Should FCPS Reassign New Affordable Housing from Marshall to Langley?

[Anonymous]

I like the suggestion. Especially seeing how it triggers the Langley poster.

[Anonymous]

What’s especially funny about McLean/Madison mom is the way she so clearly doesn’t want these (hypothetical) kids to be zoned to HER school. Such obvious projection.

[Anonymous]

Sorry - McLean/Marshall mom

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:.

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.

Remember when they blocked it in early 2019, overcrowding at McLean be damned, then in the fall were falling all over themselves to respond to a “community concern”

Hilarious.

They and only they are the reason there are no apartments at Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:.

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.

Remember when they blocked it in early 2019, overcrowding at McLean be damned, then in the fall were falling all over themselves to respond to a “community concern”

Hilarious.

They and only they are the reason there are no apartments at Langley.

Subsequent to that, FCPS staff proposed to add apartments to Langley in 2020 and it was opposed by the Great Falls Citizens Association and then blocked by Elaine Tholen, a Great Falls resident.

I don’t think Marshall (current zoning) or McLean (other side of Route 7) would have any issue taking on these additional kids if FCPS expands their schools. Neither has the same amount of excess capacity as Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:.

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.

Remember when they blocked it in early 2019, overcrowding at McLean be damned, then in the fall were falling all over themselves to respond to a “community concern”

Hilarious.

They and only they are the reason there are no apartments at Langley.

Subsequent to that, FCPS staff proposed to add apartments to Langley in 2020 and it was opposed by the Great Falls Citizens Association and then blocked by Elaine Tholen, a Great Falls resident.

I don’t think Marshall (current zoning) or McLean (other side of Route 7) would have any issue taking on these additional kids if FCPS expands their schools. Neither has the same amount of excess capacity as Langley.

FCPS presented three possible boundary changes in 2020. The Board chose one of the three options (Option B). Only one of the options (Option C) would have added apartments to Langley. Option A was similar to Option B, but would have moved a smaller area south of Leesburg Pike.

[Anonymous]

The board chose.

Like they chose to expand West Potomac.

[Anonymous]

Yes they should

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:.

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.

Remember when they blocked it in early 2019, overcrowding at McLean be damned, then in the fall were falling all over themselves to respond to a “community concern”

Hilarious.

They and only they are the reason there are no apartments at Langley.

Subsequent to that, FCPS staff proposed to add apartments to Langley in 2020 and it was opposed by the Great Falls Citizens Association and then blocked by Elaine Tholen, a Great Falls resident.

I don’t think Marshall (current zoning) or McLean (other side of Route 7) would have any issue taking on these additional kids if FCPS expands their schools. Neither has the same amount of excess capacity as Langley.

FCPS presented three possible boundary changes in 2020. The Board chose one of the three options (Option B). Only one of the options (Option C) would have added apartments to Langley. Option A was similar to Option B, but would have moved a smaller area south of Leesburg Pike.

After initially setting forth three options, FCPS staff recommended a revised version of Option B that included apartments. Tholen killed it in favor of the option preferred by the Great Falls Citizens Association, which added no apartments.

Fast forward a year and McLean's capacity is at an all-time high, there's still nothing in the works to build a permanent addition there, Marshall has to turn away pupil placement requests and has a modular, and Langley remains under-enrolled by almost 300 kids. But I guess people can keep suggesting only Langley haters would propose to move more kids from a new development within the Marshall area that's near the intersection of the Langley/McLean/Marshall boundaries to Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:.

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.

Remember when they blocked it in early 2019, overcrowding at McLean be damned, then in the fall were falling all over themselves to respond to a “community concern”

Hilarious.

They and only they are the reason there are no apartments at Langley.

Subsequent to that, FCPS staff proposed to add apartments to Langley in 2020 and it was opposed by the Great Falls Citizens Association and then blocked by Elaine Tholen, a Great Falls resident.

I don’t think Marshall (current zoning) or McLean (other side of Route 7) would have any issue taking on these additional kids if FCPS expands their schools. Neither has the same amount of excess capacity as Langley.

FCPS presented three possible boundary changes in 2020. The Board chose one of the three options (Option B). Only one of the options (Option C) would have added apartments to Langley. Option A was similar to Option B, but would have moved a smaller area south of Leesburg Pike.

After initially setting forth three options, FCPS staff recommended a revised version of Option B that included apartments. Tholen killed it in favor of the option preferred by the Great Falls Citizens Association, which added no apartments.

Fast forward a year and McLean's capacity is at an all-time high, there's still nothing in the works to build a permanent addition there, Marshall has to turn away pupil placement requests and has a modular, and Langley remains under-enrolled by almost 300 kids. But I guess people can keep suggesting only Langley haters would propose to move more kids from a new development within the Marshall area that's near the intersection of the Langley/McLean/Marshall boundaries to Langley.

