FCPS “Study 2” Advantages
Study 2 maintains Hayfield, Island Creek and Lane at Hayfield Secondary and moves in Saratoga from Lee and the Virginia Hills area of Rose Hill. It sends Gunston, Lorton Station, Halley and Newington Forest from HSS to the new South County school. It sends part of Silverbrook to Lake Braddock from HSS. Some highlights of Study 2:
· Study 2 will result in shorter commutes/bus routes. In Study 1, the HSS boundary would stretch 17 miles; in Study 3 it stretches 20 miles. Study 2 keeps the distance from one end of the boundary to the other at less than 10 miles.
· Study 2 makes best use of existing schools. It adds some Hayfield Secondary students to Lake Braddock, currently under capacity. This alternative allows all three schools (South County, HSS, Lake Braddock) and their respective feeder schools to stay under capacity. The other studies put HSS at or near capacity within a few years.
· Study 2 creates TWO community schools. The boundaries for HSS and South County include surrounding neighborhoods. See the maps at:http://www.fcps.edu/fts/planning/townmeeting2.pdf
· Study 2 is the most equitable in terms of diversity. HSS demographics, as well as Lee and Edison demographics, change the least.
· Study 2 relieves overcrowding at HSS, Edison, and Lee and results in well-utilized capacity at South County and Lake Braddock.
· Study 2 sends the majority of the current HSS students where they wanted to be placed. Hayfield Elementary, Lane, and Island Creek remain at HSS. Gunston, Lorton Station, Newington Forest, and Halley will move from HSS to South County.
· New housing is being built along Telegraph Road and Beulah Street: the owners of Hilltop are planning to build additional dense housing near Telegraph Road. Infill development continues, but there is no additional capacity planned in the Hayfield-Edison-Lee area.
We recognize that adjusting attendance area boundaries is not simple. We urge our School Board and FCPS Boundary staff to keep the following points in mind:
· This study includes a large area. The School Board and FCPS should create appropriate boundaries that benefit all schools in the current Hayfield Secondary boundary area.
· FCPS and the School Board should look for "the greater good." They should make their decisions based on which policies benefit students and their families the most. We urge the decision makers to listen to all ideas equally, and evaluate ideas based on their soundness and fairness, and not merely listen to the most vocal groups.
PLEASE e-mail School Board members and the FCPS staff with your support, as well as your comments and concerns at boundaries@fcps.edu. As concerned Hayfield parents, we're convinced that Study 2 is the best for Hayfield Secondary School.
1. NO split feeder schools – FCPS should make it a goal to feed entire elementary schools into one middle school.
o Provides stability and ease for the students
o Transition to middle school is already extremely difficult for the sixth graders.
o These are the crucial formative middle school years and stability is essential in a County where there is so much mobility.
o Avoids pulling one or two neighborhoods from a particular school for the purpose of balancing numbers on paper.
o Supports a more streamlined approach for FCPS administration; reduces administrative burden for FCPS that a split feeder can cause.
o Simplifies cluster management/planning
o Promotes continuity of the neighborhood school concept to the next level.
2. We value diversity and believe that all affected FCPS schools should be equally diverse when the Boundary decision-making process is completed.
3. Hayfield Secondary School (HSS) should remain under capacity after boundaries are redrawn.
o Avoids the need to put students in trailers in the near feature because community growth was not taken into account.
o HSS has been over capacity for twenty years; it is time for HSS to remain under capacity.
4. Three elementary schools should remain together and feed Hayfield Secondary School (HSS): Hayfield, Lane, and Island Creek
o Promotes student safety due to close and convenient proximity to HSS.
o Supports the goal of being under capacity after the boundaries are redrawn. With these three feeders, HSS has a potential population of 2200 students.[1]
5. Four elementary schools should be assigned to the new South County Secondary School based on their proximity to the new school and its capacity: Halley, Lorton Station, Newington Forest, and Silverbrook .
6. The new South County Secondary School should not decimate the staff at the other Cluster V high/secondary schools.
[1] Elementary school capacities are from FCPS web site. Used total capacity and removed an estimated PreK/Kindergarten population. Used grades 1-6 population and assumed that about the same number of students will populate the 6 grades of the secondary school.