New High School Boundary Policy Adopted
<bt>A new Loudoun County Public Schools policy approved last Tuesday will allow high-school seniors to continue attending their original school if the school system re-draws the school's boundaries.
Additionally, if the senior has younger siblings who are assigned to the new high school, the policy will allow them to attend the same school as the senior for all four years.
Transportation will not be provided to any younger siblings after the year of the senior's graduation.
"This is a way to mitigate disruption within families," said School Board Member Bob Ohneiser (Broad Run).
But School Board Member Priscilla Godfrey (Blue Ridge) said the new policy sends the message that new schools are undesirable, and might negatively impact class size and teacher workloads.
"This could go on for years," she said. "It'll make an even longer and more confused transition to a new high school."
<sh>New Policy for Elementary School Walkers
<bt>The Loudoun County School Board voted Tuesday to adopt a new policy that guarantees that children living within 8/10ths of mile from an elementary schools can continue to attend that school if LCPS re-draws its school boundaries.
The policy gives families the choice to stay at the original school if the school system carves out their neighborhood to send them to another school.
It applies solely to those children who walk to school, to whom the school system does not provide transportation.
"It's good for public relations and that's one of our goals," said School Board Member Sarah B. Smith (Leesburg).
School officials said they have never — and probably will never — take a neighborhood so extremely close to one school and send it to another.
If the school system did ever decide to re-draw elementary school boundaries in this fashion, it would be difficult to convince the Sheriff's Office to provide crossing guards for the few scattered students who chose to remain at the original school.
"The sheriff faces the difficulty of providing us crossing guards even where we want them now," said Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick.