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Annandale Boundary StudyThese are notes taken by concerned parents at Mantua:DISCLAIMER: Please note that any advocacy group or stance taken on this page or within these links is not a Mantua PTA-endorsed effort, but simply provided here for your information. Please also note that these links may lead you outside the Mantua PTA website, and the content provided there is not controlled, monitored or moderated by the Mantua PTA. Annandale Regional Planning Ad Hoc Committee – Meeting Notes - 10/13/2010 Executive Summary: - There were no proposed Middle and High School boundaries changes discussed for children attending Mantua Elementary (Mantua). - While it has been discussed it is unlikely that additional schools will be invited to have reps on the Ad Hoc Committee. - No boundary changes for Mantua were seriously discussed, although Mantua’s boundaries were used as an example of how tweaks might be made to school boundaries that are in the study area, but not immediately impacted by the Lacey School. The example given was should the homes South of Rt 50 that currently go to Fairhill, Frost and Woodson be moved to Mantua to get rid of the split feeder issue at Fairhill. I heard no talk of moving current Mantua students to a different school. Meeting Notes: In this meeting the group split into two groups. One group looked at the Boundaries for the Lacey School and the second was studying the overcrowding at Annandale HS (AHS) and Poe MS (Poe). I attended the AHS and Poe group as I thought that Mantua parents would be more concerned with items that might come out of that committee. The group addressed the following questions/issues: 1) Should the Ad Hoc Committee be expanded to include Representatives from Elementary and Middle Schools who feed High Schools in the study, but are not currently represented in the group? (Mantua and about 20 others fall into this category) a. At this time it was decided not to formally request other schools be added, which would require school board approval to do and if the committee did recommend that additional schools be added they would have to make a case to the Board which does not have to accept the committee's recommendation. 2) Communication with the elementary schools that feed into the middle and high schools in the study is very important, the committee needs to stop rumors before that start running rampant and communication is the only way to do this. 3) Tessie Wilson (School Board member from Braddock District) encouraged the group to keep focused on the primary issue: How do we solve the overcrowding at AHS and Poe. It was decided that the HS/MS group should break into 3 sub-committees: 1) Communications - Keeping the community informed of the committees work 2) Capacity - Dealing with capacity and enrollment numbers and forecasts at the schools in the study as well as Transportation issues/efficiencies. 3) Programs - What special programs are at witch schools and how many students are in each program. Which programs need special or customized facilities which could be costly or legally impossible (some special ed) to move. Which schools have AP vs. IB programs? Also how many students are not at their base school due to special programs. I attended the Capacity group as I believed that it had the potential to affect Mantua the most. The following ideas/topics were discussed: 1) The K-6 vs. K-5 elementary feeder school structure has the potential to significantly complicate recommendations. 2) The following elementary schools were mentioned for possible HS reassignment (no recommendations came out, just discussion) a. Bren Mar Park (to Lee or Edison, but major transportation issues) b. Park Lawn (all to Stuart instead of split with Annandale, not many children effected if this happens, but doesn’t help much with Annandale overcrowding either) c. Wakefield Forest (The Annandale community does not want to loose this to Woodson) d. North Springfield to Lake Braddock. (mentioned not really discussed) 3) New capacity numbers were provided for study schools. Some changes look very odd, school staff will look into why same changes occurred. (for example Poe Middle is no longer overcrowded) 4) "Crazy Outside the Box Ideas" were put forward: a. Make Holmes MS a 6th grade only school and Poe 7th and 8th for the Annandale Pyramid, this would solve the K-5 vs. K-6 issue at the HS level. It would also open up room at Holmes for centers and special programs. b. Make Holmes MS a 6th and 7th grade school and Poe a 9th and 10th grade school and AHS 10th – 12th . This would solve overcrowding at AHS and Poe, in effect using Holmes (which has space) to take students from Poe allowing Poe to take students from AHS. This might create issues with 9th graders at Poe having access to programs offered at AHS and other HS that might not be easily or cost effective to have at Poe. c. Make Holmes a Small Secondary School 6th – 12th . Such a school would be very small by Fairfax standards at the HS level and how much building modification would be needed. 5) Question was asked to Ms. Wilson (School Board) and staff…”When redistricting students is it considered better to create a domino effect (students are moved from School A to School B so that students from School C can go to School A) or to create an attendance island (Students from School C go to School B, but go past School A to get there). There was no answer given. a. From Mantua’s perspective I believe that islands are strongly preferred over the domino effect. |
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