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Middle & High School Boundaries

Discussion in 'Broadlands Community Issues' started by lilpea, Feb 11, 2013.

  1. lilpea

    lilpea Member

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    Per Chairman Hornberger's Facebook Page;


    ASHBURN AREA MS/HS REZONING:

    The School Board will be voting at its regular business meeting tomorrow (2/12/13) on opening a school attendance zone review process affecting all Ashburn area middle and high schools and resident MS/HS students in anticipation of the opening of Trailside MS and HS-6 in the Fall of 2014 and HS-8 in the Fall of 2015.

    That process is proposed to include the following school attendance zones:

    INVOLVED MIDDLE SCHOOLS:
    Belmont Ridge Middle School
    Eagle Ridge Middle School
    Farmwell Station Middle School
    Stone Hill Middle School

    INVOLVED HIGH SCHOOLS:
    Briar Woods High School
    Broad Run High School
    John Champe High School (specifically those planning zones also assigned to Stone Hill MS)
    Stone Bridge High School
    Tuscarora High School (specifically those planning zones also assigned to Belmont Ridge MS)

    Below is the proposed calendar for that process:

    PROPOSED CALENDAR:
    Thursday, March 7: Overview/Public Hearing
    Monday, March 11: Work Session
    Monday, March 18: Public Hearing
    Wednesday, March 20: Public Hearing/Work Session
    Monday, April 1: Work Session
    Thursday, April 4: Staff Briefing/Public Hearing
    Tuesday, April 9: INFO ITEM at Board meeting
    Monday, April 15: Staff Briefing/Public Hearing
    Tuesday, April 23: ACTION ITEM at Board meeting

    Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about this process. Once the process and calendar has been approved by the School Board, notifications will be sent home with all potentially affected students at the HS, MS and ES levels.
     
  2. Villager

    Villager Ashburn Village Resident

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    Meeting Mar 07, 2013 - School Board Attendance Zone Overview Session/Public Hearing for Ashburn and Dulles North Area Secondary School Attendance Zones 6:30 p.m. Category Public Hearing Subject Procedures for Public Comment Type Delegations

    Advance speaker sign up is available. Please contact the Department of Planning and Legislative Services at 571-252-1050 by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 7, 2013; speakers may also sign up in person at the specific hearing location, between 6:00 and 6:25 p.m. Persons wishing to speak will be asked to provide their name, address, and telephone number. Generally, speaker comments are limited to no more than five (5) minutes per person; however, the time may be reduced at the School Board Chairman’s discretion. Persons who, due to a disability, need assistance to be able to participate meaningfully in School Board meeting/hearing, should contact the Department of Planning and Legislative Services at least five working days prior to the meeting.
     
  3. Villager

    Villager Ashburn Village Resident

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    Throughout the attendance zone change process, all correspondence and information received from members of the public will be shared with the School Board. Submit written remarks to LCPS Department of Planning and Legislative Services at lcpsplan@lcps.org or 21000 Education Court, Ashburn, Virginia 20148.
     
  4. joy

    joy New Member

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  5. stevensrmiller

    stevensrmiller Stevens Miller

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    Let me second Joy's suggestion. Over 200 residents have joined the Keep Broadlands Together facebook page. They were an excellent group of activists and played a successful role in the last boundary battle. Most of all, they did a fine job of stamping out false rumors.

    Just like last time, if you hear a rumor, check it out. Almost every time, something that sounds unlikely to be true turns out to sound that way because it is, in fact, not true. Our neighbors here learned the trick of simply going to the person or persons each new rumor was about and asking them about it. With that simple method, we developed an effective community of people who knew they could trust each other, a very good working relationship with our school board representative, and an accurate sense of who was spreading the worst of the false rumors.

    If we all use that same playbook again, I predict we'll do just as well.

    All Broadlands residents are always welcomed at meetings of the HOA board of directors. If there's anything you want us to do, or to consider saying on behalf of the community, don't hesitate to come to a meeting and speak your mind. If you don't have time to be there, post your thoughts in these forums, e-mail us, or call us.
     
  6. jdhauer

    jdhauer Active Member

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    My two cents which I *do* communicate to the School Board is that I do not care one iota about keeping Broadlands together or where my kids go to school. I do care that their class sizes come down and the ridiculous overcrowding gets fixed. It certainly didn't happen with the elementary school redistricting this past round. If we are building new schools, then we need to USE THEM and get the class sizes down.
     
  7. vacliff

    vacliff "You shouldn't say that."

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    I *do* care about keeping our community together.
    I am *not* overly concerned about class size because, on average, I don't think they are too big. I agree there are some exceptions.
    I *am* concerned that Loudoun constantly builds new schools when existing ones have hundreds of empty seats or are built because only a few schools in a zone are over capacity when there is room at other schools within that zone. Rather than reconfiguring attendance boundaries, new schools are built years before they are needed.
    But then, we all have our individual concerns.
     
  8. jdhauer

    jdhauer Active Member

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    If your kid never had to get instruction in a hallway because there wasn't a resource room then good for you. My kid has spent part of every day except for the last two school years in the hallway for instruction because of overcrowding. Over at Eagle Ridge, they have split lunch periods for 6th grade because there are too many kids. There's a huge difference in a kindergarten class of 17 and one of 25.

