Boundaries assessment update 2023

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:
They won't move those Langley students to HHS- but not because of enrollment capacity. HHS is at 2300 students- with the recent renovation- capacity is 2500.
Move some from Langley to Herndon. Mclean to Langley. Could get 3 schools to similar enrollment and ease overcrowding at McLean and fill the under capacity at Langley- by #s- make sense.
Will never happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm making an offer on a house in the extreme north-western part of Langley HS district, near Seneca road. It's in the 7-1 grid of https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/medi...choolBoundaries.pdf. My son is in 1st grade currently, would prefer Cooper/Langley as schools.

Given where things are at, is there any intent by FCPS to move that part of Langley into Herndon HS, has that been proposed or discussed? I saw a comments to that in this thread, wondering if this was ever really entertained.

I mean, yes, sending the far northwestern part of the county back to Herndon HS boundaries is a thing that could happen. A PP alluded to it earlier in the thread, and then the Langley boundaries would absorb one of the ES in the McLean pyramid. But Herndon HS doesn’t have the capacity right now to absorb a whole additional ES into its boundaries. The MS seems to have more “room” because the capacity dashboard shows it with a number of modular/temporary classrooms, but those are unpopular and not meant to be long term solutions. And building the mythical western HS that could change boundaries at multiple schools is at least 10 years away from completion and probably longer than that. So if you have a current 1st/rising 2nd grader I wouldn’t worry too much about it at all.

Langley’s freshman class is significantly larger than the senior class— presumably due to the most recent boundary change and the grandfathering that comes with it.

When it all shakes out in a few years I wonder where McLean will be in terms of enrollment. Still over I am sure, but by how much?

Part of the reason Langley’s enrollment is growing has nothing to do with the 2021 boundary change with McLean and more to do with places like Great Falls getting more attractive again for working parents when many jobs went remote w/Covid.

Um... GF has *always* been attractive for working parent(s). Most people who live there work in Tysons, Reston, Chantilly, McLean, etc., or remotely. Not DC.

Snort. Great Falls was not always considered desirable. Maybe since you became aware of school issues, but not always.

It was the sticks where the farm kids and other “hicks” lived.

DP. I grew up in Great Falls in the 70s/80s. It was full of horse farms (and still is in places) and was considered pretty far out. However, it was still a sought-after, wealthy area. That you don’t know that makes it clear you must be a transplant.

A transplant informed by someone (more than one actually) who grew up in GF that this was their experience.

The area has increased in wealth to be sure, but it wasn’t anything near what it is now. Those who were/are more “down to earth” are fewer and fewer, and some of their “red neck fun” against current community standards.

The fact that you don’t know the fashionable stereotype is not the historical reality suggests that you are the one who only knows GF by its current reputation for homogeneity of wealth.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I saw “Voices of Fairfax” (used to be “One Great Falls”) crawled out from under its rock and is getting active again just in time for the fall School Board election. They may be a bit worried since Tholen won’t be around much longer.

Oh come on. Sending Herndon kids to Langley is a logistical problem. However the suggestion of retooling Marshall’s boundaries to send kids to Langley or McLean is a decent one.

Sure, but then Marshall would end up with a pretty low FARMS rate if you are taking FARMS from Marshall (22%)

That whole area is quite wealthy so any amount of social engineering is just going to be tinkering around the edges, really. The only long term solution is building the new western HS and retooling all the boundaries. Maybe then the western Great Falls neighborhoods could go back to Herndon without causing massive overcrowding at Herndon HS.

For the umpteeth time - there will be no "new western HS." It is a pipe dream.

Probably true, sadly. I’m more just pointing out that no larger-scale boundary changes will occur in that area until/unless a new HS is built. Just possible tinkering involving McLean, Langley, and possibly Marshall. Until then, Langley will remain at 3% FARMS and Herndon at 50%.

Why do we need large scale boundary changes? It is extremely disruptive to communities. And, to the person who thinks Langley/Herndon would be affected by the new western high school possibility: the purpose is to relieve Chantilly, Centreville, and, possibly Fairfax. (There are students at Fairfax who live extremely close to both Chantilly and Centreville.) Westfield and Oakton could also be in the mix. ) Herndon is not over capacity and neither is Langley.

It's not person, it's persons.

What you're missing is that FCPS, if it builds a new western HS, won't necessarily find a site close to Chantilly or Centreville, even if Chantilly is remain the most overcrowded school in the western part of the county. Sometimes they find a site close to an existing school (Oakton is about 2 miles from Madison, for example), or a site that's near a school that isn't over capacity, but will end up being affected by boundary changes all the same as part of the changes needed to alleviate the overcrowding where it's most acute.

