I do hope that our school board approves the FLA. It will make a good school system even better. And as has been noted by others, do the needed renovations to nearby Falls Church, too.

So the county will spend our TAX money on this school to find that children do better in smaller classes and then what - implement smaller class sizes in all schools? Don't see this happening - ever. AVID works and is already a thriving program in many schools to target first generation college-bound students. This is already proven. Spend money on ways to expand AVID at the base schools and promote this proven program. If students are already behind in 7th-8th grade, perhaps the problems lie in the ES years. There is much debate about success by 3rd grade - are there programs aiming to help the children in pre-K through 3rd? I'd support a charter helping younger children but not this one currently proposed.

You forgot to mention that the school's start time will be after 8:00 AM, so with the longer day, the students won't be dismissed until after 4:00 PM -- Another feature shown to make a positive difference in performance and graduation rates, not to mention health and well-being.

During the debate over school start times a few years ago, there was some concern regarding the at risk students and changing the hours of the school day. Many of those students are responsible for childcare for the their younger siblings after school while the parents are working, or the students themselves work after school to help support the family. The idea was that it could have caused a financial burden on the families if the older students could not provide childcare or would lose hours at work and not be able to provide additional income for the family. I believe there was concern that those students would miss school in favor of work/family responsibilities. There could potentially be a portion of the at risk student population that would not even be able to consider applying to the charter due to the possibility of financial burden for the family if the school does have a longer day or year round calendar.

This is a college prep school which offers nothing new. AVID is highly successful at several fcps schools so why not expand it? Entering 7th graders at FLA will be taking only honors core courses. At "risk kids" in 7th grade are often several grade levels behind & have difficulty speaking english so why only honors offered at FLA?

Enrollment is first come first serve so parents who are able to take the initiative to stand on line, complete registration forms,commit to multiple parent teacher conferences, be able to drive their kids to and from school and promise not to move("at risk" kids have a high mobility rate), will be most likely to take advantage of FLA. Can poor high school kids take the whole summer of for school and not work?
This is just another program for fairfax opportunistic parents to flock to on the taxpayers dime and while diverting scarce county resources from needy fcps schools. I am all for helping at risk kids but FLA doesn't do it.

Very disappointing to read Greg's of support of FLA as a member of the FCCPTA , while he doesn't consider the negative impact FLA will have on the surrounding community especially Falls Church high school. I urge Greg to read FLAs application, and talk to UPROAR.

Greg - I see you are affiliated with the Fairfax Teachers coalition and closely tied with the Fairfax Count\ Federation of Teachers – an entity that supports FLA - I guess you must be competing too as the next FLA “poster child” - I commend you on your good use of the media for pushing the FLA agenda forward.

This concept of a Charter School is being done in a vacuum, and completely wrong. Fairfax County building/establishing FLA without full public disclosure is absolutely wrong. You have not portrayed how the establishment of this Charter School will impact other FCPS institutions or resources on the local level. Fairfax County does not have the resources to spend on a new FCPS initiative without due diligence. If you have really been following the issues, there is plenty of data out in the public domain that demonstrates successes for "at-risk" kids in Fairfax County. Especially in the target area of FLA.

I challenge you to demonstrate what you really know about this issue as it pertains to the Route 50 corridor, the Falls Church High School community, Falls Church High School parents, Graham Road – and its selection process regarding John K. Freeman and his support to FLA and State Senator Chap Petersen. There is much, much more to this issue.

WHY? Data, please.... who is this school targeting? At-risk kids? Oh please... it is being done by lottery and by law - CANNOT target nor omit ANY specific group. College prep here we come...the FLA members do NOT have a proven track record of turning education around for at-risk kids (TJ, Fairfax HS - really?) yet proclaim to know how to fix all fo the problems for schools inside the Beltway. FLA will pass just so Fairfax can jump on the band wagon for what other school divisions think is a waste of money... WHY? Fairfax does not need this!

