Western High School - Great Falls Nike Park
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Anonymous
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Fairfax County owns land that could be deeded to Fairfax County Public Schools to build a western high school in Great Falls. The land already has athletic fields that the school could use (while keeping most of the fields available for public use).
The Fairfax County deeded part of the land for Forestville Elementary School in 1979. The same thing could happen for a Western High School to be built. The baseball field, soccer field, and land located adjacent to Leesburg Pike could be used as the location for the high school. Nike Park already has a parking lot that could be used by the school. Nike Park would still have 4 baseball fields, a soccer field, a lacrosse field, and the tennis courts. Stands could be added to the lacrosse field so that the high school could have football games and a track. Sports leagues could still rent the fields that the high school uses, the same way they rent from the Park Authority or any other school in Fairfax County. |
Anonymous
| I always thought the western high school was supposed to be somewhere in the general vicinity of Westfields/Centreville not way tucked up in the northern middle of the county? |
Anonymous
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Not that the county is going to cede the park land, but you'd be replicating the current problem with Langley's location at the northeastern tip of Fairfax with a new, equally problematic location in northwestern Fairfax. And why would we build a new high school only four miles from Herndon HS when HHS has capacity?
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Anonymous
There won't be a new western high school. Too many schools have been or will be expanded. But, yeah, if they ever did build one, they should pay what they need to pay to put it in the right place, which would be further south somewhere near the northern part of the Chantilly HS area, the western part of the Oakton HS area, or the northwestern part of the Fairfax HS area. |
Anonymous
| That actually could work really well. it would shift all of the boundaries northward with each school being the northern point in the boundary dipping down into the county. |
Anonymous
| Langley and Herndon are both under capacity. There is no need for a school there and no housing density or projected growth to support it. As others noted, there isn’t going to be a Western High School, but if there were it would need to be near Westfields/Chantilly/Centreville. |
Anonymous
| Why not use the park that Crossfield ES is in? |
Anonymous
Not OP and I almost posted this same suggestion today. It would be rather close to South Lakes area but fairly close to Chantilly and Oakton areas as well. Of course no new HS is ever going to get built if they keep expanding schools like Herndon to 2750, Centreville to 3000, etc. Eats up lots of money and other areas need more seats as well. |
Anonymous
| Oh wait I always thought that the space that is now Baron Cameron Park was the spot where Western HS was supposed to go, not Nike Park! |
Anonymous
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Too far away from where all the kids live.
EC Lawrence park would work. |
Anonymous
If Crossfield is large enough to support a middle school, then annother alternative could be converting it to a MS and then converting either Franklin or Carson to a HS. The traffic in and out of Crossfield would be insane with such limited access on Fox Mill. But I suppose that’s less of an issue with the current MS bell schedule. |
Anonymous
| If we are just ripping out parks and building $500M+ schools, we can put one in Frying Pan and one in Sully too. |
Anonymous
Once the post 9-11 baby boom kids graduate, the numbers of high school students not just in Fairfax County, but also nationwide will drop fairly drastically. The 9-11 baby boom started with class of 2020, grew sharply with classes of 24 and 25, and will peak with class of 2026. It goes down slightly with class of 2027-28, then will start dropping off. We don't need a new high school. We need targeted expansions in higher population areas favored by families with kids. FCPS just needs to ride it out until 25, 26, 27 and 28 graduate |
Anonymous
This hit me in the gut, until I thought about it, and as long as the school was on the athletic field side of the park, it would actually probably work really well. One or two fields become a school, and the fields are still available for community use not during the school day (which realistically, is when they're being used anyways.) |
Anonymous
Oh dear, no. One or two fields become a whole school? Do you know how much acreage a HS needs? And the county is not taking away turf fields which it doesnt have enough of already. It would have to be the unused forest area. Of course thats the problem with turning parks into schools--the neighbors absolutely hate it. |