Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
The current capacity of Chantilly includes the modulars behind the school. So that means the school is overcrowded even AFTER we include the capacity from the modulars (have you ever been there? it's a lot). I don't know about you, but I would prefer not to have my kids have to deal with trailers.
The PP clearly noted that Chantilly is overcrowded and that other schools in western Fairfax have more than enough capacity to handle the overcrowding there. It’s convenient for some to pretend a new HS was the only solution, but also patently false.
There is not enough room in any school that borders Chantilly. Centreville is also over. Westfield is over. Oakton is full and will soon be over. Fairfax is also full .the purpose of schools is to educate, not herd cattle.
Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, please. They are overcrowded even with the modulars and trailers. And, since you don't want to count modulars, there are 36 trailers And, two free standing, constructed buildings are NOT the same as modulars.
The issue isn’t whether a number of these schools are still overcrowded but instead whether that could have been addressed more efficiently by taking capacity of the surplus capacity available at other schools in western Fairfax.
Instead, other renovations will be deferred for years so you can avoid schools you don’t want your kids to attend.
List those, please. They cannot even get the permit to renovate Centreville.
''
Read up thread, and stop pretending the information wasn't provided (and based on Centreville's current capacity, not the expansion plan).
You might also ask yourself whether a school system that can't secure a permit in a timely manner to renovate an existing school is going to get a new school ready on a timely basis. We already know that the talk about how this was a "turnkey" purchase turned out to be a lie.
It's turnkey in that they can accept ~1200 students right now with no extra work required. The work to convert the elementary classrooms into high school space will be done as needed. I don't think anyone ever said or believed that zero work had to be done to the kindergarten classrooms - that's just been your slant to say something negative about the school. Literally they will be accepting FCPS students with no construction being done first - that is turnkey.
There's also the matter of not having a big enough cafeteria and library. And then there is limited seating in the gymnasium, and limited outdoor sporting facilities.
Good points. What does it say about FCPS that these limitations at KAA weren’t candidly acknowledged when they first voted to acquire the property, or that they’ve been so slow to release detailed estimates of the costs required to ensure KAA can function as a traditional HS? It’s obvious that all these recent proposals to let kids opt in or opt out of attending Western, and the decision to push off any decisions about new boundaries for Western, stem from a concern that people will object for years to come unless attendance is voluntary.
Anonymous wrote:That 27-28 change will also include removing AAP Centers at the middle school level and instead having AAP at all middle schools. Someone finally realized all these projects need to be combined into one comprehensive effort.
I think they are going ahead with it.
Looks like they are bowing to Great Falls on Western school. Very sad.
With the cancellation of next week’s programming vote, you might be right
What is going on with GF and the new HS?
There have long been people in Great Falls who've tried to throw roadblocks in the way of a new, traditional HS in western Fairfax, but it's unlikely that has much to do with the recent delays in moving forward with a decision about the programming for the western HS or the boundaries for the new school. They've got to work through permitting and construction issues before a new public HS could open, even with only 9th and 10th graders, and the biggest complainers about the potential boundaries for the new school have been people now at Oakton, not people in GF.
They could open as is with 9 and 10. The school was built to hold that many kids and they can certainly adapt. Just look what they do at the overcrowded schools.
Great Falls thinks these kids are insurance for them. That has been clear ever since the purchase.
i think the problem with opening is they didn’t file the right permitting (2232?). besides a few vocal great falls residents on next door the rest of the town does not have an opinion either way on the western high school. it does not affect us.
+1. So sad that there is one poster here who posts negative posts about great falls at least a dozen times a day, even when it is not relevant.
I think she dated someone from Great falls and got dumped.
No other group actively organized against this school. But, you know that.
You mean that non-great falls group that wanted it to be a magnet? That’s literally the only one I know that organized anything. Others just questioned the lack of plan and cost.
But you know that.
And, you know who was the base of FairFacts. They wanted to stop the school. Period. A magnet is not the same as a school with boundaries.
But, hopefully, this is not over.
