FCPS comprehensive boundary review

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

DP. They might have more experience than that poster, but I agree that the yield projections are grossly off across the county.

If you look at historical accuracy, they haven't been too bad although the pre-Covid projections not surprisingly ended up over-projecting enrollments in the years most affected by Covid.

If you're just saying their projections for the future are grossly off, then the burden is on you to explain how or why. Just claiming that multi-family housing is going to produce hundreds of new students won't cut it because they do have a historical basis to project lower yields from such units.

Where are you getting the historical accuracy? From their county wide numbers? Laughable.

Look, fairfacts matters has the CIP data from last year, has looked extensively at it, and determined that only like 161 additional students are protected for developments each year. I’d bet as big a number as you’d like that that number is under what it should be, and here’s why it is off: they don’t count a development until it breaks ground.

The only way that is not an undercount is if it is impossible for a development to be finished in five years. And before you respond by saying that those developments aren’t certain, I concede that point, but the estimated yield can and should be multiplied by some discount factor to arrive at the best guess estimate. Right now, saying that these developments shouldn’t count toward yield just yields horrible projections, which benefits absolutely no one.

FairFACTS Matters makes a lot of claims about what its research has uncovered, but it hasn't been transparent with respect to its research or findings. They talk a lot about their conclusions, similar to what you've done here, but there's no way to evaluate the quality of their research.

I'm not even sure what it means to say "only 161 additional students are [projected] for developments each year." Right now the FCPS "Residential Development Applications Dashboard" indicates a potential yield of 1151 high school students from projects in the county (excluding the towns) under construction as of November 2024. FCPS says it includes projects under construction in its forecasts, but some of them could be under construction for some time, so who knows how that translates on an annual basis.

Also, the projections are updated annually, so if a project moves from "pending" or "approved" to "under construction," then it would get included in the projections once it's under construction. It may mean that some of the longer-term projections are less reliable, and their planning decisions aren't being informed by longer-term development, but they are mostly making capital decisions based on their 2008 renovation queue rather than enrollment forecasts anyway. That's the bigger issue - they've tied themselves largely to a queue developed over 15 years ago.

Here’s a great example.

TRG. The Town of Herndon projects over 500 units coming online in 2028 and almost 500 in 2030. Combined that’s over a thousand anticipated residential units projected by the town of Herndon by 2030. You can verify that in the appendix of the town’s own PPT.

If FCPS is to be believed, it estimates ZERO students from that approved development. That is BONKERS. 1,000 residential units projected by the Herndon government to come online by 2030 and no students? That’s just horrendously bad.

The County will consider that development in the Town of Herndon when it’s under construction. Until then, it’s vapor housing that may not materialize ever, much less by 2030.

Yesterday, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a Tyson’s development with between 2,150 and 2,500 units in the McLean HS district, with an adjacent soccer field and park with courts and two children’s playgrounds. None of it is currently considered in the CIP. Construction on the first buildings is to commence this spring, so some number of units should be considered for McLean in next year’s CIP.

https://www.ffxnow.com/2025/01/15/revised-redevelopment-plan-for-commons-of-mclean-approved-by-county-board/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

DP. They might have more experience than that poster, but I agree that the yield projections are grossly off across the county.

If you look at historical accuracy, they haven't been too bad although the pre-Covid projections not surprisingly ended up over-projecting enrollments in the years most affected by Covid.

If you're just saying their projections for the future are grossly off, then the burden is on you to explain how or why. Just claiming that multi-family housing is going to produce hundreds of new students won't cut it because they do have a historical basis to project lower yields from such units.

Where are you getting the historical accuracy? From their county wide numbers? Laughable.

Look, fairfacts matters has the CIP data from last year, has looked extensively at it, and determined that only like 161 additional students are protected for developments each year. I’d bet as big a number as you’d like that that number is under what it should be, and here’s why it is off: they don’t count a development until it breaks ground.

The only way that is not an undercount is if it is impossible for a development to be finished in five years. And before you respond by saying that those developments aren’t certain, I concede that point, but the estimated yield can and should be multiplied by some discount factor to arrive at the best guess estimate. Right now, saying that these developments shouldn’t count toward yield just yields horrible projections, which benefits absolutely no one.

FairFACTS Matters makes a lot of claims about what its research has uncovered, but it hasn't been transparent with respect to its research or findings. They talk a lot about their conclusions, similar to what you've done here, but there's no way to evaluate the quality of their research.

