Impact of McLean/Langley boundary change on McLean real estate choice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like someone is reading last year’s news. Langley and McLean sept ‘24 numbers dropped significantly from the recent CIP projections, and the projections for the upcoming CIP will reflect that. In fact there is room now for the Tyson’s attendance island to move to Langley and still not overcrowd the school.

It’s an equity-minded dream to move western GF, but it’s not supported by the current membership numbers whatsoever.

And I didn’t read anything in your post about Herndon middle school, which is the school at most risk of overcrowding in that neck of the woods.

How many students are at McLean HS in 2024 vs. 2023? My DS graduated from McLean in 2023 and his graduation had over 750 students. My DS graduated in '21 and her class had almost 800 students.

McLean HS had 2419 students last month, down 16 students from October 2023.

It had 624 seniors in June 2023 and 574 seniors in June 2021. Your numbers are significantly inflated.

source?

FCPS monthly membership reports, available on the FCPS web site.

https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/performance-and-accountability/student-reporting

Anyone actually verifies that the data is not rigged?

VDOE tables are built from divisions Sept 30 numbers. VDOE Langley Sept 30 2023 =2142. FCPS has 2126 for sept 2023 under membership on school profiles. 16 less on FCPS so why the discrepancy since the count flows from FCPS?

I posted the per school enrollments v projected and frankly am appalled at the ridculous choices made by FCPS school boards on additions. We have 3 at large members and as a courtesy to fellow Democrats others also don't address the obvious. Plus BOS panderers on bond referendums.

And explain the chain of command on having any meeting for Marshall pyramid at Westfield? If that was a Reid only where was the mouth of Frisch etc? All this money wasted and a county wide project on boundaries run by a nube that can't audit a football team roster?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP: first of all, sorry for your situation, sounds like you are wisely planning ahead and trying to make the best of it, and second of all, sorry for how most of this thread turned out (seems like mainly one weird poster).

My .02 is I'd expect most of the current Spring Hill and Churchill Road ES areas to remain at Langley. Probably Colvin Run too? Maybe Great Falls also? But probably not Forestville I'd guess. But I'd think there could also be some reshuffling... e.g. parts of Colvin Run or GF ES could go to Forestville, part of Colvin Run could go to GF, Colvin Run could pick up some or all of the Westbriar island, Westbriar could pick up part of SH near Tysons, etc. Point being those areas seem much more likely to see some form adjustments (not necessarily the ones I just listed, only examples of potential shifts) versus the current Spring Hill (north of 267/7) and Churchill Road ES areas, so that's where I'd focus if you want to ensure Langley assignment long-term. The more north and/or east in those zones the lower the risk, as transportation-wise those areas have shortest travel distance to Langley and hence seem least likely to get juggled.

It's possible part of Franklin Sherman could get rezoned to Langley, but this seems much less likely given they just redid the ES boundaries of McLean pyramid in the past year and probably would want to avoid a second move in such quick succession nor create a split feeder. They could though move the entirety of Franklin Sherman to Langley, and possibly move Lemon Road and/or Westgate to McLean (eliminating split feeders), maybe shifting Timber Lane to Marshall? That runs counter to balancing FARMS percentages (by removing TL from McLean), but does remove an attendance island which is another priority factor they're considering.

Point is, I'd anticipate a lot of the shifts won't necessarily be because there's an obvious immediate need to move a specific area, but might be the result of cascading effects from elsewhere, which brings me back to my point that the closer you are to Langley within it's current zone, the lower the risk of getting moved to another school.

Best of luck!

Forestville is a no brainer to be sent to Herndon.

I would avoid Forestville if Langley is the goal.

Many neighborhoods (Holly Knoll) are 10 mins drive to HHS vs 30 min plus to LHS.

It won’t happen for a few years, but it’s really only a matter of time.

With the growth planned for Herndon, there isn’t any room. The school board is starting to see this too.

No. The Shouse move to Langley will be fully implemented in SY2025-26. CIP SY2028-29 has Langley at 98% and that is before any changes from this process. The Langley location removes it from any logical change for receiving students from anywhere but Mclean HS except for the weird stuff along Route 7 that's at Marshall. That could end up at Madison or South Lakes? I have no clue.

Meanwhile the sheer geographic scope of the Langley boundary includes Herndon addresses that vote at Herndon HS. Those households attend Forestville. https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/SY2024-2025Region1withSchoolLocations.pdf Forestville attendance area has many schools bordering it and one with a really funky map is Dranesville with a long tail.

