Thursday, November 5, 2009

Lansdowne to Tuscarora HS?

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As my colleague Tom Reed pointed out on his blog earlier this week, the School board will set in motion a new process to determine boundary assignments for the Lansdowne neighborhood at its meeting next Tuesday. This comes in the wake of a process in the spring that failed to create attendance zones for the new High School, which is under construction north of Leesburg.

One part of this is unclear to me, and that is exactly where the recommendations come from. Some Board members have told me just what you read on Tom's post:
staff is preparing a new recommendation regarding attendance zones... he Staff's recommendation will propose to move the Lansdowne community's students to Tuscarora High School (THS)
This gives the impression that this was a staff-initiated action. What I'm hearing from staff is different: that this is a Board-member directive. I don't understand why it matters whose idea this was, which makes it all the more curious to me why nobody wants credit for it.

The action item itself raises an interesting point, that "the School Board established an Ad-Hoc Committee to examine the current attendance boundary policy." That committee's work isn't complete yet, but the recommendation carries the fingerprints of some of its members.

The staff's memo (link) provides two options:
  • Option 1 follows current School Board Policy and practice by assigning rising ninth and tenth grade students to Tuscarora High School, effective Fall 2010. Rising juniors and seniors will be surveyed under current policy to determine their interest in proceeding to Tuscarora High School beginning Fall 2010.
  • Option 2 is a four-year phased approach in which only rising night graders will be impacted by the proposed attendance area change in Fall 2010. Each subsequent year, the incoming grade nine students will attend Tuscarora High School until all Lansdowne high school students attend Tuscarora High School. The attendance boundary will be fully implemented by the 2013-14 school year.
Note the following:
  1. Option 2 follows a practice that has not yet been adopted by the Board but is advocated by a few members of the Board.
  2. No options are presented that would leave Lansdowne students at Stone Bridge.
  3. Under option 2 there will be two sets of High School buses running through Lansdowne... one going to Stone Bridge, the other to Tuscarora.
The recommended Board action is to make the information available to the public, schedule a public hearing on December 3rd, and make a decision on December 8th.

It important to note that these proposals balance enrollment so that there is less available capacity at Tuscarora and less crowding at Stone Bridge. Nonetheless I remain concerned that about the time the Lansdowne students are all at Tuscarora, Tuscarora's enrollment will grow beyond capacity from kids in Leesburg and points North. There isn't any plan for what to do when this happens, there is no school in northern Ashburn or the Lansdowne area, no land dedicated for a school, no funds to build a school. This will all come to a head during the next Board's term, though. A problem to be solved another day, and possibly by different people.

Stone Bridge High School Attendance Memo (with Map)
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60 comments:

  1. I'm guessing that the staff felt like they gave their opinion last spring and since they were shot down, the easy way out is to just take Lansdowne and put them into Tuscarora. Problem solved. But not really.

    I wrote over on Mr. Reed's blog that I think all of the boundaries should be blown up. Start over, this time including Broad Run. If Lansdowne has to leave Stone Bridge, at least don't make them and isolated island.

    A new HS is a pipe dream in this economy, even if one thinks that the economy is doing better. People just aren't willing to loosen their purse strings and have their taxes raised.

    Good luck. I don't envy you.

    Jennifer Lee
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  2. I've got to respond to this....
    "Nonetheless I remain concerned that about the time the Lansdowne students are all at Tuscarora, Tuscarora's enrollment will grow beyond capacity from kids in Leesburg and points North. There isn't any plan for what to do when this happens, there is no school in northern Ashburn or the Lansdowne area, no land dedicated for a school, no funds to build a school. This will all come to a head during the next Board's term, though. A problem to be solved another day, and possibly by different people."

