The next full committee meeting of the Southwestern Regional Planning Study Committee will be this Thursday, January 28th at 7 p.m. at Liberty Middle School, 6801 Union Mill Road, Clifton. This meeting is open to the public
The committee chairs presented the Phase I Executive Summary to the School Board at the Jan. 11, 2010, work session. The Board: 1) Accepted the Committee's report and recommendation to begin Phase 2; 2) Accepted the Committee's recommendation to add five elementary schools to the committee membership--Navy, Lees Corner, Waples Mill, Terre Centre, and Silverbrook; and 3) Established a time line for the final report from February 2010, to the May 10, 2010, work session.
It would be really nice if there were some Clifton parents in the audience at the Thursday meeting to show our support and our commitment to our school.
Thank you,
Patti Hopkins
PTA President
On November 5, 2009, the SW Regional Planning Study Committee met at Fairfax High School at 7:00pm. A Summary of the events of this meeting are listed below:
1. Kevin Sneed, FCPS Director of Design and Construction, presented about design capacity vs programmatic capacity in FCPS and how enrollment numbers are estimated based on potential capacity.
2. Given that Clifton ES is the only school at risk for closure and the
only school mentioned by name in the report (with approx 15 pages devoted to CES issues in the draft study), Charlie Rau was given five minutes to address the committee. He gave an overview of the CES situation from the perspective of a Clifton resident/parent, highlighting facts about the impact of closing CES on their schools/communities, and an indication that renovation costs could very well be substantially less than the draft feasibility study indicates ($8M to $12M versus the $19M in the draft feasibility study)..
2. The committee members broke into small groups to brainstorm ideas about potential sub-committee structure.
3. After reporting to the larger committee, we came up with seven
sub-committees of approximately 5-7 people to tackle specific issues from the draft feasibility study. These subcommittees are along the lines of:
(1) DATA- To validate or update projections, current capacities and
other demographic or quantitative data from Feasibility Study
(2) COST EFFECTIVENESS- To evaluate options, costs and community impacts of each scenario (i.e., new school, renovation, closure, boundaries, transportation, etc)
(3) SCHOOLS/SCOPE/BOUNDARIES- To study if the study targets the correct schools or if other near-by schools should be included in the study. Also to evaluate the appropriateness of the scope of the study and the impact of boundary changes
(4) CLIFTON- To conduct a thorough review of the appropriateness of renovation vs closure
(5) EXPANSION AND RENOVATION OF EXISTING SCHOOLS- To determine if existing schools slated for overcrowding can be added on to address the overcrowding
(6) PROGRAMS AND CENTERS- To look into whether or not programs and centers could be shifted to allow more capacity/space at certain schools.
(7) LIBERTY AND OTHER SITES- To study the land/site development of a new school on the Liberty site and other possible parcels of land where a new school would be more convenient for the overcrowding issue
Leadership/ Oversight- A sub-committee composed of the two Committee Chairs, a newly appointed Committee Secretary (Amy Riddick from Fairview) and Chairs from each of the seven Sub-committees) To provide a checks and balances system to make sure
that the process in productive and that ideas are communicated from
sub-committees to the larger committee
4. Sub-committees are to meet in the next three weeks and the larger committee will re-convene on December 3, 2009, location TBA.
If you have any questions/comments/concerns for Ina Patton or Charlie Rau, please send them to: repsforclifton@gmail.com
Thank you,
Patti Hopkins
PTA President
The first meeting of the Southwest Region Study Planning Meeting was held Thursday, October 29 at Liberty Middle School. Of the 46 total representatives of the Committee, 33 were in attendance, including Charlie Rau and Ina Patton, the Clifton Elementary School reps.
This meeting served to educate and acclimate the newly appointed committee members about the task at hand. Some notable items were:
1. Committee members (reps from the 23 schools) were introduced to each other and the School Board Staff. Most schools sent in at least one appointed committee member. A couple of schools had no one to represent their school at this meeting.
2. They received an overview of the Comprehensive Planning and Community Engagement Process by Liz Bradsher, Chair of the Comprehensive Planning Development Committee and a Facilities presentation by Dean Tistadt, FCPS Chief Operating Officer.
3. Committee co-chairs were elected. They are Kelly Hutter of Greenbriar East E.S. and Andrew Flagel of Bonnie Rae E.S. They are charged with developing (with input from the committee) the structure of the committee work and schedule of future meetings.
4. The next meeting is scheduled in one week, Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 7pm. Location TBD.
5. The Committee is tasked in this week to submit to the co-chairs by email their suggestions for appropriate sub-committees and/or other process/operational ideas.
6. They also received an updated map showing the Southwestern Regional Planning Study Enrollments, dated 10/23/09. Unlike the former map, which indicated that Clifton E.S. will be at a negative capacity balance (-22) in 2013, it shows that Clifton E..S. will be under-capacity by 49 students in 2014-15.
An email account has been set up for all Clifton school/community members to forward their question/comments/concerns to our two representatives: repsforclifton@gmail.com.
Please use this email to contact Charlie and Ina with your concerns. They will check this email account regularly, but please keep in mind that participating in this committee is very time consuming and they both have full time jobs and families at home so give them couple of days to reply to your requests.
If you have any other concerns, please feel free to contact me directly.
Thank you,
Patti Hopkins
PTA President
Thank you to all who attended the special PTA meeting this evening. The PTA is proud to announce that Charlie Rau and Ina Patton will represent Clifton Elementary School on the Southwestern Regional Planning Study Committee.
The first meeting will be held on Thursday October 29 at 7pm at Liberty Middle School. All meetings will be open to the public so I encourage you to attend.
Thank you,
Patti Hopkins
PTA President
UPDATE
I am holding a special PTA meeting on Thursday October 1st at 7 pm in the library. At this SHORT meeting you will have the opportunity to meet the candidates and ask some question.
Please plan on attending this very important meeting. Also, if you would like to be considered for one ot the two positions, please let me know ASAP.
Thank you
Patti Hopkins
PTA President
On September 14th the Fairfax County School Board voted to initiate the Southwestern Regional Planning Process. They have asked the PTA Presidents at 23 southwest county elementary schools, including Clifton ES, to name two individuals to participate in a new Community Engagement Committee that will examine issues involving our school.
This ad hoc committee will participate in a regional school planning study based on:
-Concerns for increasing student enrollment and capacity deficits in many elementary schools in the southwestern region of the county.
-Challenges associated with the scheduled renovation of Clifton Elementary.
It is critical that the participants selected are prepared to commit the time and effort needed to complete the assigned tasks. The individuals nominated should be willing to attend at least 75% of all meetings. The first meeting is scheduled for October 29th at 7pm at Liberty Middle School. Committee members may be required to work through the early part of 2010.
If you would like to be considered for this very important position please contact Patti Hopkins PTA President at pattihopkins at cox.net as soon as possible. All appointments must be made by October 5th.
I am planning on holding a special PTA meeting late next week so our school community can meet the potential nominees. While I don't have a date yet as soon as I do it will be emailed out.
Thank you,
Patti Hopkins
PTA President