FCPS HS Boundary

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution for Lewis is to make it a CTE trade school and allow everyone who wants a more academic path to transfer out. That’s basically what’s happening now, but they need to stop even attempting to make Lewis fit all types of students when it’s so heavily FARMS and 1st gen. Put the resources there to serve that population and let those who don’t fit go elsewhere.

You do have to ask though - How did it get to this point? Why was it allowed to happen? Why were decisions made that hastened the demise?

That's what happens when you concentrate poverty. MVHS should get similar treatment

People move where they want to live. Families, job, cheaper houses, commute, walkable neighborhood, ethnic communities...

Recent immigrants have always chosen to live in communities with similar religious and cultural ties. Where I grew up in the midwest, the Irish, Italians, Polish and Germans all had consentrated residential areas where they chose to live. There was comfort and community in being around their native language, cultures, food and extended families.

That seems to be largely what is happening in some areas of ffx county. It is a natural part of immigration, and one that I and many other first and second generation immigrants experienced as a member of an immigrant family.

It just seems laughable that you want to blame FCPS for what is a very natural process of immigrating and intergrating to a new society.

People live where they can afford to live. In Fairfax, that is a couple of small areas that sit within a few pyramids. The county caused it by zoning and policy that concentres poverty

There are very practical infrastructure reasons why it is not beneficial to have high density housing development evenly spread throughout the county. It is more cost effective to make targeted infrastructure upgrades in specific areas designated for high density housing. The county will need to expand capacity of the sewer system. water supply and roads networks to accommodatehigher density areas and the entire network will require capacity upgrades if the highest density housing is evenly distributed throughout the county. The policy you are suggesting will require significant investments that Fairfax does not have the capacity to fund.

Now that the silver line is complete, there is access to public transportation within bounds for McLean and near Langley. Let’s see if Fairfax puts up any massive section 8 complexes there

Every new apartment building in Tysons has affordable housing set-asides and there are also multiple all-affordable housing complexes planned and/or under construction now in Tysons. They will feed into Marshall and McLean. Elaine Tholen made sure no multi-family housing of any kind feeds to Langley.

The new low-income units in Tysons are going to tank school performance at Marshall and McLean. The school performance death spiral will begin in these pyramids soon.

That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

I see a ton of new houses over $2M selling in the McLean district, as older houses continue to get torn down and replaced with new, larger homes that have families with school-age kids. Some of those families will go private, but many will send their kids to public schools. If McLean were to get overcrowded again to the point requiring another boundary change (for now, they are doing OK with the modular and a few trailers), two scenarios seem most likely.

1. The Timber Lane island that includes a number of low-income garden apartments gets moved to Jackson/Falls Church. Falls Church will have more space after its renovation is completed, and Timber Lane is already a McLean/Falls Church split feeder.

2. The Spring Hill island that includes a number of moderate-income apartments (and could include one planned all-affordable housing building) gets moved to Cooper/Langley, and western Great Falls gets moved to Herndon/Herndon. Spring Hill is already a Langley/McLean split feeder.

Either of these scenarios could end up largely a wash for McLean in terms of its ESOL/FARMS population. Marshall is a bit trickier, because if it got crowded one scenario would be to send the single-family neighborhoods in Vienna near Wolf Trap to Madison, which got an addition and has space. That would quickly push up the FARMS percentage at Marshall. However, another alternative, just as with McLean, could be to send part of Tysons zoned to Marshall to Langley, and then part of Langley to Herndon. That would allow Marshall to retain the Vienna neighborhoods.

Yeah, Not true McLean is already at 9% low income and Tyson’s housing is super high density. That 100% affordable housing development in Tysons has 516 units that are limited to people with income at 60% of FC AMI. It includes a lot of 2-3 bedroom units so the student generation factor will be relatively high. This project alone will easily add close to 100 HS students and boost the low income percentage to 12%-13% range. The tipping point for he eats spiral is around 20% and woke inclusionary zoning policies can easily make up for this remaining gap.

McLean is higher than 9% FARMS now. It was 12% last year according to FCPS, and it's probably increased a percentage point or two this year. However, the 516-unit affordable housing project to which you're referring (Exchange at Spring Hill, formerly called Dominion Square West) is zoned to Marshall, not McLean. County projections suggested it could add 16 more students to Marshall, not 100, if it had 500 units, so your estimate of 100 more HS students for 516 units appears to be inconsistent with the county's projections.

I'm not sure if you're worried about a "death spiral" at McLean, or instead eager to precipitate one, but it's more than a bit premature.

The projections for student generation will be way off for this housing development. The county is just using the average student generation factor for all 5+ multifamily developments to estimate the student generation The estimate is not adjusted for actual numbers of 1, 2 and 3 bed units in an individual development. It will be much higher than 16 students. The 60% AMI affordability threshold is predicated on family size, which means that the 2bd and 3bd units will skew strongly towards sec 8 voucher holders with multiple children. 5+ story apartment buildings tend to have a large proportion of lofts and 1bd units. This means that using the average student generation factor for a low-income apartment complex with a high proportion of 2bd & 3bd units will dramatically underestimate the number of students. I could not find data for Fairfax County, but the student generation factor for low-income housing units in Arlington is around 0.5 per unit. If the numbers are similar for Fairfax the total including all grade levels will be closer to 250 students than the 56 students that the county is projecting. It's definitely not premature and I don't want few remaining good public HS schools Fairfax to go downhill because it will destroy Fairfax County. Most families that choose to buy multimillion dollar homes in an area known for its high performing schools will not tolerate their kids attending a 20%+ FARMs school. The exodus will rapidly accelerate when the number gets close to this threshold. If it is already at 12% now, it will hit 20% in less than 10 years, so the death spiral will start soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

*It's not about the low test scores.* I can't emphasize this enough. I don't really care if a whole pile of other kids in my kid's school are failing their tests. The problem isn't their test scores, it's their behavior (bullying, gangs, drugs, alcohol, crime), their disruptions, and their soaking up of teacher and administrative attention that would be better spent on better students.

There are no such things as "good schools" and "bad schools." It's not about the school facilities. It's not about the teachers. It's about the quality of students that YOUR kids will be surrounded by, and how that is going to affect their education. Everyone inherently knows this but our leftist board and entrenched bureaucracy ignore it because the actual solutions are politically unpalatable.

Yes, this is the point. The data is clear that schools have almost no impact on student student outcomes. However, no one is going to chance it with their own children and statistically speaking schools with higher FARMS rates haver higher crime levels and more academic disruptions. Parents do not get to chose specifically which kids they are around in public schools, so they need to use statistical correlates as a risk mitigation strategy to avoid schools that are likely to have too many disruptive students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

*It's not about the low test scores.* I can't emphasize this enough. I don't really care if a whole pile of other kids in my kid's school are failing their tests. The problem isn't their test scores, it's their behavior (bullying, gangs, drugs, alcohol, crime), their disruptions, and their soaking up of teacher and administrative attention that would be better spent on better students.

There are no such things as "good schools" and "bad schools." It's not about the school facilities. It's not about the teachers. It's about the quality of students that YOUR kids will be surrounded by, and how that is going to affect their education. Everyone inherently knows this but our leftist board and entrenched bureaucracy ignore it because the actual solutions are politically unpalatable.

Yes, this is the point. The data is clear that schools have almost no impact on student student outcomes. However, no one is going to chance it with their own children and statistically speaking schools with higher FARMS rates haver higher crime levels and more academic disruptions. Parents do not get to chose specifically which kids they are around in public schools, so they need to use statistical correlates as a risk mitigation strategy to avoid schools that are likely to have too many disruptive students.

The FCPS study should that above a 40% farms rate, there were negative academic impacts on all students, not just FARMs students

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

*It's not about the low test scores.* I can't emphasize this enough. I don't really care if a whole pile of other kids in my kid's school are failing their tests. The problem isn't their test scores, it's their behavior (bullying, gangs, drugs, alcohol, crime), their disruptions, and their soaking up of teacher and administrative attention that would be better spent on better students.

