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Student Exodus Problem at
South Lakes High School…

One of the primary reasons for the boundary study is to solve the under enrollment at South Lakes. FCPS staff told us that the underenrollment problem has been caused by the natural aging of the population. Our research, on the contrary, reveals that South Lakes actually has a GROWING student base between the 2000 and 2015, but why it has a SHRINKING student membership? Our study shows there has been a significant student exodus in the South Lakes Attendance Area since 2000.

Four years ago, in a school impact report, South Lakes was projected to have 1691 students in the 2008-2009 school year. In the latest projection published for the boundary study, South Lakes will only have 1389 students in the 2008-2009 school year. Why is there such a big gap in two projections? You may simply say that the projection was not accurate, and you may say that FCPS staff did a lousy job. But let’s compare other projections FCPS made in 2004 for the 2008-2009 student numbers in other schools involved in the Boundary Study, as well as the same projections made at the end of 2007 specifically for the boundary study.

The following table contains the following information:

Chart 1

(Data Source: http://www.fcps.edu/fts/impacts/so4-up1.htm for 2004 South Lakes Numbers)
http://www.fcps.edu/fts/impacts/04-SU-015.htm for 2004 Chantilly Numbers
http://www.fcps.edu/fts/impacts/04-PR-018.htm for 2004 Oakton Numbers
http://www.fcps.edu/fts/impacts/03-SU-035.htm for 2004 Westfield Numbers
http://www.fcps.edu/fts/planning/westcoboundary/1-10-08presentation.pdf
for 2007 numbers of all schools)

You can see the same projections for Westfield, Oakton and Chantilly made between 4 years are within an acceptable margin of error, the biggest margin of error being -4.33%. However, the same projections for South Lakes are just like a wild guess, the margin of error, -17.86%, is more than 4 times higher than the nearest projection errors.

You may naturally ask why. We can tell you why: it is because FCPS is unable to predict the unexpected reasons for South Lakes’ student exodus. FCPS’ database contains the information for all students in the attendance area, and FCPS made their projections based on the information. They can project the number of students who should go to the school. But they are not able to predict the number of students who are unwilling to go.

We have done some researches on the student mobility reports for the 7-year span between 2000 and 2007. Our research shows, in 5 of those years, almost 1 out of every 8 students withdrew from South Lakes EACH YEAR. In the other two years, the numbers were 1 out every 10, and 1 out of every 11 respectively. Although some smaller numbers of students transferred into South Lakes each year, the incoming students never made up for the numbers lost from the out- pouring of students.

The following table shows the student mobility data compiled from the data available from fcps.edu web site. It shows the student withdrawal numbers and rates for the 4 schools affected by the recommended plan. Under each school, you will see the number of students who have withdrawn from the school (regardless of the reasons) and the number of students at the beginning of the school year. The adjacent column shows the percentages of the withdrawn students. For example, in the year 2000-2001, 228 out of 1,850, or 12.32%, students withdrew from South Lakes for unspecified reasons. In other words, it was about one out of every 8 students.

         Numbers of Student Withdrawals vs Total Students in 4 Schools

Chart 2

Data Source: http://www.fcps.edu/Reporting/historical/index.html#anchorStudentMobility

Compared to the withdrawal rates of the other schools, it is very easy to conclude that the reason for South Lakes’ under enrollment is STUDENT EXODUS.

The following Chart shows the differences between the students withdraw rates of South Lakes and other schools

Comparison of School Withdraw Rates

A study of student transfer reports tells the same story. In the 2006-2007 school year, 82 students moved out of South Lakes while only 50 moved in.
See transfer data memo, provided by Superintendent Jack Dale, 10/22/07

We compare the FRL data from Virginia Department of Education and FCPS web site and we can get the further proof of the exodus problem. In VA DOE web site, your can find the FRL data for October 2006, and in FCPS web site you can find the FRL data for June 2007. In order words, you can find the data for the beginning and the end of the school year. Comparing the numbers you will find out that within one school year, South Lakes FRL number was jumped from 26% to 33%.  

The following table shows the numbers:

            South Lakes Student Membership Change in 2006-2007 School Year

(Date Source: PDF report downloaded from http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Finance/Nutrition/statistics.html

http://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:7557226077925483::::
P0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID:320 for June 2007 Numbers)

The above table clearly tells you a fact: Within one school year, South Lakes’ Non-FRL students were decreased by 149. Where were those 149 non-FRL students? It is possible that some of them had economic hardship and became FRL students. But the majority of them left South Lakes for various reasons.

There is a research conducted by McKibben Demographics on the student projections for FCPS in 2006. The final research report (http://www.fcps.edu/schlbd/reports/101705pp.pdf) contains a diagram, on page 31, showing the 2000 census data for South Lakes High school:

What do you find out from the above diagram? In year 2000, South Lakes attendance area has more 10-14 years old kids than 15-19 year old. It has even more 5-9 year old than 10-14 year old! And it has even more 0-4 year old than 5-9!! In other words, the population is not aging, instead, it should have larger and larger student base in the years to come! Those kids between 15 and 19 years old are correlated to South Lakes 2000 membership, those 10-14 years old are related to 2005 membership, 5-9 years old are to the 2010 and 0-4 are to the 2015 membership. If the school does not have exodus problem, today the school board should be worry about where to find the money to expand the school instead of spending a lot of money to find students to fill it!

However, some very strange projections were made on page 32 of the final report. The researcher just predicted the school student membership will decrease in the years to come!!

South Lakes Projection

As the population of 15-19 years old at a given year covers the population of a 5 year span and the high school students are most likely come from a 4 year span, 80% of the total 15-19 years old population should be very close the student base, which means the maximum number of students who could go to the school. Considering there are always some students who would prefer to go to private schools and some students may drop out, the actual student membership should be lower than the student base.  

Using the data from the same research, which you can download from FCPS web site (http://www.fcps.edu/schlbd/reports/mckibbenanalysisdata.pdf), we compile the following table to compare the student base and the student membership in the given years.  From the table, you can find out the projected populations of 15-19 years old in South Lakes attendance areas in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015, the student base (population  15-18 years old, estimated as 80% of 15-19 population) of those years, the actual or projected student membership numbers, and the student membership as percentages of student base.

Comparison of South Lakes High School Student Base and Student Membership

Comparison of South Lakes Student Base and Student Membership

(*) Estimated Student Base is the estimated population of 15-18 years. We use the 80% of the population of 15-19 years old as estimated student base.
(**) Actual student membership number from fcps.edu

The following chart illustrates the data of above table:

Comparison of South Lakes High School Student Base and Student Membership

Comparison of South Lakes student base and student membership

You can see from the above table, South Lakes actually has a GROWING student base from year 2000 to 2015, but the student membership percentage is decreasing. So the underenrollment problem in South Lakes is NOT caused by population aging, it is caused by student exodus!

In 2000, 95% percent of the estimated student base went to South Lakes. In 2005, only 77% percent went to the school. It is projected that in 2010 that the percentage will drop to 68%.  The student membership dropping trend is shown in the following chart:

South Lakes STudent Membership as Percentage of Student Base

We must ask:

WHERE ARE THE STUDENTS?

We pleaded with the School Board members to investigate the student exodus problem. Before finding out the problems and the solutions, the school board members have the duties to prevent the student exodus problem from spreading to a wider area by stopping the redistricting process.

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