Parents and residents gave their feedback to the Annandale Regional Planning Study committee (ARPSC) at the second of four outreach meetings last night at Annandale High School (AHS).

Jennifer McGarey, co-chair of the high school sub-committee and Poe Middle School representative and current AHS Parent Teacher-Student Association president Emily Slough delivered a modified version of their presentation on Jan. 10 to the Fairfax County Public Schools School Board on Thursday night. Most of the board, including School Board representatives Sandy Evans (Mason District) and Tessie Wilson (Braddock District), who were both present at Thursday’s outreach meeting, said they were impressed with the committee’s work at Monday’s presentation.

The planning committee was formed in July 2010 to propose options for a new elementary school at the Lacey site in Annandale and to relieve the overcrowding at Poe and AHS. "We did not look at the cost, instructional changes we needed or facility modifications. Our job was to simply come up with options,” said McGarey.

The other high schools included in the study are: Edison High School, Falls Church High School, Lake Braddock High School, Lee High School, Stuart High School, West Springfield High School, Woodson High School, Holmes Middle School, Glasgow Middle School, Frost Middle School and Jackson Middle School.

According to the presentation, AHS is 120 percent over capacity, making it the most crowded high school in Fairfax County. It’s estimated 2,730 students will attend AHS in 2015 unless changes are made to alleviate the overcrowding. McGarey said AHS currently can’t fit all students in their gym and teachers no longer have the space to help students who need additional help or wish to speak with their teacher in private. Many of the middle schools are also projected to be over capacity by 2015. Poe is estimated to reach 110 percent over capacity.

During the meeting, parents expressed several concerns with the options. One parent felt the committee offered the School Board recommendations rather than options and requested they give options instead because he thought the committee’s approach “unfairly represented those who strongly believe boundary changes are needed”.

Another parent asked about the effect Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) will have on the capacity numbers.

“We are monitoring that very carefully because we know that that is going to have an impact,” said Denise James, director of facilities planning with the Facilities and Transportation department of FCPS. McGarey said the committee noted the effect of BRAC in the report, but BRAC was not listed as a factor not in the previous study., You might have some clustering in certain areas, but I don’t necessarily think everyone’s going to end up at a particular school,” said Slough. Parents were assured parents that the numbers the facilities staff will use in March will be the most up-to-date capacity numbers.

One issue a parent brought up, which is noted in the committee’s report, is that students who begin at AHS be allowed to finish there. The parent explained that to not allow this would negatively affect the students’ college applications because they lay the foundation in organizations as freshman and sophomores and take on leadership roles come junior and sophomore years.

ARPSC Non-Boundary Scenario Options

The proposed non-boundary scenario options in the committee’s presentation (in no particular order or rank) are:

• Scenario A: Have a 6-12 model all in one school, making Holmes a 6-7 grade school, Poe a 8-9 grade school and AHS to a 10-12 grade school. This option alleviates overcrowding at AHS, but increases it at Poe, so modifications would be required. One advantage would be that 8th grade kids would have access to 9th grade curriculum.
• Scenario B: Make Poe and Holmes a 7-9 grade school. This would require a grade 6 to be added to all elementary schools.
• Scenario C: All middle schools in study area become 7-8th grade middle schools and a grade 6 gets added to all elementary schools. Annandale stays a 9-12th grade school; this scenario does not alleviate overcrowding at Annandale and would require a boundary change.
• Scenario D: Create a small secondary school at Holmes and move 6th grade to feeder elementary school. Poe becomes a 7-8 grade school with an Academic Advancement Program (AAP) center. There is currently no advanced academic program feeds into Annandale. Holmes would be a 7-12th grade secondary school.
• Scenario E: The least favorite option of the committee would move center-based Special Education programs to Stuart and/or Woodson and open up five classrooms at AHS.

Although the committee thinks the non-boundary solutions will relieve the overcrowding at AHS and future overcrowding at Poe while moving only a minimum number of students, McGarey noted one scenario presented may not be enough and that the School Board may consider combining the scenarios in their final decision.

Factors the committee said made the study complicated are the curriculum differences between schools, transportation, the almost 800 students that live within walking distance of AHS, among other factors.

ARPSC Boundary Scenario Options

Three of the proposed boundary scenarios (see the full presentation for the complete list of scenarios) by the committee are:

• Scenario Annandale Terrace: The Annandale Terrace Elementary School/new school at the Annandale Lacey site option would move all Poe students who reside north of 236 to Jackson MS. Those students already feed into Falls Church High School.
• Scenario Bren Mar Park (east): This option would move AHS kids who live east of I-395 to Edison pyramid because they’re closer to Edison than AHS. “However, the issue there is Bren Mar Park is a K-5 school, Twain, a 7-8 school is the feeder school to Edison High, so the question is do you still have to leave those kids to Poe or Holmes for middle school. Right now they go to Poe, which is another issue because they’re bused past Holmes every day,” said McGarey.
• Scenario North Springfield: Move AHS students who live outside of I-495 to Lake Braddock or Lee pyramid if there’s somewhere to send them for 6 grade. If not, they stay at Holmes and then go to Lee or Lake Braddock.

Once the outreach meetings are complete and the committee will collect all community feedback and make one more presentation to the School Board. The FCPS Facilities and Transportation will work with Instructional Services and other departments to develop their own proposals. Facilities will then take those proposals to the School Board who will have a final vote in July.

All materials from the study, including the full elementary school and middle school and high school presentations, the full report, elementary school survey and the middle and high school survey (as of Friday) can all be found online at the planning study’s website.