I have no clue on who will attend Dranesville ES which is being expanded to 1000 seats which includes a large addition but that addition including classrooms removes the large difference between design and program capacity. Lower class size ratios mean more classroom required at any site. . CIP FY2022-26:
Dranesville ES design 1,008 program 834

Looks like someone is reading last year’s news. Langley and McLean sept ‘24 numbers dropped significantly from the recent CIP projections, and the projections for the upcoming CIP will reflect that. In fact there is room now for the Tyson’s attendance island to move to Langley and still not overcrowd the school.

It’s an equity-minded dream to move western GF, but it’s not supported by the current membership numbers whatsoever.

And I didn’t read anything in your post about Herndon middle school, which is the school at most risk of overcrowding in that neck of the woods.

My post had zero to do with equity if you are applying the word to FARMS and ESL %. Keep blathering about Herndon which got an addition and is now larger than Langley. Actual FCPS projected less October 2034 membership and avg per grade level:
Langley HS (37) (9.25) 93% program capacity pre full CRES and any more from Mclean
Cooper MS (51) (25.50)
Churchill Road with out modular 35 5.00 -program capacity 133%
Colvin Run (24) (3.43)
Forestville (44) (6.29)
Great Falls (35) (5.00)
Spring Hill (17) (2.43) program capacity 100%

Yes Herndon middle school capacity is an issue - should have AAP - add back in Hughes current feed and it can't hold another school unless something comes out. No one knows what will happen - ES converted to 6-8 MS so select ES have 2 years of pre k for all?

DP, but one of the bigger issues they are going to have to confront is the conflict between wanting to align feeder patterns and the mismatch between MS/HS capacities. At present, Herndon MS is too small for Herndon HS, Cooper MS is too small for Langley HS, and McLean HS is too small for Longfellow MS.

An expansion of McLean HS is the most obvious need, but you can also make the argument that Herndon MS needs to be expanded and that they goofed by not planning a bigger expansion of Cooper MS during its ongoing renovation.

This is exactly right. They expanded certain schools as a matter of course during renovations for a number of years, but now they claim not to have money to finish the job. It creates an impossible scenario to move students without creating many more split feeder scenarios.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP: first of all, sorry for your situation, sounds like you are wisely planning ahead and trying to make the best of it, and second of all, sorry for how most of this thread turned out (seems like mainly one weird poster).

My .02 is I'd expect most of the current Spring Hill and Churchill Road ES areas to remain at Langley. Probably Colvin Run too? Maybe Great Falls also? But probably not Forestville I'd guess. But I'd think there could also be some reshuffling... e.g. parts of Colvin Run or GF ES could go to Forestville, part of Colvin Run could go to GF, Colvin Run could pick up some or all of the Westbriar island, Westbriar could pick up part of SH near Tysons, etc. Point being those areas seem much more likely to see some form adjustments (not necessarily the ones I just listed, only examples of potential shifts) versus the current Spring Hill (north of 267/7) and Churchill Road ES areas, so that's where I'd focus if you want to ensure Langley assignment long-term. The more north and/or east in those zones the lower the risk, as transportation-wise those areas have shortest travel distance to Langley and hence seem least likely to get juggled.

It's possible part of Franklin Sherman could get rezoned to Langley, but this seems much less likely given they just redid the ES boundaries of McLean pyramid in the past year and probably would want to avoid a second move in such quick succession nor create a split feeder. They could though move the entirety of Franklin Sherman to Langley, and possibly move Lemon Road and/or Westgate to McLean (eliminating split feeders), maybe shifting Timber Lane to Marshall? That runs counter to balancing FARMS percentages (by removing TL from McLean), but does remove an attendance island which is another priority factor they're considering.

Point is, I'd anticipate a lot of the shifts won't necessarily be because there's an obvious immediate need to move a specific area, but might be the result of cascading effects from elsewhere, which brings me back to my point that the closer you are to Langley within it's current zone, the lower the risk of getting moved to another school.

Best of luck!

Forestville is a no brainer to be sent to Herndon.

I would avoid Forestville if Langley is the goal.

Many neighborhoods (Holly Knoll) are 10 mins drive to HHS vs 30 min plus to LHS.

It won’t happen for a few years, but it’s really only a matter of time.

With the growth planned for Herndon, there isn’t any room. The school board is starting to see this too.

No. The Shouse move to Langley will be fully implemented in SY2025-26. CIP SY2028-29 has Langley at 98% and that is before any changes from this process. The Langley location removes it from any logical change for receiving students from anywhere but Mclean HS except for the weird stuff along Route 7 that's at Marshall. That could end up at Madison or South Lakes? I have no clue.

Meanwhile the sheer geographic scope of the Langley boundary includes Herndon addresses that vote at Herndon HS. Those households attend Forestville. https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/SY2024-2025Region1withSchoolLocations.pdf Forestville attendance area has many schools bordering it and one with a really funky map is Dranesville with a long tail.

