Should FCPS Reassign New Affordable Housing from Marshall to Langley?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What elementary and middle school would this feed into?

At present, Westbriar ES and Kilmer MS. It would make sense to reassign the new buildings on Spring Hill Road and to the immediate north to Spring Hill ES and Cooper MS. Spring Hill has capacity and Cooper has about 150 fewer kids now than Kilmer. Kilmer has had temporary classrooms (trailers/modular) for years. Cooper is being renovated and expanded now.

I know that Spring Hill is a split feeder and already one of the largest elementary schools in McLean. I thought the SB was going to get rid of the split feeder to Langley/McLean High but then they didn’t.

Do they make these tiny boundary adjustments for equity? We moved here 4 years ago. I have been trying to follow these boundary changes. I know there was a huge push for equity changes via One Fairfax to change boundaries across all of Fairfax county and I believe it was axed due to unpopularity. I wouldn’t want my kids reshuffled for the sake of equity.

They have in the past. Ft Hunt elementary has a little island that encompasses one low income housing development

I believe that island was moved to Fort Hunt in the 1970s to address overcrowding at Hybla Valley. I don't think it had anything to do with equity.

That sounds right. But it's a convenient straw-man to imply that adjustments that would mitigate capacity imbalances are "social engineering" when parents at the receiving schools don't like the demographics of the students being reassigned.

DP. Please do provide evidence that this is the case. The rest of us know that is absurd, but I look forward to you presenting actual proof that anyone has said that, much less thinks it.

I'll entertain you with this document which contains the actual comments submitted by FCPS parents on the survey regarding boundary adjustments presented in December 2021. Some parents quite candidly assert that FCPS should not consider boundary changes because their personal real estate investments could go negative if demographics at their neighborhood school changes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/C9L3KN074150/$file/MGT%20Supplement%20Materials.pdf

[Anonymous]

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This is simple. FCPS can decide whether the Langley pyramid, which has more capacity than others near Tysons, should take on these additional students, or not. If not, they should budgeting now to add capacity to schools in other pyramids. The fact that you're so overwrought about it doesn't make it any more complicated.

If you are talking about future capacity (which is the only thing relevant to a discussion of future development), Madison is projected to have much more capacity than Langley post-renovation.

The area in question is contiguous to Langley's boundaries, not Madison's.

The area in question is actually contiguous to McLean's boundaries, not Langley's, thanks to Tholen's boundary shift switcheroo last year.

This is correct. The development abuts McLean’s boundary, which is on the other side of Route 7. It is close to both Madison’s boundary (about 1/2 mile away, on the other side of Old Courthouse Road) and to Langley’s boundary (on the other side of the Toll Road, about 1/4 mile away). However, it only supports PP’s straw man to focus on the Langley boundary.

There’s no impediment to extending Langley’s boundaries across the Toll Road down to Spring Hill Road. In fact, the new buildings will be much closer to Langley than many current Langley-zoned neighborhoods on the other side of the Toll Road.

Your efforts to manufacture reasons why assigning these buildings to Langley would somehow be illogical border on the absurd. For all your cheap talk about how Langley would have no problems with kids living in apartments, your posts make clear you’d go to extreme lengths to try and derail it.

I do not think anyone is manufacturing reasons. I also think that the argument that Langley parents would have any issue with these students (or FARMS students generally) attending Langley is contrived. The problem with your line of argument is that you appear to be intentionally ignoring the geographical and practical reasons suggesting strongly that Langley is a less logical option than (a) Marshall (where the geography is presently assigned and which is the closest school to the development) or (b) Madison, which will have lower utilization than Langley (or Marshall or McLean) when the development opens and which is also closer to the development than Langley.

If your point is that the school board should ignore all of those factors and make boundary decisions based primarily on equity, that's fine. It's a fair position, even if it's unlikely to be one that is ultimately the primary driver for boundary decisions -- setting boundaries based primarily on equity would open a big can of worms and likely require lots of difficult decisions and significant redistricting county-wide. Whatever the school board might say about equity, it is not likely to have the stomach for that approach because it would lead to lots of angry parents. That's not a recipe for political success.