I don’t understand what you mean by “base of fairfacts”? I haven’t seen any position from fairfacts matters on the school, but I may have missed it.
fair facts matters has not spoken out against the school. the only posts i have seen have asked for transparency on the purchase (what is the plan for the school, what other capital projects are being deferred etc). fcps still doesn’t seem to know the plan months after they purchased it
THIS ^^
That is speaking out against the school. And, some of the people who screamed the most on Nextdoor were very much on FairFacts. One lives two miles from Herndon High School.
asking for transparency is talking against the school? i don’t think so. any logical person no matter where the school was purchased would ask questions if FCPS didn’t even announce the purchase for over 2 months after it closed. and now a month after that they still have no idea on programming, boundaries etc. No one is saying the school isn’t needed in that area. But it seemed very impulsive and they didn’t even do the right permitting to get it open for 2026-2027.
+1
And can you imagine the outcry from people like the PP had a transaction like this occurred in, say, the Langley/McLean area?? We'd never hear the end of it.
If they’d followed any FCPS processes, there’d be data centers built there before FCPS ever held a board meeting to consider a purchase.
This.
Anyone who has ever purchased a house knows that you do not advertise what you are offering to other people searching for houses--or even which house you are going to make an offer.
Possibly. As long as you acknowledge the outcry that would absolutely be happening had this school purchase taken place in a different area of the county.
We don't all think like you. Some of us (myself included) aren't zoned for the new school or one of its donor feeders and are still happy FCPS is doing something about the overcrowding. All the surrounding counties have built new schools in the past 20 years, but we just kept expanding ours into giant monstrosities with strange borders that had lost all sense of a "community school."
PP can’t fathom that not everyone is as selfish as they are. People like PP also love to use the term virtue signaling because they can’t understand that there are people out there who can see past their own nose.
DP. When you've stopped patting yourself on the back, let us know if you have the same empathy for those whose school renovations will be deferred for years because FCPS will now be allocating so much of its capital budget to a western HS that the last CIP didn't contemplate building any earlier than 2034.
How much empathy did you have when the 2016 CIP had it scheduled to be built (for $120 million) in the FY21-25 time frame before the county gave the land to the Saudis? It was deferred for years until the land unexpectedly came available again, and now it's just one year behind the original schedule. Seems about right to me.
Of course, you ignore the money that was invested in additions to schools like Herndon, Oakton, and Madison since 2016. That money was available because a new western HS wasn’t being built, but now you are happy to have your cake and eat it, too, while schools elsewhere in the county are overlooked.
If there was any compelling need for a new HS, they would prioritize the boundaries for the school and we wouldn’t be hearing about how attendance at Western will be optional for years to come. It’s just an expensive toy the dimwits running FCPS decided they just had to have.
Madison and Oakton aren’t “western” high schools. Nice try. Oakton partially services 1 elementary school that’s considered western because the lines are gerrymandered and kids are relegated to 45 minute bus rides.
You’ve also conveniently left out severe overcrowding at chantilly and centreville that needs to be fixed and the KAA purchase will bring immediate relief.
Langley, Madison, and Oakton all serve kids living in the western part of the county and many are very happy with this arrangement. And of course once again you ignore the large expansion of Herndon.
But some people really don't want to send their kids to their assigned schools, particularly Westfield and South Lakes, so they are very happy to see overdue renovations at other schools delayed so that they can have an option other families are denied.
Oink, oink.
Madison does not serve the western parts unless you consider the vale area to be western. I don’t but whatever floats your boat.
Langley lines are absurd and will very likely be changed in the next boundary review because, as the anti-KAA people keep saying, Herndon has empty seats.
Oakton? It’s a mini version of Langley lines…absurdly drawn because of a lack of a western alternative.
No, sweetheart, the lines are drawn as they are because Madison, Oakton, Fairfax, and Woodson are so close to one another, so they have boundaries that extend to the west. Given Langley's location, its boundaries have to extend to the west as well. It can't take kids from Arlington.
And each of Madison, Oakton, Woodson, and Langley has been expanded in the not-too-distant past.
You want a slew of schools that taxpayers footed the bill to expand to end up at 85% capacity or less so you can avoid Westfield and South Lakes. Meanwhile other renovation projects get put on hold.
