Should FCPS Reassign New Affordable Housing from Marshall to Langley?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mclean will eventually become it's own city and run it's own schools, so Marshall is the best plan.

Uh, not that this is ever going to happen, but what happens to Great Falls kids at Langley when McLean runs its own schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

That’s just the concern troll speaking. She’s so very worried about the SES diversity of schools that her kids don’t attend.

[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:

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.

Nah. This is just challenging FCPS to plan pro-actively to use the available capacity at Langley.

If you want to see what animus looks like, you should have seen the Langley parents scream at Janie Strauss at Forestville ES in mid-2019 because they'd convinced themselves the School Board wanted to move some Langley kids to Herndon in, like, 2032.

School board was on record with their intentions to rearrange kids by their parents’ bank accounts.

All the board had to do was grant Strauss’s very simple request to reboundary some apartments from McLean to Langley, and then all the people who break out in an angry red rash every time they think of Langley not having apartments wouldn’t need so much hydrocortisone cream.

But no…… they stomped all over her plans, waiting to be able to employ their “nuclear option” and rearrange every school in the county to the racial/economic mix they wanted.

Word got out and they heard from parents across the county that this was not wanted.

Too many parents became aware too close to an election, so they tabled the vote (a vote that had been scheduled for September 2019) to change policy to do that exact thing.

Now Langley haters with crusty scarlet welts are at CVS every other day buying a fresh tube of Cortaid.

You completely nailed it. Too funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

Those students are suffering from affluenza.

Nah. Just in your fever dreams.
DP

[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:

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.

Nah. This is just challenging FCPS to plan pro-actively to use the available capacity at Langley.

If you want to see what animus looks like, you should have seen the Langley parents scream at Janie Strauss at Forestville ES in mid-2019 because they'd convinced themselves the School Board wanted to move some Langley kids to Herndon in, like, 2032.

School board was on record with their intentions to rearrange kids by their parents’ bank accounts.

All the board had to do was grant Strauss’s very simple request to reboundary some apartments from McLean to Langley, and then all the people who break out in an angry red rash every time they think of Langley not having apartments wouldn’t need so much hydrocortisone cream.

But no…… they stomped all over her plans, waiting to be able to employ their “nuclear option” and rearrange every school in the county to the racial/economic mix they wanted.

Word got out and they heard from parents across the county that this was not wanted.

Too many parents became aware too close to an election, so they tabled the vote (a vote that had been scheduled for September 2019) to change policy to do that exact thing.

Now Langley haters with crusty scarlet welts are at CVS every other day buying a fresh tube of Cortaid.

You completely nailed it. Too funny.

Fair to say the likes of Elaine Tholen and Karl Frisch took a bad situation and found a way to make it worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

That’s just the concern troll speaking. She’s so very worried about the SES diversity of schools that her kids don’t attend.

DP. Isn’t a commitment to diversity of one of FCPS’s core values? Is there an asterisk where Langley is concerned?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

Those students are suffering from affluenza.

Well less well off kids aren’t here to “fix” affluent kids in any way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What they need to do is stop splitting Spring Hill and send all those kids to Cooper/Langley. Cooper at that point would be over-enrolled though, so that causes a whole other issue.

That was what they were planning to do last year and they changed the plan at the last minute.

I believe it was because Cooper could not accommodate the middle school students but I never read the official reason. It was just speculation. Some also thought it was because Langley didn’t want any apartments but I am pretty sure that is false.

It’s not like Langley speaks with a single voice, but it’s a matter of record that the Great Falls Citizens Association opposed moving any apartments to Cooper/Langley. The rationale wasn’t that they didn’t want less wealthy kids at their schools but that the areas with the apartments were growing and might eventually overcrowd Cooper/Langley. Tholen sided with her Great Falls neighbors and made sure the initial staff recommendation was rejected in favor of an option that only moved a fixed number of existing single-family houses from wealthier neighborhoods to Langley. But Langley continues to have excess capacity that would allow the school to accommodate the kids from the new Dominion Square West apartments in the Marshall pyramid.

If equity in FCPS means anything they will rezone this area to Langley now and not wait until Marshall gets as overcrowded as McLean was before they lift a finger.

Sign up and speak at the school board meeting.

[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:

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.

Nah. This is just challenging FCPS to plan pro-actively to use the available capacity at Langley.

If you want to see what animus looks like, you should have seen the Langley parents scream at Janie Strauss at Forestville ES in mid-2019 because they'd convinced themselves the School Board wanted to move some Langley kids to Herndon in, like, 2032.

School board was on record with their intentions to rearrange kids by their parents’ bank accounts.