There are no such things as "good schools" and "bad schools." It's not about the school facilities. It's not about the teachers. It's about the quality of students that YOUR kids will be surrounded by, and how that is going to affect their education. Everyone inherently knows this but our leftist board and entrenched bureaucracy ignore it because the actual solutions are politically unpalatable.

Yes, this is the point. The data is clear that schools have almost no impact on student student outcomes. However, no one is going to chance it with their own children and statistically speaking schools with higher FARMS rates haver higher crime levels and more academic disruptions. Parents do not get to chose specifically which kids they are around in public schools, so they need to use statistical correlates as a risk mitigation strategy to avoid schools that are likely to have too many disruptive students.

The FCPS study should that above a 40% farms rate, there were negative academic impacts on all students, not just FARMs students

Most parents don’t care about how it impacts other students just how it might impact their students. Reasonable people are not going to risk their children’s future for social policy goals that primarily benefit other peoples children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

*It's not about the low test scores.* I can't emphasize this enough. I don't really care if a whole pile of other kids in my kid's school are failing their tests. The problem isn't their test scores, it's their behavior (bullying, gangs, drugs, alcohol, crime), their disruptions, and their soaking up of teacher and administrative attention that would be better spent on better students.

There are no such things as "good schools" and "bad schools." It's not about the school facilities. It's not about the teachers. It's about the quality of students that YOUR kids will be surrounded by, and how that is going to affect their education. Everyone inherently knows this but our leftist board and entrenched bureaucracy ignore it because the actual solutions are politically unpalatable.

Yes, this is the point. The data is clear that schools have almost no impact on student student outcomes. However, no one is going to chance it with their own children and statistically speaking schools with higher FARMS rates haver higher crime levels and more academic disruptions. Parents do not get to chose specifically which kids they are around in public schools, so they need to use statistical correlates as a risk mitigation strategy to avoid schools that are likely to have too many disruptive students.

The FCPS study should that above a 40% farms rate, there were negative academic impacts on all students, not just FARMs students

Most parents don’t care about how it impacts other students just how it might impact their students. Reasonable people are not going to risk their children’s future for social policy goals that primarily benefit other peoples children.

Im not sure it does much to help those other children either.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution for Lewis is to make it a CTE trade school and allow everyone who wants a more academic path to transfer out. That’s basically what’s happening now, but they need to stop even attempting to make Lewis fit all types of students when it’s so heavily FARMS and 1st gen. Put the resources there to serve that population and let those who don’t fit go elsewhere.

You do have to ask though - How did it get to this point? Why was it allowed to happen? Why were decisions made that hastened the demise?

That's what happens when you concentrate poverty. MVHS should get similar treatment

People move where they want to live. Families, job, cheaper houses, commute, walkable neighborhood, ethnic communities...

Recent immigrants have always chosen to live in communities with similar religious and cultural ties. Where I grew up in the midwest, the Irish, Italians, Polish and Germans all had consentrated residential areas where they chose to live. There was comfort and community in being around their native language, cultures, food and extended families.

That seems to be largely what is happening in some areas of ffx county. It is a natural part of immigration, and one that I and many other first and second generation immigrants experienced as a member of an immigrant family.

It just seems laughable that you want to blame FCPS for what is a very natural process of immigrating and intergrating to a new society.

People live where they can afford to live. In Fairfax, that is a couple of small areas that sit within a few pyramids. The county caused it by zoning and policy that concentres poverty

There are very practical infrastructure reasons why it is not beneficial to have high density housing development evenly spread throughout the county. It is more cost effective to make targeted infrastructure upgrades in specific areas designated for high density housing. The county will need to expand capacity of the sewer system. water supply and roads networks to accommodatehigher density areas and the entire network will require capacity upgrades if the highest density housing is evenly distributed throughout the county. The policy you are suggesting will require significant investments that Fairfax does not have the capacity to fund.

Now that the silver line is complete, there is access to public transportation within bounds for McLean and near Langley. Let’s see if Fairfax puts up any massive section 8 complexes there

Every new apartment building in Tysons has affordable housing set-asides and there are also multiple all-affordable housing complexes planned and/or under construction now in Tysons. They will feed into Marshall and McLean. Elaine Tholen made sure no multi-family housing of any kind feeds to Langley.

The new low-income units in Tysons are going to tank school performance at Marshall and McLean. The school performance death spiral will begin in these pyramids soon.

That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

I see a ton of new houses over $2M selling in the McLean district, as older houses continue to get torn down and replaced with new, larger homes that have families with school-age kids. Some of those families will go private, but many will send their kids to public schools. If McLean were to get overcrowded again to the point requiring another boundary change (for now, they are doing OK with the modular and a few trailers), two scenarios seem most likely.

1. The Timber Lane island that includes a number of low-income garden apartments gets moved to Jackson/Falls Church. Falls Church will have more space after its renovation is completed, and Timber Lane is already a McLean/Falls Church split feeder.

2. The Spring Hill island that includes a number of moderate-income apartments (and could include one planned all-affordable housing building) gets moved to Cooper/Langley, and western Great Falls gets moved to Herndon/Herndon. Spring Hill is already a Langley/McLean split feeder.

Either of these scenarios could end up largely a wash for McLean in terms of its ESOL/FARMS population. Marshall is a bit trickier, because if it got crowded one scenario would be to send the single-family neighborhoods in Vienna near Wolf Trap to Madison, which got an addition and has space. That would quickly push up the FARMS percentage at Marshall. However, another alternative, just as with McLean, could be to send part of Tysons zoned to Marshall to Langley, and then part of Langley to Herndon. That would allow Marshall to retain the Vienna neighborhoods.

Yeah, Not true McLean is already at 9% low income and Tyson’s housing is super high density. That 100% affordable housing development in Tysons has 516 units that are limited to people with income at 60% of FC AMI. It includes a lot of 2-3 bedroom units so the student generation factor will be relatively high. This project alone will easily add close to 100 HS students and boost the low income percentage to 12%-13% range. The tipping point for he eats spiral is around 20% and woke inclusionary zoning policies can easily make up for this remaining gap.

McLean is higher than 9% FARMS now. It was 12% last year according to FCPS, and it's probably increased a percentage point or two this year. However, the 516-unit affordable housing project to which you're referring (Exchange at Spring Hill, formerly called Dominion Square West) is zoned to Marshall, not McLean. County projections suggested it could add 16 more students to Marshall, not 100, if it had 500 units, so your estimate of 100 more HS students for 516 units appears to be inconsistent with the county's projections.

I'm not sure if you're worried about a "death spiral" at McLean, or instead eager to precipitate one, but it's more than a bit premature.

The projections for student generation will be way off for this housing development. The county is just using the average student generation factor for all 5+ multifamily developments to estimate the student generation The estimate is not adjusted for actual numbers of 1, 2 and 3 bed units in an individual development. It will be much higher than 16 students. The 60% AMI affordability threshold is predicated on family size, which means that the 2bd and 3bd units will skew strongly towards sec 8 voucher holders with multiple children. 5+ story apartment buildings tend to have a large proportion of lofts and 1bd units. This means that using the average student generation factor for a low-income apartment complex with a high proportion of 2bd & 3bd units will dramatically underestimate the number of students. I could not find data for Fairfax County, but the student generation factor for low-income housing units in Arlington is around 0.5 per unit. If the numbers are similar for Fairfax the total including all grade levels will be closer to 250 students than the 56 students that the county is projecting. It's definitely not premature and I don't want few remaining good public HS schools Fairfax to go downhill because it will destroy Fairfax County. Most families that choose to buy multimillion dollar homes in an area known for its high performing schools will not tolerate their kids attending a 20%+ FARMs school. The exodus will rapidly accelerate when the number gets close to this threshold. If it is already at 12% now, it will hit 20% in less than 10 years, so the death spiral will start soon.

I guess you missed the part where it was pointed out that the affordable housing project that you think is going to churn out FARMS kids is zoned for Marshall, not McLean.

