King Abdullah Academy Closing: FCPS Buy for HS?

[Anonymous]

The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

Seriously! KAA families, you can keep attending this school building if you move into its future boundaries. For FREE. FREE!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

So let’s say you’re zoned to Westfield, your kid was doing IB at KAA, and you have no experience with FCPS.

You put your address into the boundary locator, find out you’re zoned to Westfield, and think you no longer can continue with IB.

FCPS can let counselors at KAA know they are available to speak with families about IB and AP within FCPS. They can speak about AAP at the ES and MS level. That’s friendly and reasonable outreach. They obviously have no obligation to facilitate the continued operation of KAA or the creation of a new private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

So let’s say you’re zoned to Westfield, your kid was doing IB at KAA, and you have no experience with FCPS.

You put your address into the boundary locator, find out you’re zoned to Westfield, and think you no longer can continue with IB.

FCPS can let counselors at KAA know they are available to speak with families about IB and AP within FCPS. They can speak about AAP at the ES and MS level. That’s friendly and reasonable outreach. They obviously have no obligation to facilitate the continued operation of KAA or the creation of a new private.

Sure, it those families can initiate those conversations. You all are asking for special treatment, not equal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Want to add that would be <2300 kids for the entire new Western HS with those six elementary schools. Including 1). leakage to TJHSST 2). Some HS dropouts taken into consideration. Which would be similar to South Lakes, Oakton, and Chantilly HS once those kids are removed. The question is how much a depleted Westfield can then backfill with Centreville.

Well, you’re going to move Bull Run into Westfield and Willow Springs into Centreville. And then there is a split feeder like Powell that could consolidate at Centreville as well.

Ultimately will this end up turning Fairfax HS exclusively into a school for Fairfax City students?

No, kids from Fairfax Villa will move from Woodson to backfill Fairfax, and we can make all these schools a little less massive.

Making all these schools "a little less massive" could have been decided upon years ago, but that wasn't how FCPS decided to roll. Westfield was always big, Langley got expanded to almost 2400 seats, South Lakes got expanded to almost 2500 seats, Oakton got expanded to almost 2650 seats, and Herndon got expanded to almost 2750 seats. We all paid for that additional capacity to serve kids in western Fairfax, and now we're expected to pay for another school out near Carson so some of these expanded schools can have hundreds of empty seats?

Of course the county could play the capacity game and shufffle kids around every 5 years as enrollments at high schools rise and fall. I am in a community that unfortunately falls on a boundary line and thus we are staring down our 3rd different high school in the last 20 years. The Western High School would give us an opportunity at stability for once. Sure some schools might not be at 105% capacity, but that’s a good thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

So let’s say you’re zoned to Westfield, your kid was doing IB at KAA, and you have no experience with FCPS.

You put your address into the boundary locator, find out you’re zoned to Westfield, and think you no longer can continue with IB.

FCPS can let counselors at KAA know they are available to speak with families about IB and AP within FCPS. They can speak about AAP at the ES and MS level. That’s friendly and reasonable outreach. They obviously have no obligation to facilitate the continued operation of KAA or the creation of a new private.

Sure, it those families can initiate those conversations. You all are asking for special treatment, not equal.

Me all is just suggesting some basic decency under the circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

So let’s say you’re zoned to Westfield, your kid was doing IB at KAA, and you have no experience with FCPS.

You put your address into the boundary locator, find out you’re zoned to Westfield, and think you no longer can continue with IB.

FCPS can let counselors at KAA know they are available to speak with families about IB and AP within FCPS. They can speak about AAP at the ES and MS level. That’s friendly and reasonable outreach. They obviously have no obligation to facilitate the continued operation of KAA or the creation of a new private.

Sure, it those families can initiate those conversations. You all are asking for special treatment, not equal.

Me all is just suggesting some basic decency under the circumstances.

Nope, that’s not “basic decency” it’s special treatment. Tons of information is available on the FCPS website and you can also contact the system to learn about registration. FCPS has no reason to personally reach out to you. A building is for sale and they are buying it. That’s it.

[Anonymous]

Wealthy Saudis used to special treatment and hand-holding, LOL. I am honestly shocked that you expect FCPS to reach out to EVERY private school in its boundary that closes to personally counsel students on their options. All the info is on their website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Want to add that would be <2300 kids for the entire new Western HS with those six elementary schools. Including 1). leakage to TJHSST 2). Some HS dropouts taken into consideration. Which would be similar to South Lakes, Oakton, and Chantilly HS once those kids are removed. The question is how much a depleted Westfield can then backfill with Centreville.

