But for some reason, even though the rental properties directly north of Church Run and Barrington and Windsor Place were slated for Tucker under one plan, the affluent neighborhoods across the street were NOT considered for Tucker.

Your point about Pairing 2 having more splits seems well-reasoned, until you consider that each time a split is eliminated, you are actually disrupting a current feeder pattern. Although you may think that is better for the county, others do not agree. The predominant preference is for keeping boundaries at each grade level the same as they are now. Kids have friends in their immeidate neighborhoods, and the redistricting guidelines preserve neighborhoods. Reducing the splits can cause other problems — such as the Deep Run Park neighborhoods that would move to Tucker under Pairing 1 — that reduces a split, but also eliminates a walking neighborhood.

You do have a good point on the over-crowding at Colonial Trail. However, that is an elementary school issue that will be addressed by sending some of the kids to Shady Grove, and others to Nuckol’s Farm, Twin Hickory, or wherever there is space. The number of splits will increase, or decrease, depending on what HCPS staff can find as the best solution at the elementary level as they work on additional adjustments in the next week. Alternatively, send the Colonial Trail 5th graders to Short Pump MS which is under-utilized. In fact, we should be looking at re-allocating grade levels across all the middle and high schools, because there is a lot of excess capacity in the middle schools. This could help delay building another West End HS for 5 years.

Maybe if we authorize the school administration to be creative problem solvers, they will do better work for us and save us money. I know they want to be creative — they are smart people. They just need our encouragement. But that is a digression from what I really want to focus on, which is a clear statement of the root cause of this whole issue, and why Wyndham Forest should own being part of the solution, rather than trying to push others into different schools so they can stay at Deep Run.

Here is the core issue:

Deep Run is already over capacity, and there will be 23% more high school aged students in the current Deep Run HS boundary by 2015 (this is simple math based on the HCPS census tract data).

The population boom is led by Wyndham Forest, which will have the largest percentage increase of HS aged students in the entire current Deep Run HS district — a 118% increase! Compare this to all of Wyndham, which will have only a 20% increase, and areas south of Broad that are being pushed out of Deep Run HS under both plans, where HS aged student populations are going to decrease by 10% in the next 7 years.

It takes a detailed review of the maps and census tables to really understand that the cause of redistricting is over-development in your area, and the solution should be owned locally, in your area. It is not reasonable to expect other areas of the county to shuffle around so you can stay at Deep Run HS for another year or two. And that is all you have, because the development to your immediate west will surely push you out of Deep Run HS.

I will get deep into the tall grass on this, based on my observation of the redistricting process and how the redistricting committee made certain decisions and avoided certain options. However, in the end, the solution is well-reasoned and defensible, as long as you agree that your own population explosion is causing the problem, and it is your problem to own and solve locally.

The Wyndham Forest resident who wrote this opinion piece wants to stay at Deep Run HS. The only way to do that is to push other communities out of Deep Run HS. That was done with Wellsley, Church Run, Barrington, and Windsor Place, which put Godwin over capacity. So some of Colonies was moved out of Godwin and into Deep Run. From what I hear, The Colonies had a mixed view on this — some are OK with moving, others want to stay at Godwin. The Sadler Road area in Innsbruck was also pushed out of Deep Run HS. Still, Deep Run would go over capacity in 2013 unless more neighborhoods are moved out.

At that point, it comes down to Wyndham Forest moving to the New HS versus keeping Colonies at Godwin, which would trigger a shuffle that would have been disruptive for Canterbury-Kingsley, Pemberton Corridor, and Crestview. Those neighborhoods united and pushed back — their argument was that established neighborhoods with negligible student population growth should not have to shuffle around when the issue is being caused by over-development north of I-295. That push back was successful.

Alternatively, had Windsor Place – Barrington – Church Run been moved directly from Deep Run to Tucker, the shuffle could have been avoided, room for the Colonies at Godwin would have been opened up, Wyndham Forest could stay at Deep Run, and the disruption would have been minimized. But for some reason, even though the rental properties directly north of Church Run and Barrington and Windsor Place were slated for Tucker under one plan, the affluent neighborhoods across the street were considered for Tucker. Some argued that it would have resulted in a small split of Pocahontas children attending Tucker, but that was specious — the split was larger than several splits in the current plans under consideration. Regardless, that option was never debated.

So it comes down to Pairing 2, which moves Wyndham Forest out of Deep Run and into the New HS, or Pairing 1, which moves the neighborhoods west and north of Deep Run Park out of Godwin and into Tucker. Both neighborhoods are in walking distance. The Deep Run Park neighborhoods walk to Godwin — there are paths through the grass along Ridgefield Parkway, and through back yards behind Godwin HS. Meanwhile Wyndham Forest students don’t walk to Deep Run HS — Nuckols Road is a dangerous intersection with dump trucks barreling through the Twin Hickory intersection. The students ride in cars — bus usage is low. This was documented by the external consultant and HCPS staff, and known by the committee when they voted. The results were close, but did favor the Godwin community that is more established, and put the disruption back to the Deep Run community where growth is out-pacing school capacity (and which is near where the New HS is being built, the HS that is being built to relieve the crowding in the first place).

In the end, it came down to 4 issues which, in combination, moved you out of Deep Run:

–Your area is over-crowded.

–Established neighborhoods held firm and pushed the committee to follow the guidelines

–The committee avoided moving some affluent neighborhoods to Tucker

–It is inevitable that you must move — the development to your immediate west forces you out by 2015, regardless of what you hope for in the current redistricting effort.

It all comes down to pushing the solution to the space where the problem is being created.

Your areas is the epicenter of the problem.

You should own that and be open to being part of the solution by moving to the New HS.

To do otherwise gives the appearance that you are unaware of your rate of reproduction.