Share Your Concerns About Another South County Boundary Study with The FCPS School Board NOW

Contributed by Marie Sudik

On Monday, March 13, the Fairfax County School Board (FCBS) is set to vote on another school boundary study for South County Secondary School, a little over one year after the school’s initial attendance boundary was set. The Fairfax County Public Schools' (FCPS) Facilities staff is recommending that the school board approve another boundary study for South County Secondary during the fall of 2006 to alleviate overcrowding at that school in the 2007-08 school year. The study would examine and ultimately affect all attendance areas and/or grade structures for South County, Hayfield, and Lake Braddock Secondary Schools.

Brad Center and Dan Storck, the school board’s Lee District and Mount Vernon District representatives, respectively, hosted a community meeting on Feb. 28 at Hayfield Secondary School to discuss overcrowding at the South County Secondary School (SCSS) and its impact on Hayfield Secondary (HSS) and to a lesser extent, Lake Braddock Secondary (LBSS) Schools. Mr. Center admitted that flawed data used during the 2004 boundary study led to poor decisions on the part of the board regarding South County boundaries.

Mr. Center also mentioned that he is in favor of an upcoming boundary study for South County, but with the following caveats:

• Students should be added to HSS and LBSS via some type of boundary study.

• A boundary study should be completed soon, but NO decisions on any new boundaries should be made without better data (e.g, population projections, socio-economic data, etc.)

• It’s Mr. Center’s hope that the school board will support obtaining an external consultant who can offer expert advice and recommendations regarding FCPS Facilities data tracking and methodologies, and who can identify “best practices” in data mining.

• When HSS (or any affected school) receives additional students by virtue of boundary adjustments or grade reassignment, he strongly recommends an approximate 300-student buffer to allow for future student population growth.

Input and feedback from the Hayfield Secondary community is vital to this process and will have an impact on this process. If you feel that your family will be impacted by another boundary study, you are strongly encouraged to communicate your position THIS WEEK via email to the Fairfax County School Board, prior to their meeting on this issue on Monday, March 13. At that meeting, the school board will be voting to decide whether or not to move forward with a new South County boundary study starting in the next (2006-07) school year.

While Brad Center is the Lee District representative on the school board (and Hayfield Secondary is located in Lee District), it is vitally important that you include ALL school board members on any emails containing comments on this issue, as well as the FCPS superintendant and assistant superintendant for FCPS Facilities. Here are e-mail addresses for all recommended recipients:

FCPS School Board Members:

Ilryong.Moon@fcps.edu
Brad.Center@fcps.edu
Catherine.Belter@fcps.edu
Stuart.Gibson@fcps.edu
Stephen.Hunt@fcps.edu
Kaye.Kory@fcps.edu
Pneichner@fcps.edu
Janet.Oleszek@fcps.edu
Kathy.L.Smith@fcps.edu
Daniel.Storck@fcps.edu
Jane.Strauss@fcps.edu
Tessie.Wilson@fcps.edu

FCPS Superintendent: Jack.Dale@fcps.edu
FCPS Ass’t Superintendent, Facilities: Dean.Tistadt@fcps.edu

If you were unable to attend the Feb. 28 community meeting, a selection of comments shared by community members at the meeting are listed below for your information and for background.There are many ideas expressed here, but the common theme is that it is TOO SOON to conduct another boundary study without proper planning and valid data. The school board is urged to delay a boundary study for as long as possible – preferably Fall 2007 at the earliest, for implementation in Fall 2008.

• The overwhelming sentiment of HSS parents at the Feb. 28 meeting was WAIT before conducting another boundary study. FCPS needs to develop improved data tracking and data mining methodologies FIRST, so that better decisions can be made about school boundaries in the future, and validated with reality and experience.

• Many in the HSS community believe that if a SECOND boundary study is conducted so soon after the Fall 2004 study, that a THIRD study will follow on its heels because of the following data-related issues:

§ The full impact of South County’s 2004-05 boundary setting has not been realized by all affected schools, including HSS. It has only been 6 months since implementation.

§ Population projections remain flawed for HSS and for SCSS. For example, the FCPS Facilities office’s 2006-07 data shows a Hayfield Middle School projected student population of 754, but an independent examination of current 7th grade enrollment as well as the projected number of rising 6th graders from surrounding elementary schools (all data available on the FCPS website), shows a potential Hayfield Middle School enrollment of 820, a 10% difference! If this is consistent across all grades, the estimate of empty seats to fill is too high.

§ The Department of Defense’s Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), which will bring up to 18,000 additional DoD workers to Fort Belvoir, will affect the HSS area – if not by adding students, then by considerably affecting transportation in and around the school. Compounding this problem is the fact that Fort Belvoir’s BRAC planning and projections are slow in coming and will not be fully developed for another two years.

§ Infill housing development must be considered in any boundary adjustment., There are several tracts of land within a one mile radius of HSS that are being considered or are scheduled for development in the next several years.

§ It is highly unlikely that valid data would be available for another school boundary study in less than 6 months, if a study is slated to begin in Fall 2006.

• Current School Board Policy 8130.5 recommends the following:

§ Section VI: “Adjustments..whenever possible, shall not affect the same occupied dwellings any more often than once in three years.”

§ Section VII: “When possible, adjustments..shall be implemented through. phasing beginning with the incoming class at the middle or high school levels, when feasible”

If the board is to follow its own recommendation in Section VI, no boundary study or adjustments should be conducted or made until Fall 2007 at the earliest! Additionally, if the board follows its own recommendation in Section VII, SCSS will remain overcrowded for several years to come, because of the phase-in policy. This is yet another reason to delay a boundary study, so that the FCPS Facilities office can improve data projection methodologies during that time (and the school board may consider revamping its own recommendations).

• Lake Braddock Secondary is undergoing renovation, and is not poised to accept additional students until renovation is completed in the summer of 2007. A South County boundary study that potentially sends students to an under-renovation Lake Braddock makes no sense at this juncture.

• A poor decision that made a potentially bad situation at South County worse was to allow that school to open with a junior (11^th grade) class in its first year of operation. Had the original plan – calling for South County to open with grades 7-10 ONLY – been adhered to, overcrowding may have been avoided at SCSS for several more years. (Which would have been time better spent for improved planning and projections, instead of just reacting with another boundary study.)

• Changing enrollment repeatedly puts a burden on HSS planning and staffing. For example, it would be difficult for HSS to maintain its highly regarded AP program with annual fluctuations in enrollment. Somewhat-stable student populations and valid projections are required for effective curriculum planning.

• A NEW process to determine school boundaries is sorely needed. At all costs, the board and staff must avoid a repeat of the Fall 2004 South County boundary setting experience, an experience that was especially painful and not just a little degrading to the HSS community. Developing a new boundary setting process will take time, which is yet another reason to delay the study.

• And as painful as it will be, the FCPS School Board needs to seriously consider applying any new boundary setting processes to an all-encompassing, county-wide school boundary study and stop the creation of additional “band-aid” boundary tweaks and split-feeder schools that cause these kinds of problems in the first place.