Well, you’re going to move Bull Run into Westfield and Willow Springs into Centreville. And then there is a split feeder like Powell that could consolidate at Centreville as well.

Ultimately will this end up turning Fairfax HS exclusively into a school for Fairfax City students?

No, kids from Fairfax Villa will move from Woodson to backfill Fairfax, and we can make all these schools a little less massive.

Making all these schools "a little less massive" could have been decided upon years ago, but that wasn't how FCPS decided to roll. Westfield was always big, Langley got expanded to almost 2400 seats, South Lakes got expanded to almost 2500 seats, Oakton got expanded to almost 2650 seats, and Herndon got expanded to almost 2750 seats. We all paid for that additional capacity to serve kids in western Fairfax, and now we're expected to pay for another school out near Carson so some of these expanded schools can have hundreds of empty seats?

Of course the county could play the capacity game and shufffle kids around every 5 years as enrollments at high schools rise and fall. I am in a community that unfortunately falls on a boundary line and thus we are staring down our 3rd different high school in the last 20 years. The Western High School would give us an opportunity at stability for once. Sure some schools might not be at 105% capacity, but that’s a good thing.

There was no guarantee the Thru proposals would happen. People were pointing out the projected enrollment declines at schools like Chantilly and other schools serving western Fairfax besides Centreville (already slated for an expansion) are below capacity.

As a group we’re looking at a set of western high schools that collectively are projected to be at about 82% capacity if KAA becomes an FCPS high school. That’s a lot of excess capacity that apparently could should have been added elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

Was tuition only $11K a year? No wonder the school is closing. Private schools are so much more than that in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

So let’s say you’re zoned to Westfield, your kid was doing IB at KAA, and you have no experience with FCPS.

You put your address into the boundary locator, find out you’re zoned to Westfield, and think you no longer can continue with IB.

FCPS can let counselors at KAA know they are available to speak with families about IB and AP within FCPS. They can speak about AAP at the ES and MS level. That’s friendly and reasonable outreach. They obviously have no obligation to facilitate the continued operation of KAA or the creation of a new private.

Sure, it those families can initiate those conversations. You all are asking for special treatment, not equal.

Me all is just suggesting some basic decency under the circumstances.

Nope, that’s not “basic decency” it’s special treatment. Tons of information is available on the FCPS website and you can also contact the system to learn about registration. FCPS has no reason to personally reach out to you. A building is for sale and they are buying it. That’s it.

I had some sympathy for people who feel their boundaries have changed too often in the past or don’t like their current FCPS schools, but I’m really starting to hope this deal doesn’t close.

FCPS is obviously going to need to have some ongoing discussions with KAA folks about the facility as part of the due diligence process and sharing basic information about FCPS resources in the context of those discussions would be a small courtesy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wealthy Saudis used to special treatment and hand-holding, LOL. I am honestly shocked that you expect FCPS to reach out to EVERY private school in its boundary that closes to personally counsel students on their options. All the info is on their website.

FCPS isn’t paying $150M to acquire every such school, and then likely needing to engage in several months of due diligence thereafter before closing a deal. Perfect opportunity to be decent human beings, something that apparently doesn’t align with your value system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The taxpayers of Fairfax County will very generously offer to educate the KAA kids for free at their zoned public school. That's a much better deal than the $11k a year they were paying before. They even have a website where you put in your address and it tells you what school you go to. How much more help could they possibly need?

So let’s say you’re zoned to Westfield, your kid was doing IB at KAA, and you have no experience with FCPS.

You put your address into the boundary locator, find out you’re zoned to Westfield, and think you no longer can continue with IB.

FCPS can let counselors at KAA know they are available to speak with families about IB and AP within FCPS. They can speak about AAP at the ES and MS level. That’s friendly and reasonable outreach. They obviously have no obligation to facilitate the continued operation of KAA or the creation of a new private.

These families can do the same thing every other family new to FCPS does -- READ THE WEBSITE, DO THE RESEARCH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wealthy Saudis used to special treatment and hand-holding, LOL. I am honestly shocked that you expect FCPS to reach out to EVERY private school in its boundary that closes to personally counsel students on their options. All the info is on their website.

FCPS isn’t paying $150M to acquire every such school, and then likely needing to engage in several months of due diligence thereafter before closing a deal. Perfect opportunity to be decent human beings, something that apparently doesn’t align with your value system.

There is no 'due diligence'. This isn't a corporate merger. Its a real estate transaction. You buy the property, current owner vacates when you close.

Its a very nice property in a perfect location-adjacent to Carson. I'm honestly shocked FCPS is doing something smart, for once.

[Anonymous]

I really don't see any downsides to this property. Someone explain to me the motivations behind the naysayers?