For years, FCPS was indicating in the Capital Improvement Program that the site of the likely new western HS would be in the southern part of the Herndon area. Maybe that's off the table for good now. Maybe it isn't. The county is expecting some significant growth in the northern part of the Westfield area near the new Silver Line stations.

Great idea!
1.Build a school in a location that does not give relief to the schools that need it without massive domino effect.
2.Build a school at a site that is quite unsuitable--backs up to Toll Road; one artery to get there that is already backed up in both directions for commuters to get to the Toll Road.
3.Next to the new Silver LIne with additional commuter traffic.
4.The students whose schools are crowded will all be coming from one direction.
5.The nearest high school to the site has space--they could send Westfield students near the Silver Line to Herndon. It is closer to the Silver Line than Westfield.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I saw “Voices of Fairfax” (used to be “One Great Falls”) crawled out from under its rock and is getting active again just in time for the fall School Board election. They may be a bit worried since Tholen won’t be around much longer.

Oh come on. Sending Herndon kids to Langley is a logistical problem. However the suggestion of retooling Marshall’s boundaries to send kids to Langley or McLean is a decent one.

Sure, but then Marshall would end up with a pretty low FARMS rate if you are taking FARMS from Marshall (22%)

That whole area is quite wealthy so any amount of social engineering is just going to be tinkering around the edges, really. The only long term solution is building the new western HS and retooling all the boundaries. Maybe then the western Great Falls neighborhoods could go back to Herndon without causing massive overcrowding at Herndon HS.

For the umpteeth time - there will be no "new western HS." It is a pipe dream.

Probably true, sadly. I’m more just pointing out that no larger-scale boundary changes will occur in that area until/unless a new HS is built. Just possible tinkering involving McLean, Langley, and possibly Marshall. Until then, Langley will remain at 3% FARMS and Herndon at 50%.

Why do we need large scale boundary changes? It is extremely disruptive to communities. And, to the person who thinks Langley/Herndon would be affected by the new western high school possibility: the purpose is to relieve Chantilly, Centreville, and, possibly Fairfax. (There are students at Fairfax who live extremely close to both Chantilly and Centreville.) Westfield and Oakton could also be in the mix. ) Herndon is not over capacity and neither is Langley.

It's not person, it's persons.

What you're missing is that FCPS, if it builds a new western HS, won't necessarily find a site close to Chantilly or Centreville, even if Chantilly is remain the most overcrowded school in the western part of the county. Sometimes they find a site close to an existing school (Oakton is about 2 miles from Madison, for example), or a site that's near a school that isn't over capacity, but will end up being affected by boundary changes all the same as part of the changes needed to alleviate the overcrowding where it's most acute.

For years, FCPS was indicating in the Capital Improvement Program that the site of the likely new western HS would be in the southern part of the Herndon area. Maybe that's off the table for good now. Maybe it isn't. The county is expecting some significant growth in the northern part of the Westfield area near the new Silver Line stations.

Great idea!
1.Build a school in a location that does not give relief to the schools that need it without massive domino effect.
2.Build a school at a site that is quite unsuitable--backs up to Toll Road; one artery to get there that is already backed up in both directions for commuters to get to the Toll Road.
3.Next to the new Silver LIne with additional commuter traffic.
4.The students whose schools are crowded will all be coming from one direction.
5.The nearest high school to the site has space--they could send Westfield students near the Silver Line to Herndon. It is closer to the Silver Line than Westfield.

Any new HS would, POTENTIALLY, create a domino effect. If they find a site for it Chantilly and Centreville and it just gets students from those schools maybe not. But if a site is found in, say, the western Oakton boundary or Westfield especially north of 50 … that’s where the domino effect comes in. The boundary discussion was contentious for South County 15-20 years ago or whenever that was, now multiply it by 100 with today’s social media fervor and “equity” and it could be a big mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I saw “Voices of Fairfax” (used to be “One Great Falls”) crawled out from under its rock and is getting active again just in time for the fall School Board election. They may be a bit worried since Tholen won’t be around much longer.

Oh come on. Sending Herndon kids to Langley is a logistical problem. However the suggestion of retooling Marshall’s boundaries to send kids to Langley or McLean is a decent one.