The Board voted 11-1 in favor of the change. Part of the Board's rationale was that it was premature to make boundary changes based on Tysons development. This is what Brabrand said:

"After extensive community feedback, including feedback from the Jan. 28, 2021, public hearing…staff is recommending Option B as it was presented at the community meeting on Dec. 7, 2020…It will better balance capacity between schools and it will allow staff and FCPS to do continued monitoring of population growth and plan development in Tysons"

Many in this thread are making the same exact point. Your pivot to attacking Tholen and the Great Falls Citizens Association suggests -- as some in this thread have also suggested -- that your views appear motivated by some animus toward Langley and those who go there.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:.

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.

Remember when they blocked it in early 2019, overcrowding at McLean be damned, then in the fall were falling all over themselves to respond to a “community concern”

Hilarious.

They and only they are the reason there are no apartments at Langley.

Subsequent to that, FCPS staff proposed to add apartments to Langley in 2020 and it was opposed by the Great Falls Citizens Association and then blocked by Elaine Tholen, a Great Falls resident.

I don’t think Marshall (current zoning) or McLean (other side of Route 7) would have any issue taking on these additional kids if FCPS expands their schools. Neither has the same amount of excess capacity as Langley.

FCPS presented three possible boundary changes in 2020. The Board chose one of the three options (Option B). Only one of the options (Option C) would have added apartments to Langley. Option A was similar to Option B, but would have moved a smaller area south of Leesburg Pike.

After initially setting forth three options, FCPS staff recommended a revised version of Option B that included apartments. Tholen killed it in favor of the option preferred by the Great Falls Citizens Association, which added no apartments.

Fast forward a year and McLean's capacity is at an all-time high, there's still nothing in the works to build a permanent addition there, Marshall has to turn away pupil placement requests and has a modular, and Langley remains under-enrolled by almost 300 kids. But I guess people can keep suggesting only Langley haters would propose to move more kids from a new development within the Marshall area that's near the intersection of the Langley/McLean/Marshall boundaries to Langley.

The Board voted 11-1 in favor of the change. Part of the Board's rationale was that it was premature to make boundary changes based on Tysons development. This is what Brabrand said:

"After extensive community feedback, including feedback from the Jan. 28, 2021, public hearing…staff is recommending Option B as it was presented at the community meeting on Dec. 7, 2020…It will better balance capacity between schools and it will allow staff and FCPS to do continued monitoring of population growth and plan development in Tysons"

Many in this thread are making the same exact point. Your pivot to attacking Tholen and the Great Falls Citizens Association suggests -- as some in this thread have also suggested -- that your views appear motivated by some animus toward Langley and those who go there.

It's simply a matter of fact that the staff revised its recommendation after Tholen pushed it to do so, and that the Great Falls Citizens Association then went on the record as stating that it supported the option than moved no apartments because it saw that option as having the least impact on Langley's future enrollment.

So here we are later, with McLean's capacity at an all-time high and no plans for a permanent addition, Marshall turning away pupil placements for lack of space, both McLean and Marshall slated for hundreds of additional housing units that aren't yet reflected in any FCPS enrollment projections, Langley with a current enrollment of slightly over 2000 kids with a capacity of 2370, and further platitudes about "continued monitoring of population growth and plan development."

Brabrand's operating failures didn't serve him too well, and it doesn't bode well for incumbent School Board members, either. However, if they are indeed monitoring "population growth and plan development," as they claim, they might well decide, given the growth in the enrollment at Marshall this year and the hundreds of additional students that housing now in the pipeline but not yet reflected in the official projections would yield at Marshall, that an administrative boundary change to reassign the area that includes Dominion Square West to Langley makes sense. That would be similar to the decision years ago, by a more nimble School Board at a time when Marshall was under-enrolled, to administratively reassign the Spring Gate apartments in Tysons from McLean to Marshall before their construction was finished.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:.

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.

Remember when they blocked it in early 2019, overcrowding at McLean be damned, then in the fall were falling all over themselves to respond to a “community concern”

Hilarious.

They and only they are the reason there are no apartments at Langley.

Subsequent to that, FCPS staff proposed to add apartments to Langley in 2020 and it was opposed by the Great Falls Citizens Association and then blocked by Elaine Tholen, a Great Falls resident.

I don’t think Marshall (current zoning) or McLean (other side of Route 7) would have any issue taking on these additional kids if FCPS expands their schools. Neither has the same amount of excess capacity as Langley.

FCPS presented three possible boundary changes in 2020. The Board chose one of the three options (Option B). Only one of the options (Option C) would have added apartments to Langley. Option A was similar to Option B, but would have moved a smaller area south of Leesburg Pike.

After initially setting forth three options, FCPS staff recommended a revised version of Option B that included apartments. Tholen killed it in favor of the option preferred by the Great Falls Citizens Association, which added no apartments.

