Mclean boundary changes - can someone please update?

[Anonymous]

With all the grandfathering, McLean won’t be better for years.

[Anonymous]

I think one thing this tells us is that when it comes to actual decisions "One Fairfax" means nothing and only delays decisions.

In upcoming elections I will automatically rule out any candidate who pledges loyalty to "One Fairfax" or starts talking about the need for "equity-based" solutions. It tells us nothing about the actual decisions they'll make, but guarantees they'll chew up a lot of time talking about equity with no clear goal in mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With all the grandfathering, McLean won’t be better for years.

So your Plan B is just to disparage the school? Define what you mean by "better."

The capacity with the modular is 2343 students. They are below that now and one suspects that many of those who've gotten a taste of privates aren't coming back when the buildings reopen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been inside McLean and it is not this dump you keep making it out to be. It’s perfectly fine. Yes, you need an addition, but you had a renovation relatively recently, compared to many other schools. And to compare it to Annandale??? Wow, you really should be ashamed.

Why isn't a comparison to Annandale appropriate? The schools were built around the same time and FCPS spent the least amount of money on their renovations of any two schools in FCPS over the past 20+ years.

There are other schools like Falls Church that are in poor physical condition now, but FCPS is about to spend over three times as much renovating and expanding Falls Church as it did renovating Annandale and McLean.

[Anonymous]

My sympathies were definitely with the McLean community as we all know the SB has screwed them over. They should have been given an addition years ago. However, reading these absurd, whiny comments from McLean parents makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The short term solution - until the SB gets busy and approves and addition - us to send neighborhoods that are just as close to Langley. Easy solution which, along with the new modular, will ease over crowding.

Maybe focus your energies on voting out this abysmal SB and their focus on “equity,” instead of disparaging the school that now (luckily) has room to take some of your students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think one thing this tells us is that when it comes to actual decisions "One Fairfax" means nothing and only delays decisions.

In upcoming elections I will automatically rule out any candidate who pledges loyalty to "One Fairfax" or starts talking about the need for "equity-based" solutions. It tells us nothing about the actual decisions they'll make, but guarantees they'll chew up a lot of time talking about equity with no clear goal in mind.

To add to this post, I had a conversation with Karen Keys Gamarra a couple of years ago where I told her that McLean needed more attention from the School Board - a boundary change and a place in the CIP queue for an eventual addition. I challenged why she'd stood in the way of Janie Strauss's plan to go ahead and change the boundaries three years ago.

She started telling me how she was in no rush because they needed to do a "holistic review" of boundaries count-wide and, moreover, she thought McLean parents were behaving inappropriately by objecting to ever getting moved to Herndon.

I told her that had nothing to do with McLean, and was actually a small handful of Langley parents from Great Falls. She then admitted she couldn't keep the difference between Langley and McLean straight. The "holistic review" has never materialized and I doubt that she knows the difference between the two schools now, either.

[Anonymous]

Please excuse typos ^^

[Anonymous]

“One Fairfax” is a bunch of BS - as those Great Falls families tried to tell you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sympathies were definitely with the McLean community as we all know the SB has screwed them over. They should have been given an addition years ago. However, reading these absurd, whiny comments from McLean parents makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The short term solution - until the SB gets busy and approves and addition - us to send neighborhoods that are just as close to Langley. Easy solution which, along with the new modular, will ease over crowding.

Maybe focus your energies on voting out this abysmal SB and their focus on “equity,” instead of disparaging the school that now (luckily) has room to take some of your students.

Who was disparaging Langley? Posters sharing experiences or anecdotes about how long it takes to get to the school or out of the parking lot hardly counts as disparagement. You'd have to have an awfully thin skin to come away thinking otherwise.

People in the Langley pyramid could have been far more vocal in objecting to moving kids from Longfellow to Cooper as Cooper's renovation is getting underway. The vast majority were very gracious about recognizing that, if the boundaries were going to change, people would want to change the middle school boundaries at the same time as the high school boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sympathies were definitely with the McLean community as we all know the SB has screwed them over. They should have been given an addition years ago. However, reading these absurd, whiny comments from McLean parents makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The short term solution - until the SB gets busy and approves and addition - us to send neighborhoods that are just as close to Langley. Easy solution which, along with the new modular, will ease over crowding.

Maybe focus your energies on voting out this abysmal SB and their focus on “equity,” instead of disparaging the school that now (luckily) has room to take some of your students.

They are not up for re-election until 2023. All some of us can do right now is to memorialize some of their missteps that warrant different School Board members when that time comes. I know there are a few recall petitions getting circulated, but I doubt they'll progress very far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sympathies were definitely with the McLean community as we all know the SB has screwed them over. They should have been given an addition years ago. However, reading these absurd, whiny comments from McLean parents makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The short term solution - until the SB gets busy and approves and addition - us to send neighborhoods that are just as close to Langley. Easy solution which, along with the new modular, will ease over crowding.

