Comments on Our Loudoun Schools: Boundary Update Notes

I agree with your comment about the long term plan...

2009-04-28T08:39:00.000-04:00

I agree with your comment about the long term plan being communicated.

However, I disagree about the southern shift. A southern shift of students affects a far greater number of students than people realize. Say we shift 700 students from AF to BWHS. That means that 700 students in Broadlands that were attending BWHS now have to go to HS6. That is 1400 students affected. Now

I agree with anon about not displacing kids during...

2009-04-27T16:09:00.000-04:00

I agree with anon about not displacing kids during high school.

I actually overheard two Belmont Ridge CC moms say "kids are resilient, they'll be fine" regarding the prospect of Lansdowne kids moving to Tuscorara. How arrogant and insensitive and stupid of somebody not even affected by the boundary change to judge the resiliency of somebody else's kids that might be affected? If I

I don't know how you re-balance the numbers of kid...

2009-04-27T15:55:00.001-04:00

I don't know how you re-balance the numbers of kids between the schools as existing schools fill up and new ones are built in adjacent communities without re-drawing boundary lines. Ashburn has 3 high schools and has HS6 being built to the south too. Ashburn and all of the surrounding communities must share these schools and no community owns the schools.

Should we end up with

They should move those kids now to Eagle Ridge and...

2009-04-27T15:55:00.000-04:00

They should move those kids now to Eagle Ridge and then directly to Briar Woods. They shouldn't have to keep moving when we know where they will end up.

more fuel to the fire. My son has a friend in his...

2009-04-27T15:16:00.000-04:00

more fuel to the fire. My son has a friend in his 5th grade class at Sanders Corner that lives on the north side of Hay Rd - not even in Sanders' current attendance zone. He also has kids in his class that will go to Belmont Ridge next year, and then will get switched to Eagle Ridge in 2012, go to Stone Bridge for their freshman year and then get switched to either Briar Woods or HS6 when it

LI - that is what I'm talking about. Anon - I a...

2009-04-27T14:48:00.000-04:00

LI - that is what I'm talking about.

Anon - I am talking about "fixing" the feeder system. Currently, the planning commission is trying to use it everywhere. Dr. Adamo stated at the meeting on Apr 16 they took the middle school boundaries and just overlaid them over the high school boundaries. This is the problem: until you have equal numbers of middle and high schools, there

The real question is - why didn't the school syste...

2009-04-27T14:35:00.000-04:00

The real question is - why didn't the school system see this coming and plan for it better???

Why is everything with this School Board a last minute emergency???

You're not talking about "fixing" the feeder syste...

2009-04-27T14:33:00.000-04:00

You're not talking about "fixing" the feeder system; you're just talking about using it everywhere
by having the same number of schools at every level. This would of course be ideal. Even in
the absence of this sort of complete alignment, you still get the full benefit of shared experiences
for all of the students that do use the feeder system.

The school board

one other point, the southern shift also seems to ...

2009-04-27T14:27:00.000-04:00

one other point, the southern shift also seems to be a short term solution. Seems to me the long term solution is to start planning better and have the schools located or as closely located as possible to the students they would be serving.

I think the residents of Loudoun County deserve as much. We ALL pay our taxes and should have the reasonable expecation of having our kids attend

The one thing we ALL need to do is demand that the...

2009-04-27T13:24:00.000-04:00

The one thing we ALL need to do is demand that the School Board fix the feeder system. There needs to be an equal number of middle schools and high schools. Until that happens, these arguments will continue to happen. And unfortunately, whatever side of the feeder argument you are on, is what you are going to support.

I don't buy the HS6 argument - from my perspective it was all

The feeder system at least maintains student commu...

2009-04-27T13:02:00.000-04:00

The feeder system at least maintains student communities. If an hoa is divided but all of the students that constitute the school community stay together, so what? If you're involved in your child's life with activities etc, you ARE interacting with the parents of your kid's friends that are part of that same community. So, the important community is the "school community", not the

I didn't think that the Briar Woods solution was a...

2009-04-27T12:43:00.000-04:00

I didn't think that the Briar Woods solution was a temporary solution at all. I believe that was permanent.

The choosing here isn't choosing between Ashburn and Lansdowne, it's choosing between keeping Eagle Ridge students together at another Ashburn local school or choosing to isolate an entire community at a non-local school for a few years only to wisk them off to another

So I guess it's okay for us to move again and then...

2009-04-27T12:29:00.000-04:00

So I guess it's okay for us to move again and then probably again when HS-6 opens. What a wonderful feeder system we've got. Let's force kids into the system instead of letting them grow into it. We don't care how many times they move, we don't care if they have to move high schools right in the middle of their career - let's save the feeder system!!!!

