FCPS completes parent meetings on middle school configuration
Fairfax County Public Schools has completed the parent engagement process to determine whether Glasgow, Holmes, and Poe middle schools should be reconfigured to serve just grades 7 and 8.
According to a FAQ issued by FCPS, the only reason for making the change is for consistency. The schools in Mason District are the only ones in the county that have middle schools with grades 6-8 and elementary schools with grades 1-5.
The school board in February approved two motions by Mason school board member Ricardy Anderson to study the grade configuration issue.
One motion called for a program audit of middle schools with grade 6 to determine whether that arrangement offers the most efficient use of facilities or meets instructional best practices. The other motion called for finding out how parents and caretakers feel about the issue.
FCPS conducted five parent meetings and additional focus groups, and asked parents to complete a survey by April 15. Recordings of the parent engagement meetings are online.
The school board will receive a report on the results of the parent engagement process by April 30, which will inform their decision on the matter. If the school board decides to change the grade configuration, it wouldn’t take effect before the 2023-24 school year.
According to the FAQ: “If any changes were to be made, it would provide consistency among all of FCPS’ middle schools. They would either be all grades 6-8 or all grades 7-8.”
Changing the grade configuration at the three Mason District middle schools means moving sixth-graders to elementary schools, which would create a host of challenges involving facilities, transportation, and staffing.
Following a recent boundary adjustment, Parklawn Elementary School is already overcrowded. It currently has a large modular unit plus seven trailers. “Parklawn receiving sixth grade would create a moderate to substantial capacity deficit,” the FAQ states.
At the same, Glasgow would become underutilized if it were to lose the sixth grade.
“Educational research has not identified consensus on an ideal middle school grade configuration in terms of student achievement outcomes,” the FAQ says. “Rather, research indicates that a high-quality educational experience has a greater impact than any specific grade level configuration.”
Related story: FCPS considers moving grade 6 to elementary school
Because there are pros and cons to moving sixth-graders to elementary schools, FCPS staff does not recommend changing the grade configuration at Glasgow, Holmes, and Poe.
The grade configuration in nearly all Mason District schools (elementary schools with grades K-5, middle schools with grades 6-8, and high schools with grades 9-12) is the most common in the U.S.
That configuration supports research findings showing that students today enter adolescence much earlier than 50 years ago, an FCPS study released in January states. “A particular strength of the middle school model for sixth-grade students is greater access to specialized teachers and programs.”
That report mentions one concern about sixth graders in middle school: They are exposed to older teens that might put them at risk for negative peer influences by older students. That situation could be mitigated by maintaining the sixth grade as a more self-contained unit.
If the grade configuration were to change, “staffing models would need to be reviewed in light of the movement of students from one school to another,” the FAQ says.
“This would likely result in destaffing in middle schools,” it continues. “Teacher endorsements differ for elementary and middle school teachers. This could require the school board to begin a reduction in force (RIF) process for teachers who cannot be transferred to new teaching assignments.
3 responses to “FCPS completes parent meetings on middle school configuration”
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It is ridiculous that Mason District is structured so differently than the rest of the county. It does not help that Mason is one of the poorest performing district so everything that happens in Mason is seen as the problem. Consistency across the county in resources and curriculum is the only way to improve the County’s lagging performance. Sadly, the AAP centers and differentiation has hurt the lower income kids in the county. Instead of addressing the issue and providing resources, standards have been lowered (TJ is an excellent example).
Have you read what the experts have said and just choose to ignore them, or have you not read what they are saying?
Mason is just like Loudoun county, Arlington County, and the vast majority of school systems throughout the country. It is the rest of FCPS that is not consistent with national norms.
Still – FCPS staff have cited research that shows grade alignment does not affect the quality of education or test scores. So why you are suggesting that introducing “consistency” would improve performance is baffling. I’d be interested if you have any peer reviewed research to back up those claims, and therefore refute the FCPS claims.
What DOES impact learning is not having sufficient facilities to adequately handle the students. Parklawn has been made ridiculously crowded, and is justly called out as a situation that absolutely cannot afford to be made worse. I will repeat however that within a few years Sleepy Hollow will also be over capacity, and that is after they made “use adjustments” to drastically cut the number of rooms available to special education. So, if you think “conformance” that would shove more kids into already crowded elementary schools and not provide sufficient resources to teach special needs kids would help improve performance, I seriously want to know who your supplier is, because you got some good stuff!!!
The poor schools in mason is what kept property values low enough for me to afford a house and as a dink I’m not really interested in throwing more money (property tax) at it. I believe mason has the highest spending per student already.