Parents Speak Out Against Fairfax School Boundary Shifts

A large number of parents from the Fairfax Station "island" community turned out Wednesday evening for the Fairfax County School Board's public hearing on a proposed school boundary line shift - and most of them were not happy.

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and Fairfax City Schools have worked for months on how to redraw school boundary lines in an effort to relieve overcrowding in three of the City's four schools.

The original goal was to try and relieve overcrowding at Fairfax High by 600 students, as it is estimated that the school will reach 600 students over capacity by the 2017-18 school year. 

Oakton High school and two feeder middle schools, Franklin and Luther Jackson, were included as part of the study.

Staff had once considered moving the Penderbrook/Fairfax Farms area to the Oakton attendance area, but "to do so without removing other sections of the current Oakton attendance area simply transfers the significant overcrowding problem from Fairfax to Oakton, unduly burdening that school, which is already projected to be at 109 percent of capacity by the 2017 school year," the most recent proposal says.

Renovation of Oakton High School is scheduled to start in the 2017-2018 school year, and additional students shouldn't be placed there until that project is complete.

Both Franklin and Luther Jackson would also be left untouched, though that could change depending on what amendments school board members add before the May 9 vote.

"Unfairly Targeted"

Many parents from the Fairfax Station community, who face being pulled out of the "Frost-Woodson pyramid" - meaning, their elementary school would no longer feed into Frost Middle School and then Woodson High School - said they felt "unfairly targeted" and that they were being treated as "statistically insignificant" because of their community's small size.

Children from the community would instead go to Robinson Secondary School, according to a plan proposed by school officials.

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Parents cited many reasons for being unhappy with the proposed changes, ranging from long-standing family traditions of attending Frost Middle School and then Woodson High, to longer commutes to school, to potential stress on students who will be moved away from their friends or siblings.

Martin Seanor, a father who lives in the Fairfax Station "island community," said he felt the changes being thrust upon his neighborhood are unfair, considering how "statistically insignificant" they are.

"We only send about 20 kids a year to Woodson," he said.

Seanor appealed to the board to let current families stay where they are, and to only make new families that move into the area change to the new pyramids. He said many people bought their current homes specifically to get their children into Woodson High School.

He also suggested the board could allow families to exempt themselves from the change if they agree to pay tuition to be allowed to go to Woodson if they choose.

Katie Stedham, a Fairfax Station mother, also said she felt unfairly targeted.

"I feel like our community is being targeted as a statistically insignificant island when, if you look at a map, we're not an island," she said.

Stedham said the island was initially created by board members themselves many years ago  "in order to keep Woodson populated."

"Now, our island isn't needed, and you want to clean up the map, and get rid of our island," she said.

The next steps

From here, the FCPS Board is expected to take all of the public input into consideration during a study/work session on April 29.

A vote on the matter is then expected to take place on May 9.

What do you think of the hearing and plan for new boundary lines and pyramids? Tell us in the comments.