I also get the impression that much of your argument is driven by some desire to "stick it" to Langley. That's odd. Again, I don't think most people in the Langley boundary care. It also isn't necessarily consistent with what is in the best interests of the kids who will live in that development. Maybe it's in their best interest to go to Langley. Maybe it's in their best interest to go to a closer school with a better georgraphic connection to the area. I have no idea and I'm clearly not qualified to make that determination (and likely no one who posts on this board is qualified). But the decision must necessarily consider a far broader range of factors than Langley's diversity and whether these kids would add to diversity at Langley . . . that argument suggests that the kids are being used as pawns in a bigger debate. Regardless of the best school choice, that is not a decisional process focused on anyone's best interests.

Langley was expanded to almost 2400 kids based on the assumption at the time by FCPS staff that it would enable Langley would take on some of the growth in Tysons. That hasn't happened yet; in fact, it was stymied by a School Board member who lives in Great Falls when FCPS staff proposed to assign part of Tysons to Langley. But the additional, new housing that's being built in a previously commercial area of Tysons adjacent to a part of Vienna that was just reassigned to Langley warrants a fresh look.

There are no logistical impediments to assigning the area to an ES and MS that feed primarily or entirely to Langley, and the schools in question are less likely to end up overcrowded than Kilmer MS and Marshall HS if FCPS keeps adding more new housing in Tysons to those schools. The area is closer to Cooper and Langley than the areas that the School Board reassigned to Cooper/Langley last year, and much closer to those schools than other neighborhoods that have been assigned to those schools for decades. It's not like students in this area in Tysons will be walking to any of the schools in question, so the trope about how terrible "busing" is don't come into play here.

You are correct that Madison is being expanded, but the area in question could not be assigned to Madison without creating an attendance island, which the School Board previously has said is something to be avoided. In addition, the expansion of Madison positions the school to take on additional kids from Oakton, one of FCPS's perennially most overcrowded schools, if necessary. Perhaps you envision a scenario where Marshall's most expensive neighborhoods in Vienna are reassigned to Madison, so that Marshall can be turned into the de facto Tysons HS, complete with a growing volume of affordable housing and a 30-35% FARMS rate, while Langley sits at 3% and Madison and McLean at 10% FARMS?

To the extent that you imply that lower-income kids might be ill at ease and unable to thrive at a wealthy school like Langley, the experience at other schools suggests otherwise. There are low-income kids who live near Blake Lane zoned for Oakton, in the Cedar/Park area of Vienna zoned for Madison, and in the Timber Lane area of Falls Church zoned for McLean. By most accounts, those students fare well at those schools. Why should Langley be any different?

As several have noted, this seems like a good opportunity to address some of the capacity imbalances in the Tysons area in a manner that is consistent with the county's commitment to One Fairfax. If you feel that it's an unacceptable exercise in gerrymandering, then surely you should also support a county-wide boundary review that also takes a fresh look at the appropriateness of sending kids who live in western Great Falls, as well as pockets of Herndon and Reston, to Langley, which is much further from their homes than Herndon, South Lakes, and Marshall.

This is spot on, well explained. But all of this debate is useless - as pointed out by others on this thread, Langley has a firewall against additional FARMS and this wall will be difficult to climb over. It is frustrating that parents in this area have not been able to affect a change over the past few years, although many of us have tried.

You may be right, but both the Board of Supervisors and the School Board are up for re-election in 2023. There's a widespread sense that there's poor coordination between other county officials and the School Board/FCPS.

Specifically, the county promotes growth and touts its commitment to equity, whereas FCPS's planning is anything but pro-active and the School Board members are seen as just looking after their favored schools/constituents. This would be a good opportunity to be somewhat pro-active, since all the signs are that far more additional housing units are going to get built in the Marshall district than in the Langley district, and also to make good FCPS's earlier position that the expansion of Langley during its renovation would allow Langley to share in the Tysons growth.

Fairfax County Planning and Development is also all in on equity and they will be seeking affordable housing options in developed areas because they now admit that concentrating affordable housing along Route 1 and Culmore was a mistake. FCPS and gatekeeping parents will find themselves needing to accept poor families into high-SES schools very soon. Watch the latest Fairfax County Department of Neighborhood and Community Services video where they go over this.

Well, that's one reason why Jeff McKay and other supervisors are so enthusiastic about locating Dominion Square West in Tysons, which already has a fair amount of moderate-income housing but not the volume of affordable housing located elsewhere in the county. To the extent that the goal is to make Tysons an urban environment with more amenities and residents, it's going to be easier to attract more workers (including teachers) if they can afford to live in Tysons rather than be expected to work in or near Tysons and commute from much further away.

But from a planning perspective FCPS has done a poor job of planning for this growth. FCPS basically has been steering the Titanic in recent years - funding additions where they didn't necessarily make sense because they were in old plans that were never revisited, ignoring years-long overcrowding at numerous schools, and issuing enrollment projections that were stale from the time they were issued.

How fantastic it would be if FCPS and the School Board started to plan ahead, rather than constantly play catch up, and didn't necessarily let the wealthiest parents dictate their decisions at every step.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What elementary and middle school would this feed into?

At present, Westbriar ES and Kilmer MS. It would make sense to reassign the new buildings on Spring Hill Road and to the immediate north to Spring Hill ES and Cooper MS. Spring Hill has capacity and Cooper has about 150 fewer kids now than Kilmer. Kilmer has had temporary classrooms (trailers/modular) for years. Cooper is being renovated and expanded now.

I know that Spring Hill is a split feeder and already one of the largest elementary schools in McLean. I thought the SB was going to get rid of the split feeder to Langley/McLean High but then they didn’t.

Do they make these tiny boundary adjustments for equity? We moved here 4 years ago. I have been trying to follow these boundary changes. I know there was a huge push for equity changes via One Fairfax to change boundaries across all of Fairfax county and I believe it was axed due to unpopularity. I wouldn’t want my kids reshuffled for the sake of equity.

They have in the past. Ft Hunt elementary has a little island that encompasses one low income housing development

I believe that island was moved to Fort Hunt in the 1970s to address overcrowding at Hybla Valley. I don't think it had anything to do with equity.

That sounds right. But it's a convenient straw-man to imply that adjustments that would mitigate capacity imbalances are "social engineering" when parents at the receiving schools don't like the demographics of the students being reassigned.

DP. Please do provide evidence that this is the case. The rest of us know that is absurd, but I look forward to you presenting actual proof that anyone has said that, much less thinks it.

I'll entertain you with this document which contains the actual comments submitted by FCPS parents on the survey regarding boundary adjustments presented in December 2021. Some parents quite candidly assert that FCPS should not consider boundary changes because their personal real estate investments could go negative if demographics at their neighborhood school changes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/C9L3KN074150/$file/MGT%20Supplement%20Materials.pdf

Boom!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What elementary and middle school would this feed into?

At present, Westbriar ES and Kilmer MS. It would make sense to reassign the new buildings on Spring Hill Road and to the immediate north to Spring Hill ES and Cooper MS. Spring Hill has capacity and Cooper has about 150 fewer kids now than Kilmer. Kilmer has had temporary classrooms (trailers/modular) for years. Cooper is being renovated and expanded now.

I know that Spring Hill is a split feeder and already one of the largest elementary schools in McLean. I thought the SB was going to get rid of the split feeder to Langley/McLean High but then they didn’t.

Do they make these tiny boundary adjustments for equity? We moved here 4 years ago. I have been trying to follow these boundary changes. I know there was a huge push for equity changes via One Fairfax to change boundaries across all of Fairfax county and I believe it was axed due to unpopularity. I wouldn’t want my kids reshuffled for the sake of equity.

They have in the past. Ft Hunt elementary has a little island that encompasses one low income housing development

I believe that island was moved to Fort Hunt in the 1970s to address overcrowding at Hybla Valley. I don't think it had anything to do with equity.

That sounds right. But it's a convenient straw-man to imply that adjustments that would mitigate capacity imbalances are "social engineering" when parents at the receiving schools don't like the demographics of the students being reassigned.

DP. Please do provide evidence that this is the case. The rest of us know that is absurd, but I look forward to you presenting actual proof that anyone has said that, much less thinks it.

No reasonable person can read your posts and not come away with the clear understanding that you're all about policing who goes to Langley and where kids currently at Langley may go in the future. We can all see how you challenge every post suggesting that assigning Dominion Square West to Langley would be a good idea and applaud every post suggesting that it's a bad idea.

You do realize there are mulitple people posting here, right? Kind of funny how you direct ALL of your responses to one person. I don't police where anyone at all goes to school, but the irony in that statement is hilarious since that's exactly what you've been trying your mightiest to do. Are you the poster who shoots down anyone who presents you with facts, even when they aren't Langley parents? Good luck on your crusade that absolutely no one else cares about.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What elementary and middle school would this feed into?

At present, Westbriar ES and Kilmer MS. It would make sense to reassign the new buildings on Spring Hill Road and to the immediate north to Spring Hill ES and Cooper MS. Spring Hill has capacity and Cooper has about 150 fewer kids now than Kilmer. Kilmer has had temporary classrooms (trailers/modular) for years. Cooper is being renovated and expanded now.

I know that Spring Hill is a split feeder and already one of the largest elementary schools in McLean. I thought the SB was going to get rid of the split feeder to Langley/McLean High but then they didn’t.

Do they make these tiny boundary adjustments for equity? We moved here 4 years ago. I have been trying to follow these boundary changes. I know there was a huge push for equity changes via One Fairfax to change boundaries across all of Fairfax county and I believe it was axed due to unpopularity. I wouldn’t want my kids reshuffled for the sake of equity.

They have in the past. Ft Hunt elementary has a little island that encompasses one low income housing development

I believe that island was moved to Fort Hunt in the 1970s to address overcrowding at Hybla Valley. I don't think it had anything to do with equity.

That sounds right. But it's a convenient straw-man to imply that adjustments that would mitigate capacity imbalances are "social engineering" when parents at the receiving schools don't like the demographics of the students being reassigned.

DP. Please do provide evidence that this is the case. The rest of us know that is absurd, but I look forward to you presenting actual proof that anyone has said that, much less thinks it.

I'll entertain you with this document which contains the actual comments submitted by FCPS parents on the survey regarding boundary adjustments presented in December 2021. Some parents quite candidly assert that FCPS should not consider boundary changes because their personal real estate investments could go negative if demographics at their neighborhood school changes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/C9L3KN074150/$file/MGT%20Supplement%20Materials.pdf

I see hundreds of comments about lots of different schools and issues. You're not proving the point you think you are.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What elementary and middle school would this feed into?

At present, Westbriar ES and Kilmer MS. It would make sense to reassign the new buildings on Spring Hill Road and to the immediate north to Spring Hill ES and Cooper MS. Spring Hill has capacity and Cooper has about 150 fewer kids now than Kilmer. Kilmer has had temporary classrooms (trailers/modular) for years. Cooper is being renovated and expanded now.

I know that Spring Hill is a split feeder and already one of the largest elementary schools in McLean. I thought the SB was going to get rid of the split feeder to Langley/McLean High but then they didn’t.

Do they make these tiny boundary adjustments for equity? We moved here 4 years ago. I have been trying to follow these boundary changes. I know there was a huge push for equity changes via One Fairfax to change boundaries across all of Fairfax county and I believe it was axed due to unpopularity. I wouldn’t want my kids reshuffled for the sake of equity.

They have in the past. Ft Hunt elementary has a little island that encompasses one low income housing development

I believe that island was moved to Fort Hunt in the 1970s to address overcrowding at Hybla Valley. I don't think it had anything to do with equity.

That sounds right. But it's a convenient straw-man to imply that adjustments that would mitigate capacity imbalances are "social engineering" when parents at the receiving schools don't like the demographics of the students being reassigned.

DP. Please do provide evidence that this is the case. The rest of us know that is absurd, but I look forward to you presenting actual proof that anyone has said that, much less thinks it.

I'll entertain you with this document which contains the actual comments submitted by FCPS parents on the survey regarding boundary adjustments presented in December 2021. Some parents quite candidly assert that FCPS should not consider boundary changes because their personal real estate investments could go negative if demographics at their neighborhood school changes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/C9L3KN074150/$file/MGT%20Supplement%20Materials.pdf

Boom!

Boom? Where's the gotcha? Could you just copy and paste the relevant comments? Everything I saw on the subject of real estate investments ran the gamut of high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What elementary and middle school would this feed into?

At present, Westbriar ES and Kilmer MS. It would make sense to reassign the new buildings on Spring Hill Road and to the immediate north to Spring Hill ES and Cooper MS. Spring Hill has capacity and Cooper has about 150 fewer kids now than Kilmer. Kilmer has had temporary classrooms (trailers/modular) for years. Cooper is being renovated and expanded now.

I know that Spring Hill is a split feeder and already one of the largest elementary schools in McLean. I thought the SB was going to get rid of the split feeder to Langley/McLean High but then they didn’t.

Do they make these tiny boundary adjustments for equity? We moved here 4 years ago. I have been trying to follow these boundary changes. I know there was a huge push for equity changes via One Fairfax to change boundaries across all of Fairfax county and I believe it was axed due to unpopularity. I wouldn’t want my kids reshuffled for the sake of equity.

They have in the past. Ft Hunt elementary has a little island that encompasses one low income housing development

I believe that island was moved to Fort Hunt in the 1970s to address overcrowding at Hybla Valley. I don't think it had anything to do with equity.

That sounds right. But it's a convenient straw-man to imply that adjustments that would mitigate capacity imbalances are "social engineering" when parents at the receiving schools don't like the demographics of the students being reassigned.

DP. Please do provide evidence that this is the case. The rest of us know that is absurd, but I look forward to you presenting actual proof that anyone has said that, much less thinks it.

I'll entertain you with this document which contains the actual comments submitted by FCPS parents on the survey regarding boundary adjustments presented in December 2021. Some parents quite candidly assert that FCPS should not consider boundary changes because their personal real estate investments could go negative if demographics at their neighborhood school changes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/C9L3KN074150/$file/MGT%20Supplement%20Materials.pdf

Your description of the comments is misleading. Reading through the linked document, the concerns appear primarily directed at property values going down if a house is re-zoned to a lower-rated school pyramid. The concerns are not (as you imply) with "demographics at their neighborhood school" changing . . . the commenters are expressing that they want their houses to stay in the same pyramid, not that they don't want others added to their pyramid.

I think most people would concur in the sentiment expressed by the commenters -- all else being equal, houses in a good pyramid command a premium to similar houses in a lower-rated pyramid and that is one of the reasons that few people would favor a boundary change that results in their house being moved to a lower-rated pyramid. That's just as true in the Langley pyramid as it is in other higher-rated pyramids.

That sentiment has little or nothing to do with "the demographics of the students being reassigned" -- a highly-rated pyramid will not be less highly-rated just because a certain number of lower-income students (or whatever other group) is reassigned there. A number of the people commenting on both sides of the primary argument in this thread have made that same point.

[Anonymous]

Far and away the best comment in that linked FCPS document. This person deserves a medal (and perhaps a seat on the school board):

"I hope the county is getting their money's worth from another worthless survey."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What elementary and middle school would this feed into?

At present, Westbriar ES and Kilmer MS. It would make sense to reassign the new buildings on Spring Hill Road and to the immediate north to Spring Hill ES and Cooper MS. Spring Hill has capacity and Cooper has about 150 fewer kids now than Kilmer. Kilmer has had temporary classrooms (trailers/modular) for years. Cooper is being renovated and expanded now.

I know that Spring Hill is a split feeder and already one of the largest elementary schools in McLean. I thought the SB was going to get rid of the split feeder to Langley/McLean High but then they didn’t.

Do they make these tiny boundary adjustments for equity? We moved here 4 years ago. I have been trying to follow these boundary changes. I know there was a huge push for equity changes via One Fairfax to change boundaries across all of Fairfax county and I believe it was axed due to unpopularity. I wouldn’t want my kids reshuffled for the sake of equity.

They have in the past. Ft Hunt elementary has a little island that encompasses one low income housing development

I believe that island was moved to Fort Hunt in the 1970s to address overcrowding at Hybla Valley. I don't think it had anything to do with equity.

That sounds right. But it's a convenient straw-man to imply that adjustments that would mitigate capacity imbalances are "social engineering" when parents at the receiving schools don't like the demographics of the students being reassigned.

DP. Please do provide evidence that this is the case. The rest of us know that is absurd, but I look forward to you presenting actual proof that anyone has said that, much less thinks it.

I'll entertain you with this document which contains the actual comments submitted by FCPS parents on the survey regarding boundary adjustments presented in December 2021. Some parents quite candidly assert that FCPS should not consider boundary changes because their personal real estate investments could go negative if demographics at their neighborhood school changes.

