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Coppermine boundary study approved
Schools staff are now developing preliminary boundary options to populate the new Coppermine elementary school, scheduled to open next year.
The school is now under construction at 2480 River Birch Road in the Herndon area.
At its Sept. 4 public hearing, the Fairfax County School Board unanimously voted to include Floris, Herndon, Hutchison, McNair and Oak Hill elementary schools as the initial subjects of the boundary study. The schools were chosen according to 12 criteria that were also unanimously voted upon at the meeting.
One of those criteria, "to provide socioeconomic and ESOL balance," was a touchstone of a recent lawsuit against the school board by parents affected by the 2007 Western High School Boundary Study.
Attorney Steven Stone, who represented the parents in that case, argued to Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Gaylord L. Finch Jr. that the school board was practicing “social engineering” by considering enrollment in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs, as well as the number of students receiving free- and reduced-price meals, as criteria in the boundary decision.
Finch ruled that the criteria had been employed within the board's authority.
"I want to make a very important distinction," said Superintendent Jack Dale at the Sept. 4 meeting. "Since I have been here, in terms of boundary processes, there has never been an overt board decision to say that 'These schools should be included and these should not.' This is the first time we are doing that and we are basically just identifying which school families should get a notice about how their neighborhoods may be involved in a boundary change."
Floris resident Mary Mireles, who is the mother of of a Floris Elementary student, asked the board to exclude neighborhoods affected by the controversial 2007 western high school boundary study in the Coppermine study.
"Children thrive in a stable and consistent environment," she said. "The Floris community will experience its sixth redistricting in nine years and potentially its third elementary school change in 10 years."
Hunter Mill school board member Stuart Gibson replied that Floris neighborhoods have never had their elementary boundary changed at all.
"I think that because that because one of the reasons that we are opening the new school in the first place is to relieve overcrowding at Floris Elementary, I think it would limit our options severely if we were to take a whole bunch of Floris neighborhoods off the table. That's not to say they are going to move, that is to say that we need to keep our options open as we go into the process," Gibson said.
The board also approved a study of Gunston, Halley, Lorton Station, Newington Forest and Silverbrook Elementary Schools for populating the new Laurel Hill Elementary School in Lorton.
You live in Fairfax County and you never miss a function at your child’s school. You pay the County taxes and you go to every PTA meeting to raise more money for your school. If you live in the County and your children attend the public schools, get ready for “boundary studies”. That’s a nice phrase which means your child will be plucked from your neighborhood.
We saved for years. We made sacrifices each day to purchase a house in a community that includes an elementary school filled with good kids and engaged parents. I read the Coppermine boundary study and they want to move our children to another school after they just told us our high school has changed. Thank goodness someone provided a second option that minimized the disruption to our children. I hope the option that puts children first is adopted. Contact your school board member and get to know them. Pretty soon they will be voting to move your children to satisfy the latest social experiment or to relive some perceived capacity problem based on decade-old models.
Fred
Herndon, VA
Posted by Fred
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