How did Herndon/Westfield HS go from top to bottom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then I sell and get a less expensive house in one of those lovely tree-lined streets in Herndon (hopefully near the rec center)

While my house may have lost value, it’s still relatively high because it’s in Great Falls.

I bank the difference and send my child to Herndon or pay for private school with the savings if I just really insist my child won’t be a Hornet.

The person who bought my house knows that the school zone has changed, and they saved some cash because of it.

This is flawed logic. The second a new redistricting map starts circulating, even before it's official, houses moved from Langley to Herndon lose 25% of their value. Instantly. Don't believe me? Look at the difference in home prices along Fairfax County Parkway that are zoned for Forestville vs. Armstrong - consistently 20-25% less in Armstrong . Here are two actual examples that sold recently:

https://www.redfin.com/VA/Herndon/12104-Courtney-Ct-20170/home/9121088 - zoned for Amrstrong - sold for $800k = $188 per square foot
https://www.redfin.com/VA/Herndon/12111-Snow-Shoe-Ct-20170/home/9077314 - zoned for Forestville - sold for $915k =- $287 per square foot

Forestville sells for 53% more than Armstrong. Yeah, the Forestville house has one more b edroom and a slightly lager lot, but still. 53% more. These homes are 1,850 feet apart. That's the difference between a 9/10 and a 2/10 school district.

If you own one of those houses and you're lucky, you're under 75% loan-to-value on your mortgage and not underwater. But you would have to have put down a big down payment and paid your mortgage for many years for that to be the case. If not, you're underwater. Can't sell your house and make a profit at all, which means no downpayment even for that "less expensive" house down in Herndon (which probably got a little more expensive because Herndon might now be a 4 instead of a 2.

So you're stuck. Cant' sell, can't move, and certainly can't afford private school because you stretched to be able to put your kid into a great school.

And people wonder why Great Falls parents fight this socioeconomic boundary nonsense.

You are correct that this analysis assumes selling while the selling is good— have you seen what homes in Holly Knoll are going for these days?

Those buying in will get a great deal and many will promptly turn around and send their kids to private school.

So? That doesn’t affect zoning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Somehow I’m not feeling that changing school boundaries is analogous to the Holocaust, but maybe that’s just me.

I thought I was the only one.

[Anonymous]

The following motion by Pekarsky was approved at last night's school board meeting:

"I move to direct the Superintendent to execute the appropriate professional services contract for the purpose of identifying and presenting to the SB for consideration and concurrence a location (new, existing FCPS, or any other appropriate property) for the Western High School so that site may be included in the FY2024-28 CIP."

So, again, obviously not limiting the potential site to Hutchison, but reiterating they want the new school built.

Glad to see them finally tell lazy Platenberg to do his job for a change. I think he honestly thought he could kick the can down the road a few more years, retire, and leave it to someone else to sort out.

[Anonymous]

About time this gets some momentum.

[Anonymous]

Hispanics in Fairfax County are an easy target for the DCUM-types, maybe because Hispanics here just want the opportunity to work and stay quiet because they're glad to have escaped war-torn Central America.

Now just imagine if Fairfax County's poor Hispanic population was instead replaced with the similar high-poverty African-American population from Prince George's county. Can you even fathom how it would look if the FCPS School Board was behaving in the same way as it is now, concentrating all the poor African-American families into a few poor schools, and listening to screaming rich parents who don't want to go to school with poor black children?

[Anonymous]

Sounded like Hutchison is out for Plattenburg- said that a currently owned FCPS property has a surrounding park that gets so much community use for that area- that they would not be able to use that site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounded like Hutchison is out for Plattenburg- said that a currently owned FCPS property has a surrounding park that gets so much community use for that area- that they would not be able to use that site.

