FCPS Boundary Review Updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like how that Great Falls group felt the need to put out a long ass statement about the high school purchase. Why should we care what they think about this? What a bunch of self-important blowhards.

Oh please - read the countless accusations over the past 400+ pages betting that they were only in the fight to protect their Langley piece, oh they’re just self-interested and don’t care about their rest of the county because they’re rich bla bla bla. And now you’re over here, all how dare they be civic-minded when they’re rich bla bla bla. This group is going to get flak no matter what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how that Great Falls group felt the need to put out a long ass statement about the high school purchase. Why should we care what they think about this? What a bunch of self-important blowhards.

Oh please - read the countless accusations over the past 400+ pages betting that they were only in the fight to protect their Langley piece, oh they’re just self-interested and don’t care about their rest of the county because they’re rich bla bla bla. And now you’re over here, all how dare they be civic-minded when they’re rich bla bla bla. This group is going to get flak no matter what.

This opposition is completely self interested like everything else they do. They’re worried about creating even more unused capacity at Herndon for them to fill. They’re the gift that keeps giving.

[Anonymous]

1. They've been talking about this school for years. It would likely have already been built if they had not given the property to the Saudis around ten years ago.
2. There was a SB committee that did a search for property more recently and only came up with the Hutchison site --which was totally unacceptable. The traffic patterns were awful and it would not have resolved the issue of overcrowding in Chantilly/Westfield/Centreville.
3. There are students in the area taking a 30 minute bus ride on I66 or curvy back roads to Oakton that live within a five minute drive of the KAA site. Oakton is set to get more students in the near future.
4. There is a lot of new construction in the Westfield area.
5. There are students living next door to the Centreville fields who are being bused to Fairfax because there is not room at Centreville. Chantilly and Westfield should be able to absorb some of Centreville. 

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they’re concerned about the fuzzier issues of “community” and continuity - the new HS would help with that even if they technically have just enough capacity right now without it. The new HS would immediately become Carson MS’s feeder and those kids would no longer be split up between a larger number of HS. There would have to be other boundary adjustments too of course. But if you want to advocate for keeping kids with a stable cohort as much as possible from elementary-middle-high, another HS is what you need over there.

This would be so nice, but we are a Crossfield family and you all seem to think that we won't be included.

IMO, a logical place to start would be to zone those current zoned to Carson MS as their base MS to the new high school. But who knows what the capacity will be. Very rough back of envelope math would be around 2200 kids, though that might be too much for the existing structure.

That’s what I would assume too but not sure if the new school could accommodate 2200. You might have to change some boundaries or still have some degree of split feeders going on if the new HS couldn’t have all of Carson as its feeder MS. Admittedly I’m less familiar with the western boundaries, but couldn’t you have something like:

Hughes > South Lakes
Thoreau > Madison
Franklin > Oakton
Rocky Run > Chantilly
Stone > Westfield
Carson > New HS

And maybe cut down the split feeders to 1 or 2 HS having 2 middle schools feeding to it instead of the complicated situation they have going on now. And of course, AAP at all MS!

[Anonymous]

That’s what I would assume too but not sure if the new school could accommodate 2200. You might have to change some boundaries or still have some degree of split feeders going on if the new HS couldn’t have all of Carson as its feeder MS. Admittedly I’m less familiar with the western boundaries, but couldn’t you have something like:

Hughes > South Lakes
Thoreau > Madison
Franklin > Oakton
Rocky Run > Chantilly
Stone > Westfield
Carson > New HS

And maybe cut down the split feeders to 1 or 2 HS having 2 middle schools feeding to it instead of the complicated situation they have going on now. And of course, AAP at all MS!

No. Hopefully, this will pull western kids out of Oakton. Franklin will likely be Chantilly/new split.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how that Great Falls group felt the need to put out a long ass statement about the high school purchase. Why should we care what they think about this? What a bunch of self-important blowhards.

Oh please - read the countless accusations over the past 400+ pages betting that they were only in the fight to protect their Langley piece, oh they’re just self-interested and don’t care about their rest of the county because they’re rich bla bla bla. And now you’re over here, all how dare they be civic-minded when they’re rich bla bla bla. This group is going to get flak no matter what.

Where is this statement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So were the board members specifically saying they wanted to use this as a high school? Not some other purpose like special programming or anything?

Cue all the Emerald Chase people saying wait no forget we said Chantilly we want to go to the new school! LOL.

Noooo don’t send us to one of the two high schools that are closest to our community! We prefer for our kids to have to drive further to high school.

But there you go again, trying to insert yourself into other families’ education decisions.

PP oblivious to the fact that they aren’t the only ones in that situation. Why should they get first priority to be moved closer to home?

When a ready-made school magically pops up for sale in your pyramid for 1/3 the amount already planned to spend on it why don't you pop in here and let us know?

DP. You’re being disingenuous. There was no real plan to build that school, just a placeholder in the CIP with a big estimate of how much a new school would cost years in the future.

But if we’re going to claim this is a bargain purchase that represents a savings of around $300M, it’s incumbent in the School Board to let us know where those savings will be redeployed. And forget about the current boundary study because this acquisition renders Thru’s work to date largely irrelevant.

There isn’t $300 mil sitting around somewhere waiting to be spent. The savings is to voters who won’t be asked to take out a $400 mil bond in a few years to fund the construction.

Nope. They aren't arguing they are just saving taxpayers money, but that the savings will allow them to use funds that would have been spent on the western HS on other projects.

They need to put their money where their mouths are, and identify how they will redeploy these savings on other FCPS projects.

