(A peti­tion to stop Fair­fax county’s revised policy 8130)

The school board is consid­er­ing revis­ing Policy 8130, which dictates how school bound­aries can be changed. The School board is trying to reduce the number of students in one class, and major prob­lems with classes being over­crowded, caus­ing hazards like fires in science labs. They will try to enforce these new bound­aries in Fair­fax County schools. This change will impact students and fami­lies who live in Fair­fax County because students will now have to move schools, which can cause havoc. This issue was first discussed in Janu­ary and will continue until today.

It all started as a conse­quence of a school fire in a science class­room. This occurred because there was an over­crowd­ing of students in that class which there­fore resulted in a fire during the lab. The school board decided to reduce the number of students in schools so that this danger­ous inci­dent wouldn’t occur again. Addi­tion­ally, the over­crowd­ing of students serves as an educa­tional and finan­cial prob­lem. The students and their fami­lies now have to go through the trou­bles of find­ing and paying for new schools. This could also cause the need to travel if the school isn’t nearby, or the student can’t get an educa­tion at all.

Some teach­ers, like Justice High School biol­ogy teacher Abigail Slezak, express their opin­ions on the topic. Slezak stated, “I don’t know if it is neces­sar­ily a safety prob­lem, I think it allows a better envi­ron­ment for both the teach­ers and students when there is a better ratio between teach­ers and students.” She then explained how it is not a safety issue, but more of a ratio issue between one teacher and around 30 students that could affect the produc­tiv­ity of a class. “I think it will allow the teacher to have more hands-on with all of the students, if there are less students to keep an eye on, it gives them more one-on-one time to keep all students on track” 

Some students like  Justice High School Senior, Tanim Alam, also expressed their opin­ions on this topic. He stated that he liked the idea, “but it’s not good for juniors and seniors because they have already adapted to the school.” He then explained how it could help with over­crowd­ing in hall­ways and how it could help with saving money and increas­ing produc­tiv­ity. He also expressed his feel­ings about being fine with this new policy and not affect­ing him much because he is already a senior.

Other students also expressed their opin­ions on this topic. Nearly 2,000 students have signed against this  policy. With these many students and teach­ers not liking the revi­sion it raises the ques­tion, Will FCPS crack under all this pressure?

This policy has already been initi­ated in certain schools, such as students from Cooper Middle School being sent to Longfel­low Middle School, and students from Lang­ley High School being sent to McLean High School.

The revi­sion of policy 8130 aims to fix the prob­lems of over­crowd­ing and long bus rides to school and back. This also aims to create better learn­ing condi­tions for all students. What is an alternative?