Absurd, and several School Board members will hear about it if they are stupid enough to run for re-election.
The extended boundaries were generated when cows outnumbered people in western Fairfax. There aren't many cows out here anymore. Rather than continuing to build MOWL-sized HSes where the population is (and LCPS does) FCPS threw away the KAA land, began building larger HSes (Westfield/South County), and adding 500+ per HS as each legacy HS came up for renovation. Why? They couldn't project school sizes to save their lives (resulting in a series of "emergency" expansions) and they didn't care what the result would be long term; it was cheaper in the short run.
That's a criticism, not a justification for deferring other renovation projects and screwing other communities because a few School Board members got googly eyed about KAA before they'd figured out how many HS kids it can handle or what type of programming it should offer.
It can handle 2,000 kids and will be a traditional high school. Next?
Not now it can't.
It can with minimal adjustments.
define minimal. head of facilities said between 30-50 million and i don’t think that included athletic fields
Whatever estimate they provide now will likely turn out to be woefully short of the actual cost.
Source? The estimate they provided was drastically inflated to "protect" FCPS, he said as much as he was giving it. The actual estimate was 4.2 million for each building plus 20 million for the main building - and "possibly less if it is a traditional school." So $28.2 million inflated to $30-50 million to protect FCPS.
Anyone with the slightest familiarity with past CIPs knows their cost estimates almost always end up understating actual costs. The only ones being “protected” here are School Board members and staff who’ve already made a series of misleading statements about the “savings” associated with purchasing KAA.
It’s a huge savings and anyone with a simple understanding of basic math can draw that conclusion. Recycling Pat herrity’s misleading numbers isn’t going to get you very far.
That’s amusing, since they had no intention of ever building this school. They just kept bumping the start date further out and expanding other schools to meet any need for additional seats.
The “huge savings” are a total fiction and the only question is how much they pretend to inflate them.
Riiiiiight. The vast conspiracy to put a fake site on the CIP for over a decade all so they could justify buying KAA. For people who claim FCPS can’t plan their way out of a paper bag, you’re crediting them with some master level of 4D chess playing right here.
You’re making it overly complicated. They kept bumping the start date for a new western HS further out - the start date was always a decade away - because they didn’t have to courage to outright kill it.
But they also had no intention of building it, and they really only pay attention to what’s in the CIP for the next five years. Anything beyond that is basically a placeholder.
Meanwhile they were meeting the needs in western Fairfax by expanding multiple schools and planning for the Centreville renovation.
KAA is a shiny toy that caught their attention, but its purchase was due to an impulse, not a plan; the cost will be greater than initially disclosed; and there will be no “savings,” only a reallocation of capital resources from other projects. That’s fine with you, of course, but not such a great deal for others.
The start date was bumped because there was no building because there was no land available to build on.
You are in fact the one spinning a vast conspiracy here when the simplest expiration is staring you in the face.
I haven't said anything was a conspiracy. They built additions and planned more - costs many millions of dollars - because they didn't have a better alternative and now they are going to create lots of excess capacity in one part of the county and defer other projects because they got stars in their eyes.
They don't plan; they react, and in this case they reacted to what they decided was a "bargain" before knowing how much it would ultimately cost them or what other renovation projects would be put on the back burner. And now they are proclaiming phantom "savings" based on an ever-changing estimate of a school they never would have built.
NP, the great news is that our population will continue to grow and all of those additions will be put to good use over the next 10-15 years (witness: Oakton which was just renovated and already full ahead of schedule).
FCPS is down almost 4000 kids this year and birth rates are declining. Oakton is an outlier and Madison has space.
One year is not indicative of what is going to happen in 10-15 years. Especially not one year where Donald Trump is our president and a lot of people fled the DMV (and I'm not even talking about the immigrant community).
This was brought up in our community meeting- especially being a community that really doesn’t have any space for new builds.
There's always a way to make space - look at Falls Church City. I wouldn't have thought there was room for 8 new condo buildings, but here we are. PLUS they are putting in 70+ townhouses where there once was just a cute little church down the street from us. And they built new townhouses across from Marshall and I read that they are tearing down more office buildings to build MORE townhouses right there....
Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
The current capacity of Chantilly includes the modulars behind the school. So that means the school is overcrowded even AFTER we include the capacity from the modulars (have you ever been there? it's a lot). I don't know about you, but I would prefer not to have my kids have to deal with trailers.
The PP clearly noted that Chantilly is overcrowded and that other schools in western Fairfax have more than enough capacity to handle the overcrowding there. It’s convenient for some to pretend a new HS was the only solution, but also patently false.
There is not enough room in any school that borders Chantilly. Centreville is also over. Westfield is over. Oakton is full and will soon be over. Fairfax is also full .the purpose of schools is to educate, not herd cattle.
So send kids from Chantilly to Westfield and from Westfield to Herndon.
If by herding cattle you mean changing boundaries that will also be inevitable at some point if you open a new traditional school.
Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, please. They are overcrowded even with the modulars and trailers. And, since you don't want to count modulars, there are 36 trailers And, two free standing, constructed buildings are NOT the same as modulars.
The issue isn’t whether a number of these schools are still overcrowded but instead whether that could have been addressed more efficiently by taking capacity of the surplus capacity available at other schools in western Fairfax.
Instead, other renovations will be deferred for years so you can avoid schools you don’t want your kids to attend.
List those, please. They cannot even get the permit to renovate Centreville.
''
Read up thread, and stop pretending the information wasn't provided (and based on Centreville's current capacity, not the expansion plan).
You might also ask yourself whether a school system that can't secure a permit in a timely manner to renovate an existing school is going to get a new school ready on a timely basis. We already know that the talk about how this was a "turnkey" purchase turned out to be a lie.
It's turnkey in that they can accept ~1200 students right now with no extra work required. The work to convert the elementary classrooms into high school space will be done as needed. I don't think anyone ever said or believed that zero work had to be done to the kindergarten classrooms - that's just been your slant to say something negative about the school. Literally they will be accepting FCPS students with no construction being done first - that is turnkey.
There's also the matter of not having a big enough cafeteria and library. And then there is limited seating in the gymnasium, and limited outdoor sporting facilities.
Good points. What does it say about FCPS that these limitations at KAA weren’t candidly acknowledged when they first voted to acquire the property, or that they’ve been so slow to release detailed estimates of the costs required to ensure KAA can function as a traditional HS? It’s obvious that all these recent proposals to let kids opt in or opt out of attending Western, and the decision to push off any decisions about new boundaries for Western, stem from a concern that people will object for years to come unless attendance is voluntary.
Looking at the board docs, I'm just shocked that they haven't spent the past 5 months putting out those RFPs for remodel plans so they could bid it out and get started with permitting ASAP. Construction won't even start until fall 2027 and won't be done until spring of 2029.
Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
The current capacity of Chantilly includes the modulars behind the school. So that means the school is overcrowded even AFTER we include the capacity from the modulars (have you ever been there? it's a lot). I don't know about you, but I would prefer not to have my kids have to deal with trailers.
The PP clearly noted that Chantilly is overcrowded and that other schools in western Fairfax have more than enough capacity to handle the overcrowding there. It’s convenient for some to pretend a new HS was the only solution, but also patently false.
There is not enough room in any school that borders Chantilly. Centreville is also over. Westfield is over. Oakton is full and will soon be over. Fairfax is also full .the purpose of schools is to educate, not herd cattle.
So send kids from Chantilly to Westfield and from Westfield to Herndon.
If by herding cattle you mean changing boundaries that will also be inevitable at some point if you open a new traditional school.
Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
The current capacity of Chantilly includes the modulars behind the school. So that means the school is overcrowded even AFTER we include the capacity from the modulars (have you ever been there? it's a lot). I don't know about you, but I would prefer not to have my kids have to deal with trailers.
The PP clearly noted that Chantilly is overcrowded and that other schools in western Fairfax have more than enough capacity to handle the overcrowding there. It’s convenient for some to pretend a new HS was the only solution, but also patently false.
There is not enough room in any school that borders Chantilly. Centreville is also over. Westfield is over. Oakton is full and will soon be over. Fairfax is also full .the purpose of schools is to educate, not herd cattle.