I have no clue on who will attend Dranesville ES which is being expanded to 1000 seats which includes a large addition but that addition including classrooms removes the large difference between design and program capacity. Lower class size ratios mean more classroom required at any site. . CIP FY2022-26:
Dranesville ES design 1,008 program 834

Looks like someone is reading last year’s news. Langley and McLean sept ‘24 numbers dropped significantly from the recent CIP projections, and the projections for the upcoming CIP will reflect that. In fact there is room now for the Tyson’s attendance island to move to Langley and still not overcrowd the school.

It’s an equity-minded dream to move western GF, but it’s not supported by the current membership numbers whatsoever.

And I didn’t read anything in your post about Herndon middle school, which is the school at most risk of overcrowding in that neck of the woods.

My post had zero to do with equity if you are applying the word to FARMS and ESL %. Keep blathering about Herndon which got an addition and is now larger than Langley. Actual FCPS projected less October 2034 membership and avg per grade level:
Langley HS (37) (9.25) 93% program capacity pre full CRES and any more from Mclean
Cooper MS (51) (25.50)
Churchill Road with out modular 35 5.00 -program capacity 133%
Colvin Run (24) (3.43)
Forestville (44) (6.29)
Great Falls (35) (5.00)
Spring Hill (17) (2.43) program capacity 100%

Yes Herndon middle school capacity is an issue - should have AAP - add back in Hughes current feed and it can't hold another school unless something comes out. No one knows what will happen - ES converted to 6-8 MS so select ES have 2 years of pre k for all?

DP, but one of the bigger issues they are going to have to confront is the conflict between wanting to align feeder patterns and the mismatch between MS/HS capacities. At present, Herndon MS is too small for Herndon HS, Cooper MS is too small for Langley HS, and McLean HS is too small for Longfellow MS.

An expansion of McLean HS is the most obvious need, but you can also make the argument that Herndon MS needs to be expanded and that they goofed by not planning a bigger expansion of Cooper MS during its ongoing renovation.

This is exactly right. They expanded certain schools as a matter of course during renovations for a number of years, but now they claim not to have money to finish the job. It creates an impossible scenario to move students without creating many more split feeder scenarios.

The incompetence on the part of FCPS Facilities, especially Jeff Platenberg, when it came to planning was absolutely staggering, and the oversight on the part of School Board members like Janie Strauss and Elaine Tholen was abysmal. Platenberg was a glorified building contractor with no planning skills, aided and abetted by hypocrites like Karen Corbett Sanders, and his legacy is one of waste and inefficiency.

The new crew can say as many times as they want that they are trying to fix things now but the reality is that most of us just want to be left alone because they have zero track record to suggest they can pull off an even bigger project successfully.

[Anonymous]

You should move as close as you possibly can to Langley HS to avoid the chance of being moved out of the Langley district. You never know what the school board might do.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure Langley will get a "pass" on rezoning and only changes will affect Concorde district schools. Shift kids around and more/new trailers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure Langley will get a "pass" on rezoning and only changes will affect Concorde district schools. Shift kids around and more/new trailers.

Your whining doesn’t even make any sense, the map just doesn’t support a significant change at Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure Langley will get a "pass" on rezoning and only changes will affect Concorde district schools. Shift kids around and more/new trailers.

Your whining doesn’t even make any sense, the map just doesn’t support a significant change at Langley.

The capacity does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure Langley will get a "pass" on rezoning and only changes will affect Concorde district schools. Shift kids around and more/new trailers.

Your whining doesn’t even make any sense, the map just doesn’t support a significant change at Langley.

The capacity does.

What capacity? Be specific. Herndon middle school capacity? You want to overload that school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure Langley will get a "pass" on rezoning and only changes will affect Concorde district schools. Shift kids around and more/new trailers.

Your whining doesn’t even make any sense, the map just doesn’t support a significant change at Langley.

The capacity does.

What capacity? Be specific. Herndon middle school capacity? You want to overload that school?

[Anonymous]

From what I’ve seen, Langley is turning into a magnet school by default, for better or worse. With the changes in TJ admissions, many students who don’t get into TJ are being placed at Langley instead by their parents.

If this keeps up, Langley might hit capacity soon, and that could potentially make it easier for FCPS to move Forestville students over to Herndon. The transfer students are generally great students and no behavior problems. It might make sense to start planning for a certain number of transfer students at Langley.

Langley administration appears to be on board with encouraging transfer students. Here are some examples:

- Making Russian placements/transfer easy. As long as you get the form in by the deadline, you’re good.
- Allowing a parent-funded shuttle. Parents have organized a small bus to help with transportation for transfer students.
- Creating a support group specifically for transfer families
-Expanding math, CS and science offerings due to student interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From what I’ve seen, Langley is turning into a magnet school by default, for better or worse. With the changes in TJ admissions, many students who don’t get into TJ are being placed at Langley instead by their parents.