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/C9L3KN074150/$file/MGT%20Supplement%20Materials.pdf

Your description of the comments is misleading. Reading through the linked document, the concerns appear primarily directed at property values going down if a house is re-zoned to a lower-rated school pyramid. The concerns are not (as you imply) with "demographics at their neighborhood school" changing . . . the commenters are expressing that they want their houses to stay in the same pyramid, not that they don't want others added to their pyramid.

I think most people would concur in the sentiment expressed by the commenters -- all else being equal, houses in a good pyramid command a premium to similar houses in a lower-rated pyramid and that is one of the reasons that few people would favor a boundary change that results in their house being moved to a lower-rated pyramid. That's just as true in the Langley pyramid as it is in other higher-rated pyramids.

That sentiment has little or nothing to do with "the demographics of the students being reassigned" -- a highly-rated pyramid will not be less highly-rated just because a certain number of lower-income students (or whatever other group) is reassigned there. A number of the people commenting on both sides of the primary argument in this thread have made that same point.

Precisely this. Plenty of those comments expressed concern with their home values decreasing should they be reassigned to a different school - NOT if other kids were reassigned to their current school. You are absolutely correct that the PP misrepresented what was being stated in those comments. Here are a few examples of just that:

"We paid extra to buy a house that is zoned for Robinson. If boundaries change, our house value decreases. FCPS should be required to reimburse the difference in house value when we sell this house if it gets zoned to a different school pyramid."

"We moved into our home specifically for LBSS. Both of our children have IEPs and not only would our child be negatively effected by a boundary change but also our property values. My husband is retired military and we chose this location as a place to provide stability for our two children."

"We don't want the boundary to change as it will disrupt our child's education. We purchased our home because our child will attend a better school. Any changes to the current school that my child currently attends and/or will attend will negatively impact my child's education and my home value."

"We chose the Oakton pyramid after talking with numerous family & friends. The choice came at a considerable personal financial expense/investment. To be moved out of that pyramid would have a negative impact on our children (ages 4-12) a negative impact on home's long term value."

"We bought the current house because of the school pyramid, just like most people in our neighborhood. Our home value was/is largely based on that too."

"We bought house paying premium price because of Woodson HS. If school gets changed then our house value will go down which we do not want."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there federal sort of kick back monies going to counties to incentivize this reckless behavior of approving a billion pop up high density housing projects lately? We obviously don't have the school space, recreation space, or traffic space for it. This behavior needs to cease!

and where do the non-UMC go for housing? I don't mind affordable housing if the county plans to accommodate for it in schools.

The only "affordable dwelling unit" (ADU) high density developments Im familiar with are $700k-$1m+ townhome developments - they just sprinkle a handful or so of ADUs in there and then wave that around to garner support. And, some of these replace what was actually cheap apartment housing before, for actually poor people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Far and away the best comment in that linked FCPS document. This person deserves a medal (and perhaps a seat on the school board):

"I hope the county is getting their money's worth from another worthless survey."

+1
Also, this:

"Waste of time. Focus on more important stuff. How much money is this consultant and survey costing? It’s not like you ever listen to the parents anyway."

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote: Great Falls wants to keep Langley below capacity indefinitely for reasons that are obvious, but at some point the adults need to say enough is enough.

For reference, approximately 50% of Langley's current student body feeds from Great Falls (GFES, Forestville, and the Great Falls part of Colvin Run). Regardless of what anyone wants, FCPS isn't magically reassigning Great Falls away from Langley. You would need to find ~1,000 HS kids to fill that gap.

As much as you might want it to be otherwise, FCPS also isn't moving Forestville (the ES farthest from Langley) out of Langley anytime soon. That would only be done in connection with a wholesale boundary change and I assure you there is no appetite for that (on the school board, across the general population, or otherwise). Maybe when the mythical Western High School is built. But that is many years out.

With regard to the Tyson's development that's the genesis of this discussion, it seems premature when construction isn't even slated to begin until sometime in 2023 (which means it won't open until at least 2024). Why on earth would the school board take on a potentially complicated boundary issue that is not even ripe? That would be a political landmine. It makes no sense.

(And, because I know that the most common response to posts here is the personal attack: I have no horse in this race and personally could not care less about the demographics of any HS student body.)