So send kids from Chantilly to Westfield and from Westfield to Herndon.
If by herding cattle you mean changing boundaries that will also be inevitable at some point if you open a new traditional school.
Not what i meant at all. You missed the point.
It’s unfortunate that you haven’t learned to express yourself better.
Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, please. They are overcrowded even with the modulars and trailers. And, since you don't want to count modulars, there are 36 trailers And, two free standing, constructed buildings are NOT the same as modulars.
The issue isn’t whether a number of these schools are still overcrowded but instead whether that could have been addressed more efficiently by taking capacity of the surplus capacity available at other schools in western Fairfax.
Instead, other renovations will be deferred for years so you can avoid schools you don’t want your kids to attend.
List those, please. They cannot even get the permit to renovate Centreville.
''
Read up thread, and stop pretending the information wasn't provided (and based on Centreville's current capacity, not the expansion plan).
You might also ask yourself whether a school system that can't secure a permit in a timely manner to renovate an existing school is going to get a new school ready on a timely basis. We already know that the talk about how this was a "turnkey" purchase turned out to be a lie.
It's turnkey in that they can accept ~1200 students right now with no extra work required. The work to convert the elementary classrooms into high school space will be done as needed. I don't think anyone ever said or believed that zero work had to be done to the kindergarten classrooms - that's just been your slant to say something negative about the school. Literally they will be accepting FCPS students with no construction being done first - that is turnkey.
There's also the matter of not having a big enough cafeteria and library. And then there is limited seating in the gymnasium, and limited outdoor sporting facilities.
Good points. What does it say about FCPS that these limitations at KAA weren’t candidly acknowledged when they first voted to acquire the property, or that they’ve been so slow to release detailed estimates of the costs required to ensure KAA can function as a traditional HS? It’s obvious that all these recent proposals to let kids opt in or opt out of attending Western, and the decision to push off any decisions about new boundaries for Western, stem from a concern that people will object for years to come unless attendance is voluntary.
Looking at the board docs, I'm just shocked that they haven't spent the past 5 months putting out those RFPs for remodel plans so they could bid it out and get started with permitting ASAP. Construction won't even start until fall 2027 and won't be done until spring of 2029.
Anonymous wrote:That 27-28 change will also include removing AAP Centers at the middle school level and instead having AAP at all middle schools. Someone finally realized all these projects need to be combined into one comprehensive effort.
I think they are going ahead with it.
Looks like they are bowing to Great Falls on Western school. Very sad.
With the cancellation of next week’s programming vote, you might be right
What is going on with GF and the new HS?
There have long been people in Great Falls who've tried to throw roadblocks in the way of a new, traditional HS in western Fairfax, but it's unlikely that has much to do with the recent delays in moving forward with a decision about the programming for the western HS or the boundaries for the new school. They've got to work through permitting and construction issues before a new public HS could open, even with only 9th and 10th graders, and the biggest complainers about the potential boundaries for the new school have been people now at Oakton, not people in GF.
They could open as is with 9 and 10. The school was built to hold that many kids and they can certainly adapt. Just look what they do at the overcrowded schools.
Great Falls thinks these kids are insurance for them. That has been clear ever since the purchase.
i think the problem with opening is they didn’t file the right permitting (2232?). besides a few vocal great falls residents on next door the rest of the town does not have an opinion either way on the western high school. it does not affect us.
+1. So sad that there is one poster here who posts negative posts about great falls at least a dozen times a day, even when it is not relevant.
I think she dated someone from Great falls and got dumped.
No other group actively organized against this school. But, you know that.
You mean that non-great falls group that wanted it to be a magnet? That’s literally the only one I know that organized anything. Others just questioned the lack of plan and cost.
But you know that.
And, you know who was the base of FairFacts. They wanted to stop the school. Period. A magnet is not the same as a school with boundaries.
But, hopefully, this is not over.