    Stone Bridge is already overcrowded and projected to be at over 2500 students in 2013/14. The school was built for 1600. There is no funding for HS-6 and the BOS is pulling money out of your budget again next year. So other than land, you have nothing else in southern Ashburn. What you do have is capacity in Leesburg. So....would your plan be to leave the Ashburn cluster well over capacity and the Leesburg cluster well under capacity and then see what happens in two to three years? Perhaps the BOS would see this as an effective use of tax dollars and offer LCPS a bigger budget.
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  3. move some of belmont country club to briar woods, and leave lansdowne where they are
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  4. it is about time that ashburn farm gets to stay in a ashbrun school...next step get lansdowne into smarts mill MS so we can have belmont ridge...wendy woolley has all the information to back us up here. Lansdowne will be fine..they are leesburg anyway.
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  5. Instead of Mr. Stevens working with his peers and the planning staff to communicate effectively with the community, he has taken the low road to find it "curious" that staff is making their recommendation. Mr. Stevens, you don't have funding for HS-6, the BOS is cutting next years budget, Ashburn High Schools are over projection and over capacity, the only HS relief is Tuscarora, and the Planning Staff/School Board doesn't need approved policy or guidelines to make recommendations or decisions, i.e. feeder wasn't in any guideline or policy last spring (yet we all found it "curious" that it was sited as the main objective).

    Don't you owe it to the community to offer solutions? Instead, you're just stiring the pot. Maybe you're auditioning for Fox News and you're showing how you can play on people's fears and emotion.
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  6. Mr. Stevens, do you realize that two sets of buses came through Ashburn Farm only three years ago because of the switch from Belmont Ridge to Eagle Ridge. We knew that was the right thing for our kids, and appreciated the fact that they had buses to accommodate a smooth transition without moving those who wanted to finish there.
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  7. I think Mr. Stevens is right in questioning "what do we do a few years down the road?" It may be that Lansdowne has to be moved temporarily. But as long as we continue the "use existing capacity" strategy, all boundaries are at risk. There is no other short-term alternative but it's time for residents across neighborhoods to band together and force a change in strategy. We spend all our energy just trying to protect our own little islands and we have to do it over and over again because, with the county's current lack of planning, no community's boundaries are safe for more than a couple of years.

    I like Mr. Stevens' charter schools idea, too. I'm not sure that would help on the high school level but it might on the elementary level and free up some money for middle and high schools.
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  8. A couple of clarifigations in John's comments above:

    He states "This comes in the wake of a process in the spring that failed to create attendance zones
    for the new High School" - this is not true. Attendance boundaries were set for Tuscaroroa - they
    were not changed for the Ashburn high schools.

    Under the "Note the following" section, #2 "No options are presented that would leave Lansdowne
    students are Stone Bridge - although this is true for this memo/action, that option was presented
    last spring and failed.

    You don't get the bus argument because we were told it wasn't a big deal to have buses take the
    Ashburn Farm students to Briar Woods, 4 times as far as it is to Stone Bridge - the additional cost, etc
    was minimal so that wasn't a factor. Can't have it both ways. And as was noted by another poster on this blog,
    two separate buses came through Ashburn Farm to take students to Eagle Ridge and to Belmont Ridge MS.

    Also of note is that the plan from the spring was based on HS6 opening early. Now, people are saying
    there is no money to open a school in northern Ashburn, is the money going to magically appear to build
    HS6? Again, you can't have it both ways.

    Bottom line, the long term solution is we need another middle school and high school in northern Ashburn (north of the
    Greenway). HS6 is needed as well, in it's current location, just not yet. The Joint Subcommittee agreed
    with this. Look at the attachment. The figures from the planning staff show Stone Bridge's enrollment to be
    pretty stable with Lansdowne students being at Tuscarora. The numbers also show that Tuscarora's numbers continue
    to grow as the Lansdowne students are added. There is your proof that a high school is needed closer to Route 7.

    One of my main problems with the proposal in the spring was that it didn't allow rising juniors the abililty
    to stay where they were. Yes, School Board policy allows for this choice, however, Stone Bridge would still
    be overcrowded and any special exception application would be immediately rejected because of the overcrowding.
    At least this proposal allows the Lansdowne students to finish at Stone Bridge.
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  9. The current proposal provides two options for transferring Lansdowne to Tuscorora and only one of those would allow students starting at SB to finish there. This is the least the school board could do for Lansdowne kids for the major screwing they are giving the Lansdowne community.

