New Middle School Boundries

We own a home in DN43 that has arbitrarily been plucked out of the district. As a small neighborhood we are easy to pick on. My kids WILL NOT attend school in Loudoun Valley Estates. Developers have run rough shot over this county, and now we pay the price.

 

Well Ex, I hope you are going to the meeting tonight. I agree that DN44 and DN43 should absolutely be put back in. What the board is recommending is ludicrous.

I am not going to the School Board meeting tonight because ERMS is having their PTO meeting this evening and I am on the board. I will ask around tonight and see what people there are thinking about these changes.

Cliff, I've worked at the Admin building as a sub and Dr Hatrick's mantra is to always, in all situations, do what's best for the children. Moving our kids out of our neighborhood, away from their friends, and shipping them down the road in order to bring in students who are already settled in their own school is NOT IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILDREN.

 

Well said. I absolutely can't make the meeting tonight or any meeting at 6:30. I've emailed and called for a face-to-face meeting though. Who is THE person I need to meet with?

 

Dr. Hatrick is the Superintendent and Bob Dupree, rfdupree@aol.com, is the School Board Chairperson. I'd go to the top and work my way down from there.

I believe school boundries are set by the Department of Planning & Legislative services, so you may try there as well. Dr. Sam Adamo is the Director and the Planning Supervisor is listed in the LCPS handbook as Beverly Tate. Whether that is accurate now, I'm not sure.

They may push off you to Wayne Bayard who is the Public Information Officer, but he'll most likely just give you spin.

Good luck!

 

Also, if you go to the Loudoun County School website and click on Planning and Legislative Services on the left, it will bring you to a page where there are several other options available to the Board to set the boudaries of the new middle school.

http://cmsweb1.loudoun.k12.va.us/509905169119/site/default.asp?509Nav=|924|&NodeID=924

I copied and pasted this web link, but if it doesn't work, you can go to www.loudoun.k.12.va.us and go to the Planning page.

 

If I remember correctly, the proposal they are recommending is the ONLY one where DN 44 is excluded from ERMS.

 

To all Broadlands residents concerned about this issue:

I appreciate all the input from your posts and emails.

As a point of clarification, this is not a School Board proposal as the School Board has NOT made any decisions on this or even any proposals.

What we have before us now is a staff recommendation which serves as a jumping off point for further discussion and input. Only once in my memory has a staff recommendation been adopted without change by the School Board (and that was a boundary where only one member of the public spoke at any public hearing - that will certainly not be the case this time).

We have three upcoming public hearings, beginning tonight at the School Administration Building in Broadlands, and we encourage public input through those hearings, via emails, via petitions, etc. After all three public hearings are concluded, then the School Board will take all the input we have received and begin the next phase, which will be to formulate a proposal for consideration by the School Board in late April.

Having represented Broadlands during the past three boundary processes at various level, I understand your concerns. In fact, I drafted the plan adopted in 2003 which kept Broadlands together for high school and middle school, despite a staff recommendation to the contrary.

I look forward to your input at the hearings or via email at rfdupree@aol.com, and if you have any questions, please let me know.

Robert

Robert DuPree
Chairman & Dulles District Representative
Loudoun County School Board

 

agnesk-
Your PTO meeting is from 6pm to 6:15pm. Surely you can stop by the School Admin Building to speak?? It doesn't start until 6:30pm.

Anyone who cannot make it to the meetings, please follow Mr. DuPree's advice and make sure they hear your concerns via email if not in person. He has been a pleasure to work with and I have faith that he will support doing what's right........Right, Bob?????

 

That depends on how you treat and support the school board's budget request/negotiations.

 

Separate and distinct.

 

Here is my letter to the School Board I will be presenting tonight:

03/21/06
To: Loudoun County School Board
From: Cliff Keirce
Re: Proposed Stone Hill Middle School attendance boundaries

I am speaking on behalf of the Broadlands Homeowners Association and many Broadlands residents who are concerned about the proposed school boundary changes. Specifically, DN44, which consists primarily of Broadlands, is moved from Eagle Ridge to Stone Hill to accomodate other communities being moved into Eagle Ridge. We find this proposal to be unacceptable. As you know, one of your primary considerations in moving boundaries is, to the extent possible, to keep a community together. I would like to offer the following solutions and will show their impacts:

Plan 1) Adding DN44 to Eagle Ridge would result in the following: The first number is the projected enrollment with the staff plan. The second number is the resultant change.
********2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012
Eagle Ridge 968-1047 1010-1102 1059-1148 1051-1145 1148-1245
Stone Hill * 656-577*725-633***816-727**941-847**1231-1134

Pro: Keeps Broadlands together.
Con: Stone Hill enrollment light for first several years. Maybe it could be used for elementary school relief like Eagle Ridge was?

Plan 2) Adding DN44 to Eagle Ridge and moving DN27 to Stone Hill.
******* 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012
Eagle Ridge 968-921 1010-960** 1059-994 1051-1001 1148-1088
Stone Hill *656-703*725-775***816-885***941-993**1231-1291

Pro: Balances numbers between Eagle Ridge and Stone Hill better. Provides Farmwell Hunt a school they will remain in for years to come.

Plan 3) Adding DN44, DN50, DN50.1 to Eagle Ridge, moving DN27 to Stone Hill.
*********2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012
Eagle Ridge 968-953** 1010-997* 1059-1038 1051-1045 1148-1141
Stone Hill**656-671** 725-738** 816-837** 941-947** 1231-1238

Pro: In addition to Plan 2 above, keeps two smaller communities adjacent to Broadlands in Eagle Ridge.