I don’t understand what you mean by “base of fairfacts”? I haven’t seen any position from fairfacts matters on the school, but I may have missed it.
fair facts matters has not spoken out against the school. the only posts i have seen have asked for transparency on the purchase (what is the plan for the school, what other capital projects are being deferred etc). fcps still doesn’t seem to know the plan months after they purchased it
THIS ^^
That is speaking out against the school. And, some of the people who screamed the most on Nextdoor were very much on FairFacts. One lives two miles from Herndon High School.
asking for transparency is talking against the school? i don’t think so. any logical person no matter where the school was purchased would ask questions if FCPS didn’t even announce the purchase for over 2 months after it closed. and now a month after that they still have no idea on programming, boundaries etc. No one is saying the school isn’t needed in that area. But it seemed very impulsive and they didn’t even do the right permitting to get it open for 2026-2027.
+1
And can you imagine the outcry from people like the PP had a transaction like this occurred in, say, the Langley/McLean area?? We'd never hear the end of it.
If they’d followed any FCPS processes, there’d be data centers built there before FCPS ever held a board meeting to consider a purchase.
This.
Anyone who has ever purchased a house knows that you do not advertise what you are offering to other people searching for houses--or even which house you are going to make an offer.
Possibly. As long as you acknowledge the outcry that would absolutely be happening had this school purchase taken place in a different area of the county.
We don't all think like you. Some of us (myself included) aren't zoned for the new school or one of its donor feeders and are still happy FCPS is doing something about the overcrowding. All the surrounding counties have built new schools in the past 20 years, but we just kept expanding ours into giant monstrosities with strange borders that had lost all sense of a "community school."
PP can’t fathom that not everyone is as selfish as they are. People like PP also love to use the term virtue signaling because they can’t understand that there are people out there who can see past their own nose.
DP. When you've stopped patting yourself on the back, let us know if you have the same empathy for those whose school renovations will be deferred for years because FCPS will now be allocating so much of its capital budget to a western HS that the last CIP didn't contemplate building any earlier than 2034.
How much empathy did you have when the 2016 CIP had it scheduled to be built (for $120 million) in the FY21-25 time frame before the county gave the land to the Saudis? It was deferred for years until the land unexpectedly came available again, and now it's just one year behind the original schedule. Seems about right to me.
Of course, you ignore the money that was invested in additions to schools like Herndon, Oakton, and Madison since 2016. That money was available because a new western HS wasn’t being built, but now you are happy to have your cake and eat it, too, while schools elsewhere in the county are overlooked.
If there was any compelling need for a new HS, they would prioritize the boundaries for the school and we wouldn’t be hearing about how attendance at Western will be optional for years to come. It’s just an expensive toy the dimwits running FCPS decided they just had to have.
Madison and Oakton aren’t “western” high schools. Nice try. Oakton partially services 1 elementary school that’s considered western because the lines are gerrymandered and kids are relegated to 45 minute bus rides.
You’ve also conveniently left out severe overcrowding at chantilly and centreville that needs to be fixed and the KAA purchase will bring immediate relief.
Langley, Madison, and Oakton all serve kids living in the western part of the county and many are very happy with this arrangement. And of course once again you ignore the large expansion of Herndon.
But some people really don't want to send their kids to their assigned schools, particularly Westfield and South Lakes, so they are very happy to see overdue renovations at other schools delayed so that they can have an option other families are denied.
Oink, oink.
Madison does not serve the western parts unless you consider the vale area to be western. I don’t but whatever floats your boat.
Langley lines are absurd and will very likely be changed in the next boundary review because, as the anti-KAA people keep saying, Herndon has empty seats.
Oakton? It’s a mini version of Langley lines…absurdly drawn because of a lack of a western alternative.
No, sweetheart, the lines are drawn as they are because Madison, Oakton, Fairfax, and Woodson are so close to one another, so they have boundaries that extend to the west. Given Langley's location, its boundaries have to extend to the west as well. It can't take kids from Arlington.
And each of Madison, Oakton, Woodson, and Langley has been expanded in the not-too-distant past.
You want a slew of schools that taxpayers footed the bill to expand to end up at 85% capacity or less so you can avoid Westfield and South Lakes. Meanwhile other renovation projects get put on hold.
Absurd, and several School Board members will hear about it if they are stupid enough to run for re-election.