    The bussing thing by the way is silly; Briar Woods is only 3.8 miles from SB so fine. 10 inches is TEN TIMES AS FAR as 1 inch, ok, got it. And of course most of those kids that would have been moved are only half that distance from Briar Woods.
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  10. Wow, you feel a major screw job after 1 move. Imagine how you'd feel if it was the 3rd time in 6 years!!!

    And by the way, at least you'd have the option to have kids finish at SBHS. We wouldn't have that opportunity.
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  11. When people argue the busing thing or the Briar Woods distance as though it were a hardship for Ashburn Farm, it just makes no sense. It's less than 4 miles and less than 3 for lots of the kids that would have been moved. It's also an easy drive on a road that has been widened etc.

    The same people say that Tuscorora isn't much further for Landsdowne students to go. Do these people ever drive East<->West on Rt 7 or any of the other roads in the area? Are we now acting like all 5-10 mile trips in the area are the same degree of difficulty?

    The measure that should be considered for commutes should be the time-required-to-commute, not the distance. This is the most important metric in determining difficulty of a commute in a high traffic area. I don't know if this is factored into the county estimation of how reasonable a commute is or not but it certainly should be.

    The drive from Ashburn Farm to Briar Woods would be an easy few minutes. The drive from Lansdowne to Tuscorora would be very long in traffic. It would greatly increase the Lansdowne commute and lengthen the day for students. The commute for Lansdowne students would also be disproportionally long compared to any other students in the Ashburn area.

    Any thoughts John?
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  12. No thanks to the invitation to engage in commuting comparisons. If there is one thing in Loudoun as flammable as boundaries, it's traffic.

    My thoughts on other aspects can be found here, here, here and here.
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  13. Moving is never a good thing BUT, when you move several times to different "neighborhood" schools, let's face it, things could have been worse.

    You kids ever move North of Ida Lee? How would you feel about that? That would be a little worse than going to a different one of the 4 or 5 schools within a mile or two huh?

    I don't think Lansdowne is so determined to go to SBHS at all. They would be perfectly happy at Briar Woods for example or Broad Run, they just don't want to be shipped off to a distant school in a community with which they have no interaction.

    It's really unfortunate that Ashburn Farm and Lansdowne weren't both in the same position of being targets for moving to Tuscorora. If that had been the case, Ashburn would "get it" as to why Tuscorora is such a bad location for Ashburn-area kids. And, they would at that point jump at the chance to go to Briar Woods instead of being shipped off.
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  14. "it is about time that ashburn farm gets to stay in a ashbrun school...next step get lansdowne into smarts mill MS so we can have belmont ridge...wendy woolley has all the information to back us up here. Lansdowne will be fine..they are leesburg anyway."

    Um, if Lansdowne is in Leesburg then so is Belmont Ridge. That makes Belmont Ridge not an Ashburn school. Can't have it both ways.
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  15. Last 2 posters just made the case for schools being in the right locations. They aren't now and that is the major issue with all the boundary changes. Every 2 years.
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  16. At least with these two options the Lansdowne students gets to stay together as a community. With the option that Ashburn Farm had in the spring, our community was ripped in half with half at Briar and half at Stone Bridge.
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  17. This "community ripped in half" thing is baloney. You guys were all at each others throats in previous boundary changes.

