School Board Forum on "Boundary and Capacity"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So we just build additions forever and ignore the available space? That just doesn't make sense. The addition should never have happened at West Potomac. The West Springfield addition grew several times over the course of the planning and building - just so they didn't have to move anyone to Lewis. The county population has stagnated. Fewer families with children can afford to live here. Can we find a high school to close if we aren't going to use space wisely? Or how about some elementary schools - the taxpayers shouldn't have to continue to fund bad management. I personally can't wait to leave.

The changes that you propose would have a laughably negligible impact on taxes.

Let’s optimize the model to have all the available seats filled before any additions are made - sure, here’s your portion of the savings from that, $3 and a bag of chips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would rather see them drill down on what schools really need renovations and additions rather than start moving kids around like fungible widgets.

Completely agree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So we just build additions forever and ignore the available space? That just doesn't make sense. The addition should never have happened at West Potomac. The West Springfield addition grew several times over the course of the planning and building - just so they didn't have to move anyone to Lewis. The county population has stagnated. Fewer families with children can afford to live here. Can we find a high school to close if we aren't going to use space wisely? Or how about some elementary schools - the taxpayers shouldn't have to continue to fund bad management. I personally can't wait to leave.

They should build additions where growth has already occurred or is reasonably foreseeable, and not just because a school is being renovated. Over the long term, and looking at past trends, there’s no reason to think the county won’t continue to grow, even with temporary declines in the school-age or total population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So we just build additions forever and ignore the available space? That just doesn't make sense. The addition should never have happened at West Potomac. The West Springfield addition grew several times over the course of the planning and building - just so they didn't have to move anyone to Lewis. The county population has stagnated. Fewer families with children can afford to live here. Can we find a high school to close if we aren't going to use space wisely? Or how about some elementary schools - the taxpayers shouldn't have to continue to fund bad management. I personally can't wait to leave.

The changes that you propose would have a laughably negligible impact on taxes.

Let’s optimize the model to have all the available seats filled before any additions are made - sure, here’s your portion of the savings from that, $3 and a bag of chips.

How is not building expansions a negligible savings? The next set of construction costs for a major project will easily start to approach half a billion for one high school's renovation and expansion.

Right now, FCPS actually has additional capacity to hold a few thousand extra kids. It's just that they're all in few places leading to selective overcrowding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So we just build additions forever and ignore the available space? That just doesn't make sense. The addition should never have happened at West Potomac. The West Springfield addition grew several times over the course of the planning and building - just so they didn't have to move anyone to Lewis. The county population has stagnated. Fewer families with children can afford to live here. Can we find a high school to close if we aren't going to use space wisely? Or how about some elementary schools - the taxpayers shouldn't have to continue to fund bad management. I personally can't wait to leave.

The changes that you propose would have a laughably negligible impact on taxes.

Let’s optimize the model to have all the available seats filled before any additions are made - sure, here’s your portion of the savings from that, $3 and a bag of chips.

How is not building expansions a negligible savings? The next set of construction costs for a major project will easily start to approach half a billion for one high school's renovation and expansion.

Right now, FCPS actually has additional capacity to hold a few thousand extra kids. It's just that they're all in few places leading to selective overcrowding.

Nah, redistricting would hurt a lot of kids. Perhaps you should just move out of a blue bastion if you care so much about saving a little in taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So we just build additions forever and ignore the available space? That just doesn't make sense. The addition should never have happened at West Potomac. The West Springfield addition grew several times over the course of the planning and building - just so they didn't have to move anyone to Lewis. The county population has stagnated. Fewer families with children can afford to live here. Can we find a high school to close if we aren't going to use space wisely? Or how about some elementary schools - the taxpayers shouldn't have to continue to fund bad management. I personally can't wait to leave.

The changes that you propose would have a laughably negligible impact on taxes.

Let’s optimize the model to have all the available seats filled before any additions are made - sure, here’s your portion of the savings from that, $3 and a bag of chips.

How is not building expansions a negligible savings? The next set of construction costs for a major project will easily start to approach half a billion for one high school's renovation and expansion.

Right now, FCPS actually has additional capacity to hold a few thousand extra kids. It's just that they're all in few places leading to selective overcrowding.

They are pretty far down the path of having done nice renovations or additions at most high schools. There are some outliers that have sub-par facilities and at this point it seems borderline malicious to suggest they need to take a different approach rather than come up with a schedule to get everyone up to par eventually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

I don't see how they lavish money on some schools, continue to ignore others, and then claim the fix is to redraw lines across the board. It's a recipe for political suicide.