The extended boundaries were generated when cows outnumbered people in western Fairfax. There aren't many cows out here anymore. Rather than continuing to build MOWL-sized HSes where the population is (and LCPS does) FCPS threw away the KAA land, began building larger HSes (Westfield/South County), and adding 500+ per HS as each legacy HS came up for renovation. Why? They couldn't project school sizes to save their lives (resulting in a series of "emergency" expansions) and they didn't care what the result would be long term; it was cheaper in the short run.
That's a criticism, not a justification for deferring other renovation projects and screwing other communities because a few School Board members got googly eyed about KAA before they'd figured out how many HS kids it can handle or what type of programming it should offer.
It can handle 2,000 kids and will be a traditional high school. Next?
Not now it can't.
It can with minimal adjustments.
define minimal. head of facilities said between 30-50 million and i don’t think that included athletic fields
Whatever estimate they provide now will likely turn out to be woefully short of the actual cost.
Source? The estimate they provided was drastically inflated to "protect" FCPS, he said as much as he was giving it. The actual estimate was 4.2 million for each building plus 20 million for the main building - and "possibly less if it is a traditional school." So $28.2 million inflated to $30-50 million to protect FCPS.
Anyone with the slightest familiarity with past CIPs knows their cost estimates almost always end up understating actual costs. The only ones being “protected” here are School Board members and staff who’ve already made a series of misleading statements about the “savings” associated with purchasing KAA.
It’s a huge savings and anyone with a simple understanding of basic math can draw that conclusion. Recycling Pat herrity’s misleading numbers isn’t going to get you very far.
That’s amusing, since they had no intention of ever building this school. They just kept bumping the start date further out and expanding other schools to meet any need for additional seats.
The “huge savings” are a total fiction and the only question is how much they pretend to inflate them.
Riiiiiight. The vast conspiracy to put a fake site on the CIP for over a decade all so they could justify buying KAA. For people who claim FCPS can’t plan their way out of a paper bag, you’re crediting them with some master level of 4D chess playing right here.
You’re making it overly complicated. They kept bumping the start date for a new western HS further out - the start date was always a decade away - because they didn’t have to courage to outright kill it.
But they also had no intention of building it, and they really only pay attention to what’s in the CIP for the next five years. Anything beyond that is basically a placeholder.
Meanwhile they were meeting the needs in western Fairfax by expanding multiple schools and planning for the Centreville renovation.
KAA is a shiny toy that caught their attention, but its purchase was due to an impulse, not a plan; the cost will be greater than initially disclosed; and there will be no “savings,” only a reallocation of capital resources from other projects. That’s fine with you, of course, but not such a great deal for others.
The start date was bumped because there was no building because there was no land available to build on.
You are in fact the one spinning a vast conspiracy here when the simplest expiration is staring you in the face.
I haven't said anything was a conspiracy. They built additions and planned more - costs many millions of dollars - because they didn't have a better alternative and now they are going to create lots of excess capacity in one part of the county and defer other projects because they got stars in their eyes.
They don't plan; they react, and in this case they reacted to what they decided was a "bargain" before knowing how much it would ultimately cost them or what other renovation projects would be put on the back burner. And now they are proclaiming phantom "savings" based on an ever-changing estimate of a school they never would have built.
NP, the great news is that our population will continue to grow and all of those additions will be put to good use over the next 10-15 years (witness: Oakton which was just renovated and already full ahead of schedule).
FCPS is down almost 4000 kids this year and birth rates are declining. Oakton is an outlier and Madison has space.
One year is not indicative of what is going to happen in 10-15 years. Especially not one year where Donald Trump is our president and a lot of people fled the DMV (and I'm not even talking about the immigrant community).
This was brought up in our community meeting- especially being a community that really doesn’t have any space for new builds.
They are finding space near Westfield, Chantilly and South Lakes. Lots of construction.
We are in a very concentrated boundary that has no space for new builds. I understand there is space in other boundaries, but my point was that ours is not going to grow over the years due to new builds.
Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, please. They are overcrowded even with the modulars and trailers. And, since you don't want to count modulars, there are 36 trailers And, two free standing, constructed buildings are NOT the same as modulars.
