Students are selecting new classes for the 2012-2013 school year. As counselors travel to feeder middle schools to help eighth grade students sign up for courses, students from the Bren Mar Park and Wakefield Chapel neighborhoods will no longer be visited by AHS representatives.

However, this hasn’t stopped students who are upset with the decision, who would be going to Woodson or Edison HS, from making the decision to pupil place at AHS. Pupil placement is when a student elects to attend a school other than his or her base school for academic or non-academic reasons.

“It was a hard decision, it was one [my son] made on his own,” AHS parent Kathy Ryan said. Ryan’s family lives in Wakefield Chapel and her son was assigned to Woodson HS. She currently has a sophomore at AHS. There were many factors that led to the decision to pupil place.

“We know the curriculum, which is great,” Ryan said. “It’s also very comforting to have both kids at the same school.”

After thinking about both schools for months, eighth grader Michael Ryan finally made the decision to come to AHS.

“I think he just realized it would have been a logistical nightmare,” Kathy Ryan said. “Two kids, two schools, two marching bands, two schedules, two everything. We told him, just remember, one of us will always be there [at events], but one of us might have to be with Megan.”

The decision he made was on his own, and even after he made the decision, Ryan still attended Woodson’s Parent Night to do her research.

“As much as I was involved at Annandale, I didn’t want to put pressure on him. Each school has its community. The good, bad and ugly, they have their own community,” Ryan said. “It’s nice to know that we have a dedicated world at one high school and will be there as a united front; all four of us.”

In the past few years, AHS had been closed to pupil placing because of overcrowding issues.

The school now has an open pupil placement policy because of the loss of students and because the modular now counts as classroom space. Students can qualify through two categories. The first category is academic, where the students sign up for the MYP two-year program or the IB curriculum. During the Ravensworth and Broy Hill Crest redistricting decision, students had to elect to get the IB Diploma in order to stay. Now students just have to agree to take four IB courses in their last two years of high school, the first three of which are in their junior year. This leaves out students from Bren Mar Park, because Edison HS is already an IB school.

Ryan’s son pupil placed for the IB program. He had to submit a four-year plan of his courses, along with turning in a form to the school, the cluster office and Woodson. Every year, he will have to notify Woodson and get the school to sign off again to release him to AHS.

The other category is for non-academic reasons, which includes reasons ranging from emotional and family hardship. Also, if a student has a family member attending or working at AHS, they can elect to attend the school. With this reason, the student is only allowed to attend the school as long as the family member attends or works at the school. This is why many students who have older siblings at the school have to pupil place for academic reasons, because as soon as the sibling graduates they have to leave as well.

Assistant Superintedent to Cluster III schools, Dan Parris, understands that the boundary decision was a “highly emotional issue” because AHS is a school that is “close to people’s hearts.”

“Ultimately, the school board made a very tough decision around an issue that had to be resolved,” Parris said.

At the same time, he had never seen a boundary study or a grandfathering policy so “expansive” in all of his career. Due to the grandfathering policy, that stated any student that started at AHS was allowed to stay, transportation for the two neighborhoods will continue for the next three years. After that, Parris “can’t guarantee” the students who pupil place will have transportation.

“We want to ease the stress of families, as long as the school can handle it,” Parris said.

For many students, growing up in the AHS community has affected them. Hannah Curran (no relation to the writer), who’s father Bill Curran was a teacher and coach at AHS and is now serving as Student Activities and Athletics Director for FCPS, has decided to pupil place. Both of her parents attended the school and she grew up as a water girl during football games.

“I chose to go there because I like how much of a family it is. It’s very traditional in how it runs,” Curran said.

Other students have opted to follow their new school assignment. Senior Danielle Turner has an eighth grade sister at Poe MS, who has decided to attend Woodson HS.

“Basically, Rachel didn’t pupil place because she felt all of her friends were going to Woodson so she just wanted to embrace the change,” Turner said. “In the long run, she wants to be where she’s wanted because of her friends. She also felt, like some others in our community, that the school might go downhill in the future because of the loss of students.”

Poe parent and Wakefield Chapel resident Laura McLean, who’s son Michael has made the decision to pupil place, organized a tour of the school with Director of Student Services Jennifer Crump-Strawderman in order to show some students who were on the fence what the school has to offer. Crump-Strawderman said that the tour was successful.

“It is important to note that counselors have given after school tours to many prospective families over the years – this was not a unique occurrence,” Crump-Strawderman said.

AHS is not doing anything in particular to encourage students from redistricted neighborhoods to come to the school.

“We are fielding questions and information sharing in the Student Services office, but it is nothing different than what we would do with any prospective new family,” Crump-Strawderman said.

The A-Blast can confirm that at least seven students have made the decision, although there may be more.

“Now that the school is open for pupil placement, people are jumping at the chance to get in there,” Ryan said. “Knowing that the school has been rather liberal about pupil placing has made our life easier. It’s nice to know the kids will be together.”

All students who live in the affected neighborhoods are listed on a spreadsheet in the Cluster office. They can either fill out an Expedited Boundary Adjustment Form or a Pupil Placement Form, which requires the signature of both principals and the Cluster office, which are due “in early March.” Although Parris does not have the numbers yet, he thinks that the numbers of students pupil placing and students following the decision will be pretty balanced.

“Annandale has an incredible reputation, it offers a lot of things that people are looking for,” Parris said. “We’ve given families a lot of options, but we need them to work with us because the decisions they make impact will have implications for things like staffing.”