    And this "ripping apart" that you refer to in the case of Briar Woods is particularly ridiculous since parents are fighting to HAVE their kids separated from their friends when they leave Eagle Ridge MS. The split feed guarantees splitting the kids apart. So, which way is it?
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  18. Is everybody forgetting the the "ripping apart" that IS happening if this thing goes ahead is that the Ashburn kids and the Lansdowne kids will be "ripped apart". They have gone to school all day together and been friends for years. Are we saying that the kid's "community" is less valuable than kids they don't even know that happen to live in the same HOA?
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  19. Hi November 6, 2009 1:56 PM;
    Are you saying that is our turn to go through what you and your community did? Would that make you feel better? Perhaps the process is broken. You know SBHS isn't all "that"..the questions is WHAT'S NEXT after Tuscarora is over crowded? Please address your thoughts...really interested due to your experience.
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  20. It is not a matter of nobody wanting "credit" for this decision, rather no official wants the "blame" for this decision. It all comes down to politics, my friend. The school board didn't vote on boundaries when it said it would in a gutless move that just prolonged the process. They didn't want their vote to be held against them. As a parent of a Stone Bridge student, the overcrowding has become such an immediate problem that students can barely navigate the halls (stairwells) in time to get to their classes before the late bell. The Lansdowne community was the last to be added to Stone Bridge. Ashburn Farm should certainly not be moved, nor should any of the other immediate surrounding neighborhoods who have been affected by previous boundary changes. It's never a good thing when kids need to move schools, but in this case, moving the Lansdowne students to Tuscarora is the right thing to do. Just SOMEBODY please have the guts to make that decision.
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  21. It's remarkable to me that Ashburn parents are so willing to separate their kids from their Lansdowne friends in favor of kids they don't even know just because the unknown kids live on the "correct" side of rt 7.

    If the kids could vote, they wouldn't go for a political or nonsensical solution. They wouldn't be separated from their friends and you can bet they could care less about an HOA (if they are even aware that one exists).

    There are lots of Eagle Ridge kids I know that are separated from their friends as some go on to Briar Woods and others go to Stone Bridge. Those kids don't want to be separated either but their parents want SB over BW so they have no choice. Those kids would be better served staying with their friends as is the case in the Ashburn/Lansdowne mess.

    The student communities should be respected, the feeder system that guarantees that fact should be favored and the entire area should be shifted slightly to balance the load among all schools. If this were done, all communities would give a little, no single community would feel sacrificed, it would be fair and the end result would be the best possible use of existing resources. The best possible use of resources can't be realized without this sort of shift. The "best" possible use of resources will still mean over-crowding but it's still the "best" we can do right now.
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  22. Sending Lansdowne to Tuscarora is the WRONG thing to do. I am also a Stone Bridge Parent, and I live in Lansdowne. The RIGHT thing to do is to send the Ashburn students who attended Eagle Ridge MS to Briar Woods HS so they can stay with their friends and Lansdowne can stay with their Belmont Ridge MS classmates. Every parent of an Eagle Ridge student starting Stone Bridge has told me that Stone Bridge has been an adjustment since the rest of their friends went to Briar Woods or Broad Run. The Eagle Ridge students themselves have stated the same complaint to my child. Would your child want to be torn from all the friends he has been with since 4th grade. Does your child want to leave a high school he has already started with all the kids he has gone to middle school with to attend a school where all of the other students live on the opposite side of Leesburg? Why are you advocating this for my child? The board should make the common sense decision that helps keep the children's sense of community in tact. They almost did this in the spring, it's too bad they didn't finish the right thing.
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  23. What if instead of moving the Eagle Ridge students to Briar Woods, the Landsdowne Belmont students transfer to Simpson or another Leesburg high school feeder school? Moving the Landsdowne students to Tuscorora doesn't make 100% sense, but it make more sense than pulling students out of a high school they can see across the street to bus them to another school. Landsdowne is a Leesburg address. THS is a Leesburg school. Ashburn Farm is a Ashburn address, SBHS is an Ashburn school.
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  24. Let's be logical!!!
    The big point here is that it just doesn't make sense to move Lansdowne to THS to just fill seats that are now available because there will not be a senior class and not much if any of a junior class only to over crowd it when in 2-4 years. I thought the Board was trying to create a feeder system??? How would splitting BREMS be working toward that goal??? The direction that the Board should be going in is to stop splitting ERMS by making it a complete feeder to BWHS.
    Why are some of the Ashburn parents on this blog trying to split up kids who have been together for several years and I'm not just talking about middle school, alot of the kids have been together since elementary. For those who may have forgotten alot of Ashburn went to Seldens Landing in Lansdowne before Newton Lee opened and then on to Belmont Ridge Middle in Lansdowne before they all moved on to Stone Bridge High in Ashburn.
    Funny how Ashburn hasn't minded coming to our schools here in Lansdowne for years while building a community of friendship through & with our children only to now let a few in their community now try to break us apart by trying to sell the idea that a community is only determined by their zip code not by the relationships built through years of friendship.
    Let's do the right thing this time around and not create another mess to be cleaned up another day by another Board.
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  25. "What if instead of moving the Eagle Ridge students to Briar Woods, the Landsdowne Belmont students transfer to Simpson or another Leesburg high school feeder school? Moving the Landsdowne students to Tuscorora doesn't make 100% sense, but it make more sense than pulling students out of a high school they can see across the street to bus them to another school. Landsdowne is a Leesburg address. THS is a Leesburg school. Ashburn Farm is a Ashburn address, SBHS is an Ashburn school."