Your timeline is only 2 years out... but sure, they should just punt a decision because they can and wait until people have actually started moving in and the issue becomes more contentious... THEN make a decision for which very little additional salient information has arrived. Seems to be the School Board's MO.

There is literally no political benefit for them to take on a potentially contentious issue now. Plenty can happen in two years. The issue does not affect anyone at any FCPS school today. That is likely why it's only being discussed on an anonymous message.

There is considerable political benefit for the FCPS School Board to (1) act pro-actively rather than reactively to school overcrowding and (2) demonstrate that its actions align with its oft-stated commitment to equity.

It's possible that doing the right thing would rile up some people, but groups like Voices of Fairfax have already shown that their attacks end up helping their targets and that their endorsements fail to get their candidates elected.

School board scrambled to add a very late amendment to the CIP promising a boundary change between McLean and Langley before the election tho.

Lmao.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county is planning to build 500 units of new affordable housing in Tysons in the Marshall HS district:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/housing/news/2022/media-advisory-affordable-housing-in-tysons

This is new housing so there are no existing residents with ties to particular schools.

As I understand it, Marshall is at capacity and it’s quite hard to place into Marshall now for IB. Langley on the other hand is still below capacity. Would this not be a good opportunity for FCPS to honor its commitment to equity and One Fairfax by assigning this new development to Langley?

Espeically if Langely has lower FARMS rate it sounds like a good way to improve SES diveristy.

Honestly if Langley parents could read the societal cards they'd realize that these students would HELP their students in college admissions and likely have little impact on their children's experience of school quality. In high school--unlike gen ed in ES--students are tracked by the courses they take. Only the higher achieving lower SES kids would be in the courses that most Langley students are taking now--and they'd likely be a great example because they are succeeding with less privilege. (There might even be social benefits--your kid won't gripe that everybody else goes skiing in Colorado, vacationing in Europe, wears x, y and z designer etc. because there's more of a SES range).

Low SES diversity means that your UMC relatively weaker student ends up falling below the GPA and SAT mean just because everyone is a such a strong student. Students are assessed in the context of their school. Likewise course rigor. If it's the norm to take 10 APs and your kid isn't, they are ranked as not taking the most rigorous course load. But the percentages shift with SES diversity and the most rigorous courseload criteria becomes a little looser. Even the highest students look better when there is a wider range.

My hope is that the students who come would integrate well and benefit from the strongest education--and many likely will. But, really, I think the highest gain would be for the higher SES kids in the school.

Lordy here we go with the “poor children will teach your kid to be grateful that she can afford fresh fruit. She will only see them in gym class and their likely poor academics will make her shine the brighter by comparison” rationale.

[Anonymous]

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This is simple. FCPS can decide whether the Langley pyramid, which has more capacity than others near Tysons, should take on these additional students, or not. If not, they should budgeting now to add capacity to schools in other pyramids. The fact that you're so overwrought about it doesn't make it any more complicated.

If you are talking about future capacity (which is the only thing relevant to a discussion of future development), Madison is projected to have much more capacity than Langley post-renovation.

The area in question is contiguous to Langley's boundaries, not Madison's.

The area in question is actually contiguous to McLean's boundaries, not Langley's, thanks to Tholen's boundary shift switcheroo last year.

This is correct. The development abuts McLean’s boundary, which is on the other side of Route 7. It is close to both Madison’s boundary (about 1/2 mile away, on the other side of Old Courthouse Road) and to Langley’s boundary (on the other side of the Toll Road, about 1/4 mile away). However, it only supports PP’s straw man to focus on the Langley boundary.

There’s no impediment to extending Langley’s boundaries across the Toll Road down to Spring Hill Road. In fact, the new buildings will be much closer to Langley than many current Langley-zoned neighborhoods on the other side of the Toll Road.

Your efforts to manufacture reasons why assigning these buildings to Langley would somehow be illogical border on the absurd. For all your cheap talk about how Langley would have no problems with kids living in apartments, your posts make clear you’d go to extreme lengths to try and derail it.