I'm not even sure what it means to say "only 161 additional students are [projected] for developments each year." Right now the FCPS "Residential Development Applications Dashboard" indicates a potential yield of 1151 high school students from projects in the county (excluding the towns) under construction as of November 2024. FCPS says it includes projects under construction in its forecasts, but some of them could be under construction for some time, so who knows how that translates on an annual basis.

Also, the projections are updated annually, so if a project moves from "pending" or "approved" to "under construction," then it would get included in the projections once it's under construction. It may mean that some of the longer-term projections are less reliable, and their planning decisions aren't being informed by longer-term development, but they are mostly making capital decisions based on their 2008 renovation queue rather than enrollment forecasts anyway. That's the bigger issue - they've tied themselves largely to a queue developed over 15 years ago.

Here’s a great example.

TRG. The Town of Herndon projects over 500 units coming online in 2028 and almost 500 in 2030. Combined that’s over a thousand anticipated residential units projected by the town of Herndon by 2030. You can verify that in the appendix of the town’s own PPT.

If FCPS is to be believed, it estimates ZERO students from that approved development. That is BONKERS. 1,000 residential units projected by the Herndon government to come online by 2030 and no students? That’s just horrendously bad.

The County will consider that development in the Town of Herndon when it’s under construction. Until then, it’s vapor housing that may not materialize ever, much less by 2030.

Yesterday, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a Tyson’s development with between 2,150 and 2,500 units in the McLean HS district, with an adjacent soccer field and park with courts and two children’s playgrounds. None of it is currently considered in the CIP. Construction on the first buildings is to commence this spring, so some number of units should be considered for McLean in next year’s CIP.

https://www.ffxnow.com/2025/01/15/revised-redevelopment-plan-for-commons-of-mclean-approved-by-county-board/

Sorry, I’m going to dig in my heels here. Just because the county considers it ‘vapor housing’ doesn’t mean it’s right. Again, I concede that it might not happen, but to pretend that it definitely won’t happen is just bad practice. I don’t know why anyone in their right mind would want FCPS to project students incorrectly. As we’ve seen, that lack of accuracy can be measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars per school expanded or built erroneously.

Please don’t be an apologist for bad data practices, especially when it is so incredibly costly to us all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

DP. They might have more experience than that poster, but I agree that the yield projections are grossly off across the county.

If you look at historical accuracy, they haven't been too bad although the pre-Covid projections not surprisingly ended up over-projecting enrollments in the years most affected by Covid.

If you're just saying their projections for the future are grossly off, then the burden is on you to explain how or why. Just claiming that multi-family housing is going to produce hundreds of new students won't cut it because they do have a historical basis to project lower yields from such units.

Where are you getting the historical accuracy? From their county wide numbers? Laughable.

Look, fairfacts matters has the CIP data from last year, has looked extensively at it, and determined that only like 161 additional students are protected for developments each year. I’d bet as big a number as you’d like that that number is under what it should be, and here’s why it is off: they don’t count a development until it breaks ground.

The only way that is not an undercount is if it is impossible for a development to be finished in five years. And before you respond by saying that those developments aren’t certain, I concede that point, but the estimated yield can and should be multiplied by some discount factor to arrive at the best guess estimate. Right now, saying that these developments shouldn’t count toward yield just yields horrible projections, which benefits absolutely no one.

FairFACTS Matters makes a lot of claims about what its research has uncovered, but it hasn't been transparent with respect to its research or findings. They talk a lot about their conclusions, similar to what you've done here, but there's no way to evaluate the quality of their research.

I'm not even sure what it means to say "only 161 additional students are [projected] for developments each year." Right now the FCPS "Residential Development Applications Dashboard" indicates a potential yield of 1151 high school students from projects in the county (excluding the towns) under construction as of November 2024. FCPS says it includes projects under construction in its forecasts, but some of them could be under construction for some time, so who knows how that translates on an annual basis.

Also, the projections are updated annually, so if a project moves from "pending" or "approved" to "under construction," then it would get included in the projections once it's under construction. It may mean that some of the longer-term projections are less reliable, and their planning decisions aren't being informed by longer-term development, but they are mostly making capital decisions based on their 2008 renovation queue rather than enrollment forecasts anyway. That's the bigger issue - they've tied themselves largely to a queue developed over 15 years ago.