Please contact me if I can be of any assistance or if you'd like further clarification of my logic.
Respectfully submitted,
Clifford J. Keirce
Vice President Broadlands Association

 

Robert, while I appreciate your engaging us in this forum, I must say I'm at a loss as to the whole approach:

First, to state the obvious:

1. It is clear from looking at the proposed map that the county had no plan when relentlessly issuing permits for unbridled development in this area – another victory for builder greed. Of course, this is not your fault, and please be certain this note isn't meant to be personal in any way. But you are a representative of the county government and someone somewhere should acknowledge horrible planning mistakes were made.

2. No reasonable person can view the map as proposed and plausibly argue the best interests of the children were really paramount as to some of those zones. Nor were the best interests of those particular children's taxpaying homeowner parents. The best possible argument that can be made is that "alleviating pressure on Eagle Ridge is indirectly good for all students" and somehow in the balancing equation being used this outweighs eviscerating an unfortunate group of children's established network of friends and teachers. Never mind the inconvenience to the parents. Of course, the real sucker-punch here is that some of the gerrymandering is so ridiculous that logic will dictate that some of these students will presumably be returned to Eagle Ridge at some point. They will again be victims, once again forced to forge new friendships. Amazing.

As to the approach:

It seems it's this: The burden is on us to prove the obvious, that some of these callously drawn zones are not at all in the best interests of the children, and if we want to sign petitions and debate at public hearings maybe we can accomplish what we pay a ridiculous amount of tax money to you and your colleagues to do – look out for the best interests of our children. I'll stop short of calling this arrogance. I'd suggest we adjust the baseline and shift the burden to you. I'm supposed to canvass my neighborhood and take time out of work to demonstrate what any reasonable person looking at that map could figure out? Can I bill the school board for my time spent explaining to presumably well-educated people what they should already know -- that children are not a commodity? Some of these zones should embarrass you and your colleagues.

Regards,

Bryan Ricapito
DN43

brr3@law.georgetown.edu

 

Cliff - Please don't forget that DN 29 and DN 25 are also included in the boundry change. These are all apartments or townhomes and they are very densely packed together. I lived in the townhomes when we first moved here. So if density is what the Board was trying to alleviate by moving DN44 and DN43, adding those two neighborhoods won't help.

Additionally, those neighborhoods are north of Ashburn Farm Parkway - near Shoppers. It's unbelieveable that the district wants to bus those kids in from that far away while denying our people in our own neighborhood the chance to go to the neighborhood school.

I think removing DN29, DN25 and DN27 will make it possible to keep DN44 and DN43 at ERMS.

I will try to make it to the meeting, but I am not confident that we can finish our PTO meeting in 15 minutes. Plus, I had wanted to stay for the police officer's presentation.

Rest assured, I will email, write letters and try to get to the next meeting.

 

agnesk-
Actually, your suggestion about moving DN25 and DN29 as well could have some merit, except it breaks one of Sam Adamo's cardinal rules. His concern is that kids would have to drive right on past one middle school to get to one farther away. He prefers, and sees more logic in, simply shifting everything to the nearest school. Ashburn Farm would shift south to a school located in the Broadlands area, and to accomodate it, parts of the Broadlands area will shift south to Brambleton.

 

Cliff, they should just stay where they are currently attending. Dr. Adamo lives in Lovettsville, I believe. Those of us who know this area well know that bringing kids from Ashburn Farm to go to ERMS while bussing Broadlands kids out is stupid.

By the way, some of the boundary recommendations that are not "staff recommended" do keep those neighborhoods where they are and keeps the Broadlands kids at ERMS, so it can be done. Take a look at 340 and 338. 332 is good too, but it leaves out DN43, however it's a small neighborhood so it could probably be accomodated in ERMS.

How was the meeting?

 

The meeting went welll. There was only a handful of residents from Broadlands there. Large contingent from Belmont CC that supports the plan and a large contingent of Ashburn Farm residents that opposed it.

 

Let's band together with the Farm people then and propose something a little more reasonable. What was their opposition, by the way?

I haven't looked at Belmont CC's school area so I'm not sure why they are supporting it. Does it decrease the numbers at Belmont MS?

Glad you were there. Were there any other Broadlands residents there?

 

We live in DN44 and attended the meeting and were surprised that more people from our zone didn't show up. In talking to some of our neighbors since the meeting, we found that they thought this area was safe since we are so close to the school. Most hadn't even bothered to look at the notice or the map!

If you live in this area and you don't want your children to be put on a bus for a 5 mile ride to Stone Hill, please get word to the School Board! Email them, go to one of the meetings, get the word out.

 

DanAngie - It would be great if you could inform your neighbors about this horrendous idea. I live in the "safe" section and some are asking why I care about this. Because our neighborhood kids should be able to go to the school that is IN their neighborhood!

I just drove back to Broadlands from Shoppers. Do you know how far that is? And yet our kids who can practically see ERMS from their windows don't get to go there? Dumb idea.

I talked to someone from Farmwell Hunt at the PTO meeting at ERMS and she is unhappy with the plan as well. She thinks it makes no sense to bring the Farmwell Hunt kids to ERMS, and then have to go back to Broad Run HS while most of the ERMS kids go Briar Woods HS.

 

Agnesk - I appreciate the comments about living in the 'safe' section - we thought we were safe too. I don't think there is such a thing here. The other consideration people in 'safe' sections should be thinking about is ALL the tax money it is going to take to bus these children to schools 5 miles from their home!

Do you have the name of the person you spoke to from Farmwell Hunt? We need to work together!