Yep, sounds like they'll look for some vacant commercial building along Route 28 further south and probably retrofit it like Bailey's Upper in Seven Corners. I'm sure it will be great as long as it keeps Great Falls out of Herndon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The following motion by Pekarsky was approved at last night's school board meeting:

"I move to direct the Superintendent to execute the appropriate professional services contract for the purpose of identifying and presenting to the SB for consideration and concurrence a location (new, existing FCPS, or any other appropriate property) for the Western High School so that site may be included in the FY2024-28 CIP."

So, again, obviously not limiting the potential site to Hutchison, but reiterating they want the new school built.

Glad to see them finally tell lazy Platenberg to do his job for a change. I think he honestly thought he could kick the can down the road a few more years, retire, and leave it to someone else to sort out.

The more I think of this, the more it seems like Hutchison site is not going to be selected. Pekarsky requested to identify the site as opposed to simply asking Platenberg to build one soon. I believe she wants a new HS but if the location is not ideal (i.e. Hutchison site), she will push back. And so would the Hunter Mill and Dranseville supervisors. I just don’t see any school board member would push for the Hutchison site maybe except for Omeish. They will find a reason/excuse to build it somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounded like Hutchison is out for Plattenburg- said that a currently owned FCPS property has a surrounding park that gets so much community use for that area- that they would not be able to use that site.

Yep, sounds like they'll look for some vacant commercial building along Route 28 further south and probably retrofit it like Bailey's Upper in Seven Corners. I'm sure it will be great as long as it keeps Great Falls out of Herndon.

I have been telling the Hutchison site is dead. People on this board don’t want to believe that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounded like Hutchison is out for Plattenburg- said that a currently owned FCPS property has a surrounding park that gets so much community use for that area- that they would not be able to use that site.

Yep, sounds like they'll look for some vacant commercial building along Route 28 further south and probably retrofit it like Bailey's Upper in Seven Corners. I'm sure it will be great as long as it keeps Great Falls out of Herndon.

OK- start the boundary discussions from this site-go...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Hispanics decided themselves to move in and convert large areas of Hutchison and Herndon in general to 75% or greater Hispanic, enough to fit an entire high school. Clearly contrary to the privileged posters here, the Hispanics do not seem to care strongly how diverse their school is and could in fact be said to prefer a homogenous community of each other.

Meh. Initially settling where people you know or acquainted with is the story of chain migration for centuries. Our latest newcomers are no different than those who came before. In a generation or two they will disperse and integrate more. This is the way.

That was the way when we had a “melting pot” or even “salad” concept of differing ethnic origins. People were expected to integrate while retaining some of the flavor of their country/culture of origin (continuing my culinary analogies lol)

The current mainstream cultural ideology is that every group should retain 100% of where they originated and fight for place and power in the white western cis hetero capitalist patriarchal society that is founded on slavery oppression and violence.

Even if one were to believe that is the case, the proponents of that ideology won't support the opening of a new high school that draws only from low-income, majority Hispanic feeders.

They would want a school with socio-economic balance where the White and Asian kids could be reminded regularly of their privilege, rather than ensconced in their bubbles of affluence.

So you might want to dust off the "melting pot" and "salad" analogies, which may serve you better in the long run.

Mixing a school as much as possible by every measure and then teaching the kids to see each other primarily through the lens of race religion and ethnic origin, with an emphasis on how they are all so different and constantly discussing historical grievances would be very effective in fomenting division.

They can have teachers point out the various privileges and advantage some students have and make sure the others know that society is structurally so that they themselves will never be able to provide some of that for their own children.

When this inevitably increases tensions and makes the school extra toxic, fcps can hire a consultant and give them a few hundred thousand to send a google survey and figure out why. (If there’s one thing they love, it’s throwing a few hundred k and consultants every five minutes).

The idealogy is toxic regardless of the racial and socioeconomic mix of the schools, which have changed and will continue to change over time.

I agree with this, apart from the fact that it's a straw-man argument when it comes to what they would actually do if they built a new HS near Hutchison and, instead, identified feeders to the school that were all relatively close to the school and resulted in a diverse high school that was not super-majority FARMS from its inception.