Can anyone explain Westgate ES projections? It has three projects under construction that are predicted to yield a total of 218 elementary aged students. Yet the 2026-30 CIP predicts enrollment will decline from 88% to 79% over the next 5 years. Westbriar is expected to get a similar number of added units and has enrollment increasing from 86% to 94%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

+1 I was just coming to post something similar. That poster is letting their fear of being rezoned to Lewis turn into some pretty unhinged arguments pulled from thin air.

I’m a different poster, but have the data to back up the pp’s arguments that the projections are way off, intentionally so.

Ok they post it

This is all FOIA data. If you’d like access to it, reach out to fairfacts matters. They have the data and would likely share it.

Yeah, no. I'm not doing that. I don't believe you and that's okay.
That apartment building is not yielding anywhere near 100 highschool students. That poster sounds unhinged. Even if the projections were off, the current numbers don't lie. Lewis is under and WSHS is over. Kids are moving no matter how much crap is thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Yup.

And it will be Hunt Valley kids, south of the parkway.

They wouldn’t move Keene mill kids - they walk to Irving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

DP. They might have more experience than that poster, but I agree that the yield projections are grossly off across the county.

If you look at historical accuracy, they haven't been too bad although the pre-Covid projections not surprisingly ended up over-projecting enrollments in the years most affected by Covid.

If you're just saying their projections for the future are grossly off, then the burden is on you to explain how or why. Just claiming that multi-family housing is going to produce hundreds of new students won't cut it because they do have a historical basis to project lower yields from such units.

Where are you getting the historical accuracy? From their county wide numbers? Laughable.

Look, fairfacts matters has the CIP data from last year, has looked extensively at it, and determined that only like 161 additional students are protected for developments each year. I’d bet as big a number as you’d like that that number is under what it should be, and here’s why it is off: they don’t count a development until it breaks ground.

The only way that is not an undercount is if it is impossible for a development to be finished in five years. And before you respond by saying that those developments aren’t certain, I concede that point, but the estimated yield can and should be multiplied by some discount factor to arrive at the best guess estimate. Right now, saying that these developments shouldn’t count toward yield just yields horrible projections, which benefits absolutely no one.

FairFACTS Matters makes a lot of claims about what its research has uncovered, but it hasn't been transparent with respect to its research or findings. They talk a lot about their conclusions, similar to what you've done here, but there's no way to evaluate the quality of their research.

I'm not even sure what it means to say "only 161 additional students are [projected] for developments each year." Right now the FCPS "Residential Development Applications Dashboard" indicates a potential yield of 1151 high school students from projects in the county (excluding the towns) under construction as of November 2024. FCPS says it includes projects under construction in its forecasts, but some of them could be under construction for some time, so who knows how that translates on an annual basis.

Also, the projections are updated annually, so if a project moves from "pending" or "approved" to "under construction," then it would get included in the projections once it's under construction. It may mean that some of the longer-term projections are less reliable, and their planning decisions aren't being informed by longer-term development, but they are mostly making capital decisions based on their 2008 renovation queue rather than enrollment forecasts anyway. That's the bigger issue - they've tied themselves largely to a queue developed over 15 years ago.

Can anyone explain Westgate ES projections? It has three projects under construction that are predicted to yield a total of 218 elementary aged students. Yet the 2026-30 CIP predicts enrollment will decline from 88% to 79% over the next 5 years. Westbriar is expected to get a similar number of added units and has enrollment increasing from 86% to 94%

I don't really understand that, either. The Westgate enrollments this year and last year have been the highest of any time over the past decade and, as you say, more development in that area is coming. The McLean Commons development referenced in the earlier post, for example, feeds into Westgate. I don't know if they just come up with estimates based on births within the area without fully taking into account families with kids moving into the area as Pimmit Hills and Tysons redevelop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

DP. They might have more experience than that poster, but I agree that the yield projections are grossly off across the county.

If you look at historical accuracy, they haven't been too bad although the pre-Covid projections not surprisingly ended up over-projecting enrollments in the years most affected by Covid.

If you're just saying their projections for the future are grossly off, then the burden is on you to explain how or why. Just claiming that multi-family housing is going to produce hundreds of new students won't cut it because they do have a historical basis to project lower yields from such units.

Where are you getting the historical accuracy? From their county wide numbers? Laughable.

Look, fairfacts matters has the CIP data from last year, has looked extensively at it, and determined that only like 161 additional students are protected for developments each year. I’d bet as big a number as you’d like that that number is under what it should be, and here’s why it is off: they don’t count a development until it breaks ground.