Because it's McLean, not Marshall, that is currently at around 12% FARMS now. Marshall was at 23% last year, and that's not dissuading people from paying $2M or so for new houses in Pimmit Hills zoned to Marshall. It's still a high-performing school.

However, if you're so concerned about kids attending a 20%+ FARMS school in that general area, you can always let the School Board know you think some of the multi-family housing in the Tysons area should be moved to Madison and/or Langley to even things out. Madison has hundreds of extra seats after its expansion. Langley isn't projected to have as much extra capacity as Madison, but they could move part of Tysons to Langley and then move part of Great Falls now at Langley to Herndon.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution for Lewis is to make it a CTE trade school and allow everyone who wants a more academic path to transfer out. That’s basically what’s happening now, but they need to stop even attempting to make Lewis fit all types of students when it’s so heavily FARMS and 1st gen. Put the resources there to serve that population and let those who don’t fit go elsewhere.

You do have to ask though - How did it get to this point? Why was it allowed to happen? Why were decisions made that hastened the demise?

That's what happens when you concentrate poverty. MVHS should get similar treatment

People move where they want to live. Families, job, cheaper houses, commute, walkable neighborhood, ethnic communities...

Recent immigrants have always chosen to live in communities with similar religious and cultural ties. Where I grew up in the midwest, the Irish, Italians, Polish and Germans all had consentrated residential areas where they chose to live. There was comfort and community in being around their native language, cultures, food and extended families.

That seems to be largely what is happening in some areas of ffx county. It is a natural part of immigration, and one that I and many other first and second generation immigrants experienced as a member of an immigrant family.

It just seems laughable that you want to blame FCPS for what is a very natural process of immigrating and intergrating to a new society.

People live where they can afford to live. In Fairfax, that is a couple of small areas that sit within a few pyramids. The county caused it by zoning and policy that concentres poverty

There are very practical infrastructure reasons why it is not beneficial to have high density housing development evenly spread throughout the county. It is more cost effective to make targeted infrastructure upgrades in specific areas designated for high density housing. The county will need to expand capacity of the sewer system. water supply and roads networks to accommodatehigher density areas and the entire network will require capacity upgrades if the highest density housing is evenly distributed throughout the county. The policy you are suggesting will require significant investments that Fairfax does not have the capacity to fund.

Now that the silver line is complete, there is access to public transportation within bounds for McLean and near Langley. Let’s see if Fairfax puts up any massive section 8 complexes there

Every new apartment building in Tysons has affordable housing set-asides and there are also multiple all-affordable housing complexes planned and/or under construction now in Tysons. They will feed into Marshall and McLean. Elaine Tholen made sure no multi-family housing of any kind feeds to Langley.

The new low-income units in Tysons are going to tank school performance at Marshall and McLean. The school performance death spiral will begin in these pyramids soon.

That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

I see a ton of new houses over $2M selling in the McLean district, as older houses continue to get torn down and replaced with new, larger homes that have families with school-age kids. Some of those families will go private, but many will send their kids to public schools. If McLean were to get overcrowded again to the point requiring another boundary change (for now, they are doing OK with the modular and a few trailers), two scenarios seem most likely.

1. The Timber Lane island that includes a number of low-income garden apartments gets moved to Jackson/Falls Church. Falls Church will have more space after its renovation is completed, and Timber Lane is already a McLean/Falls Church split feeder.

2. The Spring Hill island that includes a number of moderate-income apartments (and could include one planned all-affordable housing building) gets moved to Cooper/Langley, and western Great Falls gets moved to Herndon/Herndon. Spring Hill is already a Langley/McLean split feeder.

Either of these scenarios could end up largely a wash for McLean in terms of its ESOL/FARMS population. Marshall is a bit trickier, because if it got crowded one scenario would be to send the single-family neighborhoods in Vienna near Wolf Trap to Madison, which got an addition and has space. That would quickly push up the FARMS percentage at Marshall. However, another alternative, just as with McLean, could be to send part of Tysons zoned to Marshall to Langley, and then part of Langley to Herndon. That would allow Marshall to retain the Vienna neighborhoods.

Yeah, Not true McLean is already at 9% low income and Tyson’s housing is super high density. That 100% affordable housing development in Tysons has 516 units that are limited to people with income at 60% of FC AMI. It includes a lot of 2-3 bedroom units so the student generation factor will be relatively high. This project alone will easily add close to 100 HS students and boost the low income percentage to 12%-13% range. The tipping point for he eats spiral is around 20% and woke inclusionary zoning policies can easily make up for this remaining gap.

McLean is higher than 9% FARMS now. It was 12% last year according to FCPS, and it's probably increased a percentage point or two this year. However, the 516-unit affordable housing project to which you're referring (Exchange at Spring Hill, formerly called Dominion Square West) is zoned to Marshall, not McLean. County projections suggested it could add 16 more students to Marshall, not 100, if it had 500 units, so your estimate of 100 more HS students for 516 units appears to be inconsistent with the county's projections.

I'm not sure if you're worried about a "death spiral" at McLean, or instead eager to precipitate one, but it's more than a bit premature.

The projections for student generation will be way off for this housing development. The county is just using the average student generation factor for all 5+ multifamily developments to estimate the student generation The estimate is not adjusted for actual numbers of 1, 2 and 3 bed units in an individual development. It will be much higher than 16 students. The 60% AMI affordability threshold is predicated on family size, which means that the 2bd and 3bd units will skew strongly towards sec 8 voucher holders with multiple children. 5+ story apartment buildings tend to have a large proportion of lofts and 1bd units. This means that using the average student generation factor for a low-income apartment complex with a high proportion of 2bd & 3bd units will dramatically underestimate the number of students. I could not find data for Fairfax County, but the student generation factor for low-income housing units in Arlington is around 0.5 per unit. If the numbers are similar for Fairfax the total including all grade levels will be closer to 250 students than the 56 students that the county is projecting. It's definitely not premature and I don't want few remaining good public HS schools Fairfax to go downhill because it will destroy Fairfax County. Most families that choose to buy multimillion dollar homes in an area known for its high performing schools will not tolerate their kids attending a 20%+ FARMs school. The exodus will rapidly accelerate when the number gets close to this threshold. If it is already at 12% now, it will hit 20% in less than 10 years, so the death spiral will start soon.

I guess you missed the part where it was pointed out that the affordable housing project that you think is going to churn out FARMS kids is zoned for Marshall, not McLean.

Because it's McLean, not Marshall, that is currently at around 12% FARMS now. Marshall was at 23% last year, and that's not dissuading people from paying $2M or so for new houses in Pimmit Hills zoned to Marshall. It's still a high-performing school.

However, if you're so concerned about kids attending a 20%+ FARMS school in that general area, you can always let the School Board know you think some of the multi-family housing in the Tysons area should be moved to Madison and/or Langley to even things out. Madison has hundreds of extra seats after its expansion. Langley isn't projected to have as much extra capacity as Madison, but they could move part of Tysons to Langley and then move part of Great Falls now at Langley to Herndon.

I did not miss that point it doesn’t matter whether it is zoned for McLean right now. The county is planning on having 100k people living in Tyson’s so the new students will need to be absorbed by all of the nearby HS pyramids. There is simply not enough school capacity to limit the damage to one pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

*It's not about the low test scores.* I can't emphasize this enough. I don't really care if a whole pile of other kids in my kid's school are failing their tests. The problem isn't their test scores, it's their behavior (bullying, gangs, drugs, alcohol, crime), their disruptions, and their soaking up of teacher and administrative attention that would be better spent on better students.

There are no such things as "good schools" and "bad schools." It's not about the school facilities. It's not about the teachers. It's about the quality of students that YOUR kids will be surrounded by, and how that is going to affect their education. Everyone inherently knows this but our leftist board and entrenched bureaucracy ignore it because the actual solutions are politically unpalatable.

