LCPS rezoning that went into effect at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year has impacted our school in several ways. Dan Croyle, Counseling Director, provided information on the subject. 

Rezoning of the schools has caused some complications in terms of who was able to stay at the school. “Rising ninth, tenth, eleventh, seniors, no matter what, had the option to stay or go,” Croyle says. “The majority of people who wanted to stay were able to stay. The issue for a lot of folks, though, for the underclassmen was transportation. Like a lot of the 12th graders easily stayed because they could drive back and forth, but the younger students weren’t able to stay because of transportation.” 

The number of students has increased since last year as well, which causes additional issues. “Last year we had roughly 1,420 [students], this year, including some like eighth graders that are here from Simpson for certain classes like Latin or German, we have roughly 1,460, and I would say it was probably, should have been closer to 1,400,” Croyle said. 

In years past, things were relatively fine in terms of the number of students, but the school is doing the best it can to give students what they need. “I felt like some of the class sizes were a little smaller, but I still feel like we’ve tried to offer this year similar classes as we did in the past,” Croyle explains. “I just feel like we’re much tighter with space in the classroom because of the rezoning.” 

The flexibility of things such as how the school runs classes and handles students has been limited. “Loudoun County Public Schools offers so many specialty programs, it really limits the flexibility you have at the homeschools because you have so many kids that are doing AET or AOS, a lot of times the seniors have early releases, so it really narrows down the opportunities mathematically were we put classes,” Croyle said.