Sure, but then Marshall would end up with a pretty low FARMS rate if you are taking FARMS from Marshall (22%)

That whole area is quite wealthy so any amount of social engineering is just going to be tinkering around the edges, really. The only long term solution is building the new western HS and retooling all the boundaries. Maybe then the western Great Falls neighborhoods could go back to Herndon without causing massive overcrowding at Herndon HS.

For the umpteeth time - there will be no "new western HS." It is a pipe dream.

Probably true, sadly. I’m more just pointing out that no larger-scale boundary changes will occur in that area until/unless a new HS is built. Just possible tinkering involving McLean, Langley, and possibly Marshall. Until then, Langley will remain at 3% FARMS and Herndon at 50%.

Why do we need large scale boundary changes? It is extremely disruptive to communities. And, to the person who thinks Langley/Herndon would be affected by the new western high school possibility: the purpose is to relieve Chantilly, Centreville, and, possibly Fairfax. (There are students at Fairfax who live extremely close to both Chantilly and Centreville.) Westfield and Oakton could also be in the mix. ) Herndon is not over capacity and neither is Langley.

It's not person, it's persons.

What you're missing is that FCPS, if it builds a new western HS, won't necessarily find a site close to Chantilly or Centreville, even if Chantilly is remain the most overcrowded school in the western part of the county. Sometimes they find a site close to an existing school (Oakton is about 2 miles from Madison, for example), or a site that's near a school that isn't over capacity, but will end up being affected by boundary changes all the same as part of the changes needed to alleviate the overcrowding where it's most acute.

For years, FCPS was indicating in the Capital Improvement Program that the site of the likely new western HS would be in the southern part of the Herndon area. Maybe that's off the table for good now. Maybe it isn't. The county is expecting some significant growth in the northern part of the Westfield area near the new Silver Line stations.

Great idea!
1.Build a school in a location that does not give relief to the schools that need it without massive domino effect.
2.Build a school at a site that is quite unsuitable--backs up to Toll Road; one artery to get there that is already backed up in both directions for commuters to get to the Toll Road.
3.Next to the new Silver LIne with additional commuter traffic.
4.The students whose schools are crowded will all be coming from one direction.
5.The nearest high school to the site has space--they could send Westfield students near the Silver Line to Herndon. It is closer to the Silver Line than Westfield.

Any new HS would, POTENTIALLY, create a domino effect. If they find a site for it Chantilly and Centreville and it just gets students from those schools maybe not. But if a site is found in, say, the western Oakton boundary or Westfield especially north of 50 … that’s where the domino effect comes in. The boundary discussion was contentious for South County 15-20 years ago or whenever that was, now multiply it by 100 with today’s social media fervor and “equity” and it could be a big mess.

They had a site north of 50 and gave it to the Saudis.
I'm trying to imagine where there would be property in western Oakton boundary--especially since the Blake Lane site was proposed for an elementary school and they could not get that done.

If a new high school is built, it needs to be south of 50 to help Chantilly and Centreville.

The Hutchison site is very much a no go.

[Anonymous]

The southern Herndon area is basically Chantilly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The southern Herndon area is basically Chantilly.

Nope. If you are using the Oak Hill zip code, very few are Chantilly. Most are Westfield, South Lakes, and Oakton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I saw “Voices of Fairfax” (used to be “One Great Falls”) crawled out from under its rock and is getting active again just in time for the fall School Board election. They may be a bit worried since Tholen won’t be around much longer.

Oh come on. Sending Herndon kids to Langley is a logistical problem. However the suggestion of retooling Marshall’s boundaries to send kids to Langley or McLean is a decent one.

Sure, but then Marshall would end up with a pretty low FARMS rate if you are taking FARMS from Marshall (22%)

That whole area is quite wealthy so any amount of social engineering is just going to be tinkering around the edges, really. The only long term solution is building the new western HS and retooling all the boundaries. Maybe then the western Great Falls neighborhoods could go back to Herndon without causing massive overcrowding at Herndon HS.

For the umpteeth time - there will be no "new western HS." It is a pipe dream.

Probably true, sadly. I’m more just pointing out that no larger-scale boundary changes will occur in that area until/unless a new HS is built. Just possible tinkering involving McLean, Langley, and possibly Marshall. Until then, Langley will remain at 3% FARMS and Herndon at 50%.

Why do we need large scale boundary changes? It is extremely disruptive to communities. And, to the person who thinks Langley/Herndon would be affected by the new western high school possibility: the purpose is to relieve Chantilly, Centreville, and, possibly Fairfax. (There are students at Fairfax who live extremely close to both Chantilly and Centreville.) Westfield and Oakton could also be in the mix. ) Herndon is not over capacity and neither is Langley.