Yes, this is the point. The data is clear that schools have almost no impact on student student outcomes. However, no one is going to chance it with their own children and statistically speaking schools with higher FARMS rates haver higher crime levels and more academic disruptions. Parents do not get to chose specifically which kids they are around in public schools, so they need to use statistical correlates as a risk mitigation strategy to avoid schools that are likely to have too many disruptive students.

The FCPS study should that above a 40% farms rate, there were negative academic impacts on all students, not just FARMs students

Most parents don’t care about how it impacts other students just how it might impact their students. Reasonable people are not going to risk their children’s future for social policy goals that primarily benefit other peoples children.

Im not sure it does much to help those other children either.

It doesn’t help them either. Those moving to opportunity studies don’t adequately control for the characteristics of the parents. The low income parents that beat the odds and enroll their kids in affluent school district on vouchers have different behavioral characteristics in average than the people that don’t. They tend to have more favorable behavioral tendencies that are also reflected in their kids academic performance.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution for Lewis is to make it a CTE trade school and allow everyone who wants a more academic path to transfer out. That’s basically what’s happening now, but they need to stop even attempting to make Lewis fit all types of students when it’s so heavily FARMS and 1st gen. Put the resources there to serve that population and let those who don’t fit go elsewhere.

You do have to ask though - How did it get to this point? Why was it allowed to happen? Why were decisions made that hastened the demise?

That's what happens when you concentrate poverty. MVHS should get similar treatment

People move where they want to live. Families, job, cheaper houses, commute, walkable neighborhood, ethnic communities...

Recent immigrants have always chosen to live in communities with similar religious and cultural ties. Where I grew up in the midwest, the Irish, Italians, Polish and Germans all had consentrated residential areas where they chose to live. There was comfort and community in being around their native language, cultures, food and extended families.

That seems to be largely what is happening in some areas of ffx county. It is a natural part of immigration, and one that I and many other first and second generation immigrants experienced as a member of an immigrant family.

It just seems laughable that you want to blame FCPS for what is a very natural process of immigrating and intergrating to a new society.

People live where they can afford to live. In Fairfax, that is a couple of small areas that sit within a few pyramids. The county caused it by zoning and policy that concentres poverty

There are very practical infrastructure reasons why it is not beneficial to have high density housing development evenly spread throughout the county. It is more cost effective to make targeted infrastructure upgrades in specific areas designated for high density housing. The county will need to expand capacity of the sewer system. water supply and roads networks to accommodatehigher density areas and the entire network will require capacity upgrades if the highest density housing is evenly distributed throughout the county. The policy you are suggesting will require significant investments that Fairfax does not have the capacity to fund.

Now that the silver line is complete, there is access to public transportation within bounds for McLean and near Langley. Let’s see if Fairfax puts up any massive section 8 complexes there

Every new apartment building in Tysons has affordable housing set-asides and there are also multiple all-affordable housing complexes planned and/or under construction now in Tysons. They will feed into Marshall and McLean. Elaine Tholen made sure no multi-family housing of any kind feeds to Langley.

The new low-income units in Tysons are going to tank school performance at Marshall and McLean. The school performance death spiral will begin in these pyramids soon.

That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

I see a ton of new houses over $2M selling in the McLean district, as older houses continue to get torn down and replaced with new, larger homes that have families with school-age kids. Some of those families will go private, but many will send their kids to public schools. If McLean were to get overcrowded again to the point requiring another boundary change (for now, they are doing OK with the modular and a few trailers), two scenarios seem most likely.

1. The Timber Lane island that includes a number of low-income garden apartments gets moved to Jackson/Falls Church. Falls Church will have more space after its renovation is completed, and Timber Lane is already a McLean/Falls Church split feeder.

2. The Spring Hill island that includes a number of moderate-income apartments (and could include one planned all-affordable housing building) gets moved to Cooper/Langley, and western Great Falls gets moved to Herndon/Herndon. Spring Hill is already a Langley/McLean split feeder.

Either of these scenarios could end up largely a wash for McLean in terms of its ESOL/FARMS population. Marshall is a bit trickier, because if it got crowded one scenario would be to send the single-family neighborhoods in Vienna near Wolf Trap to Madison, which got an addition and has space. That would quickly push up the FARMS percentage at Marshall. However, another alternative, just as with McLean, could be to send part of Tysons zoned to Marshall to Langley, and then part of Langley to Herndon. That would allow Marshall to retain the Vienna neighborhoods.

Yeah, Not true McLean is already at 9% low income and Tyson’s housing is super high density. That 100% affordable housing development in Tysons has 516 units that are limited to people with income at 60% of FC AMI. It includes a lot of 2-3 bedroom units so the student generation factor will be relatively high. This project alone will easily add close to 100 HS students and boost the low income percentage to 12%-13% range. The tipping point for he eats spiral is around 20% and woke inclusionary zoning policies can easily make up for this remaining gap.

McLean is higher than 9% FARMS now. It was 12% last year according to FCPS, and it's probably increased a percentage point or two this year. However, the 516-unit affordable housing project to which you're referring (Exchange at Spring Hill, formerly called Dominion Square West) is zoned to Marshall, not McLean. County projections suggested it could add 16 more students to Marshall, not 100, if it had 500 units, so your estimate of 100 more HS students for 516 units appears to be inconsistent with the county's projections.

I'm not sure if you're worried about a "death spiral" at McLean, or instead eager to precipitate one, but it's more than a bit premature.

The projections for student generation will be way off for this housing development. The county is just using the average student generation factor for all 5+ multifamily developments to estimate the student generation The estimate is not adjusted for actual numbers of 1, 2 and 3 bed units in an individual development. It will be much higher than 16 students. The 60% AMI affordability threshold is predicated on family size, which means that the 2bd and 3bd units will skew strongly towards sec 8 voucher holders with multiple children. 5+ story apartment buildings tend to have a large proportion of lofts and 1bd units. This means that using the average student generation factor for a low-income apartment complex with a high proportion of 2bd & 3bd units will dramatically underestimate the number of students. I could not find data for Fairfax County, but the student generation factor for low-income housing units in Arlington is around 0.5 per unit. If the numbers are similar for Fairfax the total including all grade levels will be closer to 250 students than the 56 students that the county is projecting. It's definitely not premature and I don't want few remaining good public HS schools Fairfax to go downhill because it will destroy Fairfax County. Most families that choose to buy multimillion dollar homes in an area known for its high performing schools will not tolerate their kids attending a 20%+ FARMs school. The exodus will rapidly accelerate when the number gets close to this threshold. If it is already at 12% now, it will hit 20% in less than 10 years, so the death spiral will start soon.

I guess you missed the part where it was pointed out that the affordable housing project that you think is going to churn out FARMS kids is zoned for Marshall, not McLean.

Because it's McLean, not Marshall, that is currently at around 12% FARMS now. Marshall was at 23% last year, and that's not dissuading people from paying $2M or so for new houses in Pimmit Hills zoned to Marshall. It's still a high-performing school.

However, if you're so concerned about kids attending a 20%+ FARMS school in that general area, you can always let the School Board know you think some of the multi-family housing in the Tysons area should be moved to Madison and/or Langley to even things out. Madison has hundreds of extra seats after its expansion. Langley isn't projected to have as much extra capacity as Madison, but they could move part of Tysons to Langley and then move part of Great Falls now at Langley to Herndon.

I did not miss that point it doesn’t matter whether it is zoned for McLean right now. The county is planning on having 100k people living in Tyson’s so the new students will need to be absorbed by all of the nearby HS pyramids. There is simply not enough school capacity to limit the damage to one pyramid.

If Tysons ends up with 100,000 residents, they might decide to build a new secondary school there. But even if they don’t, the inferences you drew about the potential impact of the student yield from one new affordable housing complex zoned to one school (Marshall) on a different school (McLean), and the “death spiral” rhetoric, were way over-the-top.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution for Lewis is to make it a CTE trade school and allow everyone who wants a more academic path to transfer out. That’s basically what’s happening now, but they need to stop even attempting to make Lewis fit all types of students when it’s so heavily FARMS and 1st gen. Put the resources there to serve that population and let those who don’t fit go elsewhere.

