| School
Redistricting Plans Opposed by Many Residents |
|
By Jackie Allder
and Rebecca Plevin
Observer Staff Writers |
| Opponents of redistricting dominated the first community
meeting about possible boundary changes for high schools in
the western half of the county Monday night. Included in the
redistricting study are Herndon, South Lakes, Oakton, Westfield
and Chantilly high schools, as well as an attendance "island"
of Madison High School. |
| Except for South Lakes, all of the schools are projected
to reach or be near capacity through 2013, according to Fairfax
County Public Schools' Web site. Enrollment at South Lakes
is below capacity and the school could hold about 700 more
students. Officials have said that because there are so few
students at South Lakes academic opportunities could become
limited. |
| Instructional objectives have pushed the school system to
address the low enrollment at South Lakes, but the boundary
study would also provide the chance to improve overcrowded
conditions at Westfield and Chantilly, according to a county
staff presentation. |
| The meeting drew a crowd of about 2,500, and after a general
question-and-answer period, attendees were broken into smaller
groups. The purpose of the meeting was to ask the community
for "options for developing boundary solutions" and "suggestions
and rationale for school attendance areas or neighborhoods
that could be candidates for changes in school boundaries,"
according to a handout provided at the meeting. |
| "The one fairly common issue was the displeasure with the
scope of the study," said Dean Tistadt, chief operating officer
of facilities and transportation services for the county,
in a telephone interview Wednesday. Except for the island,
Madison High School is not included in the study, and Langley
High School also is excluded. |
| Tistadt said the school board determined which schools would
be included in the study, and he thought the selections were
appropriate. Continuing to question why other schools are
not included, he said, does not help in the overall process. |
| Other comments during the small group discussions included
the implementation of a magnet-style program at South Lakes,
according to Elizabeth Gibson, Herndon's PTSA boundary committee
chairman. This, she said, would allow students to transfer
voluntarily to the school. But school officials maintain a
magnet program is not a viable idea because there is not enough
room at South Lakes to operate two high school programs in
the same building. Gibson said people also expressed concerns
about transportation time and costs, for both school buses
and private vehicles. |
| According to Herndon's boundary committee Web page, the
group wants to prevent the loss of students from their current
boundaries. The committee is concerned that any decrease in
enrollment would result in fewer academic and extracurricular
opportunities for students, according to its Web page. There
are also worries that any change in the student body would
alter the school's socioeconomic balance. Herndon's enrollment
is currently below capacity and is expected to decline. |
| Elizabeth Vandenburg, president of the PTSA at South Lakes,
and Susan Brownsword, parent of two students in the South
Lakes pyramid and a teacher at South Lakes, said many of the
comments they heard at the meeting were blanket statements
that the redistricting should not occur. "At some level when
the conversation is 'don't do it,' it's a showstopper," Vandenburg
said. |
| Vandenburg said there were a few suggestions about which
schools could shift boundaries, and Crossfield and Fox Mill
elementary schools were mentioned as possibilities. She said
if the process involves moving neighborhoods from one school
to another, the entire neighborhood should move. |
| "I believe that some of the schools have to be redistricted,"
she said. Vandenburg and many in the South Lakes pyramid were
in the minority at the meeting as supporters of the redistricting.
She said she supports possible boundary changes because she
would like to increase the student population and improve
educational opportunities at the school. |
| Brownsword agreed. "What I'm most concerned with is being
sure that at the end of this we at South Lakes have equal
access to the Fairfax County resources for our kids as a whole,"
she said. |
| The school system plans to hold two additional community
meetings about the redistricting, on Dec. 3 at Westfield and
Dec. 19 at Oakton. At the Dec. 3 meeting, staff will present
several boundary change scenarios and the community will be
asked to provide feedback on those options. |