The issue isn’t whether a number of these schools are still overcrowded but instead whether that could have been addressed more efficiently by taking capacity of the surplus capacity available at other schools in western Fairfax.
Instead, other renovations will be deferred for years so you can avoid schools you don’t want your kids to attend.
List those, please. They cannot even get the permit to renovate Centreville.
''
Read up thread, and stop pretending the information wasn't provided (and based on Centreville's current capacity, not the expansion plan).
You might also ask yourself whether a school system that can't secure a permit in a timely manner to renovate an existing school is going to get a new school ready on a timely basis. We already know that the talk about how this was a "turnkey" purchase turned out to be a lie.
It's turnkey in that they can accept ~1200 students right now with no extra work required. The work to convert the elementary classrooms into high school space will be done as needed. I don't think anyone ever said or believed that zero work had to be done to the kindergarten classrooms - that's just been your slant to say something negative about the school. Literally they will be accepting FCPS students with no construction being done first - that is turnkey.
There's also the matter of not having a big enough cafeteria and library. And then there is limited seating in the gymnasium, and limited outdoor sporting facilities.
Good points. What does it say about FCPS that these limitations at KAA weren’t candidly acknowledged when they first voted to acquire the property, or that they’ve been so slow to release detailed estimates of the costs required to ensure KAA can function as a traditional HS? It’s obvious that all these recent proposals to let kids opt in or opt out of attending Western, and the decision to push off any decisions about new boundaries for Western, stem from a concern that people will object for years to come unless attendance is voluntary.
Looking at the board docs, I'm just shocked that they haven't spent the past 5 months putting out those RFPs for remodel plans so they could bid it out and get started with permitting ASAP. Construction won't even start until fall 2027 and won't be done until spring of 2029.
+1.
But how could they do that without even knowing what its name will be or the possibilities?
Anonymous wrote:Did anyone attend the meeting with Meren at Wolftrap last night regarding the Northeast Town of Vienna potential changes?
Bump. Interested in hearing how this meeting went as well.
I did. Not much other than people voicing their concerns. Her saying Dr. Reid will do what she pleases. People stated that Dr Reid indicated with the NE part of TOv moving back to Madison some of wolftrap will have to stay Marshall. There was mention of westbriar TOV students moving out of westbriar to another elementary.
Anonymous wrote:And those so worried about Westfield losing too many should look at all the new construction close to Westfield.
40 are listed today of new construction--and more to come.
There's more construction taking place and in the pipeline zoned to Marshall and McLean than Westfield.
Maybe, send some to that extra space at Langley and Madison.
Scenario 4 proposes to do just that. The question is why they aren't proposing to send anyone to Herndon, which has more surplus capacity than either Langley or Madison, before they splurge on a new western HS.
The only students close enough to send to Herndon are Forestville, and Langley doesn't need relief (yet). There is no way to shift enough kids from Centreville, Chantilly, and Westfield to fill those seats at Herndon. Centreville has 22 trailers and modulars, Chantilly has 23, and Westfield has 13. This area has needed a new school for years. Herndon couldn't fill the need even if transportation there wasn't an issue.
The PP you are responding to wants to send Coates and McNair to Herndon.
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.
+1. And, not only that, but this would overcrowd Herndon--but, I guess that is the PP's goal.
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.
The current capacity of Chantilly includes the modulars behind the school. So that means the school is overcrowded even AFTER we include the capacity from the modulars (have you ever been there? it's a lot). I don't know about you, but I would prefer not to have my kids have to deal with trailers.
The PP clearly noted that Chantilly is overcrowded and that other schools in western Fairfax have more than enough capacity to handle the overcrowding there. It’s convenient for some to pretend a new HS was the only solution, but also patently false.
There is not enough room in any school that borders Chantilly. Centreville is also over. Westfield is over. Oakton is full and will soon be over. Fairfax is also full .the purpose of schools is to educate, not herd cattle.
So send kids from Chantilly to Westfield and from Westfield to Herndon.
If by herding cattle you mean changing boundaries that will also be inevitable at some point if you open a new traditional school.
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