Capt. David Morriss rushed home from the Pentagon, where he is alawyer in the Navy's Office of Legislative Affairs, to work for thecause that matters most in his household. This night, the father ofthree went before the Fairfax County School Board with an emotionalplea. 'I'm speaking from the heart,' he said. 'Please include us.'
Morriss's family, and hundreds of others in a swath of southernFairfax from Newington Forest to Mason Neck, believes that theboard's coming decision on whose children will -- and whose won't --attend the county's newest public high school will affect the veryway they live their lives. It will determine how much time theirchildren spend on a school bus, how much time they have for sportsand family and homework, where their friends live, how often theirparents can attend their games and concerts.
More than 1,000 people turned out for each of three communitymeetings last fall, and more than 200, including students, parentsand grandparents, spoke at recent public hearings. Their concern isnot about the quality of instruction their children will receive --they know it will be good either way -- but about the quality of lifethat comes with a school close to home. Talk of where the lines willbe drawn has dominated discussions at dinner tables and in schoolparking lots and has created tensions among neighborhoods.
Emotional battles over school boundary changes are a recurrenttheme in growing suburbs across the country. But Fairfax Countyparents, many of whom are drawn to the area because of the schoolsystem's reputation as one of the nation's best, don't simply ask toremain within one school's boundary or be shifted to another. Theyorganize their passions into sophisticated public relationscampaigns.
From wearing brightly colored matching T-shirts to draw attentionto their group to crunching numbers on student enrollment andcreating their own boundary recommendations, southern Fairfaxresidents are going to great lengths to sway the School Board.Parents from the Mason Neck area sent each board member a tiny globe,a symbol of the long commutes their children face. (They calculatethat each child will travel 1.3 times the circumference of the Earthon a school bus during their high school careers if they are notincluded in the new, closer school.)
Classes at the new south county school, on the site of the formerD.C. prison in Lorton, will begin in September, making it the first county secondary school to open since 2000. As many as 4,100 childrenwant to attend, school officials say, but it can accommodate only2,500.
Many families say it would mean the end of their children's longcommutes, sometimes 45 or 50 minutes each way on congested roads.Families in South Hunt Valley recently gave board members a colornewsletter billing the south county school as their 'Last Chance fora Community School' that will allow their children to study with thefriends who attend their churches and play in their neighborhoodsports leagues.
Theresa Walker of Lorton Station said that when her family movedto the area about a year ago, she assumed that her son, Devin, 12,would attend the south county schools less than three miles fromtheir home. When she learned that wasn't a done deal, she turned froma self-described 'booster club mom' to neighborhood activist.
'We got fired up,' Walker said. 'We're a very tight family, andeverything is about our son.'
Walker, an operations manager at a Wells Fargo bank in theDistrict, and her husband have gone door-to-door distributing fliersto rally support and sold red 'Lorton Station' T-shirts. She keepsdetailed notes on boundary plans and enrollment data and has takentime off work to share them with other parents.
Because she and her husband both have jobs, Walker said, familytime is especially precious. A closer school would mean more time forvolunteering and easier trips shuttling Devin to sports events ormusic practices. Walker said she also wants the 'comfort' of knowingthat her son is close to home and the camaraderie of running into hisclassmates' parents at the grocery store.
Neil K. Makstein, a Falls Church psychologist, said much of theemotion involved in the boundary hearings stems from busy families'desire to feel like part of a group, whether it's a neighborhood or areligious organization. He said many patients tell him that theyyearn for the kind of close-knit neighborhoods in which they grew up.
'I hear clients say they don't have that for their kids,' Maksteinsaid. 'We're looking for a place to get connected, and a school is aplace to do that.'
Gary Chevalier, director of the school district's Office ofFacilities Planning Services, said his staff crafted recommendedboundaries that include the neighborhoods closest to the new schoolwhile attempting to create an economically diverse student body andrelieving crowding at other high schools.
The district tries to send all students from one middle school tothe same high school so classmates can stay together. When schoolofficials split elementary or middle school attendance areas,Chevalier said, boundary lines are drawn around subdivisions, notthrough them.
Chevalier's office offered four proposals during a series ofpublic workshops in the fall and made changes after hundreds ofparents reacted. Ultimately, the staff proposed a plan that theSchool Board can amend before its vote, scheduled for Jan. 27.
Under the staff plan, Devin Walker would attend the new school.But the Morrisses' three children, and others from their South HuntValley neighborhood, would be sent to Lake Braddock Secondary School,even farther from their home than Lee High School, which teenagers intheir neighborhood now attend. If that happens, Morriss and his wife,Mary Elizabeth, said they will consider moving. They worry that a 45-or 50-minute one-way commute for their children will mean less timefor studies, family time and even sleep -- a difference the couplebelieve could make their children less competitive when it is time togo to college.
'It's been hanging over our heads all fall,' said Mary ElizabethMorriss, who works part time as a nurse, adding that she's hopefulthat the School Board will sympathize with them. 'We just have tokeep banging on the door. I have to maintain hope that they will seethe light and common sense and logic will win.'
Other high schools that could lose some students and gain othersare Hayfield and Edison.
Board member Daniel G. Storck (Mount Vernon), whose districtincludes areas affected by the boundary change, said he has been inclose contact with several neighborhood groups and has been struck bytheir high-level lobbying, which proves that they're paying attentionto details.
'It's just incredible. We have the most incredibly highlyeducated, thorough citizens,' Storck said. 'They know how to makesure their message is heard. They know you have to do more than senda note that says, 'I want my kid to go there.' '
Greg Schuckman, a Lorton Station parent and a lobbyist for theUniversity of Central Florida, has boundary maps on his office wallsand figures that he has spent more than 500 hours trying to getLorton Station students into the south county school. If the SchoolBoard sticks with the recommendation, he said, his efforts will havebeen worthwhile.
'This school is much more than a school. It's a landmark that'sgoing to define Lorton,' Schuckman said. 'I'd like to go there to seemy children sing in the choir and play in the band and play sports.'