It's not person, it's persons.

What you're missing is that FCPS, if it builds a new western HS, won't necessarily find a site close to Chantilly or Centreville, even if Chantilly is remain the most overcrowded school in the western part of the county. Sometimes they find a site close to an existing school (Oakton is about 2 miles from Madison, for example), or a site that's near a school that isn't over capacity, but will end up being affected by boundary changes all the same as part of the changes needed to alleviate the overcrowding where it's most acute.

For years, FCPS was indicating in the Capital Improvement Program that the site of the likely new western HS would be in the southern part of the Herndon area. Maybe that's off the table for good now. Maybe it isn't. The county is expecting some significant growth in the northern part of the Westfield area near the new Silver Line stations.

Great idea!
1.Build a school in a location that does not give relief to the schools that need it without massive domino effect.
2.Build a school at a site that is quite unsuitable--backs up to Toll Road; one artery to get there that is already backed up in both directions for commuters to get to the Toll Road.
3.Next to the new Silver LIne with additional commuter traffic.
4.The students whose schools are crowded will all be coming from one direction.
5.The nearest high school to the site has space--they could send Westfield students near the Silver Line to Herndon. It is closer to the Silver Line than Westfield.

Any new HS would, POTENTIALLY, create a domino effect. If they find a site for it Chantilly and Centreville and it just gets students from those schools maybe not. But if a site is found in, say, the western Oakton boundary or Westfield especially north of 50 … that’s where the domino effect comes in. The boundary discussion was contentious for South County 15-20 years ago or whenever that was, now multiply it by 100 with today’s social media fervor and “equity” and it could be a big mess.

They had a site north of 50 and gave it to the Saudis.
I'm trying to imagine where there would be property in western Oakton boundary--especially since the Blake Lane site was proposed for an elementary school and they could not get that done.

If a new high school is built, it needs to be south of 50 to help Chantilly and Centreville.

The Hutchison site is very much a no go.

The fact that the had the site and then the SB/BOS/both gave it to the Saudis is what puts me pretty firmly in the camp of “there will be no western HS” and therefore all the hand-wringing about the Langley FARMS rate/boundaries with Herndon has no real, possible solution.

[Anonymous]

If you think about it, Langley is a bad location for a school. It’s in a corner of the northeastern part of the county off a heavily traveled two-lane road, and there’s only one entrance and exit. But somehow they zoned kids there and people learned to cope, even though most areas assigned to the school are closer to one or more of Herndon, South Lakes, Marshall, and McLean than they are to Langley.

So if some school ends up getting built in a less than ideal location in western Fairfax people will learn to deal with that. There’s no point continuing to complain about land sold to the Saudis that the county isn’t getting back any time soon.

[Anonymous]

It seems to me that there are more people on this thread who are concerned about Langley/Herndon for the "western high school" than Centreville/Chantilly overcrowding--which I understand drives the need for the western high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The southern Herndon area is basically Chantilly.

Nope. If you are using the Oak Hill zip code, very few are Chantilly. Most are Westfield, South Lakes, and Oakton.

I wouldn't say "very few" houses in Oak Hill go to Chamtilly, when all of Chantilly Highlands and half of Franklin Farm are 20171 and are zoned for Chantilly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The southern Herndon area is basically Chantilly.

Nope. If you are using the Oak Hill zip code, very few are Chantilly. Most are Westfield, South Lakes, and Oakton.

I wouldn't say "very few" houses in Oak Hill go to Chamtilly, when all of Chantilly Highlands and half of Franklin Farm are 20171 and are zoned for Chantilly.

Not as many as go to Westfield, South Lakes, and Oakton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The southern Herndon area is basically Chantilly.

Nope. If you are using the Oak Hill zip code, very few are Chantilly. Most are Westfield, South Lakes, and Oakton.

I wouldn't say "very few" houses in Oak Hill go to Chamtilly, when all of Chantilly Highlands and half of Franklin Farm are 20171 and are zoned for Chantilly.

Most of Franklin Farm goes to Oakton--good bit more than half. Franklin Farm kids go to three different elementary schools. I think Crossfield gets the most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that there are more people on this thread who are concerned about Langley/Herndon for the "western high school" than Centreville/Chantilly overcrowding--which I understand drives the need for the western high school.

I bet it never gets built.

