Volunteers sought for committees on Annandale school boundary issues
Concerned about overcrowding in Annandale schools? There are new opportunities to get involved and have some input in the decision-making process.
The Fairfax County School Board is seeking volunteers to serve on two new ad hoc committees. One committee will examine overcrowding at the middle and high school levels. The other one will review attendance area options for the new elementary school to be built on the site of the former Lacey Center in the Broyhill Crest neighborhood.
PTA presidents of the 21 schools in the Annandale Regional Planning Study have been asked to select a representative to serve on a committee. Anyone interested in serving—you don’t have to be a parent—should contact the PTA or PTO president of your neighborhood school by July 20.
Participating schools in the study include Annandale, Edison, Falls Church, Lee, Stuart, West Springfield, and Woodson High Schools; Lake Braddock Secondary School; Frost, Glasgow, Holmes, Jackson, and Poe Middle Schools; and Annandale Terrace, Beech Tree, Belvedere, Braddock, Columbia, Sleepy Hollow, Westlawn, and Woodburn Elementary Schools.
Representatives from the participating high schools will examine issues related to overcrowding at Annandale High School (photo at right).
According to a facilities analysis issued in April, Annandale is the most overcrowded high school in the county. It has a current building utilization of 120 percent, and is expected to reach 127 percent by the 2014-15 school year, despite the incremental boundary adjustment moving some students to Falls Church and Lake Braddock.
The appointees from elementary and middle schools will review the scope of the study to establish boundaries for the new elementary school and consider whether the school should serve students in grades K-5 or K-6, which will have an impact on which middle school it should feed into. The middle schools closest to the Lacey site (Poe, Glasgow, and Holmes) have grades 6-8, but most of the county’s middle schools have grades 7-8.
The new school will have a design capacity of approximately 960 students, the facility study states. But “accommodating the special needs of students within the likely service area could result in a program capacity of 750 to 825 students.” The new school could relieve some overcrowding at Annandale Terrace, Beech Tree, Woodburn, and Westlawn, which are projected to have building utilizations ranging from 103 to 149 percent in 2014-15. However, the new school won’t address overcrowding at other elementaries in the region, such as Fairhill, Braddock, Belvedere, and Shrevewood.
Some of the issues the committees will address as part of the boundary discussions include the various programs offered at different schools (some high schools have Advanced Placement, for example, and others have International Baccalaureate programs); transportation obstacles posed by the beltway and other major roads; the need to have a demographic balance; and the need to consider future residential development.
The first meeting of both committees will take place July 20, 7 p.m., in the Annandale High School cafeteria. Both committees are expected to meet regularly until January 2011.
Luther Jackson Middle School is closer to the Lacey Center site than Holmes. Poe is also overcrowded and looking for relief. Luther Jackson also feeds into Falls Church H.S. in which the Broyhill Crest neighborhood now attends. Therefore, it is hopeful that they will make the new elementary school K-6 so they can attend the middle school that feeds into their high school.
As one of the people selected as a representative for Beech Tree Elementary, it is my hope that people will come out to the meeting on July 20th at Annandale High (our kick-off meeting, open to the public). The process that will play out over the next several months will impact everyone with school children in the area as well as others. Having listened to the School Board discuss these committees, one of their big hopes is that the committees will be able to help better facilitate the dialogue/communication between the board and the community. There is no better place for that to start than at the first meeting.