Boundary Review Meetings
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Anonymous
And like I said, that wouldn't come close to solving the overcrowding in the western side of the county. The new HS does a much better job of addressing the issue for multiple school pyramids, with the bonus affect of reducing commutes and associated transportation costs for many. |
Anonymous
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal. |
Anonymous
FCPS is down almost 4000 kids this year and birth rates are declining. Oakton is an outlier and Madison has space. |
Anonymous
Lots of schools have modular classrooms, and of course kids from Westfield could be moved to Herndon to create space for kids at other schools to move to Westfield. We're investing in surplus capacity in western Fairfax because people don't want to send their kids to Herndon or Westfield. |
Anonymous
Send Coates and McNair to Herndon HS. |
Anonymous
Yes! Let's overcrowd Herndon! Who would want to do that? |
Anonymous
Let's look at October 2025 enrollment at western schools. Schools with extra seats are Herndon (683), South Lakes (102), and Westfield (60). Total available capacity is 845 seats. Schools over capacity are Chantilly (262), Oakton (65), and Centreville (56). Total overcrowding is 383 seats. But rather than available of those 845 seats (and this doesn't include the surplus capacity at Madison, which could help with overcrowding at Oakton), we're planning on a new "2000+" school that will add to the surplus capacity in western Fairfax. I mean, go ahead and say that some of these schools are too big or too far away, but taxpayers footed the bill to expand a number of them and it's not like FCPS has taken any consistent position over the years as to how big is "too" big or how far is "too far" for kids to travel to a HS. The bottom line remains that the new western HS is addressing a want, not a need (and certainly not one that FCPS has previously or clearly defined as a "need"). And that want has more to do with avoiding certain schools than anything else. |
Anonymous
And, your comment that there are "only"383 students overcrowding the schools neglects to mention that means "over capacity" even with a total of 58 modular and temporary classrooms. I don't know how they figure that--but, to me, assuming 20 kids per temp classroom, that would bring the number to an additional 1160. And, that is likely a modest estimate. So, add that to the 383, and I think most people would agree that we need a new school to resolve this problem. It is not "best practice" to populate a school at 100% capacity. I think I read that 85-90% is considered best. |
Anonymous
mcnair and coates is closer to herndon than forestville. and westfield is the school people are saying is overcrowded. not langley. but fcps doesn’t want to shift them because it’s the not demographics it wants to move into herndon |
Anonymous
Trailers are excluded because n determining capacity and I don’t think you can fairly exclude modular seats in one part of the county near KAA when assessing capacity and then include them everywhere else. I’ve heard School Board members say in the past anything up to 110% capacity was treated as acceptable and not requiring any response by FCPS so I don’t know where you got the “85-90% is best” idea. But people toss out a lot of short-lived principles to justify what they want, whether it was moving kids out of Westfield in 2008 because it was allegedly “too big,” justifying the later expansion of West Potomac to 3000 seats, or rationalizing the purchase of KAA when there are over 800 available seats now in the western high schools. |
Anonymous
We aren’t zoned for either Coates or McNair, but I wouldn’t advocate to have those schools moved to Herndon High unless they figure out how to protect Herndon High students from receiving death threats at the school from fellow classmates and subsequently being murdered in a drive by at a nearby elementary school. No one should be forced to switch pyramids to an unsafe school, and those at the school should be allowed to go to a safer one should they so choose. |
Anonymous
When you include the modular capacity in the school capacity like you are, you are ignoring the fact that while a modular adds desks it does not add any new common area space, hallway space, cafeteria space, etc. These schools are bursting at the seams during class changes. The goal should be to get rid of as many of these temporary trailers as possible, not to replace them with new ones because they've been around so long they are starting to fall apart. |
Anonymous
LOL! There are students at Forestville that are just over 2 miles to Herndon High and close to Aldrin and Armstrong Elementary Schools. LOTS closer than McNair and Coates kids to Herndon High. And, this is just the neighborhoods from the Herndon and Reston areas that go to Forestville. |
Anonymous
i foresee these areas being moved in the next boundary review. not the entire elementary. when they move AAP to herndon and bring back the 100 or so kids that leave HMS to hughes there won’t be capacity at HMS for another elementary school, especially with rezoning more of coates into herndon’s boundaries |
Anonymous
Modulars are not trailers, any more than the two extra buildings at KAA are trailers, and FCPS has long included modular seats when determining capacity. And, they do effectively add hallway space. If you are going to make the argument they should be excluded then you have to be consistent across the entire county. You are arguing, yet again, for preferential treatment of one part of the county when FCPS’s own capacity determinations indicate there are more than enough surplus seats at some schools in western Fairfax to accommodate current overcrowding (and that overcrowding could subside on its own given the demographic trends) at some others. |