King Abdullah Academy Closing: FCPS Buy for HS?

[Anonymous]

Westfield has never been renovated. It was built on the cheap around 1999. They stuck a modular addition on when it opened already over capacity but didn't expand the common areas so the halls, gym, library, cafeteria etc are all undersized for the building capacity. The building design doesn't even have a lobby or any gathering places for students. Its literally just classrooms and halls.

For instance, South County is the exact same floor plan, with a lot fewer students AND South County has an extra "bubble" building for extra space for sports and activities. I don't know how they got that.

[Anonymous]

I don't see why having 5% extra capacity at a HS is a bad thing. We should be aiming for around 90% capacity, to leave wiggle room for new construction and population fluctuations and to avoid having to adjust the boundaries in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Centreville and Chantilly both have modulars and trailers.
Westfield has trailers
South Lakes has trailers.

According to the dashboard, Oakton has neither trailers or modular.

This school is needed to relieve overcrowding if getting rid of modulars and trailers is a goal.

Trailers are cheap and should be eliminated if possible. Modulars cost millions to install and eliminating them shouldn’t be a priority.

Herndon is sitting on hundreds of empty seats and they at least ought to have a plan to fill them before we spend $150M on a new school in western Fairfax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't see why having 5% extra capacity at a HS is a bad thing. We should be aiming for around 90% capacity, to leave wiggle room for new construction and population fluctuations and to avoid having to adjust the boundaries in the future.

I think somewhere in this boundary study mess, I read that 85-94 was optimal. But, I'm just relying on memory and may be wrong or misinterpreting. .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Centreville and Chantilly both have modulars and trailers.
Westfield has trailers
South Lakes has trailers.

According to the dashboard, Oakton has neither trailers or modular.

This school is needed to relieve overcrowding if getting rid of modulars and trailers is a goal.

Trailers are cheap and should be eliminated if possible. Modulars cost millions to install and eliminating them shouldn’t be a priority.

Herndon is sitting on hundreds of empty seats and they at least ought to have a plan to fill them before we spend $150M on a new school in western Fairfax.

They’ve been adding major expansions to the western high schools in the absence of securing land for an actual Western High School. Now there is a location that can serve a community rather than bounce these neighborhoods between far off Westfield, Herndon, South Lakes, and Oakton when they run out of space. If anything they should be thinking about how they can repurpose the expansions that are no longer needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Is there over crowding? Where?

Link from: https://www.fcps.edu/facilities-planning-future/facilities-and-membership-dashboards

HS : capacity util now vs. 2029-30
Herndon: 81% vs. 69%
[b]South Lake: 96% vs. 100%
Oakton: 98% vs. 95%
Westfield: 97% vs. 94%
Chantilly: 125% vs. 110%
Centreville: 118% vs. 69% [/b](renovation planned???)

Messed up bolding. To answer your question of "where?"
South Lakes
Oakton
Westfield
Chantilly
and presently, without addition, Centreville

seems like only chantilly will be overcrowded.

Most of the capacity is also based on several trailers/modules too right?. In general all the high schools are several hundred kids over what would be an ideal number.

Yes.

No. Trailers are not included in capacity calculations. Those of you who don’t know this should not be participating in the thread.

Nor is there an “ideal number” of kids for a HS in FCPS right now, or else they wouldn’t have expanded schools like Herndon and Oakton as much as they did.

According to the FCPS website they are included in the capacity calculation.

https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/maps/2024-2026-boundary-review/glossary-terms

No, they aren’t. Trailers are referred to as “temporary classrooms” in this glossary and clearly excluded from capacity calculations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see why having 5% extra capacity at a HS is a bad thing. We should be aiming for around 90% capacity, to leave wiggle room for new construction and population fluctuations and to avoid having to adjust the boundaries in the future.

I think somewhere in this boundary study mess, I read that 85-94 was optimal. But, I'm just relying on memory and may be wrong or misinterpreting. .

Yes, they consider that range to be optimal but won’t consider schools to be under-enrolled unless they drop below a certain level - I think 65-70% capacity?

[Anonymous]

Herndon HS problem is that it has always had a large entering freshman class. But because it is majority Hispanic and ESOL adjacent, there are hundreds of dropouts and vacancies within its class sizes over the school that the other Western high schools don’t have. Should there be long term retention efforts that bear fruit Herndon HS can be right up to capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Herndon HS problem is that it has always had a large entering freshman class. But because it is majority Hispanic and ESOL adjacent, there are hundreds of dropouts and vacancies within its class sizes over the school that the other Western high schools don’t have. Should there be long term retention efforts that bear fruit Herndon HS can be right up to capacity.

The problem with Herndon High is that it’s had a reasonably steady population for the last decade (2200-2350 students) and instead of expanding it to around 2500 students, which would have given them a decent capacity cushion, they expanded it to nearly 2800. So now everyone talks about how Herndon is empty because FCPS expanded the building while the school population remained the same.

[Anonymous]

If you live in western Fairfax and want KAA to become a traditional high school, don’t fight the crazy pro magnet woman.

Instead, contact your school board member.

I emailed mine and received a positive response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you live in western Fairfax and want KAA to become a traditional high school, don’t fight the crazy pro magnet woman.

Instead, contact your school board member.

I emailed mine and received a positive response.

There is that nervous vitriol again.

Thanks for the heads up though. I’m going to contact my school board reps to tell them the opposite of what you said!

[Anonymous]

No one is nervous. SB knows attempting to do anything but a regular public HS would kill their reelection chances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one is nervous. SB knows attempting to do anything but a regular public HS would kill their reelection chances.

no it won’t. It may kill one of them, but not the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one is nervous. SB knows attempting to do anything but a regular public HS would kill their reelection chances.

Just reached out. Negated your advocacy. Next time, don’t be a jerk.

Also, as previously discussed, helping an entire half of the county would be way more popular than having us all pay $150 million to help just 5% of residents. So, your comment about reelection chances is not compelling at all.

Your friend who was discussing capacity earlier in this thread is way more convincing than you. Maybe take a page from her playbook and cut the name calling and whining.

[Anonymous]

No one cares about magnet high schools. People really care about getting a promised HS.
Every vote counts in local elections because the turnout is so low.