Fast forward a year and McLean's capacity is at an all-time high, there's still nothing in the works to build a permanent addition there, Marshall has to turn away pupil placement requests and has a modular, and Langley remains under-enrolled by almost 300 kids. But I guess people can keep suggesting only Langley haters would propose to move more kids from a new development within the Marshall area that's near the intersection of the Langley/McLean/Marshall boundaries to Langley.

The Board voted 11-1 in favor of the change. Part of the Board's rationale was that it was premature to make boundary changes based on Tysons development. This is what Brabrand said:

"After extensive community feedback, including feedback from the Jan. 28, 2021, public hearing…staff is recommending Option B as it was presented at the community meeting on Dec. 7, 2020…It will better balance capacity between schools and it will allow staff and FCPS to do continued monitoring of population growth and plan development in Tysons"

Many in this thread are making the same exact point. Your pivot to attacking Tholen and the Great Falls Citizens Association suggests -- as some in this thread have also suggested -- that your views appear motivated by some animus toward Langley and those who go there.

It's simply a matter of fact that the staff revised its recommendation after Tholen pushed it to do so, and that the Great Falls Citizens Association then went on the record as stating that it supported the option than moved no apartments because it saw that option as having the least impact on Langley's future enrollment.

So here we are later, with McLean's capacity at an all-time high and no plans for a permanent addition, Marshall turning away pupil placements for lack of space, both McLean and Marshall slated for hundreds of additional housing units that aren't yet reflected in any FCPS enrollment projections, Langley with a current enrollment of slightly over 2000 kids with a capacity of 2370, and further platitudes about "continued monitoring of population growth and plan development."

Brabrand's operating failures didn't serve him too well, and it doesn't bode well for incumbent School Board members, either. However, if they are indeed monitoring "population growth and plan development," as they claim, they might well decide, given the growth in the enrollment at Marshall this year and the hundreds of additional students that housing now in the pipeline but not yet reflected in the official projections would yield at Marshall, that an administrative boundary change to reassign the area that includes Dominion Square West to Langley makes sense. That would be similar to the decision years ago, by a more nimble School Board at a time when Marshall was under-enrolled, to administratively reassign the Spring Gate apartments in Tysons from McLean to Marshall before their construction was finished.

^ It's actually thousands of additional housing units that may yield hundreds of additional students to each of Marshall and McLean but aren't yet reflected in the FCPS projections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes they should

+1. But never underestimate the ability of this School Board to make the easy stuff look hard and the hard stuff look impossible.

[Anonymous]

Are there any potential residential developments that might come online in the next say 5-10 years that would provide a similarly substantial opportunity to add some much-needed SES diversity to Langley that are within or very near the current Langley boundaries... or is this the only realistic opportunity to do so? If there are, please indicate the location.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:.

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.

Remember when they blocked it in early 2019, overcrowding at McLean be damned, then in the fall were falling all over themselves to respond to a “community concern”

Hilarious.

They and only they are the reason there are no apartments at Langley.

Subsequent to that, FCPS staff proposed to add apartments to Langley in 2020 and it was opposed by the Great Falls Citizens Association and then blocked by Elaine Tholen, a Great Falls resident.

I don’t think Marshall (current zoning) or McLean (other side of Route 7) would have any issue taking on these additional kids if FCPS expands their schools. Neither has the same amount of excess capacity as Langley.

FCPS presented three possible boundary changes in 2020. The Board chose one of the three options (Option B). Only one of the options (Option C) would have added apartments to Langley. Option A was similar to Option B, but would have moved a smaller area south of Leesburg Pike.

After initially setting forth three options, FCPS staff recommended a revised version of Option B that included apartments. Tholen killed it in favor of the option preferred by the Great Falls Citizens Association, which added no apartments.

Fast forward a year and McLean's capacity is at an all-time high, there's still nothing in the works to build a permanent addition there, Marshall has to turn away pupil placement requests and has a modular, and Langley remains under-enrolled by almost 300 kids. But I guess people can keep suggesting only Langley haters would propose to move more kids from a new development within the Marshall area that's near the intersection of the Langley/McLean/Marshall boundaries to Langley.

The Board voted 11-1 in favor of the change. Part of the Board's rationale was that it was premature to make boundary changes based on Tysons development. This is what Brabrand said:

"After extensive community feedback, including feedback from the Jan. 28, 2021, public hearing…staff is recommending Option B as it was presented at the community meeting on Dec. 7, 2020…It will better balance capacity between schools and it will allow staff and FCPS to do continued monitoring of population growth and plan development in Tysons"

Many in this thread are making the same exact point. Your pivot to attacking Tholen and the Great Falls Citizens Association suggests -- as some in this thread have also suggested -- that your views appear motivated by some animus toward Langley and those who go there.

This ^^^. The same poster has rehashed the same things ad nauseam. It’s really beyond peculiar and obviously motivated by animus and resentment.