A revised policy for adjusting school boundaries appears to have most of the Fairfax County School Board’s support ahead of a possible vote next month.
While most members agreed that the current policy needs an overhaul to address capacity issues across Fairfax County Public Schools, some expressed reservations at a work session on Tuesday (June 25).
In particular, Mason District representative Ricardy Anderson raised concerns that a countywide boundary review, while necessary for the long term, could take too long to implement for schools already struggling with crowding.
She criticized the school board for rejecting a proposal in March that would’ve defined a scope for boundary changes to address capacity issues at Glasgow Middle School in Lincolnia. The board instead decided to hit pause on any adjustments until a “holistic” review is completed.
“These plans are well and good, but they are years out, and we have a tired principal, tired staff and frankly, a tired community who is sick and tired of having their kids walk elbow-to-elbow in the hallway when there is relief to be found nearby and they want it,” Anderson said.
What’s in the new boundary policy
In the works for months, the new policy 8130 requires all school boundaries to be reviewed concurrently every five years, a more comprehensive and “holistic” approach. The existing policy allowed boundary adjustments on a case-by-case basis, initiated by individual board members.
The new policy outlines specific criteria that the superintendent should prioritize when recommending adjustments to the school board, including capacity, access to programming, proximity, and travel time. Right now, the superintendent can recommend changes to reduce capacity or improve travel times, but there isn’t a clear hierarchy of priorities for initiating a boundary adjustment.
School board members also added language requiring community engagement before and after comprehensive boundary reviews, including in-person and virtual meetings and surveys.
More immediate relief needed, Anderson says
To relieve currently strained schools like Glasgow, which is utilizing 95% of its capacity, Anderson suggested the board retain the flexibility to make immediate adjustments while Superintendent Michelle Reid develops a broader plan.
“I believe that work should be moving forward and not be stopped, particularly since we have a community that wants it,” she said. “They’ve been asking for it. They’ve advocated for it. It makes sense.”
However, Braddock District Representative Rachna Sizemore-Heizer says other schools are facing similar issues, and continuing with a piecemeal approach would undermine the purpose of a holistic review.
“The reality is that one of the big reasons for this cyclical review is that there are many, many schools, not just in Dr. Anderson’s district…that have been dealing with overcrowding, trailers and access to programming,” Sizemore-Heizer told FFXnow. “You could do a one-off, but if we really did a one-off to address all of them, you basically are going to be doing the cyclical review.”
Still, Anderson said it would be tough to complete a countywide boundary study in a timely manner, and she’s concerned the situation at Glasgow might not be resolved for years.
“I can’t fathom a circumstance where the superintendent can see that we need to make boundary adjustments in multiple places across the division, and all of that happening at once,” she said. “We just don’t have that kind of manpower.”
The language in the proposed policy has also raised some concerns. Last week, the Great Falls Citizens Association (GFCA) executive board urged FCPS and the school board to pause the process until more community input is gathered.
A GFCA representative told FFXnow that some families have said the policy is confusing and vague, its use of terms like “may” and “shall” creating uncertainty around how phasing and other aspects of the boundary adjustment process will be handled.
Sizemore-Heizer says the governance committee intentionally kept the language regarding phasing broad to give the superintendent flexibility to develop a plan that will address the county’s needs, not just individual schools.
“I want to gather community feedback and any other input Dr. Reid plans to bring in, whether from experts or otherwise,” she said. “I want to have all that information to inform what I believe would constitute good phasing, rather than me deciding now without that information.”
School board members indicated that they could vote on the proposed boundary adjustment policy in July, though a date hasn’t been officially scheduled yet.
“In general, I felt like people didn’t have a ton of changes,” Sizemore-Heizer said. “They were uplifting about the policy, which to me, seemed like that was that maybe we landed in a good spot…With 12 people, it’s always hard to get everything right…But I think, in general, it feels like it’s in a good spot.”