206 Academic Day calendar? Better think again.Some of that time is going to be spent doing career workshops and non-academic activities.... Seriously - all those in favor of FLA because it SOUNDS like a good idea need to look closely between the lines.What is being proposed is EXACTLY what is being done at other high schools, specifically FCHS,which is a National Demonstration Site for AVID (the only one on the East Coast by the way...). Mr. Welch talks about Serivce Learning - 100% of FCHS seniors completed the Virginia requirements for Service Learning this year and also completed a separate community service learning project for their government classes; Mr. Welch speaks about including Career Building - all part of the hs curricular program; he trumpets smaller classes - well 75 kids per grade is an awesome number IF there is enough staff to keep the numbers within the classroom small. How many teachers is Welch planning on having? I think he is planning on having MANY administrators.. His big explanation is that HIS administrators are going to teach too - an idea already being done at FCHS. The School Board needs to talk to people who really KNOW what is going on - not just those who think it sounds like a good idea because the FLA will supposedly save modern education as we know it. AT-risk kids? Oh please.. Welch has said he wants only students who are interested in a four year college - tell that to the families who look at community college as an affordable option.

Whatever other merits the FLA proposal may or may not have, I would be very skeptical of the assertion that FLA will serve as a model of innovative strategies for other schools to employ. That's a standard line that's used to try and generate community support, but the same argument was made when local business leaders in Fairfax sought to persuade community residents of the merits of closing their neighborhood school in order to create TJHSST. TJHSST may be one of the best public schools in the country today, but nothing that happens there really is deployed in other schools in Fairfax County (and TJ siphons off top students from other schools, as a result of which even a school like Langley HS suffers in comparison with the top schools in Montgomery County). I'm not taking a position as to whether FLA should receive a charter, but history does suggest a clear need to consider the impact of the school's creation on other schools and not simply accept the facile assertion that it's destined to be a "win-win."

Greg, great post. It's well past time FCPS's opposition to Charter Schools be ended. This sounds like a worthy experiment.

Not needed, not wanted by the target audience, not wanted by neighboring affected schools or the immediate neighborhood. The FLA is a bad idea for Falls Church, and a particularly bad idea for the Graham Road site. It is a shiny new bauble that the uninformed reach for. New, cutting edge, a model... pure poppycock and those of us who have been in the community for years know it.

Former school board member and current Coalition of the Silence founder Tina Hone endorses FLA as do a number of former school board members as well as Democratic and Republican officerholders. Former Chairperson of the Virginia Board of Education is a supporter. Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, a partner of the Education Foundation to Support Fairfax County Public Schools is a supporter. See http://fcps.edu/news/charter/FairfaxLeadsPresentationJune12Updated.pdf for details.

Other than being a fresh take on helping at-risk students and the only way I, a friend of capital "T" Teachers would support a charter school is if it was a public charter school that used credentialed public school teachers. The bag is mixed when it comes to for-profit charter schools. http://www.nea.org/home/18132.htm

In spite of what some of the commenters have stated, FLA is NOT being welcomed with open arms by FCPS central administrators. In fact, some of those administrators may be playing the non-at-risk Falls Church parents by conflating FLA with renovation queue.

I don't like the current renovation ranking criteria. (http://fcps.edu/fts/planning/cip/cip2013-2017pres.pdf) Nor do I like the deeply debilitating backlog of planned and corrective maintenance that our schools suffer (http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/8WCQVT6B2C13/$file/Final%20Report%20for%20Performance%20Management%20Assessment.pdf). FCPS needs to spend the resources on maintaining their building inventory as much as it needs to renovate outdated buildings. Maintenance isn't sexy but lack of maintenance can be downright grotesque.

I was unaware that the Washington Post chose today to endorse the Fairfax Leadership Academy -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fairfax-should-judge-a-charter-school-on-its-own-merits/2012/07/25/gJQA170x9W_story.html -- until I clicked the Submit button and shared my post with friends. I don't like piling on without good reason.