Lavish? LOLOLOL

+1
PP thinks if a school waits its turn for decades to be renovated, that the county is "lavishing" money on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

The bluff isn't people leaving the system, the bluff is political careers ending. Even if they could deal with the blow back, your county rep doesn't want to deal with irate calls from parents and pressure to vote against school budgets until the idea dies, but that's what would happen. For redistricting county wide to work, all of the county level politicians representing the areas that lose out would have to accept that their careers are over. Depending on how widespread the anger is, McKay might be done too. It's not worth it for any of them

And really, it’s not a bluff. Some people have no concept of how much a redistricting is playing with fire. Want a really bad school district? Have all the rich families that you so despise leave the system.

Nobody is leaving FCPS. They're trapped in the homes they got for ultra cheap and nobody is making any quick sales anytime soon. Only the very wealthy can do that, and most of them are already private.

It's a ridiculous notion anyway. You mean to tell me everyone in Vienna and Clifton and Burke an Chantilly is going to leave because a few more brown and black kids go to their schools? Oh please. People are racist but not stupid with their money.

To take one example, where are you going to find these additional brown and black kids to go to school in Vienna? Are you planning to bus them from Herndon or Bailey's Crossroads or Route 1? What if those kids currently walk to school or have after-school jobs? Do you think they want to spend an extra 90 minutes on a bus when they could be helping out their families? And, of course, do you think the folks at Madison are going to willingly accept that their kids are at Herndon, Justice, or Mount Vernon rather than Madison?

Basically, you're suggesting we swap contiguous or largely contiguous boundaries for either a lottery system or checker-board boundaries, and there's virtually no support for this in the county. People can and would leave the county rather than put up with it (and there's evidence to that effect from other school systems that adopted a lottery approach).

+100
Don't waste your energy on presenting facts to the PP. They continue to post exactly the same nonsense, desperate in their hope that *other people's kids* will be redistricted. It's kind of sad that the PP is so obsessed with this, tbh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

Your version of "what's right" is simply sticking it to other people. In short, you're an extremist with whom no one agrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

So we’re in agreement then. They should stay away from redistricting.

No. You appear to only be concerned about you want not what may happen after an unbiased COLD hard look. If your district stays the same after that, fine. But I’m sure you will cry unfair. Poor little rich girl.

^^ Case in point ^^ So very transparent.
DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I for one would applaud a politician doing what’s right over the risk of their political careers. Politics should not be a long term full time career.

So we’re in agreement then. They should stay away from redistricting.

No. You appear to only be concerned about you want not what may happen after an unbiased COLD hard look. If your district stays the same after that, fine. But I’m sure you will cry unfair. Poor little rich girl.

Well, you have your thoughts about what is “right” for politicians to do, and I have mine. Your extreme agenda, supported by just a sliver of FCPS, grounded in a hatred of your neighbors, and sure to lead to suboptimal outcomes for most students, is not likely to come to fruition.

+1,000,000
It is strangely amusing to watch the PP continue to insist all of her fantasies will actually happen. She's probably the same twit who refuses to disclose where her OWN kids go to school. Hmm, I wonder why...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the only redistricting that should happen is for overcrowded/undercrowded schools and to fix split feeders.

Some redistricting changes require more changes, and those changes require yet other changes. It’s the domino effect. Which has thus far been used as justification to do nothing.

OMG. Sheeeeeeeeee's back!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

I don't see how they lavish money on some schools, continue to ignore others, and then claim the fix is to redraw lines across the board. It's a recipe for political suicide.

Lavish? LOLOLOL

+1
PP thinks if a school waits its turn for decades to be renovated, that the county is "lavishing" money on it.

Renovate the schools, close some and redo the boundaries.
Sell the closed schools. Private education is growing so there will be buyers and FCPS can use those millions of dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would rather see them drill down on what schools really need renovations and additions rather than start moving kids around like fungible widgets.

+1
And they will. The only "fungible widget" here is the usual looney poster, braying about the same things on multiple threads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SB should take the bandaid off and redraw the lines across the board. Call people’s bluff about leaving the system and/or county. Truth is people make a lot of money off jobs in this area and they’re addicted or have jobs here that don’t really exist elsewhere.

I don't see how they lavish money on some schools, continue to ignore others, and then claim the fix is to redraw lines across the board. It's a recipe for political suicide.

Lavish? LOLOLOL

+1
PP thinks if a school waits its turn for decades to be renovated, that the county is "lavishing" money on it.

Renovate the schools, close some and redo the boundaries.
Sell the closed schools. Private education is growing so there will be buyers and FCPS can use those millions of dollars.

Um, sure. Whatever you say!