You do have to ask though - How did it get to this point? Why was it allowed to happen? Why were decisions made that hastened the demise?

That's what happens when you concentrate poverty. MVHS should get similar treatment

People move where they want to live. Families, job, cheaper houses, commute, walkable neighborhood, ethnic communities...

Recent immigrants have always chosen to live in communities with similar religious and cultural ties. Where I grew up in the midwest, the Irish, Italians, Polish and Germans all had consentrated residential areas where they chose to live. There was comfort and community in being around their native language, cultures, food and extended families.

That seems to be largely what is happening in some areas of ffx county. It is a natural part of immigration, and one that I and many other first and second generation immigrants experienced as a member of an immigrant family.

It just seems laughable that you want to blame FCPS for what is a very natural process of immigrating and intergrating to a new society.

People live where they can afford to live. In Fairfax, that is a couple of small areas that sit within a few pyramids. The county caused it by zoning and policy that concentres poverty

There are very practical infrastructure reasons why it is not beneficial to have high density housing development evenly spread throughout the county. It is more cost effective to make targeted infrastructure upgrades in specific areas designated for high density housing. The county will need to expand capacity of the sewer system. water supply and roads networks to accommodatehigher density areas and the entire network will require capacity upgrades if the highest density housing is evenly distributed throughout the county. The policy you are suggesting will require significant investments that Fairfax does not have the capacity to fund.

Now that the silver line is complete, there is access to public transportation within bounds for McLean and near Langley. Let’s see if Fairfax puts up any massive section 8 complexes there

Every new apartment building in Tysons has affordable housing set-asides and there are also multiple all-affordable housing complexes planned and/or under construction now in Tysons. They will feed into Marshall and McLean. Elaine Tholen made sure no multi-family housing of any kind feeds to Langley.

The new low-income units in Tysons are going to tank school performance at Marshall and McLean. The school performance death spiral will begin in these pyramids soon.

That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

I see a ton of new houses over $2M selling in the McLean district, as older houses continue to get torn down and replaced with new, larger homes that have families with school-age kids. Some of those families will go private, but many will send their kids to public schools. If McLean were to get overcrowded again to the point requiring another boundary change (for now, they are doing OK with the modular and a few trailers), two scenarios seem most likely.

1. The Timber Lane island that includes a number of low-income garden apartments gets moved to Jackson/Falls Church. Falls Church will have more space after its renovation is completed, and Timber Lane is already a McLean/Falls Church split feeder.

2. The Spring Hill island that includes a number of moderate-income apartments (and could include one planned all-affordable housing building) gets moved to Cooper/Langley, and western Great Falls gets moved to Herndon/Herndon. Spring Hill is already a Langley/McLean split feeder.

Either of these scenarios could end up largely a wash for McLean in terms of its ESOL/FARMS population. Marshall is a bit trickier, because if it got crowded one scenario would be to send the single-family neighborhoods in Vienna near Wolf Trap to Madison, which got an addition and has space. That would quickly push up the FARMS percentage at Marshall. However, another alternative, just as with McLean, could be to send part of Tysons zoned to Marshall to Langley, and then part of Langley to Herndon. That would allow Marshall to retain the Vienna neighborhoods.

Yeah, Not true McLean is already at 9% low income and Tyson’s housing is super high density. That 100% affordable housing development in Tysons has 516 units that are limited to people with income at 60% of FC AMI. It includes a lot of 2-3 bedroom units so the student generation factor will be relatively high. This project alone will easily add close to 100 HS students and boost the low income percentage to 12%-13% range. The tipping point for he eats spiral is around 20% and woke inclusionary zoning policies can easily make up for this remaining gap.

McLean is higher than 9% FARMS now. It was 12% last year according to FCPS, and it's probably increased a percentage point or two this year. However, the 516-unit affordable housing project to which you're referring (Exchange at Spring Hill, formerly called Dominion Square West) is zoned to Marshall, not McLean. County projections suggested it could add 16 more students to Marshall, not 100, if it had 500 units, so your estimate of 100 more HS students for 516 units appears to be inconsistent with the county's projections.

I'm not sure if you're worried about a "death spiral" at McLean, or instead eager to precipitate one, but it's more than a bit premature.

The projections for student generation will be way off for this housing development. The county is just using the average student generation factor for all 5+ multifamily developments to estimate the student generation The estimate is not adjusted for actual numbers of 1, 2 and 3 bed units in an individual development. It will be much higher than 16 students. The 60% AMI affordability threshold is predicated on family size, which means that the 2bd and 3bd units will skew strongly towards sec 8 voucher holders with multiple children. 5+ story apartment buildings tend to have a large proportion of lofts and 1bd units. This means that using the average student generation factor for a low-income apartment complex with a high proportion of 2bd & 3bd units will dramatically underestimate the number of students. I could not find data for Fairfax County, but the student generation factor for low-income housing units in Arlington is around 0.5 per unit. If the numbers are similar for Fairfax the total including all grade levels will be closer to 250 students than the 56 students that the county is projecting. It's definitely not premature and I don't want few remaining good public HS schools Fairfax to go downhill because it will destroy Fairfax County. Most families that choose to buy multimillion dollar homes in an area known for its high performing schools will not tolerate their kids attending a 20%+ FARMs school. The exodus will rapidly accelerate when the number gets close to this threshold. If it is already at 12% now, it will hit 20% in less than 10 years, so the death spiral will start soon.

I guess you missed the part where it was pointed out that the affordable housing project that you think is going to churn out FARMS kids is zoned for Marshall, not McLean.

Because it's McLean, not Marshall, that is currently at around 12% FARMS now. Marshall was at 23% last year, and that's not dissuading people from paying $2M or so for new houses in Pimmit Hills zoned to Marshall. It's still a high-performing school.

However, if you're so concerned about kids attending a 20%+ FARMS school in that general area, you can always let the School Board know you think some of the multi-family housing in the Tysons area should be moved to Madison and/or Langley to even things out. Madison has hundreds of extra seats after its expansion. Langley isn't projected to have as much extra capacity as Madison, but they could move part of Tysons to Langley and then move part of Great Falls now at Langley to Herndon.

I did not miss that point it doesn’t matter whether it is zoned for McLean right now. The county is planning on having 100k people living in Tyson’s so the new students will need to be absorbed by all of the nearby HS pyramids. There is simply not enough school capacity to limit the damage to one pyramid.

If Tysons ends up with 100,000 residents, they might decide to build a new secondary school there. But even if they don’t, the inferences you drew about the potential impact of the student yield from one new affordable housing complex zoned to one school (Marshall) on a different school (McLean), and the “death spiral” rhetoric, were way over-the-top.

I would support building a school in Tysons, but they almost certainly won't do that. The space is so limited there and the land is incredibly expensive. It would cost them 2-3x to build a school there compared to the average for the county.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution for Lewis is to make it a CTE trade school and allow everyone who wants a more academic path to transfer out. That’s basically what’s happening now, but they need to stop even attempting to make Lewis fit all types of students when it’s so heavily FARMS and 1st gen. Put the resources there to serve that population and let those who don’t fit go elsewhere.

You do have to ask though - How did it get to this point? Why was it allowed to happen? Why were decisions made that hastened the demise?

That's what happens when you concentrate poverty. MVHS should get similar treatment

People move where they want to live. Families, job, cheaper houses, commute, walkable neighborhood, ethnic communities...

Recent immigrants have always chosen to live in communities with similar religious and cultural ties. Where I grew up in the midwest, the Irish, Italians, Polish and Germans all had consentrated residential areas where they chose to live. There was comfort and community in being around their native language, cultures, food and extended families.

That seems to be largely what is happening in some areas of ffx county. It is a natural part of immigration, and one that I and many other first and second generation immigrants experienced as a member of an immigrant family.