Maybe focus your energies on voting out this abysmal SB and their focus on “equity,” instead of disparaging the school that now (luckily) has room to take some of your students.

They are not up for re-election until 2023. All some of us can do right now is to memorialize some of their missteps that warrant different School Board members when that time comes. I know there are a few recall petitions getting circulated, but I doubt they'll progress very far.

Omeish and others clearly see this only as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. I don’t think most of them will be up for re-election in 2023.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sympathies were definitely with the McLean community as we all know the SB has screwed them over. They should have been given an addition years ago. However, reading these absurd, whiny comments from McLean parents makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The short term solution - until the SB gets busy and approves and addition - us to send neighborhoods that are just as close to Langley. Easy solution which, along with the new modular, will ease over crowding.

Maybe focus your energies on voting out this abysmal SB and their focus on “equity,” instead of disparaging the school that now (luckily) has room to take some of your students.

I thought they decided to move kids who live further from Langley (Option B) instead of kids who lived closer (modified Option C).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sympathies were definitely with the McLean community as we all know the SB has screwed them over. They should have been given an addition years ago. However, reading these absurd, whiny comments from McLean parents makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The short term solution - until the SB gets busy and approves and addition - us to send neighborhoods that are just as close to Langley. Easy solution which, along with the new modular, will ease over crowding.

Maybe focus your energies on voting out this abysmal SB and their focus on “equity,” instead of disparaging the school that now (luckily) has room to take some of your students.

Who was disparaging Langley? Posters sharing experiences or anecdotes about how long it takes to get to the school or out of the parking lot hardly counts as disparagement. You'd have to have an awfully thin skin to come away thinking otherwise.

People in the Langley pyramid could have been far more vocal in objecting to moving kids from Longfellow to Cooper as Cooper's renovation is getting underway. The vast majority were very gracious about recognizing that, if the boundaries were going to change, people would want to change the middle school boundaries at the same time as the high school boundaries.

Are you joking? Had anyone from Langley suggested not moving kids from Longfellow to Cooper, they would have been attacked as “not wanting/welcoming” those Longfellow kids. Honestly, there is no winning with some of you. I agree that it makes sense to change both the middle and high school boundaries at the same time, but the Langley community has been VERY welcoming throughout this entire process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sympathies were definitely with the McLean community as we all know the SB has screwed them over. They should have been given an addition years ago. However, reading these absurd, whiny comments from McLean parents makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The short term solution - until the SB gets busy and approves and addition - us to send neighborhoods that are just as close to Langley. Easy solution which, along with the new modular, will ease over crowding.

Maybe focus your energies on voting out this abysmal SB and their focus on “equity,” instead of disparaging the school that now (luckily) has room to take some of your students.

Who was disparaging Langley? Posters sharing experiences or anecdotes about how long it takes to get to the school or out of the parking lot hardly counts as disparagement. You'd have to have an awfully thin skin to come away thinking otherwise.

People in the Langley pyramid could have been far more vocal in objecting to moving kids from Longfellow to Cooper as Cooper's renovation is getting underway. The vast majority were very gracious about recognizing that, if the boundaries were going to change, people would want to change the middle school boundaries at the same time as the high school boundaries.

Complaining about something as ridiculous as a parking lot is pathetic. And I think you know that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sympathies were definitely with the McLean community as we all know the SB has screwed them over. They should have been given an addition years ago. However, reading these absurd, whiny comments from McLean parents makes me a lot less sympathetic.

The short term solution - until the SB gets busy and approves and addition - us to send neighborhoods that are just as close to Langley. Easy solution which, along with the new modular, will ease over crowding.

Maybe focus your energies on voting out this abysmal SB and their focus on “equity,” instead of disparaging the school that now (luckily) has room to take some of your students.

Who was disparaging Langley? Posters sharing experiences or anecdotes about how long it takes to get to the school or out of the parking lot hardly counts as disparagement. You'd have to have an awfully thin skin to come away thinking otherwise.

People in the Langley pyramid could have been far more vocal in objecting to moving kids from Longfellow to Cooper as Cooper's renovation is getting underway. The vast majority were very gracious about recognizing that, if the boundaries were going to change, people would want to change the middle school boundaries at the same time as the high school boundaries.

Are you joking? Had anyone from Langley suggested not moving kids from Longfellow to Cooper, they would have been attacked as “not wanting/welcoming” those Longfellow kids. Honestly, there is no winning with some of you. I agree that it makes sense to change both the middle and high school boundaries at the same time, but the Langley community has been VERY welcoming throughout this entire process.

Well that is really odd. Even when your community gets thanked, you still manage to take it as an insult. Just let us know where to wire flowers next time.