Is FCPS freaking out about Amazon coming to town?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder whether FCPS will build more schools in light of the Amazon hq2 coming. A new school in Springfield/Burke? Will they build a new western high school?

There is no land in Springfield or Burke for a new high school. And there is plenty of capacity at Lee. They need to focus on improving Lee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder whether FCPS will build more schools in light of the Amazon hq2 coming. A new school in Springfield/Burke? Will they build a new western high school?

There is no land in Springfield or Burke for a new high school. And there is plenty of capacity at Lee. They need to focus on improving Lee.

You say that as if they're not trying. The students at Key are doing great. Then those same students go to Lee and, what happens?

As for additional land, there is additional land in Springfield and Burke. But planning for a new school seems premature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder whether FCPS will build more schools in light of the Amazon hq2 coming. A new school in Springfield/Burke? Will they build a new western high school?

There is no land in Springfield or Burke for a new high school. And there is plenty of capacity at Lee. They need to focus on improving Lee.

You say that as if they're not trying. The students at Key are doing great. Then those same students go to Lee and, what happens?

As for additional land, there is additional land in Springfield and Burke. But planning for a new school seems premature.

There is not additional land for another high school there. The open land is almost entirely county parkland.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I guess they have a few years to raise taxes on the residents and build more schools. Only 400 employees expected in 2019. Only 1200 employees added in 2020. So, FCPS has at least a few years to tax and build.

FCPS has no taxing authority.

Correct. FC tried to get a sales tax (or a tax on food, can't remember the specifics) in the last few years. That would have gone to funding schools. Many other jurisdictions have this particular tax. But, it was voted down.

and thank goodness it was voted down, because the School Board is not a good steward of taxpayer funds. Why should bonds for new construction be issued when some schools have more capacity than students? What needs to happen is large scale redistricting, but the Board won’t do it because it would be politically unpopular.

This is a lie perpetrated by the far right in our county. The School Board and our County Board are extremely good stewards of our taxpayer funds. They get much better results than our neighbors with much less money. Period. Our taxes are low when compared to similar districts across the country. Good schools and good services cost money.

+1000

Says who? What growth do they produce from year to year for students? They have an AAP program and TJ along many businesses that attract high income families and I don't see much else. They have no idea how to plan neighborhoods or school boundaries.

Did you see the SAT scores thread?

I don't want growth from an already-highly-achieving school district. I don't want a top-heavy district with too many administrators and not enough teachers -- and FCPS doesn't have too many administrators. As for planning neighborhoods (that's the county board's job) or school boundaries, I don't think they do better or worse than any other school district.

Did you not list both the school board and County Board as being good stewards of taxpayer dollars? Why do we dismiss the County Board's responsibilities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder whether FCPS will build more schools in light of the Amazon hq2 coming. A new school in Springfield/Burke? Will they build a new western high school?

There is no land in Springfield or Burke for a new high school. And there is plenty of capacity at Lee. They need to focus on improving Lee.

You say that as if they're not trying. The students at Key are doing great. Then those same students go to Lee and, what happens?

As for additional land, there is additional land in Springfield and Burke. But planning for a new school seems premature.

There is not additional land for another high school there. The open land is almost entirely county parkland.

Incorrect. They were going to build the new FBI building very close to the metro. There would have been plenty of land left over for a huge HS, or even combined campus.

I don't think it is a stretch to think that Amazon HQ2 brings more of the same to the area. If so, every current homeowner with ten miles of a metro station stands to see an increase in real estate value over the next five years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder whether FCPS will build more schools in light of the Amazon hq2 coming. A new school in Springfield/Burke? Will they build a new western high school?

There is no land in Springfield or Burke for a new high school. And there is plenty of capacity at Lee. They need to focus on improving Lee.

You say that as if they're not trying. The students at Key are doing great. Then those same students go to Lee and, what happens?

As for additional land, there is additional land in Springfield and Burke. But planning for a new school seems premature.

Key IS a very good MS. I have a student there who is happy and learning, but I’m very concerned about HS. Since Key is the only middle
school that feeds into Lee, why is there such a sharp decline in ratings from Key to Lee? What’s the problem? Does Lee have a large influx of new students that didn’t attend Key?

Key/Lee have some nice feeder neighborhoods, excellent commuter location, and relatively affordable SFHs. Hopefully development pressure will force FCPS to devote more resources to fixing Lee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder whether FCPS will build more schools in light of the Amazon hq2 coming. A new school in Springfield/Burke? Will they build a new western high school?

