School Board to Consider Annandale Regional Study Recommendation

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Facilities Planning Services staff members posted their boundary recommendation for the Annandale Regional Study on Friday, June 17. The changes will be presented to the Fairfax County School Board this Thursday, June 23.

In a news release by FCPS (full text below), the recommendation was summarized as follows:

The recommended boundary changes reflect community feedback and the School Board’s objectives and policies. Recommendations include:

• The attendance area recommendation for the new elementary school (K-5) at the Lacey site would reassign students from , Beech Tree, Belvedere, and Woodburn Elementary Schools, eliminate the attendance area islands for Woodburn and Pine Spring Elementary Schools, and eliminate the current middle and high school split feeders for Belvedere and Beech Tree Elementary Schools. Other elementary school changes include reassigning a portion of Pine Spring to Beech Tree and a portion of Annandale Terrace to Woodburn and corresponding feeder schools.
• The recommended attendance area changes at the middle school level would eliminate the current split feeder for Wakefield Forest Elementary and the noncontiguous boundary for . To accommodate the proposed changes, the staff recommends placement of a temporary 6-8 room modular unit at Frost Middle School until permanent capacity can be constructed in conjunction with the planned renovation at Frost within six to seven years. The approximate cost of the modular is $3 million. 
• The recommended attendance area changes at the high school level include reassigning students who live in the Bren Mar Park attendance area from to Edison High School and students who live in the Wakefield Forest attendance area from Annandale to Woodson High School. These proposed changes would alleviate the overcrowding at Annandale by reassigning approximately 121 students from Annandale in the 2012-13 school year, increasing to approximately 441 students in the 2016-17 school year.  Other changes include reassigning students who live in the Pine Spring Elementary attendance area from Falls Church to Stuart High School.  The phase-in of the boundary change begins with rising ninth grade students in the 2012-13 school year. 

The School Board is also asking residents who attended the community dialogue meetings to submit their feedback by completing this survey. The survey will close Friday, July 8 at 4:30 p.m.

Registration is also open for residents who wish to speak at the Annandale Regional Study public hearings. You can sign up to speak by registering online or by calling 571-423-1075.

Following the public hearings on Monday, July 11 and Tuesday, July 12, the School Board will hold a work session on the recommendations on Monday, July 18, and will vote on the proposed boundary changes at its business meeting on Thursday, July 28.

Check back with Annandale Patch on Friday, June 24 for details from the presentation to the School Board on Thursday, June 23.