Fairfax County school officials gained little ground this week in selling parents on a high school redistricting plan that would send more students to an underpopulated but less-affluent high school in the western end of the county.
Calls to scuttle the entire proposal were echoed Wednesday at a public forum in Oakton, where residents overwhelmingly railed against the proposition to expand the student body of South Lakes High School in Reston with chunks of surrounding districts.
Opponents framed the redistricting as an attempt to “dilute” the problems of South Lakes, where more students are on free- and reduced-lunch programs, speak limited English and, in general, fall behind students from surrounding schools on standardized tests.
Some South Lakes parents, however, said their school has been unfairly maligned amid the rancor.
“That’s kind of typical for this sort of situation,” said Maria Allen, vice president of the South Lakes High School Parent Teacher Student Association. “The truth of the matter is that a lot of affluent people don’t want to send their kids to schools that have a large low-income population.”
Allen, who emphasized that she did not speak for the PTSA, called South Lakes an “excellent school” that nevertheless lagged in population because parents chose surrounding districts because of statistics and demographics. The school now serves about 1,400 students and has a capacity for 2,100.
Schools whose enrollments would shrink under the boundary redrawing, such as Westfield, Madison and Chantilly highs, are near or over their capacity.
School Board member Phillip Niedzielski-Eichner acknowledged that the “vast majority” of the hundreds of people attending the Wednesday night meeting opposed the boundary change. He and other member have declined to comment on the redistricting until it reaches the board in January.
Mary Chamberlain, part of a crowd in one room at the forum, joined others in calling for a moratorium on the boundary change. The school system, she said, shouldn’t rob from Oakton, which is not overenrolled, to “dilute another school’s population.”
2008 enrollments
» South Lakes:
Before redistricting: 1,389 After redistricting: 1,615
» Madison:
Before redistricting: 1,868
After redistricting: 1,850
» Westfield:
Before redistricting: 3,050
After redistricting: 2,981
» Chantilly:
Before redistricting: 2,753
After redistricting: 2,688
Note: Projected enrollments under a new school board proposal
Source: Fairfax County Public Schools
