Opponents of the Fairfax County School Board’s decision to move school boundaries have filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the late February vote that funnels students into an underpopulated and lower-performing high school.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in Fairfax County Circuit Court on behalf of about a dozen affected parents and was announced Monday by the Fairfax Coalition of Advocates for Public Schools, an umbrella organization that led public opposition in the months leading to the Feb. 28 decision.
The suit charges the school board failed to garner adequate citizen input on which neighborhoods would be considered in the boundary study, that the decision does not improve the affected schools, and that the board overstepped its authority in considering socioeconomic factors in the decision, among other legal qualms.
“People spent thousands upon thousands of hours researching and giving [the school board] information; they ignored most of it,” said Nick Pesce, president of FairfaxCAPS. “Not one of the suggestions was considered.”
Pesce said the redistricting amounts to “bringing out a nuclear weapon for a small problem.”
“They always bring out the redistricting for every little problem we have, and they don’t look at any alternatives,” he said.
School board members who support the decision say the redistricting was necessary to correct a problem of student underpopulation at South Lakes High School, by drawing from some adjacent neighborhoods where students would have attended Westfield, Oakton or Madison high schools.
But South Lakes also has a comparatively larger population ofpoor and limited English-speaking students than the surrounding schools, as well as overall lower test scores. The disparity drew accusations of social engineering.
School board members have rejected the criticisms, though acknowledging the public response to the boundary shift was predominantly negative during numerous public hearings.
School Board Chairman Dan Storck on Monday said he has urged throughout the process that opponents invest their money and time in improving their schools instead of mounting a lawsuit.
“Our boundary process is very thorough,” he said.