    Last I checked, Belmont Ridge has a Leesburg address. So why is a Leesburg middle school feeding into an Ashburn high school? Maybe this needs to be fixed -- feed Belmont Ridge into THS. Move the Ashburn middle schoolers into an Ashburn school.
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  26. Lansdowne has not one but two golf courses, right? Perhaps the developers of Lansdowne and the residents who enjoy this luxury can donate the land from one of those golf courses in order for their kids to get a high school built sooner rather than later.
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  27. I'd like to hear what Lansdowne's long term solution is to this problem.
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  28. "Lansdowne has not one but two golf courses, right? Perhaps the developers of Lansdowne and the residents who enjoy this luxury can donate the land from one of those golf courses in order for their kids to get a high school built sooner rather than later."

    The golf courses are owned entirely by the Lansdowne Resort, a private business not affiliated with the residential community. Not by the developer nor by residents. Nor do Lansdowne residents get to play on those courses unless they join the resort, which anyone anywhere in the world can do. Maybe AOL can build Ashburn another school? Or maybe Belmont CC can donate their golf course for a middle school? They were supposed to build a middle school originally and built an elementary school instead.
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  29. Maybe the county can use eminent domain to seize the resort's land?
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  30. Cavalier Development (Ashburn Farm) proffered land for Stone Bridge H.S., Sanders Corner Elementary, and lots of ball fields. Ashburn Village proffered land for two elementary schools and a middle school. Broadlands proffered land for two elementary schools and a middle school

    Who was minding the store (or on the take) when Hobie Mitchell got to develop Lansdowne with only one school site while all that land went to private golf courses? Belmont CC's contribution of land for public purposes seems rather stingy as well.
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  31. Oh, and I forgot the land for the Ashburn Library proferred by Ashburn Farm developers.
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  32. Well the National Conference Center wants to build residential on its land back in Lansdowne. If you want to do something constructive, start pressuring the county to make the NCC owners (Oxford Group) proffer some land for a school.
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  33. I believe Hobie Mitchell built all those new overpasses on rt 28. Presumably the supervisors wanted roads, not schools.
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  34. I think many board members have already decided to movie Lansdowne students to Tuscarora, and I can understand that there are just no good solutions right now. Looking a few years down the road I am very interested to see how the Ashburn Farms Parents united group is going to deal with the overcrowding of Belmont Ridge Middle School. Will they suddenly start supporting a feeder system and claiming that proximity to a school means nothing??? Or will they be OK with a move down to Stone Hill Middle school (probably closer to AF than Lansdowne is to THS) when MS 5 opens and the DS kids move out of there. Can't wait for that one!
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  35. Actually, if you were paying attention, Ashburn Farm Parents United is supporting getting a new MS and a new HS in the northern Ashburn area. One of the joint sub-committees has already backed this plan.

