| Parents
Look at Transfer Options |
By Leslie Perales
Observer Staff Writer |
| With the Fairfax County School Board's decision last week
to revamp school boundaries in the western part of the county,
some parents in the Fox Mill and Floris area are considering
applying for a transfer so their children do not have to attend
South Lakes High School. |
| The redistricting will bring students from the Fox Mill
Elementary School attendance area and a portion of the Floris
attendance area to South Lakes. Before the redistricting,
Fox Mill students attended Oakton High School and Floris students
were at Westfield. |
| Stacy Gullette, who has a son in seventh grade at Rachel
Carson Middle School, said she would not send him to South
Lakes High School and will instead apply for a school transfer.
She said thinks parents should be able to choose whether their
children go to a school with an International Baccalaureate
or Advanced Placement program. "People who want AP should
have that right," Gullette said. |
| Jay Kelkar, whose daughter is in eighth grade at Rachel
Carson, said his family is also looking into the option of
transferring their children to another school. He said Westfield
is unlikely because they reached their capacity this year,
so he is looking at Herndon and Oakton. |
| The transfer process requires students who want to attend
another school to apply for an initial or high school curricular
transfer, and then they must apply for renewal each subsequent
year. The principals at both the original and the transfer
schools or the Office of Social Work and Support Services
decide to approve or reject applicants. Transfers also depend
on space availability. |
| South Lakes High School Principal Bruce Butler said he tries
to meet with all students who request to transfer into or
out of the school. "I try to meet with all of them to make
sure they have the best information to make an important decision,"
he said. "With the boundary change for some families it's
a change of a school, so they're opting to look at the advanced
academic programs at the schools that surround us." |
| If a high school student attends a school not offering an
academic program they want to enroll in, they may request
a curricular transfer to go to a neighboring school that has
the program. This includes students who attend a school that
offers AP who would rather take IB and vice versa. However,
conditions of the transfer must be maintained for a student
to renew their application. |
| For example, if a student has transferred to take an AP
class and they want to stay at that high school, they must
cite another specific academic program as the reason for the
renewal. |
| High school curricular transfers must have a program reason
for the request, said Paul Regnier, coordinator for the school
system's Office of Community Relations. "You would have to
make your case," he said. "For instance, if there were specific
AP classes available at another school." |
| According to FCPS regulations, parents with siblings who
are split into different schools because of a boundary change
have another option. They can request that the student not
affected by the boundary change be included in the change
so their children can attend one school. |
| A list of schools at capacity for the 2007-08 school year
included Westfield and Chantilly high schools. "Any school
on the enrollment capacity list can only take a very limited
number of students," said Cindy Dickinson, coordinator for
the Office of Social Work and Support Services. Because of
this, principals at those schools must plan carefully and
leave room for students moving into the area over the summer,
she said. The capacity for schools for 2008-09 will be released
June 1. |
| "Generally speaking, student transfers don't affect a large
number of our students," Dickinson said. She said about 5,500
students were approved to transfer this year, which was a
small number given that there are 165,000 students enrolled
in the entire school system. |
| Other reasons for transferring include if a parent is an
FCPS employee who works 20 or more hours per week in or near
a different school than the one the student attends. Also,
if a student's family relocates or if they are undergoing
medical, emotional, social or family adjustment hardship they
may opt to transfer. Additionally, students in elementary
school can transfer due to childcare hardship. These options
require documented proof. |
| High school curricular transfer requests are due by April
15 and must be submitted to the principal at the base school.
Initial transfer requests for reasons other than high school
curricular must be completed by June 1 and turned in to the
Office of Social Work and Support Services. |