I went back and rewatched the SB meeting last night and Mateo Dunne was very explicit about how the cost savings would enable FCPS to undertake and expedite other capital projects throughout the county.

I'm not quite sure how that would work, since the CIP didn't anticipate any construction on a new western HS before 2034, so in the short term it's going to bump, not expedite, other projects. But over the longer term it should enable other renovations or expansions that they otherwise might have claimed couldn't be funded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they’re concerned about the fuzzier issues of “community” and continuity - the new HS would help with that even if they technically have just enough capacity right now without it. The new HS would immediately become Carson MS’s feeder and those kids would no longer be split up between a larger number of HS. There would have to be other boundary adjustments too of course. But if you want to advocate for keeping kids with a stable cohort as much as possible from elementary-middle-high, another HS is what you need over there.

This would be so nice, but we are a Crossfield family and you all seem to think that we won't be included.

IMO, a logical place to start would be to zone those current zoned to Carson MS as their base MS to the new high school. But who knows what the capacity will be. Very rough back of envelope math would be around 2200 kids, though that might be too much for the existing structure.

That’s what I would assume too but not sure if the new school could accommodate 2200. You might have to change some boundaries or still have some degree of split feeders going on if the new HS couldn’t have all of Carson as its feeder MS. Admittedly I’m less familiar with the western boundaries, but couldn’t you have something like:

Hughes > South Lakes
Thoreau > Madison
Franklin > Oakton
Rocky Run > Chantilly
Stone > Westfield
Carson > New HS

And maybe cut down the split feeders to 1 or 2 HS having 2 middle schools feeding to it instead of the complicated situation they have going on now. And of course, AAP at all MS!

I realized the 2200 estimate is just Carson kids. It wouldn't include oak hill kids, which I assume would be zoned there to relieve Chantilly, another roughly 400. So yes, there's going to still be some split feeders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how that Great Falls group felt the need to put out a long ass statement about the high school purchase. Why should we care what they think about this? What a bunch of self-important blowhards.

Oh please - read the countless accusations over the past 400+ pages betting that they were only in the fight to protect their Langley piece, oh they’re just self-interested and don’t care about their rest of the county because they’re rich bla bla bla. And now you’re over here, all how dare they be civic-minded when they’re rich bla bla bla. This group is going to get flak no matter what.

This opposition is completely self interested like everything else they do. They’re worried about creating even more unused capacity at Herndon for them to fill. They’re the gift that keeps giving.

Everything else, like when they continued to fight unneeded boundary changes after the tentative maps didn’t move Langley kids?

You are just a straight-up liar with an agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how that Great Falls group felt the need to put out a long ass statement about the high school purchase. Why should we care what they think about this? What a bunch of self-important blowhards.

Oh please - read the countless accusations over the past 400+ pages betting that they were only in the fight to protect their Langley piece, oh they’re just self-interested and don’t care about their rest of the county because they’re rich bla bla bla. And now you’re over here, all how dare they be civic-minded when they’re rich bla bla bla. This group is going to get flak no matter what.

This opposition is completely self interested like everything else they do. They’re worried about creating even more unused capacity at Herndon for them to fill. They’re the gift that keeps giving.

Everything else, like when they continued to fight unneeded boundary changes after the tentative maps didn’t move Langley kids?

You are just a straight-up liar with an agenda.

DP. I've been very impressed by how some of the Great Falls/FairFACTS Matters folks, especially those on the BRAC, have been willing to continue to raise questions on behalf of others even after none of the Thru proposals involved moving anyone out of Langley.

[Anonymous]

Just here to say that the school board appears to be intentionally burying the news of this school purchase. It’s at the bottom of the email providing a synopsis of yesterday’s sb meeting. Something seems very suspicious with a $150 million school purchase, that they all seemed to be falling over each other to claim credit for, being jammed into the agenda last minute and buried in a Friday email.

It’s super duper suspicious. Any local press here should really look into this.

[Anonymous]

You’re crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just here to say that the school board appears to be intentionally burying the news of this school purchase. It’s at the bottom of the email providing a synopsis of yesterday’s sb meeting. Something seems very suspicious with a $150 million school purchase, that they all seemed to be falling over each other to claim credit for, being jammed into the agenda last minute and buried in a Friday email.

It’s super duper suspicious. Any local press here should really look into this.

I’m not sure they’d want to publicize it more than they did when they may have rushed into the purchase thinking it was the bargain of the century, but without having really considered how it may impact both the ongoing boundary review and other projects in the CIP.

They’d be well served to put out a FAQ document soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just here to say that the school board appears to be intentionally burying the news of this school purchase. It’s at the bottom of the email providing a synopsis of yesterday’s sb meeting. Something seems very suspicious with a $150 million school purchase, that they all seemed to be falling over each other to claim credit for, being jammed into the agenda last minute and buried in a Friday email.

It’s super duper suspicious. Any local press here should really look into this.

It is a bargain. Of course, they all want to take credit. Read these forums. People have been asking about this on here since the closure was announced. Do you really think DCUM was the only place that thought they should purchase it?

But, I do wonder if Fairfax County gave the property to the Saudis. Purchase price is listed as $0--so maybe, it is not quite the bargain first thought. But, the building itself is worth far more than that.

If they keep the pool, I am guessing they will work out something with the Parks to open it for community use. And, it will be available for other high school swim teams to use, as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like how that Great Falls group felt the need to put out a long ass statement about the high school purchase. Why should we care what they think about this? What a bunch of self-important blowhards.

What was their statement?

p.s. I'm shocked that McLean Mom hasn't come on here to cry about desperately her kid's school needs renovations and now they won't get them (they weren't going to get them anyway)