It just seems laughable that you want to blame FCPS for what is a very natural process of immigrating and intergrating to a new society.

People live where they can afford to live. In Fairfax, that is a couple of small areas that sit within a few pyramids. The county caused it by zoning and policy that concentres poverty

There are very practical infrastructure reasons why it is not beneficial to have high density housing development evenly spread throughout the county. It is more cost effective to make targeted infrastructure upgrades in specific areas designated for high density housing. The county will need to expand capacity of the sewer system. water supply and roads networks to accommodatehigher density areas and the entire network will require capacity upgrades if the highest density housing is evenly distributed throughout the county. The policy you are suggesting will require significant investments that Fairfax does not have the capacity to fund.

Now that the silver line is complete, there is access to public transportation within bounds for McLean and near Langley. Let’s see if Fairfax puts up any massive section 8 complexes there

Every new apartment building in Tysons has affordable housing set-asides and there are also multiple all-affordable housing complexes planned and/or under construction now in Tysons. They will feed into Marshall and McLean. Elaine Tholen made sure no multi-family housing of any kind feeds to Langley.

The new low-income units in Tysons are going to tank school performance at Marshall and McLean. The school performance death spiral will begin in these pyramids soon.

That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

I see a ton of new houses over $2M selling in the McLean district, as older houses continue to get torn down and replaced with new, larger homes that have families with school-age kids. Some of those families will go private, but many will send their kids to public schools. If McLean were to get overcrowded again to the point requiring another boundary change (for now, they are doing OK with the modular and a few trailers), two scenarios seem most likely.

1. The Timber Lane island that includes a number of low-income garden apartments gets moved to Jackson/Falls Church. Falls Church will have more space after its renovation is completed, and Timber Lane is already a McLean/Falls Church split feeder.

2. The Spring Hill island that includes a number of moderate-income apartments (and could include one planned all-affordable housing building) gets moved to Cooper/Langley, and western Great Falls gets moved to Herndon/Herndon. Spring Hill is already a Langley/McLean split feeder.

Either of these scenarios could end up largely a wash for McLean in terms of its ESOL/FARMS population. Marshall is a bit trickier, because if it got crowded one scenario would be to send the single-family neighborhoods in Vienna near Wolf Trap to Madison, which got an addition and has space. That would quickly push up the FARMS percentage at Marshall. However, another alternative, just as with McLean, could be to send part of Tysons zoned to Marshall to Langley, and then part of Langley to Herndon. That would allow Marshall to retain the Vienna neighborhoods.

Yeah, Not true McLean is already at 9% low income and Tyson’s housing is super high density. That 100% affordable housing development in Tysons has 516 units that are limited to people with income at 60% of FC AMI. It includes a lot of 2-3 bedroom units so the student generation factor will be relatively high. This project alone will easily add close to 100 HS students and boost the low income percentage to 12%-13% range. The tipping point for he eats spiral is around 20% and woke inclusionary zoning policies can easily make up for this remaining gap.

McLean is higher than 9% FARMS now. It was 12% last year according to FCPS, and it's probably increased a percentage point or two this year. However, the 516-unit affordable housing project to which you're referring (Exchange at Spring Hill, formerly called Dominion Square West) is zoned to Marshall, not McLean. County projections suggested it could add 16 more students to Marshall, not 100, if it had 500 units, so your estimate of 100 more HS students for 516 units appears to be inconsistent with the county's projections.

I'm not sure if you're worried about a "death spiral" at McLean, or instead eager to precipitate one, but it's more than a bit premature.

The projections for student generation will be way off for this housing development. The county is just using the average student generation factor for all 5+ multifamily developments to estimate the student generation The estimate is not adjusted for actual numbers of 1, 2 and 3 bed units in an individual development. It will be much higher than 16 students. The 60% AMI affordability threshold is predicated on family size, which means that the 2bd and 3bd units will skew strongly towards sec 8 voucher holders with multiple children. 5+ story apartment buildings tend to have a large proportion of lofts and 1bd units. This means that using the average student generation factor for a low-income apartment complex with a high proportion of 2bd & 3bd units will dramatically underestimate the number of students. I could not find data for Fairfax County, but the student generation factor for low-income housing units in Arlington is around 0.5 per unit. If the numbers are similar for Fairfax the total including all grade levels will be closer to 250 students than the 56 students that the county is projecting. It's definitely not premature and I don't want few remaining good public HS schools Fairfax to go downhill because it will destroy Fairfax County. Most families that choose to buy multimillion dollar homes in an area known for its high performing schools will not tolerate their kids attending a 20%+ FARMs school. The exodus will rapidly accelerate when the number gets close to this threshold. If it is already at 12% now, it will hit 20% in less than 10 years, so the death spiral will start soon.

I guess you missed the part where it was pointed out that the affordable housing project that you think is going to churn out FARMS kids is zoned for Marshall, not McLean.

Because it's McLean, not Marshall, that is currently at around 12% FARMS now. Marshall was at 23% last year, and that's not dissuading people from paying $2M or so for new houses in Pimmit Hills zoned to Marshall. It's still a high-performing school.

However, if you're so concerned about kids attending a 20%+ FARMS school in that general area, you can always let the School Board know you think some of the multi-family housing in the Tysons area should be moved to Madison and/or Langley to even things out. Madison has hundreds of extra seats after its expansion. Langley isn't projected to have as much extra capacity as Madison, but they could move part of Tysons to Langley and then move part of Great Falls now at Langley to Herndon.

I did not miss that point it doesn’t matter whether it is zoned for McLean right now. The county is planning on having 100k people living in Tyson’s so the new students will need to be absorbed by all of the nearby HS pyramids. There is simply not enough school capacity to limit the damage to one pyramid.

If Tysons ends up with 100,000 residents, they might decide to build a new secondary school there. But even if they don’t, the inferences you drew about the potential impact of the student yield from one new affordable housing complex zoned to one school (Marshall) on a different school (McLean), and the “death spiral” rhetoric, were way over-the-top.

I would support building a school in Tysons, but they almost certainly won't do that. The space is so limited there and the land is incredibly expensive. It would cost them 2-3x to build a school there compared to the average for the county.

FCPS will likely build an elementary school somewhere in Tysons due to all the new housing in the pipeline.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution for Lewis is to make it a CTE trade school and allow everyone who wants a more academic path to transfer out. That’s basically what’s happening now, but they need to stop even attempting to make Lewis fit all types of students when it’s so heavily FARMS and 1st gen. Put the resources there to serve that population and let those who don’t fit go elsewhere.

You do have to ask though - How did it get to this point? Why was it allowed to happen? Why were decisions made that hastened the demise?

That's what happens when you concentrate poverty. MVHS should get similar treatment

People move where they want to live. Families, job, cheaper houses, commute, walkable neighborhood, ethnic communities...

Recent immigrants have always chosen to live in communities with similar religious and cultural ties. Where I grew up in the midwest, the Irish, Italians, Polish and Germans all had consentrated residential areas where they chose to live. There was comfort and community in being around their native language, cultures, food and extended families.

That seems to be largely what is happening in some areas of ffx county. It is a natural part of immigration, and one that I and many other first and second generation immigrants experienced as a member of an immigrant family.

It just seems laughable that you want to blame FCPS for what is a very natural process of immigrating and intergrating to a new society.

People live where they can afford to live. In Fairfax, that is a couple of small areas that sit within a few pyramids. The county caused it by zoning and policy that concentres poverty

There are very practical infrastructure reasons why it is not beneficial to have high density housing development evenly spread throughout the county. It is more cost effective to make targeted infrastructure upgrades in specific areas designated for high density housing. The county will need to expand capacity of the sewer system. water supply and roads networks to accommodatehigher density areas and the entire network will require capacity upgrades if the highest density housing is evenly distributed throughout the county. The policy you are suggesting will require significant investments that Fairfax does not have the capacity to fund.