They should just drop it and move on.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:
They won't move those Langley students to HHS- but not because of enrollment capacity. HHS is at 2300 students- with the recent renovation- capacity is 2500.
Move some from Langley to Herndon. Mclean to Langley. Could get 3 schools to similar enrollment and ease overcrowding at McLean and fill the under capacity at Langley- by #s- make sense.
Will never happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm making an offer on a house in the extreme north-western part of Langley HS district, near Seneca road. It's in the 7-1 grid of https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/medi...choolBoundaries.pdf. My son is in 1st grade currently, would prefer Cooper/Langley as schools.

Given where things are at, is there any intent by FCPS to move that part of Langley into Herndon HS, has that been proposed or discussed? I saw a comments to that in this thread, wondering if this was ever really entertained.

I mean, yes, sending the far northwestern part of the county back to Herndon HS boundaries is a thing that could happen. A PP alluded to it earlier in the thread, and then the Langley boundaries would absorb one of the ES in the McLean pyramid. But Herndon HS doesn’t have the capacity right now to absorb a whole additional ES into its boundaries. The MS seems to have more “room” because the capacity dashboard shows it with a number of modular/temporary classrooms, but those are unpopular and not meant to be long term solutions. And building the mythical western HS that could change boundaries at multiple schools is at least 10 years away from completion and probably longer than that. So if you have a current 1st/rising 2nd grader I wouldn’t worry too much about it at all.

Langley’s freshman class is significantly larger than the senior class— presumably due to the most recent boundary change and the grandfathering that comes with it.

When it all shakes out in a few years I wonder where McLean will be in terms of enrollment. Still over I am sure, but by how much?

Part of the reason Langley’s enrollment is growing has nothing to do with the 2021 boundary change with McLean and more to do with places like Great Falls getting more attractive again for working parents when many jobs went remote w/Covid.

Um... GF has *always* been attractive for working parent(s). Most people who live there work in Tysons, Reston, Chantilly, McLean, etc., or remotely. Not DC.

Snort. Great Falls was not always considered desirable. Maybe since you became aware of school issues, but not always.

It was the sticks where the farm kids and other “hicks” lived.

DP. I grew up in Great Falls in the 70s/80s. It was full of horse farms (and still is in places) and was considered pretty far out. However, it was still a sought-after, wealthy area. That you don’t know that makes it clear you must be a transplant.

Yeah, and when pockets of Herndon, Reston, and Vienna got moved to Langley over the years it was, surprise, always single-family areas in each of those areas.

Maybe that changes with the next School Board, maybe it doesn't. Elaine Tholen, whose only concern as the School Board member for Dranesville was keeping Langley under-enrolled and w/out any MFH, will be gone.

You mean pockets of Herndon, Reston, and Vienna that geographically made sense to include in Langley's boundaries? Just admit it - you are searching for low-income housing in the areas around Langley to send there. But you refuse to face the fact made by several previous posters: there IS no low-income housing anywhere near the school OR its borders. Sending low-income kids there would require busing them far out of their way - just so you could get some sort of weird satisfaction. Please look at a map and learn some geography.

Honey, you’re so full of sh*t. These “pockets” were artificially carved out and assigned to Langley because developers lobbied for it and they were the types of single-family neighborhoods acceptable to Langley. They are on the other side of Route 7 and there is no logical reason for them to attend Langley, rather than another school. Meanwhile no multi-family housing in areas closer to Langley attends the school.

It’s blatant, in-your-face economic segregation, perpetuated by wealthy people in the Langley district who contribute heavily to local political campaigns and find lapdogs like Elaine Tholen to do their bidding. Fortunately, she will be gone soon.

Wow... talk about full of $hit. Please do name the "multi-family housing in areas closer to Langley". We'll wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw “Voices of Fairfax” (used to be “One Great Falls”) crawled out from under its rock and is getting active again just in time for the fall School Board election. They may be a bit worried since Tholen won’t be around much longer.

Oh come on. Sending Herndon kids to Langley is a logistical problem. However the suggestion of retooling Marshall’s boundaries to send kids to Langley or McLean is a decent one.

Sure, but then Marshall would end up with a pretty low FARMS rate if you are taking FARMS from Marshall (22%)

That whole area is quite wealthy so any amount of social engineering is just going to be tinkering around the edges, really. The only long term solution is building the new western HS and retooling all the boundaries. Maybe then the western Great Falls neighborhoods could go back to Herndon without causing massive overcrowding at Herndon HS.

For the umpteeth time - there will be no "new western HS." It is a pipe dream.

One thing is for sure. We all know who will work the hardest behind the scenes to kill it, and why.

The FCPS SB? Yes, I agree. Take it up with them.