top of page
Recent Posts

Understanding SCPS' newly released redistricting information

SCPS has released a wealth of information regarding all 7 options under consideration for the redistricting of Colonial Forge High School. To review all of the information available for each option, please click the link HERE.

There is a lot of information to process here and we are going to walk you through it so that there is a solid understanding of these charts and the associated numbers. This post will focus on understanding exactly what these data represent. Look for an analysis of the new data in another post.

First, let's look at the documents (again this is just for Option 1, there will be a set of these documents for each option on the SB site:)

This is a map that highlights each of the APU's or neighborhoods that will move based on this particular option, in this case Option 1.

There are a few components to the other documents, let's break them down. Starting with the document marked "Option 1 - SBWork Session": first, at the top, we have the list of the neighborhoods that are moving.

APU's in blue go to Mountain View, in green go to Stafford High and the ones in red go to North Stafford. Simple enough so far. Let's move to the next section.

The School Board is using the projected student attendance numbers for year 2020-21, which is why that is the year listed on this part of the document. Underneath the "2020-21" heading, you see the number 2427, which is the projected number of students at CFHS for that school year before any redistricting changes. That number will be the same for every option.

As we move down the column, we see the projected numbers of high school students that will come from each neighborhood; for example, APU 117 - Locklears, etc. is projected to produce 5 high school students in that school year. Continue down the column and you see a "Total" number of students at 502. This is the total number of 20-21 projected students that will be moved out of CFHS, if this option is chosen. The "Final Total" is the final attendance total at CFHS once these students have moved to other high schools.

This is repeated for each high school that will make changes, except for all other schools, students will be added rather than subtracted from the "Final Total" number. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezie. Moving on....

This above section of the document is simply a breakdown of the capacity percentages for each school after students are moved in the option being analyzed, again here Option 1.

NONE of the above information is new information to you if you have been following BTW. We have reported on these options and given you all these numbers that we gathered from the SB work session. The following however, IS new information that we have not had access to yet.

This part of the document, the "Progression Forecast" shows very precisely which students will move and from where over the course of the next 4 years. It is important to remember when interpreting these data that 9th - 11th graders currently at CFHS will be allowed to stay at Forge IF they provide their own transportation. My guess is that SCPS is assuming ALL students will stay at Forge, for the sake of simplicity.

Using APU 164 Augustine North in the above example, starting in the "17-18, 9th" column, the corresponding number is 42. This means that SCPS is projecting that 42 rising 9th graders from Augustine North will NOT attend CFHS next year if this option is chosen. If you continue down the column to the "Total" row, you will see the number 112. This is the total number of rising 9th grade students that will NOT be attending CFHS next year.

If you continue on the APU Augustine North row to the "18-19, 9th, 10th" column, now in blue, you will see there are 2 numbers, 23 and 42. The 42 represents the now 10th graders who did not attend CFHS the previous year but also includes another incoming 9th grade class of 23 kids who won't go to CFHS in year 18-19. The "Total" row at the bottom now reflects this change, showing that 229 students have been successfully moved from CHFS. And so it goes, until you reach 500 students transferred, over 4 years, out of Forge and into one of the other 3 schools.

Does this make sense, questions?

We will be doing a write up analyzing all of the new information in a post to come.


bottom of page