Part 2: Wakefield Chapel Community Divided Over Annandale Study Recommendation

This is part two of an article about the Wakefield Chapel community in Annandale and the Annandale Regional Study recommendation from Fairfax County Public Schools. Read part one .

Not All Parents Opposed

Not all Wakefield community parents are against the proposal to move Wakefield Forest Elementary School students from Annandale High School to Woodson High School.

"The capacity issues at should be of concern to any parent, administrator, or student. The staff recommendation removes a sufficient number of children from Annandale High School to relieve the overcrowding in the long term," said Kelly Gerber, a Wakefield Chapel resident.

There’s also an anonymous blog called the Wakefield V.O.I.C.E, dedicated to supporting the recommendation to move WFES students to Frost and Woodson. According to the blog, over 200 people from Wakefield Chapel have signed a petition in support of the recommendation. The parents behind the blog, according to the site, “live in neighborhoods to the east and west of Wakefield Chapel Road in Annandale” and  “support the FCPS Staff recommendation to alleviate the overcrowding at AHS. We believe it removes enough students to alleviate the overcrowding, and provides a long-term solution by providing balance to the region.”

In a post published on Monday, June 20, the groups lists five main reasons for supporting the recommendation: it “provides enrollment relief for Annandale HS that serves the long term…balances HS enrollment in the region…eliminates the only K-6 feeder into a 6-8 middle school in the county…minimizes impact on ESOL and FRL populations… and it permits liberal grandfathering." The posts also lists statistics for the AHS population to support their claims.

Some parents who are opposed to the move said the parents who support the recommendation likely have not had children go through Poe or AHS and are afraid of the unknown. “I understand where those parents are coming from, but they don’t know what they’re going to get until they get there,” said Ellen Rolen, who has a rising junior at AHS and a rising 7th grader at Poe. Mclean agreed. “You don’t understand the value of the school and what it gives to your child until you get there.”

The V.O.I.C.E blog parents disagree with the view that parents who support the recommendation don't have children in the schools affected. In a post on Saturday, June 11 that reads: “There are those in the community who try to paint us as a small group of parents with elementary age children from the east side of Wakefield Chapel. On the contrary, as you can see by the survey results and as shown on the map below, we are part of a group of over 150 parents and families who have children of all ages, including high school, and who live on both sides of Wakefield Chapel Road. Some of us do not have children.  Some of us have children of elementary school age. Some of us have children who attend or will attend Poe MS and Annandale HS; some of us have children who attend or will attend Frost MS and Woodson HS.”

Stories about gangs and other violence at AHS from previous years are still wide spread in the community, which is why some of the parents said they think other parents are afraid. “We’re not naïve to think our school has problems, but we have a normal high school,” said Charlie Curran, whose daughter is a rising senior at AHS.

Some of the students also disagree with the rumors about violence. “During my four years at AHS, I have never had a single moment in which I felt uncomfortable or unsafe—any vague rumors you might hear about gangs and violence at AHS simply do not apply to the school anymore,” Fruchterman wrote in her A-Blast editorial.

AHS May Lose Talented Students

By removing the WFES community, AHS could potentially lose 13 percent of its International Baccalaureate students, 17 percent of its athletes, 8 percent of the students in performing arts and 28 percent of its parent leaders. [See chart below, of data collected by Slough for the regional study, which shows the impact of the last boundary change for AHS and the additional impact to the AHS community should the current recommendation be approved.]

Last Boundary Change
(9-10% pop.reduction)

*According to Slough, the variance in the figures numbers is a reflection of the fact that the last boundary change is still ongoing (all those kids have not left AHS). The School Board will not consider parental involvement in their decision.

The change from IB, which is introduced to middle school students at Poe and continues at AHS, to the Advanced Placement program used at Woodson is an additional concern for some parents. If the recommendation is adopted, Poe Middle School students will have no choice but to transition to the AP program.

“The opportunities that kids at AHS as a whole get are so different from other schools. The IB program at AHS gets you into the better schools and gives you the skills you need in college, not just giving you the credit to go further,” said Rolen.

Rolen said she pulled her daughter of the Frost Middle School GT/AP program at Frost so that she could go to Poe and feed into AHS. Now she’s unsure where her daughter will go, but she wants her to go to the middle school that feeds into AHS.

|  Part 3: Wakefield Parents Believe Loss of WFES frin AHS Coudl Impact Funds, Volunteers

Editor's note: This story has been updated to add an addendum to the above chart with a note.