It is outrageous that all these politicians ,public servants and former school board members have endorsed FLA without ever asking the FC community how best to help us. They know nothing about the real problems we face and have done nothing for us.
What has Tina Hone ever done to change the situation at FC during her 4 years on the school board? When she left the place was falling apart and pupil placement abuse was rampant . Did she ever walk the haliwways and engage the principal ,teachers and parents ? Don't poor kids deserve chem labs that work and functioning bathrooms.? It's much easier to look at power points about the acheivement gap and fix it in a vacuum then to get to the truth.
What has state senator Chap Peterson done to support his constituents who's kids to FC?
Yet senator Peterson is FLAS lawyer ! Talk about conflict of interest . How is that even legal?
So nice for all these folks to tell us what we need . They take the best students and the heck with the rest of those left behind!
Greg you really hit on the inequity of who gets heard in fcps. The politically connected that's who.
All the groups you mention are part of the problem. These folks are arrogant and ignorant !
FC parents keep speaking the truth!

I consider myself a K-12 parent advocate. Believe me, I know what its like to be on the outside looking in and dealing with FCPS central staff.

Falls Church High Schools biggest obstacle is FCPS Chief Operating Officer Dean Tisdadt. He has NOT done his job making the case for more funds to take care of the backlog of preventive and corrective/reactive maintenance. If you examine the report mentioned above, you'll see on page 15 that the ratio of preventive to corrective maintenance is flipped. Ideally -- and this is according to FCPS operational expectations that Tisdadt helped draft, for every 100 hours of maintenance, 80 should be spent in preventive and 20 in corrective/reactive. Tisdadt has wrung his hands while those numbers have drifted to 90 hours corrective/reactive and 10 hours preventive. For the sake of FCHS students, faculty and staff I sure hope Principal Benner is on Tisdadt's good side.

If she is on his side, I'd hate to see what the building would look like and how our students would be treated if she wasn't. Parents and faculty pleaded at the CIP hearing, explained how we had NO representation in their report, pointed out flaws in their criteria and Dean had the nerve to "take umbrage" that we were trying to put our needs ahead of all of the others on the queue. Yes, a 50 year old building needs attention - NOW. The new School Board, who campaigned to listen to parents needs voted unanimously, to approve that flawed report so there's fault all around. Now we also have to deal with this charter mess getting in the way of any sort of progress. Politicians trying to appease the governor and inflate a family member's local real estate value at the expense of the tax payers. Please. Enough already.

Part 1 of 3
[1] According to Eric's bio, the Stuart High School AVID program had a 99% success rate getting students into two or four year colleges. AVID targets the same students FLA is targeting. So, with a 99% success rate, why does Eric need another school to improve on this performance?
[2]…FLA board members have a "strong commitment to the academic and personal growth of each student so they will attend and succeed in a post-secondary institution." This committment to the at-risk and minority students in the eastern part of Fairfax County … The at-risk students in eastern Fairfax County are not those that only achieve entry to 2-year colleges (the FLA standard for academic success), they are drop outs. For the 2010/11 cohort, Fairfax County had 474 students who dropped out. Of these, fully 34% (162) came from the three schools FLA has targeted (66% were from east county schools). THIS is the issue FCPS needs to address, not getting two-year college students into four year colleges.
[3] The current FCPS average cost per pupil is $13,654, however FLA will receive $10,432 per student. In part, because FLA has no need for a capital budget (it is getting a building and maintenance from FCPS) and because it will use many FCPS administrative services, e.g., payroll, retirement, etc

Part 2 of 3
[4] Factoring in special education funding, free-reduced meals funding, English for Speakers of Other Languages funding, Federal Charter School Start Up Grant and foundation and business partnerships the real cost per pupil could exceed $16,000. I'll note that after year 2 the Federal grant dries up which means that foundation and business partnerships will have to make up the difference. So here’s where the hook is for county taxpayers. The per pupil cost of FLA carries a 17% premium ($16,000 vs $13,654). But what is Mr. Brandon’s basis for the statement “foundation and business partnerships will have to make up the difference?” If one reads the FLA budget it is clear that FLA is not counting on outside sources making up the difference. The Year 1 FLA budget is $2.45 million, with outside sources contributing $500K and a (minimum) FCSP share of $1.95 million, or 80% of FLA costs. The Year 5 FLA budget is $5.85 million, with outside sources contributing $250K and the (minimum) FCPS share swelling to $5.5 million, or 96% of FLA costs. Caveat emptor.
[5] FLA will be staffed by FCPS teachers and administrators. This is very good news for those students who are fortunate enough to enroll in FLA. Huh. If students that are currently being ill-served by FCSP teachers and administrators attend FLA, why is it very good news for these fortunate students to be taught by the same teachers and administrators that have failed them in the first place?