    This plan would allow communities to stay together and it would setup the feeder system correctly (with the right number of schools, which we don't have and no split feeds which we do have).

    This would also stabilize most of the DN for some years to come - eliminating the need for moves every two years.

    So, what solutions have you come up with?
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  36. A new MS and a new HS in northern ashburn would be a great long term solution, but with no money and no plan in sight for either of these, a middle school change will have to happen before we get a new school, just as a high school change is happening now.
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  37. Many more kids will need to be pulled out of Belmont Ridge, and many more kids will need to be pulled out of Farmwell (already with trailers) because both of these Ashburn middle schools have overcrowding problems. Stone Bridge HS will never go below 109% of capacity based upon the plans out there. Broad Run HS (already with trailers) and Briar Woods HS will equal or surpass the extreme overcrowding we have now at Stone Bridge before a new high school is built. Seldens Landing has almost 100 kids more than it was built to hold and it has already had 4 classrooms added on making it one of the largest elementary schools in the county.

    Houston, we have a problem!

    As Mr. Stevens should know, Ashburn Farm Parents United recognizes this problem and has been the only group thus far that is bringing forward creative solutions to get new schools north of the Greenway. This is the only way to alleviate severe overcrowding that affects multiple communities and prevents further long-term chaos in the school boundary process.

    Without getting these schools, students at all levels will be continually bussed away from home searching for a permanent school, outside of their communities. Many communities like Farmwell Hunt, The Regency, and Ashburn Farm already have this happening.

    This should be about communities working together, not communities being pitted against each other. We need to band together to get new schools north of the Greenway. It's high time that all Ashburn communities get the long-term stability that we need.
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  38. While a HS north of the greenway would be ideal, the cost of buying land that is suitable for a high school would be very expensive. A parcel of land in LV Estates has been proffered for HS6 to be built. While this location is not ideal, it is alot cheaper ( and a more realistic way to get a school built in the next 5 years) than buying land and building a school. I know communities do not want to shift south, but 2013/2014 will be here before we know it and every school in leesburg and ashburn will be overcrowded. We clearly will need another school by then. Which is more fiscally responsible, buying expensive land or building on land the school system already has even if the busses might have to drive a little further? At that point an entire DN boundary shift could be made keeping communities together in high schools that make sense, even if they are to the south of your house.
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  39. Your solution doesn't address the long term growth expected in the LVE/Brambleton area, nor the growth expected in the Lansdowne/Route 7 corridor. It just keeps shifting it around to every other community in the DN. Which, by the way, does affect more students.
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  40. As a Lansdowne parent, I'd be a lot more comfortable with the Tuscarora plan if the county would just come out and say what they plan to do with our community when THS is full in a few years. (I realize that would require some political courage, lol.) Are we going to get divvied up among 3 or 4 high schools? Eventually, Lansdowne will be able to fill almost half a high school by itself. I'm not sure county officials realize just how big the lower grades are at Seldens. The second graders alone fill 8 classrooms.

    It's nice to fantasize that another school will be built by then but anyone who has lived in the county for awhile knows that's unlikely to happen.
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  41. While we wait for schools to be built, we MUST utilize seats we have now. This means, Lansdowne to Tuscarora. It is a difficult decision, but one that must be made. Please keep in mind, Ashburn Farm utilized seats previosly in both Leesburg and Sterling. We MUST ease the overcrowding at Stone Bridge.
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  42. It is decision time, please. My 8th grader would really like to know where she is going to school next year. She will soon be asked to pick classes, but doesn't have a clue where she will be going to school. When she was in 5th grade at Seldens, it was an easy adjustment as she spent the year prepping for Belmont Ridge MS. She doesn't have a sense of what next year holds. She doesn't care where she goes, she just want to know where!
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  43. I completely agree that the seats at THS MUST be used. This doesn't imply that Lansdowne should be filling them though. A big shift needs to happen throughout the area in order to ever have stable attendance zones. Moving Lansdowne to THS doesn't fix the problem at all. All communities should "give" and shift so that all communities would attend local (nearby) schools with their community neighbors. The notion that a community "owns" a school is ridiculous. Asburn, would have to move the least (distance) of most communities since several Loudoun schools are located in Ashburn but they too would have to shift.

