| Boundary
Conflict Continues |
By Rebecca Plevin
Observer Staff Writer |
| If Fairfax County Public Schools proceeds with its current
high school redistricting plan, Floris area resident Karen
McCoy could end up with one student at Westfield High School
and another at South Lakes High School. |
| Having children at two different schools "limits how much
I can get involved in one or the other high school," McCoy
said. That situation, she said, would place a "tremendous
amount of stress on our family." |
| Fox Mill area parent Dan Carney is also concerned about
the boundary study. In the county's most recent boundary proposal,
Carney's Fox Mill neighborhood is slated to attend South Lakes.
But Carney, the father of a second-grade student at Fox Mill
elementary and a seventh grader at Rachel Carson Middle School,
said he would not send his children to South Lakes. |
| "The quality of education is demonstrably inferior to that
at Oakton," Carney said of South Lakes. He said he and his
family moved from Reston to their current neighborhood "for
the explicit purpose of not having my children attend Reston
schools." |
| McCoy, Carney and many other parents from Floris and Fox
Mill neighborhoods are opposed to the latest redistricting
plan and the boundary study in general. Parents and residents
say they are concerned with many aspects of the boundary study,
including the reasons for the study and its process, and the
effects of redistricting on their children's education and
their home values. |
| In the latest plan, students from the Fox Mill Elementary
School attendance area and a portion of students from the
Floris Elementary School attendance area would be assigned
to South Lakes, along with those from the Madison High School
attendance area "island." The "island" is not contiguous to
the rest of Madison's school attendance area and includes
students now attending Thoreau Middle School and Wolftrap
Elementary School. |
| County staff was scheduled to present the recommended plan
to the school board on Thursday evening. |
| The county initiated the boundary study to address overcrowding
at Chantilly and Westfield high schools and under-enrollment
at South Lakes. The county held three community meetings this
fall, and the school board will hear comments from the public
Jan. 30 and 31 at Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church. |
| Dean Tistadt, chief operating officer for facilities and
transportation services for Fairfax County Public Schools,
acknowledged that many of the people affected by the study
are frustrated, and said that, "a vast majority of the people
recommended to move doesn't want to move." |
| Even with the amount of discontent brewing over the possibility
of redistricting, Tistadt said the study is still sound and
necessary. "I remain supportive of what were doing here, as
painful as it has been to go through this process," he said. |
| Titadt said the county has tried its best to listen to and
respond to citizens' concerns about the study. He said the
county has "tried to use technology to enhance the process"
by addressing issues on its "Frequently Asked Questions" section
of the Web site and posting redistricting scenarios on the
site in advance of the community meetings. |
| Local parents have shared their frustrations with the boundary
study in online message boards and have formed groups to contest
the redistricting. In messages posted on the Google group
Stay With Westfield, Floris area parents and residents have
urged others to speak at the public hearings, have brainstormed
ways to prevent the county from splitting up the Floris community
and have shared drafts of letters addressed to members of
the school board. |
| A member of the group, who wrote under the name "Manager_staywithwestfield,"
issued a letter Jan. 1 that discussed the possibility of taking
legal action against the county. "We have made an appointment
with a well-known lawyer in the coming week to seek legal
advices and discuss the legal actions we may start soon,"
the author wrote in the message. The member, whose identity
was not listed on the site, did not return an e-mail request
for comment. |
| Fox Mill parent Jay Frost said he and other parents recently
formed an organization to fight the boundary study, which
they oppose because it is attempting to "address a programmatic
problem with facilities solution." Frost said the redistricting
seems to be less focused on alleviating overcrowded conditions
at Chantilly and Westfield high schools and more geared toward
improving South Lakes' academic performance. |
| But not all area parents oppose the redistricting plan.
Fox Mill resident Erika Castro has an eighth-grade daughter
at Rachel Carson who could be among the first class of students
sent to South Lakes instead of Oakton. "I can't even begin
to say how thrilled I would be to have my children there,"
she said. |
| Castro said she toured South Lakes before the community
meetings on redistricting began because she "wanted to go
into these boundary studies with an informed view." She said
she was struck by the school's facilities and impressed by
how friendly the students, teachers and administrators were.
She said she is not concerned about safety at the high school
and mentioned the school's "incredible" arts and music program.
|
| "I would put my kids there without even any consideration
whatsoever," she said. |
| Tistadt said the school board would make the final decision
on the study after weighing comments from the community and
the county staff. The study, he said, is still a "long way
from the end." |
