes sense.”