The only way that is not an undercount is if it is impossible for a development to be finished in five years. And before you respond by saying that those developments aren’t certain, I concede that point, but the estimated yield can and should be multiplied by some discount factor to arrive at the best guess estimate. Right now, saying that these developments shouldn’t count toward yield just yields horrible projections, which benefits absolutely no one.

FairFACTS Matters makes a lot of claims about what its research has uncovered, but it hasn't been transparent with respect to its research or findings. They talk a lot about their conclusions, similar to what you've done here, but there's no way to evaluate the quality of their research.

I'm not even sure what it means to say "only 161 additional students are [projected] for developments each year." Right now the FCPS "Residential Development Applications Dashboard" indicates a potential yield of 1151 high school students from projects in the county (excluding the towns) under construction as of November 2024. FCPS says it includes projects under construction in its forecasts, but some of them could be under construction for some time, so who knows how that translates on an annual basis.

Also, the projections are updated annually, so if a project moves from "pending" or "approved" to "under construction," then it would get included in the projections once it's under construction. It may mean that some of the longer-term projections are less reliable, and their planning decisions aren't being informed by longer-term development, but they are mostly making capital decisions based on their 2008 renovation queue rather than enrollment forecasts anyway. That's the bigger issue - they've tied themselves largely to a queue developed over 15 years ago.

Can anyone explain Westgate ES projections? It has three projects under construction that are predicted to yield a total of 218 elementary aged students. Yet the 2026-30 CIP predicts enrollment will decline from 88% to 79% over the next 5 years. Westbriar is expected to get a similar number of added units and has enrollment increasing from 86% to 94%

Yes, they are not using data to drive the decisions, they are cooking the data to justify the decisions. Since math education in this country has declined precipitously for 20 years they think not enough people will figure it out.

Suspect the are correct on that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

DP. They might have more experience than that poster, but I agree that the yield projections are grossly off across the county.

If you look at historical accuracy, they haven't been too bad although the pre-Covid projections not surprisingly ended up over-projecting enrollments in the years most affected by Covid.

If you're just saying their projections for the future are grossly off, then the burden is on you to explain how or why. Just claiming that multi-family housing is going to produce hundreds of new students won't cut it because they do have a historical basis to project lower yields from such units.

Where are you getting the historical accuracy? From their county wide numbers? Laughable.

Look, fairfacts matters has the CIP data from last year, has looked extensively at it, and determined that only like 161 additional students are protected for developments each year. I’d bet as big a number as you’d like that that number is under what it should be, and here’s why it is off: they don’t count a development until it breaks ground.

The only way that is not an undercount is if it is impossible for a development to be finished in five years. And before you respond by saying that those developments aren’t certain, I concede that point, but the estimated yield can and should be multiplied by some discount factor to arrive at the best guess estimate. Right now, saying that these developments shouldn’t count toward yield just yields horrible projections, which benefits absolutely no one.

FairFACTS Matters makes a lot of claims about what its research has uncovered, but it hasn't been transparent with respect to its research or findings. They talk a lot about their conclusions, similar to what you've done here, but there's no way to evaluate the quality of their research.

I'm not even sure what it means to say "only 161 additional students are [projected] for developments each year." Right now the FCPS "Residential Development Applications Dashboard" indicates a potential yield of 1151 high school students from projects in the county (excluding the towns) under construction as of November 2024. FCPS says it includes projects under construction in its forecasts, but some of them could be under construction for some time, so who knows how that translates on an annual basis.

Also, the projections are updated annually, so if a project moves from "pending" or "approved" to "under construction," then it would get included in the projections once it's under construction. It may mean that some of the longer-term projections are less reliable, and their planning decisions aren't being informed by longer-term development, but they are mostly making capital decisions based on their 2008 renovation queue rather than enrollment forecasts anyway. That's the bigger issue - they've tied themselves largely to a queue developed over 15 years ago.

Can anyone explain Westgate ES projections? It has three projects under construction that are predicted to yield a total of 218 elementary aged students. Yet the 2026-30 CIP predicts enrollment will decline from 88% to 79% over the next 5 years. Westbriar is expected to get a similar number of added units and has enrollment increasing from 86% to 94%

I don't really understand that, either. The Westgate enrollments this year and last year have been the highest of any time over the past decade and, as you say, more development in that area is coming. The McLean Commons development referenced in the earlier post, for example, feeds into Westgate. I don't know if they just come up with estimates based on births within the area without fully taking into account families with kids moving into the area as Pimmit Hills and Tysons redevelop.