Part 3 of 3
[6] Students from all over the county will be allowed to apply to FLA. Should there be more than 75 applicants per class, students will be selected by lottery. That said, FLA leadership will market the school to the at-risk students in the Annandale, Bailey's Crossroads and Falls Church areas of Fairfax County. Not only market these communities, but pay for them. FLA is only paying for transportation for students from these communities. At risk students in the rest of the county have to pay for their own transportation.
[7] FLA promises to "serve as a model for other FCPS schools to implement similar innovative strategies." This is where Mr. Brandon swallows the Kool Aid. Just how will FLA serve as a model? FLA have no proposed plan for identifying whether it’s the longer day, longer calendar, or smaller classrooms that could be responsible for any success it may have. Thus, FCPS has to accept the model in total. And what are the odds that FCPS will be able to swing a 17% increase in its budget past the BOS or county taxpayers? Very, very long. The fiscal infeasibility of FLA’s model writ large for FCPS renders FLA’s utility as virtually nil.

Jaguars deserve better, I'm sure of it; however, I'm not sure the charter school is standing in the way. You can make an argument that FCHS should be renovated soon regardless of current enrollment, design capacity and program capacity. The school capacity model that Tisdadt talked the school board into adopting has as its central precept Building Utilization. According to the Facility & Enrollment Dashboard (http://fcps.edu/fts/dashboard/11-12dashboard.html) Falls Church's BU is 81% while Marshall's BU is 106%, a key factor in why the Statesmen are getting a renovated school. In five years, FCHS's BU is projected to be 104%. Unfortunately, Tisdadt will tell you that the renovation queue is based on current enrollment, not projected.

The Jaguars should get a COMPLETELY NEW school -- forget renovation. FCPS should do as Arlington did for Washington & Lee HS: Build brand new, move in and scrape the old building. They should also hire an architect and construction company experienced with using structural insulated panels (SIP) that help to reduce the amount of time it takes to build while also improving energy savings. One more thing: Building up rather than out is something to consider.

Oh, but I forgot; it takes imagination to try something new. I hope Tisdadt shuts off the lights as he and Dale depart for whatever . . .

I do have a tendency to "go all in" on an idea that I find attractive and I'm still an idealist. But my real fault is forgetting that the current culture of FCPS central staff is hidebound. Yes, I should know better than to assume that current leadership, if it were to stay in place for the next four years, would be willing to learn from what I'm hoping is a successful FLA. Alas, current leadership, as WaPo points out, is probably more threatened by FLA than supportive.

Your experience at Falls Church High School is yet another reason why the superintendent selection is crucial to students east, west, north and south of Gatehouse.

Last comment: I am surprised and disapppointed that someone who offers an opinion as a representative of the local educational community and who either knows, or should know, of countervailing opinions on a current topic of interest doesn't have the curiosity or initiative to seek out contrary points of view. It's not as if UPROAR has been timid about the FLA. It's unfortunate Mr. Brandon appears to have formed his opinion based on hearing only one side of the argument. Alas, this is true of many FLA supporters who have endorsed it without ever asking for comment from those most affected by the FLA, yet purport to know what is in their best interest.

Greg, being an idealist is great but I'm a realist and see that this is duplicative of current programs such as AVID and Dual Enrollment. I am a realist and feel if this charter does sound appealing to parents, it will not target the groups FLA says it will target and overachiever-type parents will apply and there is no way to change that. The reality is if a longer school day/year works, FCPS already realizes it cannot swap bus schedules with ES kids as already studied. If it's smaller class sizes that work, FCPS will not change that either. So this charter as a model for what other schools can do in the county is a farce. That's the reality.

The WaPo's editorial staff primarily lives in NW and Montgomery County and sends their kids to private schools like St. Albans. I can't think of a group less equipped to assess the extent of local support in Falls Church for the FLA, which is something the School Board is required to consider before acting on this application.

This should be read by all parties for a more clear picture of UPROAR's views:

http://annandaleva.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-fairfax-leadership-academy-and.html