    Go check out the schools as it's been a more than a few years for you, Cliff - actually go in and see. Talk to the teachers. It's not that they are whining and inefficient. If you add a kid here or there it's not so bad but then add a couple of special ed kids on top of that and a couple of English Language Learners and then it's a whole other ball game. We pay the same tax rate as those in other parts of the county and for that, I expect our class sizes to be the same as the rest of the county.
     
  9. T8erman

    T8erman Well-Known Member

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    Why? In what context?

    From a school standpoint, learning should be much more important than who sits next to you in class. I agree with JD that class size is very important in furthering a teachers ability to teach properly. Kids that might need that wee bit of extra attention to succeed might not get it with even a slightly larger class. And as for the teachers, if EVERY class is oversized, that puts an extra burden on them, most likely on their own time.
     
  10. vacliff

    vacliff "You shouldn't say that."

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    In the context of: reducing amount of bus miles driven...why would you ship kids from Broadlands down to Stone Hill Middle School or Creighton's Corner elementary as school staff wanted to do? Especially when Eagle Ridge and Mill Run had room?
    Proximity of kids that may do the same thing as yours...carpools, etc.
    Agree class size is important. In my opinion, class size on average in Loudoun County is not too large.
    I admit I came from a school system that had much larger classroom sizes...30 in elementary and up to 38 in high school, lunch periods that began at 10:am, classes starting at 7am and running until 4pm so start times could be staggered to accommodate everyone.. Oh, and it was one of the highest performing school districts in Michigan at the time. I am NOT advocating sizes like that here.
     
  11. vacliff

    vacliff "You shouldn't say that."

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    Hey..still got two in high school....the "overcrowded" Briar Woods, that still has hundreds of empty parking spaces even though it is over capacity. But that's another issue!
    Admit I haven't been in Mill Run or Eagle Ridge for a while. Although the Principal at Mill Run is very vocal about not wanting his numbers reduced, even though he is way over capacity. I imagine teachers and principals look at things a bit differently.
     
  12. lilpea

    lilpea Member

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    REMINDER:

    Tonight's is the first Public Hearing, LCPS Admin Building (in Broadlands), 7PM:

    from the LCPS Website:
    Two new secondary schools will be opening at the start of the 2014-15 school year – Trailside Middle School (MS-6) located adjacent to Newton-Lee Elementary School and an unnamed high school (HS-6) located adjacent to Rosa Lee Carter Elementary School.
    Another new unnamed high school (HS-8), to be constructed adjacent to Belmont Ridge Middle School in the Lansdowne development, will open at the start of the 2015-16 school year. The opening of these three schools requires the formation of new secondary school attendance zones for the greater Ashburn area[FONT=Calibri,Calibri][FONT=Calibri,Calibri].
    [/FONT]The Loudoun County School Board has scheduled a series of meetings to facilitate the necessary attendance zone changes for the Ashburn and Dulles North area secondary schools. All of the meetings will be open to the public; all persons are invited to attend.
    [/FONT]


    For Public Hearings:

    Advance speaker sign up is available for all attendance zone public hearings. Contact the Department of Planning and Legislative Services at 571-252-1050 by 4:00 p.m. on the day of the public hearing; speakers may also sign up in person at the specific hearing, between 6:00 and 6:25 p.m. Generally, speaker comments are limited to no more than five (5) minuters per person; however, the time may be reduced at the School Board Chairman's discretion.


    I've attached the February 23, 2013 FAQ doc.
     

    Attached Files:

  13. Villager

    Villager Ashburn Village Resident

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  14. Villager

    Villager Ashburn Village Resident

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  15. mdcrim

    mdcrim Member

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    Interesting. Brambleton folks may not be thrilled by this. So a small portion of Belmont Country Club zones to hs-8 and a small portion of Ashburn Farm and Broadlands zone to Broad Run. But most schools stay under capacity. Hmmm.
     
  16. cmbm

    cmbm New Member

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    If you look at this it looks like they would be redoing elementary school zones again if they are trying to keep the feeder system. Broadlands is one of the areas that looks like it would be moved.
     
  17. joy

    joy New Member

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    It is very unlikely that they will redo the ES boundaries. What was presented was the LCPS staff base plan. It is not final in any way, just a first draft to work from. Yes, it does move two Hillside ES attendance zones (DN 30.1 and DN31) to Farmwell Station MS/Broad Run HS. If that's not desired, people need to make that clear to the board. I would think all of Hillside would ideally want to go to 1 MS and 1 HS.
     
  18. MadCat07

    MadCat07 New Member

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    Yes, I'm in DN30.1 and obviously do not like the base plan. If it had to be split, I would have thought that Broadlands would be split North/South (i.e. Mill Run/Hillside feeding different MS/HS). The preference, though, would be to keep all of Broadlands together.
     
  19. twohokies

    twohokies New Member

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    BCC will not stay split. That was the first thing I noticed and after seeing my friends who live there fight to stay together for ES.......... that will be one change coming.
     
  20. twohokies

    twohokies New Member

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    What middle schools feed Briar Woods right now? Would they be splitting middle schools to feed the high schools? With only ES kids, I'm not yet familiar enough with the boundary lines. The plans were a little hard for me to tell what schools the growth was coming from (only streets, i.e. Brambleton).
     

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