I was missing the McLean development. It’s actually 370 elementary aged students. And these developments are under construction, not just approved. With questions being raised on a need for Dunn Loring ES, wouldn’t they want to revisit those bizarre projections?

[Anonymous]

PP, agreed. Parent and Community Feedback is for show, if based on former SB and Superintendent behavior and pattern ( former Gatehouse employee).

To the moms fighting over drive time, WSHS students have their own cars and the drives through both rush hours will be significantly longer through the Mixing Bowl, plus there is no parking at Lewis.

This looks like old fashioned bussing, which may bring up scores for current Lewis students, but will do absolutely nothing for West Springfield students, based on historical data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

+1 I was just coming to post something similar. That poster is letting their fear of being rezoned to Lewis turn into some pretty unhinged arguments pulled from thin air.

I’m a different poster, but have the data to back up the pp’s arguments that the projections are way off, intentionally so.

Ok they post it

This is all FOIA data. If you’d like access to it, reach out to fairfacts matters. They have the data and would likely share it.

Yeah, no. I'm not doing that. I don't believe you and that's okay.
That apartment building is not yielding anywhere near 100 highschool students. That poster sounds unhinged. Even if the projections were off, the current numbers don't lie. Lewis is under and WSHS is over. Kids are moving no matter how much crap is thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Yup.

And it will be Hunt Valley kids, south of the parkway.

They wouldn’t move Keene mill kids - they walk to Irving.

The BRAC WSHS reps are both HVES parents, one from north of the parkway and one from south. HVES is safe to remain aligned to WSHS as it has since 1968. What could change is some of the population in the gambrill/pohick area, which includes some of the population that currently attends HVES.

1) The Newington ES "italy boot" zone to the south may go to Saratoga and feed Lewis.
2) The HVES population that is south along Gambrill may go to Newington ES and feed SCHS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

+1 I was just coming to post something similar. That poster is letting their fear of being rezoned to Lewis turn into some pretty unhinged arguments pulled from thin air.

I’m a different poster, but have the data to back up the pp’s arguments that the projections are way off, intentionally so.

Ok they post it

This is all FOIA data. If you’d like access to it, reach out to fairfacts matters. They have the data and would likely share it.

Yeah, no. I'm not doing that. I don't believe you and that's okay.
That apartment building is not yielding anywhere near 100 highschool students. That poster sounds unhinged. Even if the projections were off, the current numbers don't lie. Lewis is under and WSHS is over. Kids are moving no matter how much crap is thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Yup.

And it will be Hunt Valley kids, south of the parkway.

They wouldn’t move Keene mill kids - they walk to Irving.

The BRAC WSHS reps are both HVES parents, one from north of the parkway and one from south. HVES is safe to remain aligned to WSHS as it has since 1968. What could change is some of the population in the gambrill/pohick area, which includes some of the population that currently attends HVES.

1) The Newington ES "italy boot" zone to the south may go to Saratoga and feed Lewis.
2) The HVES population that is south along Gambrill may go to Newington ES and feed SCHS.

I live in the area and the Newington Forest “boot”/ dog leg is basically because all of Pohick Rd. Up to the intersection with Rolling goes to Newington Forest because of how the park land cuts it off from the neighborhoods off Rolling that go to Saratoga. They could go to Saratoga and it would be about the same distance although South County MS/HS is still closer, but in reality that is not that many students so I’m not sure if it would make too much of a difference. I guess it does take kids out of NFES if they want to move some of the Gambrill neighborhoods out of HVES and WSHS and to NFES and South County.

The AAP discussion also needs to play into this because HVES (and nearby Orange Hunt ES) both currently do not have LLIV. It is my understanding that HV, in particular, I’m less sure about OH because of the German immersion community, sends a fairly large number of 3rd+ grade to Sangster for AAP. If LLIV is started at HV, I think most families would elect to stay at HV because Sangster is a split feeder but is more associated with Lake Braddock.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

+1 I was just coming to post something similar. That poster is letting their fear of being rezoned to Lewis turn into some pretty unhinged arguments pulled from thin air.

I’m a different poster, but have the data to back up the pp’s arguments that the projections are way off, intentionally so.

Ok they post it

This is all FOIA data. If you’d like access to it, reach out to fairfacts matters. They have the data and would likely share it.

Yeah, no. I'm not doing that. I don't believe you and that's okay.
That apartment building is not yielding anywhere near 100 highschool students. That poster sounds unhinged. Even if the projections were off, the current numbers don't lie. Lewis is under and WSHS is over. Kids are moving no matter how much crap is thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Yup.