Now that the silver line is complete, there is access to public transportation within bounds for McLean and near Langley. Let’s see if Fairfax puts up any massive section 8 complexes there

Every new apartment building in Tysons has affordable housing set-asides and there are also multiple all-affordable housing complexes planned and/or under construction now in Tysons. They will feed into Marshall and McLean. Elaine Tholen made sure no multi-family housing of any kind feeds to Langley.

The new low-income units in Tysons are going to tank school performance at Marshall and McLean. The school performance death spiral will begin in these pyramids soon.

That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

I see a ton of new houses over $2M selling in the McLean district, as older houses continue to get torn down and replaced with new, larger homes that have families with school-age kids. Some of those families will go private, but many will send their kids to public schools. If McLean were to get overcrowded again to the point requiring another boundary change (for now, they are doing OK with the modular and a few trailers), two scenarios seem most likely.

1. The Timber Lane island that includes a number of low-income garden apartments gets moved to Jackson/Falls Church. Falls Church will have more space after its renovation is completed, and Timber Lane is already a McLean/Falls Church split feeder.

2. The Spring Hill island that includes a number of moderate-income apartments (and could include one planned all-affordable housing building) gets moved to Cooper/Langley, and western Great Falls gets moved to Herndon/Herndon. Spring Hill is already a Langley/McLean split feeder.

Either of these scenarios could end up largely a wash for McLean in terms of its ESOL/FARMS population. Marshall is a bit trickier, because if it got crowded one scenario would be to send the single-family neighborhoods in Vienna near Wolf Trap to Madison, which got an addition and has space. That would quickly push up the FARMS percentage at Marshall. However, another alternative, just as with McLean, could be to send part of Tysons zoned to Marshall to Langley, and then part of Langley to Herndon. That would allow Marshall to retain the Vienna neighborhoods.

Yeah, Not true McLean is already at 9% low income and Tyson’s housing is super high density. That 100% affordable housing development in Tysons has 516 units that are limited to people with income at 60% of FC AMI. It includes a lot of 2-3 bedroom units so the student generation factor will be relatively high. This project alone will easily add close to 100 HS students and boost the low income percentage to 12%-13% range. The tipping point for he eats spiral is around 20% and woke inclusionary zoning policies can easily make up for this remaining gap.

McLean is higher than 9% FARMS now. It was 12% last year according to FCPS, and it's probably increased a percentage point or two this year. However, the 516-unit affordable housing project to which you're referring (Exchange at Spring Hill, formerly called Dominion Square West) is zoned to Marshall, not McLean. County projections suggested it could add 16 more students to Marshall, not 100, if it had 500 units, so your estimate of 100 more HS students for 516 units appears to be inconsistent with the county's projections.

I'm not sure if you're worried about a "death spiral" at McLean, or instead eager to precipitate one, but it's more than a bit premature.

The projections for student generation will be way off for this housing development. The county is just using the average student generation factor for all 5+ multifamily developments to estimate the student generation The estimate is not adjusted for actual numbers of 1, 2 and 3 bed units in an individual development. It will be much higher than 16 students. The 60% AMI affordability threshold is predicated on family size, which means that the 2bd and 3bd units will skew strongly towards sec 8 voucher holders with multiple children. 5+ story apartment buildings tend to have a large proportion of lofts and 1bd units. This means that using the average student generation factor for a low-income apartment complex with a high proportion of 2bd & 3bd units will dramatically underestimate the number of students. I could not find data for Fairfax County, but the student generation factor for low-income housing units in Arlington is around 0.5 per unit. If the numbers are similar for Fairfax the total including all grade levels will be closer to 250 students than the 56 students that the county is projecting. It's definitely not premature and I don't want few remaining good public HS schools Fairfax to go downhill because it will destroy Fairfax County. Most families that choose to buy multimillion dollar homes in an area known for its high performing schools will not tolerate their kids attending a 20%+ FARMs school. The exodus will rapidly accelerate when the number gets close to this threshold. If it is already at 12% now, it will hit 20% in less than 10 years, so the death spiral will start soon.

I guess you missed the part where it was pointed out that the affordable housing project that you think is going to churn out FARMS kids is zoned for Marshall, not McLean.

Because it's McLean, not Marshall, that is currently at around 12% FARMS now. Marshall was at 23% last year, and that's not dissuading people from paying $2M or so for new houses in Pimmit Hills zoned to Marshall. It's still a high-performing school.

However, if you're so concerned about kids attending a 20%+ FARMS school in that general area, you can always let the School Board know you think some of the multi-family housing in the Tysons area should be moved to Madison and/or Langley to even things out. Madison has hundreds of extra seats after its expansion. Langley isn't projected to have as much extra capacity as Madison, but they could move part of Tysons to Langley and then move part of Great Falls now at Langley to Herndon.

I did not miss that point it doesn’t matter whether it is zoned for McLean right now. The county is planning on having 100k people living in Tyson’s so the new students will need to be absorbed by all of the nearby HS pyramids. There is simply not enough school capacity to limit the damage to one pyramid.

If Tysons ends up with 100,000 residents, they might decide to build a new secondary school there. But even if they don’t, the inferences you drew about the potential impact of the student yield from one new affordable housing complex zoned to one school (Marshall) on a different school (McLean), and the “death spiral” rhetoric, were way over-the-top.

I would support building a school in Tysons, but they almost certainly won't do that. The space is so limited there and the land is incredibly expensive. It would cost them 2-3x to build a school there compared to the average for the county.

DP. Plenty of empty commercial real estate that could be repurposed into schools.

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Anonymous wrote:The solution for Lewis is to make it a CTE trade school and allow everyone who wants a more academic path to transfer out. That’s basically what’s happening now, but they need to stop even attempting to make Lewis fit all types of students when it’s so heavily FARMS and 1st gen. Put the resources there to serve that population and let those who don’t fit go elsewhere.

You do have to ask though - How did it get to this point? Why was it allowed to happen? Why were decisions made that hastened the demise?

That's what happens when you concentrate poverty. MVHS should get similar treatment

People move where they want to live. Families, job, cheaper houses, commute, walkable neighborhood, ethnic communities...

Recent immigrants have always chosen to live in communities with similar religious and cultural ties. Where I grew up in the midwest, the Irish, Italians, Polish and Germans all had consentrated residential areas where they chose to live. There was comfort and community in being around their native language, cultures, food and extended families.

That seems to be largely what is happening in some areas of ffx county. It is a natural part of immigration, and one that I and many other first and second generation immigrants experienced as a member of an immigrant family.

It just seems laughable that you want to blame FCPS for what is a very natural process of immigrating and intergrating to a new society.

People live where they can afford to live. In Fairfax, that is a couple of small areas that sit within a few pyramids. The county caused it by zoning and policy that concentres poverty

There are very practical infrastructure reasons why it is not beneficial to have high density housing development evenly spread throughout the county. It is more cost effective to make targeted infrastructure upgrades in specific areas designated for high density housing. The county will need to expand capacity of the sewer system. water supply and roads networks to accommodatehigher density areas and the entire network will require capacity upgrades if the highest density housing is evenly distributed throughout the county. The policy you are suggesting will require significant investments that Fairfax does not have the capacity to fund.

Now that the silver line is complete, there is access to public transportation within bounds for McLean and near Langley. Let’s see if Fairfax puts up any massive section 8 complexes there

Every new apartment building in Tysons has affordable housing set-asides and there are also multiple all-affordable housing complexes planned and/or under construction now in Tysons. They will feed into Marshall and McLean. Elaine Tholen made sure no multi-family housing of any kind feeds to Langley.

The new low-income units in Tysons are going to tank school performance at Marshall and McLean. The school performance death spiral will begin in these pyramids soon.

That would be a good thing for the county to witness, and not because I want to see the downfall of McLean, but because McLean would be a shining example of how schools are still "good" despite having poor kids attend.

The good half of McLean would be winning academic awards rivaling TJ while GreatSchools ranks it a 4 just because some ELL kids fail their SOLs. Everyone would finally realize what a bunch of nonsense the rankings are. Who cares what the ESOL kids are scoring? The AP kids at McLean would still be at the top of the county.