    This is the only fair solution and the only one that all communities would unhappily embrace. It would be logical, fair and permanent, qualities the latest political exercise lacks.
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  44. So where do you propose that Lansdowne gets shifted to?

    Also, remember that the 3 sections of Ashburn Farm that were proposed to move to BWHS last spring were moved out of Belmont Ridge MS 2 years ago.
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  45. Whoever says that Ashburn Farm is going to move Lansdowne out of Belmont Ridge is talking crazy. That has never been suggested. When the last middle school boundaries were done, Ashburn Farm recognized the problem and friends of mine helped to split the community. Why? Because it was the right thing! Belmont Ridge is IN Lansdowne. There was no way that Ashburn Farm fit too. Sound familiar?

    With middle schools, remember, actions speak louder than words.
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  46. I guess I don't understand the assumption that Lansdowne gets shifted at all. Why Lansdowne? Is Lansdowne somehow responsible for the overcrowded schools in all of Dulles North? If a community in Dulles North should be moved, there may be better candidates than Lansdowne. Belmont CC is smaller and could perhaps find a permanent home at THS rather than over-flowing it in a few years (for instance). A temporary move is a bad idea for any community.

    If boundaries closest to all of the schools were made contiguous with the surrounding communities, every community would attend a local school and nobody would be an island. And, even when that is done, all schools will still be over-crowded but at least we would "really" be using all of our resources wisely and fairly.

    This is the only fair solution for all communities and the only one that can last.

    So I say, we all shift to absorb the load. It's everybody's problem, all communities should cooperate and share the burden of scarce resources a little rather than a single community being bullied and banished.
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  47. I'm not trying to bully or banish anyone. From what it sounds like here, Lansdowne residents feel that everyone in DN should be shifted to alleviate the overcrowding that is happening. This is at the MS and HS level. I just want to know where Lansdowne residents feel they should be shifted to (either at the MS or the HS level).

    Doesn't seem fair to ask everyone else in the DN to move when you don't think you should move at all.
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  48. It isn't that Lansdowne shouldn't be considered to move. It should, just like all other communities. Lansdowne is on the edge of the district though. If HS6 is going to be built to the south of Ashburn, it only seems logical that the entire planning district be shifted that way. The goods new for Ashburn is that all of the schools are in Ashburn so their "shift" would be very small and they would always attend a school that their neighbors attend. This would not be the case if any Ashburn area school were shifted temporarily out of the planning district to Leesburg. Zipcodes aside, Lansdowne is no more Leesburg than Ashburn is (and Ashburn is actually much closer to a better road to get there). Ashburn is also no more integrated with the city of Leesburg than Lansdowne is either.

    If we know that HS6 will be built next and in LVE (and it will), we should just get it over with and avoid the temporary moves in favor of permanent ones.
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  49. As a Lansdowne resident, I am not against moving to THS, yes, someone has to move and thatis just the way it goes around here. I think many of us are fine with this, we would like to just see some future planning for where we go next. Why would lansdowne be the first to move out of THS when it is overdrowded anyway? At that point it will be as much a Lansdowne school as any other area (projections show that Lansdowne will have over 700 highschoolers by 2014). Unless the county gets working on solutions for 2014 now, we in lansdowne fear that we may be split into several schools just to fill open seats at the expense of our children. That is just not acceptable for any neighborhood.
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  50. Nice try, Mr DuPree. Please make any future comments as an Ashburn resident.
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  51. If moving to THS were to be permanent, I think many Lansdowne residents would be fine with that. Other communities going to THS include Beacon Hill and Raspberry Falls -- I'm sure those kids are excellent students and there is appeal in going to a brand new, uncrowded school. But so far, the only plan the school board has offered is to move Lansdowne there temporarily and then move us back to Stonebridge when HS-6 is built. That depends on HS-6 being built in the next few years and on Ashburn residents being willing to fill HS-6. My guess is that Ashburn parents will fight moving to HS-6.