And it will be Hunt Valley kids, south of the parkway.

They wouldn’t move Keene mill kids - they walk to Irving.

The BRAC WSHS reps are both HVES parents, one from north of the parkway and one from south. HVES is safe to remain aligned to WSHS as it has since 1968. What could change is some of the population in the gambrill/pohick area, which includes some of the population that currently attends HVES.

1) The Newington ES "italy boot" zone to the south may go to Saratoga and feed Lewis.
2) The HVES population that is south along Gambrill may go to Newington ES and feed SCHS.

Ok HV mom. Keep dreaming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say only 1/4 of those roughly 400 units have teens in them.

That is 90 to 100 new students for Lewis next year.

Close the IB program and switching to AP brings roughly 200 more students back to Lewis.

Lewis could increase its enrollment by hundreds of students in one year, to 1700-1800 students, for the 2025-2026 school year using currently zoned Lewis students and new home builds, with no distuptive rezoning necessary.

What would be worst case scenario is FCPS doing a disruptive, unwanted rezoning to any of the 2 closest WSHS zoned neighborhoods, Keene Mill or Daventry, or the farthest zoned neighborhoods from Lewis, Hunt Valley, then have dozens or hundreds of kids move to those apartments, resulting in Lewis being full or over capacity next year before the rezoning starts but after it has been decided who goes.

FCPS needs to leave Lewis alone this year, fix the IB loophole, stop the AP transfers out of Lewis, then revisit rezoning on the 2030 cycle after they see the impact of the hundreds of new housing units being built in the Lewis zone.

They are projecting that Lewis will be at 1476 kids in 2029-30. That would appear to include 16 students from projects currently under construction. If all the other pending and approved projects in the pipeline zoned to Lewis were to come to fruition - a big if - that is only estimated to add an additional 73 students. Meanwhile they are projecting West Springfield will have over 3000 students by 2029-30. Historically, they have over-estimated the enrollments at Lewis and under-estimated the enrollments at West Springfield.

If they look at that and say "hey, that's OK," there is not a single high school boundary in FCPS they should be adjusting. Not one.

They are only projecting 16 high school students in a 400 unit apartment complex walkable to Lewis?

That is laughable.

It's actually 13 from the building with 460 units near the mall and another 3 from a new single-family development with 18 houses (Spring Village Drive).

I assume they have more experience with student yields than you do.

+1 I was just coming to post something similar. That poster is letting their fear of being rezoned to Lewis turn into some pretty unhinged arguments pulled from thin air.

I’m a different poster, but have the data to back up the pp’s arguments that the projections are way off, intentionally so.

Ok they post it

This is all FOIA data. If you’d like access to it, reach out to fairfacts matters. They have the data and would likely share it.

Yeah, no. I'm not doing that. I don't believe you and that's okay.
That apartment building is not yielding anywhere near 100 highschool students. That poster sounds unhinged. Even if the projections were off, the current numbers don't lie. Lewis is under and WSHS is over. Kids are moving no matter how much crap is thrown at the wall to see what sticks.

Yup.

And it will be Hunt Valley kids, south of the parkway.

They wouldn’t move Keene mill kids - they walk to Irving.

The BRAC WSHS reps are both HVES parents, one from north of the parkway and one from south. HVES is safe to remain aligned to WSHS as it has since 1968. What could change is some of the population in the gambrill/pohick area, which includes some of the population that currently attends HVES.

1) The Newington ES "italy boot" zone to the south may go to Saratoga and feed Lewis.
2) The HVES population that is south along Gambrill may go to Newington ES and feed SCHS.

Ok HV mom. Keep dreaming.

+1

They aren't going to move Newington kids. Why move more than you need to? Moving current HVES families south of the parkway to Saratoga makes sense and will alleviate crowding at Orange Hunt.

Newington will gain students from Lake Mercer area that currently feed Sangster. This alleviates Sangster.

As for AAP, all schools will eventually have local and the need for centers will go down/only those without local will be allowed to attend a center.

[Anonymous]

The school board’s enduring legacy will be to have ripped communities apart unnecessarily. I truly despise them.

[Anonymous]

I think it will be declining test scores and a boost in homeschooling/private schooling.

[Anonymous]

They aren't going to move Newington kids. Why move more than you need to? Moving current HVES families south of the parkway to Saratoga makes sense and will alleviate crowding at Orange Hunt.

I live in western Fairfax and know nothing about your area. However, never underestimate the lack of common sense on our School Board.