I see a ton of new houses over $2M selling in the McLean district, as older houses continue to get torn down and replaced with new, larger homes that have families with school-age kids. Some of those families will go private, but many will send their kids to public schools. If McLean were to get overcrowded again to the point requiring another boundary change (for now, they are doing OK with the modular and a few trailers), two scenarios seem most likely.

1. The Timber Lane island that includes a number of low-income garden apartments gets moved to Jackson/Falls Church. Falls Church will have more space after its renovation is completed, and Timber Lane is already a McLean/Falls Church split feeder.

2. The Spring Hill island that includes a number of moderate-income apartments (and could include one planned all-affordable housing building) gets moved to Cooper/Langley, and western Great Falls gets moved to Herndon/Herndon. Spring Hill is already a Langley/McLean split feeder.

Either of these scenarios could end up largely a wash for McLean in terms of its ESOL/FARMS population. Marshall is a bit trickier, because if it got crowded one scenario would be to send the single-family neighborhoods in Vienna near Wolf Trap to Madison, which got an addition and has space. That would quickly push up the FARMS percentage at Marshall. However, another alternative, just as with McLean, could be to send part of Tysons zoned to Marshall to Langley, and then part of Langley to Herndon. That would allow Marshall to retain the Vienna neighborhoods.

Yeah, Not true McLean is already at 9% low income and Tyson’s housing is super high density. That 100% affordable housing development in Tysons has 516 units that are limited to people with income at 60% of FC AMI. It includes a lot of 2-3 bedroom units so the student generation factor will be relatively high. This project alone will easily add close to 100 HS students and boost the low income percentage to 12%-13% range. The tipping point for he eats spiral is around 20% and woke inclusionary zoning policies can easily make up for this remaining gap.

McLean is higher than 9% FARMS now. It was 12% last year according to FCPS, and it's probably increased a percentage point or two this year. However, the 516-unit affordable housing project to which you're referring (Exchange at Spring Hill, formerly called Dominion Square West) is zoned to Marshall, not McLean. County projections suggested it could add 16 more students to Marshall, not 100, if it had 500 units, so your estimate of 100 more HS students for 516 units appears to be inconsistent with the county's projections.

I'm not sure if you're worried about a "death spiral" at McLean, or instead eager to precipitate one, but it's more than a bit premature.

The projections for student generation will be way off for this housing development. The county is just using the average student generation factor for all 5+ multifamily developments to estimate the student generation The estimate is not adjusted for actual numbers of 1, 2 and 3 bed units in an individual development. It will be much higher than 16 students. The 60% AMI affordability threshold is predicated on family size, which means that the 2bd and 3bd units will skew strongly towards sec 8 voucher holders with multiple children. 5+ story apartment buildings tend to have a large proportion of lofts and 1bd units. This means that using the average student generation factor for a low-income apartment complex with a high proportion of 2bd & 3bd units will dramatically underestimate the number of students. I could not find data for Fairfax County, but the student generation factor for low-income housing units in Arlington is around 0.5 per unit. If the numbers are similar for Fairfax the total including all grade levels will be closer to 250 students than the 56 students that the county is projecting. It's definitely not premature and I don't want few remaining good public HS schools Fairfax to go downhill because it will destroy Fairfax County. Most families that choose to buy multimillion dollar homes in an area known for its high performing schools will not tolerate their kids attending a 20%+ FARMs school. The exodus will rapidly accelerate when the number gets close to this threshold. If it is already at 12% now, it will hit 20% in less than 10 years, so the death spiral will start soon.

I guess you missed the part where it was pointed out that the affordable housing project that you think is going to churn out FARMS kids is zoned for Marshall, not McLean.

Because it's McLean, not Marshall, that is currently at around 12% FARMS now. Marshall was at 23% last year, and that's not dissuading people from paying $2M or so for new houses in Pimmit Hills zoned to Marshall. It's still a high-performing school.

However, if you're so concerned about kids attending a 20%+ FARMS school in that general area, you can always let the School Board know you think some of the multi-family housing in the Tysons area should be moved to Madison and/or Langley to even things out. Madison has hundreds of extra seats after its expansion. Langley isn't projected to have as much extra capacity as Madison, but they could move part of Tysons to Langley and then move part of Great Falls now at Langley to Herndon.

I did not miss that point it doesn’t matter whether it is zoned for McLean right now. The county is planning on having 100k people living in Tyson’s so the new students will need to be absorbed by all of the nearby HS pyramids. There is simply not enough school capacity to limit the damage to one pyramid.

If Tysons ends up with 100,000 residents, they might decide to build a new secondary school there. But even if they don’t, the inferences you drew about the potential impact of the student yield from one new affordable housing complex zoned to one school (Marshall) on a different school (McLean), and the “death spiral” rhetoric, were way over-the-top.

I would support building a school in Tysons, but they almost certainly won't do that. The space is so limited there and the land is incredibly expensive. It would cost them 2-3x to build a school there compared to the average for the county.

DP. Plenty of empty commercial real estate that could be repurposed into schools.

Every kids’ dream to go to high school in an empty high rise. Plus, then the equity crowd would start pushing to eliminate sports at all the high schools because that school wouldn’t have a field.

[Anonymous]

I was concerned about HS boundaries when I was buying my house a year ago. I would have loved to buy in Falls Church City, but I don't have 2 million dollars and prefer AP curriculum, so we closed that topic. Instead, I did second best - bought in Fairfax City. We are guaranteed to go to Fairfax High School come hell or high water, by City ordinance.

While folks who can buy walking distance to Langley and company are also effectively assured their attendance zones, people with modest housing budgets like our family could not afford those subdivisions. We could potentially afford to buy in Oakton HS, but then there would be no guarantees come next redistricting since areas that feed into Falls Church HS actually spread WAAAAY outside the beltway and are separated by two city blocks. I cannot afford to gamble. MCPS across the Potomac is adjusting boundaries on roughly half the schools in the coming year. Depending on how this election goes, Fairfax may be next.

We looked at FFX High School outcomes, trying to see past the overall Great Schools score. We saw a clear bimodal distribution of the student body at FFX HS, with kids who put in the work having every opportunity to grow + having both a community college and GM University nearby, allowing both dual enrollment and research opportunities. I spoke to multiple co-workers who felt that their kids got great preparation to attend top colleges, coming out of FFX High School. Also, having a large part of the student body who is focusing on non-academic pursuits is actually helpful in modern day admissions game.

Honestly, that's my best advice for folks with a modest budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was concerned about HS boundaries when I was buying my house a year ago. I would have loved to buy in Falls Church City, but I don't have 2 million dollars and prefer AP curriculum, so we closed that topic. Instead, I did second best - bought in Fairfax City. We are guaranteed to go to Fairfax High School come hell or high water, by City ordinance.

While folks who can buy walking distance to Langley and company are also effectively assured their attendance zones, people with modest housing budgets like our family could not afford those subdivisions. We could potentially afford to buy in Oakton HS, but then there would be no guarantees come next redistricting since areas that feed into Falls Church HS actually spread WAAAAY outside the beltway and are separated by two city blocks. I cannot afford to gamble. MCPS across the Potomac is adjusting boundaries on roughly half the schools in the coming year. Depending on how this election goes, Fairfax may be next.

We looked at FFX High School outcomes, trying to see past the overall Great Schools score. We saw a clear bimodal distribution of the student body at FFX HS, with kids who put in the work having every opportunity to grow + having both a community college and GM University nearby, allowing both dual enrollment and research opportunities. I spoke to multiple co-workers who felt that their kids got great preparation to attend top colleges, coming out of FFX High School. Also, having a large part of the student body who is focusing on non-academic pursuits is actually helpful in modern day admissions game.

Honestly, that's my best advice for folks with a modest budget.

I’m sorry that you were limited in your house selection, and glad that it worked out for you. The SB is going to cause this to happen much more if they get their way with sprawling redistricting soon and then every five years thereafter.