All the board had to do was grant Strauss’s very simple request to reboundary some apartments from McLean to Langley, and then all the people who break out in an angry red rash every time they think of Langley not having apartments wouldn’t need so much hydrocortisone cream.

But no…… they stomped all over her plans, waiting to be able to employ their “nuclear option” and rearrange every school in the county to the racial/economic mix they wanted.

Word got out and they heard from parents across the county that this was not wanted.

Too many parents became aware too close to an election, so they tabled the vote (a vote that had been scheduled for September 2019) to change policy to do that exact thing.

Now Langley haters with crusty scarlet welts are at CVS every other day buying a fresh tube of Cortaid.

You completely nailed it. Too funny.

Fair to say the likes of Elaine Tholen and Karl Frisch took a bad situation and found a way to make it worse.

They all supported it except one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

That’s just the concern troll speaking. She’s so very worried about the SES diversity of schools that her kids don’t attend.

DP. Isn’t a commitment to diversity of one of FCPS’s core values? Is there an asterisk where Langley is concerned?

All FCPS high schools are diverse.

FCPS is supposed to keep the main thing the main thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

That’s just the concern troll speaking. She’s so very worried about the SES diversity of schools that her kids don’t attend.

DP. Isn’t a commitment to diversity of one of FCPS’s core values? Is there an asterisk where Langley is concerned?

All FCPS high schools are diverse.

FCPS is supposed to keep the main thing the main thing.

Langley is not economically diverse. Since it has more excess capacity than any other school in that area, they can add diversity and use capacity at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What they need to do is stop splitting Spring Hill and send all those kids to Cooper/Langley. Cooper at that point would be over-enrolled though, so that causes a whole other issue.

That was what they were planning to do last year and they changed the plan at the last minute.

I believe it was because Cooper could not accommodate the middle school students but I never read the official reason. It was just speculation. Some also thought it was because Langley didn’t want any apartments but I am pretty sure that is false.

It’s not like Langley speaks with a single voice, but it’s a matter of record that the Great Falls Citizens Association opposed moving any apartments to Cooper/Langley. The rationale wasn’t that they didn’t want less wealthy kids at their schools but that the areas with the apartments were growing and might eventually overcrowd Cooper/Langley. Tholen sided with her Great Falls neighbors and made sure the initial staff recommendation was rejected in favor of an option that only moved a fixed number of existing single-family houses from wealthier neighborhoods to Langley. But Langley continues to have excess capacity that would allow the school to accommodate the kids from the new Dominion Square West apartments in the Marshall pyramid.

If equity in FCPS means anything they will rezone this area to Langley now and not wait until Marshall gets as overcrowded as McLean was before they lift a finger.

Sign up and speak at the school board meeting.

Don’t worry, people will be speaking up next year and they won’t be subject to the two-minute limit. Goodbye Elaine!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

That’s just the concern troll speaking. She’s so very worried about the SES diversity of schools that her kids don’t attend.

DP. Isn’t a commitment to diversity of one of FCPS’s core values? Is there an asterisk where Langley is concerned?

All FCPS high schools are diverse.

FCPS is supposed to keep the main thing the main thing.

Langley is not economically diverse. Since it has more excess capacity than any other school in that area, they can add diversity and use capacity at the same time.

It would have had more poor kids if the school board didn’t block Jane Strauss.

Nevertheless, there is no mandate for them to add a certain amount of poor/rich/middle class children to any school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

That’s just the concern troll speaking. She’s so very worried about the SES diversity of schools that her kids don’t attend.

DP. Isn’t a commitment to diversity of one of FCPS’s core values? Is there an asterisk where Langley is concerned?

All FCPS high schools are diverse.

FCPS is supposed to keep the main thing the main thing.

Langley is not economically diverse. Since it has more excess capacity than any other school in that area, they can add diversity and use capacity at the same time.

It would have had more poor kids if the school board didn’t block Jane Strauss.

Nevertheless, there is no mandate for them to add a certain amount of poor/rich/middle class children to any school.

Thank you for pointing that out.

So we should overcrowd one school and not use the available capacity at another because it might add more economic diversity to the wealthier school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

“Needed”

?

Are Langley students suffering?

That’s just the concern troll speaking. She’s so very worried about the SES diversity of schools that her kids don’t attend.

DP. Isn’t a commitment to diversity of one of FCPS’s core values? Is there an asterisk where Langley is concerned?

DP. The "commitment to diversity" is a bunch of BS - no matter the school. So glad to be done with FCPS "equity" virtue signaling. Too bad they don't simply focus on making the academics top-notch in all schools, rather than fretting about demographic makeup.