FCPS HS Boundary
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Anonymous
With its new renovation, Falls Church HS can pick up some of the McLean crowding on the other side of the McLean district. Frankly, with the growth of Tyson’s, I think both will have to happen as well as expanding McLean. |
Anonymous
Eww, you are not someone that I would want to meet in real life. |
Anonymous
I wonder if any local paper would be interested in running with this as a story. Seems like one with legs. |
Anonymous
Falls Church HS is much farther away from MHS zone than HHS is from LHS. Not to mention, LHS has excess capacity. |
Anonymous
Nice try. There are parts of McLean that are super close to falls church high. Be careful advocating too hard for a county-wide redistricting, McLean families, or you could end up with some very unintended consequences. |
Anonymous
PS, just to add to this, if they are looking to level out numbers, Chantilly and Centreville probably can only be absorbed via Herndon, not Falls Church, so I could see a scenario where they move 20% off the McLean kids to the recently renovated falls church high. Admittedly, reducing overcrowding seems more like the pretext for redistricting, but it’s certainly more than a remote possibility. |
Anonymous
DP. McLean still has two attendance islands. One is in Tysons, and feeds to Spring Hill, which is a split feeder to Langley and McLean. The other is in Falls Church, and feeds to Timber Lane, which is a split feeder to McLean and Falls Church. It would be easier, if they want to reduce the overcrowding at McLean and remain unwilling to invest in the school, to move the Timber Lane island to Falls Church. However, that would pull diversity out of McLean, so the SB may be more inclined to move the Spring Hill island to Langley. If they do that, it stands to push Langley (and even more so Cooper) over capacity, so they may team it with moving part of Langley to Herndon. Or maybe they won’t, in which case Cooper and Langley can enjoy some of the overcrowding that McLean has put up with for the past decade. Some McLean families may relish any scenario that moves them to wealthier, renovated Langley. Many of us would prefer FCPS to leave the boundaries alone and expand McLean like they’ve expanded West Potomac, Madison and Justice (outside the queue), but the powers that be refuse to spend money at our school. So, now, with our School Board member and others touting upcoming boundary changes, we’re just trying to figure out what it may mean for our pyramid. If our speculation bothers you so much, maybe you should have supported a MHS addition previously (rather than accused us of trying to jump the queue) or voted for different School Board candidates. |
Anonymous
A couple things: I fully support a McLean renovation - PP seeks to throw GF neighbors under the bus to save her own kids, which is what I find repugnant. Re: McLean islands, I’ve run the numbers, and I think the board will consider moving more than just the Spring Hill island. That move only still has McLean projected at over 110%, so they may have to move the other island to Falls church high school if they truly want to relieve overcrowding, or, less likely, move some of McLean near-ish Langley to Langley. Maybe PP is smack dab in the heart of McLean and has kids that will not be directly affected by this, but moving 20% of a school’s population to other schools is never going to be a seamless process, so expect massive disruption when this actually gets enacted. I’m just saying to the PP that she should be careful what she wishes for. Btw, the current board doesn’t care about McLean or Langley (Robyn Lady only cares about one school in her district). So, I’m just saying you might want to rethink the let’s sacrifice Forestville to relieve McLean overcrowding strategy, as it could completely backfire on you. |
Anonymous
Personally, I’ve only pointed out before that moving even more of McLean to Langley may result in moving part of Langley to Herndon. I’m not advocating for it, and if it’s proposed I’m sure those families will make the case it shouldn’t happen. However, I have listened to Elaine Tholen tell McLean parents in the past that they couldn’t move more of Longfellow/McLean to Cooper/Langley because it would overcrowd Cooper (even post-renovation), and the only thing that’s really happened since then is that Herndon’s big expansion has been completed. That - plus the latest projections - seem to suggest FCPS may already have a future McLean/Langley/Herndon boundary change in mind. But if Langley can fight it and prefers its own overcrowding in the future, cool. A few other things. First, they don’t need to pull 20% of McLean out unless they plan to get rid of the existing modular and never plan to expand McLean (we can have a separate discussion about leaving as the smallest HS in the county one expected to serve growing areas), and it’s a bit odd to call potentially moving kids to a renovated, expanded high school closer to their homes (Herndon) “throwing them under the bus.” You seem to think McLean kids can roll easily with being moved to Langley and/or Falls Church, but moving any kids out of Langley would be “repugnant.” |
Anonymous
Nice try, Great Falls mom. Look at a map. |
Anonymous
Where in the world do I say that “McLean kids can roll easily”? My post quite literally says the exact opposite. And just to refute one of your central points- they probably will consider moving more than just the spring hill kids, because if they don’t then they won’t really need to mess with Langley at all as it won’t be overcrowded (or marginally so). They need the inflated Langley numbers to justify the Forestville move to Herndon. Although based on their Herndon projections, they may just politically change the Langley projections next CIP. Let me be clear, because you are trying to put words in my mouth. I absolutely think a county-wide redistricting is going to be a significant disaster for the county. Major disruption to thousands or tens of thousands of kids, thousands of impacted families, a decline in school quality, and a significant loss of tax revenue. And it’ll be a catastrophic hit to the FC Democratic brand. Nonetheless, they seem heck-bent on going through with it. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear I’m not. |
Anonymous
Funny, I’ve looked at the school map more than I’ve ever wanted to. I’ve got spreadsheets projecting out various scenarios, and I’ve spent significant hours scrutinizing the last few CIPs. I get why you want to dismiss the possibility of a significant negative impact to McLean, but discount my argument at your own peril. |
Anonymous
I didn’t put words in your mouth. I drew inferences based on how readily you seemed to entertain multiple scenarios at once to move 20% of McLean students out of the school, while expressing revulsion at any suggestion Forestville kids now zoned to Langley might move to Herndon. I didn’t see you so quickly jumping to “run those numbers.” If you are in favor of putting this entire boundary change exercise on hold until they actually have a far better sense of what they are proposing to do and its longer-term implications for FCPS and the county we are actually in agreement. |
Anonymous
Ah, now I see, you don’t even have school age kids, do you? |
Anonymous
We are in agreement. Nothing would make me happier than killing the redistricting effort. Unfortunately, Robyn Lady’s newsletter this week confirmed that they are likely to go ahead with it. Most residents will be impacted in one way or another, some much more than others - they plan to pick winners and losers with this process. I have spent entirely too much time running the Forestville Herndon numbers in anticipation of the SB moving ahead with this, even over the objection of a clear majority of the county residents. |