I do not think anyone is manufacturing reasons. I also think that the argument that Langley parents would have any issue with these students (or FARMS students generally) attending Langley is contrived. The problem with your line of argument is that you appear to be intentionally ignoring the geographical and practical reasons suggesting strongly that Langley is a less logical option than (a) Marshall (where the geography is presently assigned and which is the closest school to the development) or (b) Madison, which will have lower utilization than Langley (or Marshall or McLean) when the development opens and which is also closer to the development than Langley.

If your point is that the school board should ignore all of those factors and make boundary decisions based primarily on equity, that's fine. It's a fair position, even if it's unlikely to be one that is ultimately the primary driver for boundary decisions -- setting boundaries based primarily on equity would open a big can of worms and likely require lots of difficult decisions and significant redistricting county-wide. Whatever the school board might say about equity, it is not likely to have the stomach for that approach because it would lead to lots of angry parents. That's not a recipe for political success.

I also get the impression that much of your argument is driven by some desire to "stick it" to Langley. That's odd. Again, I don't think most people in the Langley boundary care. It also isn't necessarily consistent with what is in the best interests of the kids who will live in that development. Maybe it's in their best interest to go to Langley. Maybe it's in their best interest to go to a closer school with a better georgraphic connection to the area. I have no idea and I'm clearly not qualified to make that determination (and likely no one who posts on this board is qualified). But the decision must necessarily consider a far broader range of factors than Langley's diversity and whether these kids would add to diversity at Langley . . . that argument suggests that the kids are being used as pawns in a bigger debate. Regardless of the best school choice, that is not a decisional process focused on anyone's best interests.

Langley was expanded to almost 2400 kids based on the assumption at the time by FCPS staff that it would enable Langley would take on some of the growth in Tysons. That hasn't happened yet; in fact, it was stymied by a School Board member who lives in Great Falls when FCPS staff proposed to assign part of Tysons to Langley. But the additional, new housing that's being built in a previously commercial area of Tysons adjacent to a part of Vienna that was just reassigned to Langley warrants a fresh look.

There are no logistical impediments to assigning the area to an ES and MS that feed primarily or entirely to Langley, and the schools in question are less likely to end up overcrowded than Kilmer MS and Marshall HS if FCPS keeps adding more new housing in Tysons to those schools. The area is closer to Cooper and Langley than the areas that the School Board reassigned to Cooper/Langley last year, and much closer to those schools than other neighborhoods that have been assigned to those schools for decades. It's not like students in this area in Tysons will be walking to any of the schools in question, so the trope about how terrible "busing" is don't come into play here.

You are correct that Madison is being expanded, but the area in question could not be assigned to Madison without creating an attendance island, which the School Board previously has said is something to be avoided. In addition, the expansion of Madison positions the school to take on additional kids from Oakton, one of FCPS's perennially most overcrowded schools, if necessary. Perhaps you envision a scenario where Marshall's most expensive neighborhoods in Vienna are reassigned to Madison, so that Marshall can be turned into the de facto Tysons HS, complete with a growing volume of affordable housing and a 30-35% FARMS rate, while Langley sits at 3% and Madison and McLean at 10% FARMS?

To the extent that you imply that lower-income kids might be ill at ease and unable to thrive at a wealthy school like Langley, the experience at other schools suggests otherwise. There are low-income kids who live near Blake Lane zoned for Oakton, in the Cedar/Park area of Vienna zoned for Madison, and in the Timber Lane area of Falls Church zoned for McLean. By most accounts, those students fare well at those schools. Why should Langley be any different?

As several have noted, this seems like a good opportunity to address some of the capacity imbalances in the Tysons area in a manner that is consistent with the county's commitment to One Fairfax. If you feel that it's an unacceptable exercise in gerrymandering, then surely you should also support a county-wide boundary review that also takes a fresh look at the appropriateness of sending kids who live in western Great Falls, as well as pockets of Herndon and Reston, to Langley, which is much further from their homes than Herndon, South Lakes, and Marshall.

The effort to add apartments to Langley by the former Dranesville rep, who lived in McLean, was blocked by the school board early in 2019.

That’s a matter of public record. Your gaslighting won’t work sweetie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should expand Marshall's capacity. It takes away from the sense of community if you bus kids too far. Especially the demographic that would be in affordable housing.

Lol. Langleys boundaries stretch across the county and they wanted to closer an exit off 495 so that kids wouldn’t have to have so much traffic traveling home for a snack after school. This group of people are so out of touch.