It seems to me that that Ashburn Farm student woul...

2009-04-27T11:48:00.000-04:00

It seems to me that that Ashburn Farm student would still know a lot of children at either Briar Woods or Stone Bridge while remaining in a contiguous school zone. The Lansdowne children would only stay with a handful of classmates and be sent to a school with children they have never seen before and don't live near. Which is more "fair"? My Lansdowne child would much rather attend Briar Woods

I've heard Dr. Adamo say that moving Lansdowne stu...

2009-04-27T11:22:00.000-04:00

I've heard Dr. Adamo say that moving Lansdowne students to Tuscarora was a temporary solution. Now he's saying the move of 3 sections in Ashburn Farm to Briar Woods is an interim solution.

What's the difference?

Why is it okay to choose one over the other?

I'm an Ashburn Farm resident and my son would not ...

2009-04-27T10:55:00.000-04:00

I'm an Ashburn Farm resident and my son would not be kept with his entire graduating class from Eagle Ridge. As a matter of fact, he moved from Belmont Ridge to Eagle Ridge in 8th grade and under this plan would attend Stone Bridge for 2 years and Briar Woods for 2 years. Please explain how this is fair to him. Also, please explain how the middle to high school feeder system works when there

A wise option at this point given the political wi...

2009-04-25T08:27:00.000-04:00

A wise option at this point given the political winds would be to do nothing at all for now. Then, in a year or two when the elementary, middle schools and HS6 all gel, make one common-sense permanent change that creates contiguous zones and local schools for every DN hoa and keeps the students together from elem->middle->high school to the extent possible.

Nobody would object to

As a school board member, who would you rather fac...

2009-04-25T08:12:00.000-04:00

As a school board member, who would you rather face after this process
is over:

a) an Ashburn Farm resident whose child was kept together permanently with his entire graduating class from Eagle Ridge and all of his friends and neighbors

or

b) a Lansdowne resident whose child was moved away from all of his friends except a handful of other Lansdowne kids

I heard member Reed the other night say something ...

2009-04-24T19:48:00.000-04:00

I heard member Reed the other night say something like "Lansdowne wants to stay together and this plan does that...". Would any community want to "stay together" as a remote island kicked out of their district temporarily and then back later to well...we don't actually know where? Does anybody think this was the Lansdowne message? Anybody? Would Ashburn or any other community want this?

RC resident here again, and I've looked at the pro...

2009-04-24T15:58:00.000-04:00

RC resident here again, and I've looked at the proposed elementary boundaries. I don't know if this has been noted, but kids from 2 of the zones will be going to schools in isolation. Red Rocks (CL17) kids will be the only kids going to Balls Bluff that continue onto Harper Park and RC (CL 12) kids will the the only kids that go to Reid that continue onto Harper Park. So essentially, rising

Re: Leesburg Elementary boundaries Are we solvin...

2009-04-24T15:27:00.000-04:00

Re: Leesburg Elementary boundaries

Are we solving a problem or creating one? The staff recommends no changes and now at the 11th hour Board Member Reed wants to move or change 7 zones ? This after the school board proved there was NO connection to free lunches or ESL Students and test scores? It sounds like a few parents or PTA member s from Catoctin & Balls Bluff want

John, (I think) Dr Hatrick mentioned at a previou...

2009-04-24T10:09:00.000-04:00

John,

(I think) Dr Hatrick mentioned at a previous board meeting that he ran into an "activist" on the losing side of
a school board decision after the decision was made. The activist told him that even though
he lost his fight, he couldn't argue with the logic of the school board ruling on the matter.

This is the sort of feeling all communities need at the end of

Ashburn has moved in the past, and I understand th...

2009-04-24T09:38:00.000-04:00

Ashburn has moved in the past, and I understand their reluctance to change. Most communities would however fight FOR a change that kept their middle-schoolers together through high school rather than rip them apart. Because of this, I'm having trouble understanding the degree of resistance to this particular change. Perhaps if the initial idea floated publicly by the board had been to either

I live in River Creek, so I have no dog in the fig...

2009-04-24T08:12:00.000-04:00

I live in River Creek, so I have no dog in the fight about HS. I don't care where my kids go, and that includes elementary schools.

With regards to the HS situation, if you do change boundaries, please try to make the boundaries contiguous. For example, right now, we drive by 2 elementary schools to get to the one we go to now (Reid). I think that is silly. While I was for this

I am currently wrapped up in analysis, taking inpu...

2009-04-24T06:09:00.000-04:00

I am currently wrapped up in analysis, taking input as it comes in. I will share my thoughts fully when I cast my vote.