    And when THS is full, you know Leesburg residents will want us out of there. Leesburg considers Lansdowne to be Ashburn (as does county zoning). Ashburn, of course, considers Lansdowne to be Leesburg.
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  52. Don't be ridiculous, Lansdowne residents would never be fine with a temporary move to a distant location with nobody that we or our kids interact with, who would go for that? For what, so we could be with "excellent students". We have our own excellent students.

    And believe me, Lansdowne won't ever come back to SBHS if they are thrown out now. It will be off to some other awful location in a few years so that Ashburn can remain comfy. Lansdowne will probably end up at HS6 in a few years if this Dupree-led-screw succeeds.
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  53. Mr. DuPree is in a closed door session at the School Board building that started at 4:00. Take a look at the School Board Calendar. That wasn't him.
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  54. For those saying Ashburn Farm would never suggest Lansdowne kids leaving Belmont Ridge MS, please see the middle school plan you proudly endorsed in the Spring. You were in favor of moving 2 Lansdowne zones out of BRMS!!!!

    http://www.ashburnfarmassociation.org/PDFFiles/AFPU_MSPlanEndorsement.pdf
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  55. Feeder System ....

    Well if we put in a feeder system then what if it is this.

    Stone Bridge HS is feed by Belmont Ridge Middle School which is feed by Newton-Lee, Belmont Station and Sanders Corner.

    Now what ... Has anyone from Lansdowne really thought about the feeder system is the high school proximity is followed as the priority.

    I am not suggesting this as an Asburn Farm parent but be you never know you might get what you wished for just not the way you wanted.

    There is no possible way to do a feeder system at this time. Get over it and move on.

    High School is the most important time in a child's development into a functional adult.

    There is space at THS, it must be used prior to any new high schools being built. The closest community to THS is the most logical to attend. Yes in six years Lansdowne will get ANOTHER new high school.

    Quit crying over getting all the new things, your lucky and you need to realize that by the time you move to the new HS that SBHS will be 16+ years old and in need of renovation.
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  56. Here's a question. Currently, some students in Lansdowne (the town center and the Camdem apartments) attend Belmont Station Elementary in Ashburn and Belmont Ridge Middle. Will these kids also be moved to Tuscarora or will they stay in the Stonebridge feed? What about other kids who get overflowed from Seldens to other elementary schools (as is likely to happen in the next few years)? How does the county handle these situations?
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  57. There is no feeder system for elementary schools.

    For middle and high schools, it all depends on where you live and where the boundaries are at that time.
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  58. In the short-term, Lansdowne is going to THS. We need focus on two things 1)Getting Option 2 pahsing passed. That is as close to win-win as anyone can get in this situation. It gives THS another year to get up and running and it allows children who started in a school to finish in that school. The rising 10th grade has relationships with teachers, counselors and coaches that offer them stability.
    2) A new high school has to be built by 2013.
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  59. where is anyone getting the idea that Briar Woods is less than 3 miles from Ashburn Farm. It is over 6 miles from my front door to Briar Woods, I live across the street from Stone Bridge! By the way I measured the distance from Seldens to Tuscarora-- a bit over 5miles. It would not be a hardship to go to Briar Woods if Stone Bridge was not ACROSS the street and was not going to be over capacity in another year. Lansdowne rides a bus, will continue to do so regardless. Here is an idea, increase the walk zones at all of our schools, get rid of the Spanish program in elementary schools, eliminate the Futura program and any other fluff that exists and maybe we could have enough money to build HS6 and HS8 and maybe another middle school which we so desperately need. And by the way, turn off the lights, electricity costs money
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  60. Option 2 is a great recommendation to allow current Stone Bridge High Schoool students to remain at SBHS. It's a four-year phased approach in which rising 9th graders will be impacted by the proposed attendance area change in Fall 2010. It's the best compromise being proposed.
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