There is no land in Springfield or Burke for a new high school. And there is plenty of capacity at Lee. They need to focus on improving Lee.

You say that as if they're not trying. The students at Key are doing great. Then those same students go to Lee and, what happens?

As for additional land, there is additional land in Springfield and Burke. But planning for a new school seems premature.

There is not additional land for another high school there. The open land is almost entirely county parkland.

Incorrect. They were going to build the new FBI building very close to the metro. There would have been plenty of land left over for a huge HS, or even combined campus.

I don't think it is a stretch to think that Amazon HQ2 brings more of the same to the area. If so, every current homeowner with ten miles of a metro station stands to see an increase in real estate value over the next five years.

Lee is very under capacity. Lake Braddock, South County and Hayfield all have space. FCPS desperately needs a new high school on the west side.

It makes zero sense to suggest buying land, demoing a bunch of existing structures, and spending the money to build a new high school a mile away from an existing school with lots of capacity, and a couple of miles away from several schools that also have capacity, in an area with no additional housing coming in.

The smart thing to do is to dump a lot of attention into Lee to make it appealing to not just the Key families but to families moving into the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My friends are freaking out over here in Arlington. I’m trying to stay rosy about it, but am keeping an eye on things.

Yeah...it’ll be interesting to see what happens.

I suspect we will see plenty of families staying in Arlington. I mean it was already happening. I doubt all the families with parents working at Amazon are going to trade in a good commute (and we all know traffic will likely increase...)

[Anonymous]

Can we just calm down a little?

Amazon coming means 25,000 jobs OVER 10-15 YEARS. It's not 25,000 jobs tomorrow. Say it's 12 years -- that means 2083 jobs per year. Not everyone will have a school-aged kid, and you have to spread that out over the areas they'll live in. WAMU said industry experts expect it to split between Arlington and DC, so give 1,000 jobs per year to each jurisdiction.

Again, since not all those people will have school-aged kids, it means maybe 700 kids for each of Arlington and DC to absorb.

APS has about 26,000 students, so that means an increase of 2.7% on top of whatever other increase they'd have.

For DCPS it would be an increase of about 1.5% over the increase they'd normally have.

Is it something to take into consideration when doing their long-term planning? Sure. Is it something to have an epic freakout over? Absolutely not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess they have a few years to raise taxes on the residents and build more schools. Only 400 employees expected in 2019. Only 1200 employees added in 2020. So, FCPS has at least a few years to tax and build.

They have been raising taxes every year by raising the assessments at levels that are not reflective of the real estate market.

Not true. In most instances the assessments are below market.

[Anonymous]

I think APS and FCPS will make changes as needed because there is really no way to predict where Amazon workers with kids will choose to live. Personally, I think they will mostly live in Arlington, in the part with the better schools because of commute.

[Anonymous]

I think the FCPS facilities dept report comes out in Dec. It will be interesting to see how the Amazon announcement is addressed. They alwsys speak in 5 yr projections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder whether FCPS will build more schools in light of the Amazon hq2 coming. A new school in Springfield/Burke? Will they build a new western high school?

There is no land in Springfield or Burke for a new high school. And there is plenty of capacity at Lee. They need to focus on improving Lee.

You say that as if they're not trying. The students at Key are doing great. Then those same students go to Lee and, what happens?

As for additional land, there is additional land in Springfield and Burke. But planning for a new school seems premature.

Key IS a very good MS. I have a student there who is happy and learning, but I’m very concerned about HS. Since Key is the only middle
school that feeds into Lee, why is there such a sharp decline in ratings from Key to Lee? What’s the problem? Does Lee have a large influx of new students that didn’t attend Key?

Key/Lee have some nice feeder neighborhoods, excellent commuter location, and relatively affordable SFHs. Hopefully development pressure will force FCPS to devote more resources to fixing Lee.

Key/Lee have the least expensive single-family homes of any school pyramid in the county, plus lots of apartments and older townhouses. Lee is also stuck with IB, is named after a traitor, and gets a lot of undocumented minors in their mid to late teens. It will require a concerted effort to turn it around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think APS and FCPS will make changes as needed because there is really no way to predict where Amazon workers with kids will choose to live. Personally, I think they will mostly live in Arlington, in the part with the better schools because of commute.

Better schools would be FCPS over Arlington, and better commute in this case will be the blue or yellow lines.

Kingstown, Burke and West Springfield are the neighborhoods to watch here for families with kids.

[Anonymous]

change TJ to a neighborhood school.