I was only making the point that the current idealogy argues against the second generation ( or even the first gen after some time) dispersing a little and fully intergrating, so we don’t disagree here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Somehow I’m not feeling that changing school boundaries is analogous to the Holocaust, but maybe that’s just me.

Lord in Heaven pp is putting a lot of weirdness on the gf citizens club.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then I sell and get a less expensive house in one of those lovely tree-lined streets in Herndon (hopefully near the rec center)

While my house may have lost value, it’s still relatively high because it’s in Great Falls.

I bank the difference and send my child to Herndon or pay for private school with the savings if I just really insist my child won’t be a Hornet.

The person who bought my house knows that the school zone has changed, and they saved some cash because of it.

This is flawed logic. The second a new redistricting map starts circulating, even before it's official, houses moved from Langley to Herndon lose 25% of their value. Instantly. Don't believe me? Look at the difference in home prices along Fairfax County Parkway that are zoned for Forestville vs. Armstrong - consistently 20-25% less in Armstrong . Here are two actual examples that sold recently:

https://www.redfin.com/VA/Herndon/12104-Courtney-Ct-20170/home/9121088 - zoned for Amrstrong - sold for $800k = $188 per square foot
https://www.redfin.com/VA/Herndon/12111-Snow-Shoe-Ct-20170/home/9077314 - zoned for Forestville - sold for $915k =- $287 per square foot

Forestville sells for 53% more than Armstrong. Yeah, the Forestville house has one more b edroom and a slightly lager lot, but still. 53% more. These homes are 1,850 feet apart. That's the difference between a 9/10 and a 2/10 school district.

If you own one of those houses and you're lucky, you're under 75% loan-to-value on your mortgage and not underwater. But you would have to have put down a big down payment and paid your mortgage for many years for that to be the case. If not, you're underwater. Can't sell your house and make a profit at all, which means no downpayment even for that "less expensive" house down in Herndon (which probably got a little more expensive because Herndon might now be a 4 instead of a 2.

So you're stuck. Cant' sell, can't move, and certainly can't afford private school because you stretched to be able to put your kid into a great school.

And people wonder why Great Falls parents fight this socioeconomic boundary nonsense.

You are correct that this analysis assumes selling while the selling is good— have you seen what homes in Holly Knoll are going for these days?

Those buying in will get a great deal and many will promptly turn around and send their kids to private school.

So? That doesn’t affect zoning.

Quite to the contrary, it will be a great time for the already rich to spend less on a place they will move to anyway. It will do nothing for test scores at Herndon, and the county will lose a some money (per pupil allotment) but it’s a whatevs.

Boundaries have to change sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hispanics in Fairfax County are an easy target for the DCUM-types, maybe because Hispanics here just want the opportunity to work and stay quiet because they're glad to have escaped war-torn Central America.

Now just imagine if Fairfax County's poor Hispanic population was instead replaced with the similar high-poverty African-American population from Prince George's county. Can you even fathom how it would look if the FCPS School Board was behaving in the same way as it is now, concentrating all the poor African-American families into a few poor schools, and listening to screaming rich parents who don't want to go to school with poor black children?

As you pointed out, the Hispanics don’t have the same history and heritage here that ADOS have.

And they aren’t entitled to ride coattails, there’s been enough of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounded like Hutchison is out for Plattenburg- said that a currently owned FCPS property has a surrounding park that gets so much community use for that area- that they would not be able to use that site.

Yep, sounds like they'll look for some vacant commercial building along Route 28 further south and probably retrofit it like Bailey's Upper in Seven Corners. I'm sure it will be great as long as it keeps Great Falls out of Herndon.

I have been telling the Hutchison site is dead. People on this board don’t want to believe that.

I agree it's all but dead now. They really should just release the $23 million set aside for land acquisition to expand an existing high school.