If this keeps up, Langley might hit capacity soon, and that could potentially make it easier for FCPS to move Forestville students over to Herndon. The transfer students are generally great students and no behavior problems. It might make sense to start planning for a certain number of transfer students at Langley.

Langley administration appears to be on board with encouraging transfer students. Here are some examples:

- Making Russian placements/transfer easy. As long as you get the form in by the deadline, you’re good.
- Allowing a parent-funded shuttle. Parents have organized a small bus to help with transportation for transfer students.
- Creating a support group specifically for transfer families
-Expanding math, CS and science offerings due to student interest.

The fact that the actual September numbers for the school were 40 below projections from this past January belie your theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From what I’ve seen, Langley is turning into a magnet school by default, for better or worse. With the changes in TJ admissions, many students who don’t get into TJ are being placed at Langley instead by their parents.

If this keeps up, Langley might hit capacity soon, and that could potentially make it easier for FCPS to move Forestville students over to Herndon. The transfer students are generally great students and no behavior problems. It might make sense to start planning for a certain number of transfer students at Langley.

Langley administration appears to be on board with encouraging transfer students. Here are some examples:

- Making Russian placements/transfer easy. As long as you get the form in by the deadline, you’re good.
- Allowing a parent-funded shuttle. Parents have organized a small bus to help with transportation for transfer students.
- Creating a support group specifically for transfer families
-Expanding math, CS and science offerings due to student interest.

It’s about 100 pupil placements at a school with slightly under 2200 kids, so calling Langley a “magnet” is a bit of a conceit. Lake Braddock has about 3X as many pupil placements and you don’t hear people calling it a “magnet.”

Seems more likely they might send the Tysons attendance island at McLean to Langley, which would eliminate the split feeder at Spring Hill and add about 170-180 more kids to Langley. Then, if needed, they would close Langley to new pupil placements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I’ve seen, Langley is turning into a magnet school by default, for better or worse. With the changes in TJ admissions, many students who don’t get into TJ are being placed at Langley instead by their parents.

If this keeps up, Langley might hit capacity soon, and that could potentially make it easier for FCPS to move Forestville students over to Herndon. The transfer students are generally great students and no behavior problems. It might make sense to start planning for a certain number of transfer students at Langley.

Langley administration appears to be on board with encouraging transfer students. Here are some examples:

- Making Russian placements/transfer easy. As long as you get the form in by the deadline, you’re good.
- Allowing a parent-funded shuttle. Parents have organized a small bus to help with transportation for transfer students.
- Creating a support group specifically for transfer families
-Expanding math, CS and science offerings due to student interest.

It’s about 100 pupil placements at a school with slightly under 2200 kids, so calling Langley a “magnet” is a bit of a conceit. Lake Braddock has about 3X as many pupil placements and you don’t hear people calling it a “magnet.”

Seems more likely they might send the Tysons attendance island at McLean to Langley, which would eliminate the split feeder at Spring Hill and add about 170-180 more kids to Langley. Then, if needed, they would close Langley to new pupil placements.

They would have done that when they did the McLean->Langley move a couple years ago, if it weren't for Cooper MS. They want to avoid split feeders (for good reason), so those kids would need to move to Cooper as well as Langley. Except, either by design or by folly, decided that when Cooper was recently renovated it would maintain a 1075 capacity, or roughly 537 per grade... while Langley supports something like 587 per grade. So the only way to take advantage of Langley's capacity is to send Cooper over capacity (and/or add a modular)... or to fill the additional ~50 per grade capacity via transfers so that Cooper remains at capacity (which it already is). And I think there'd be too much blowback to putting trailers/modular at Cooper just after it was renovated, would make us look bad, so rather than admit the mistake let's just handle it via transfers and leave the split feeder/island in place. I expect the upcoming boundary change process will correct for the split feeder/island issue, but they'll have to make other adjustments to fit within Cooper's capacity (my guess is Forestville ES gets reassigned).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like someone is reading last year’s news. Langley and McLean sept ‘24 numbers dropped significantly from the recent CIP projections, and the projections for the upcoming CIP will reflect that. In fact there is room now for the Tyson’s attendance island to move to Langley and still not overcrowd the school.

It’s an equity-minded dream to move western GF, but it’s not supported by the current membership numbers whatsoever.

And I didn’t read anything in your post about Herndon middle school, which is the school at most risk of overcrowding in that neck of the woods.

How many students are at McLean HS in 2024 vs. 2023? My DS graduated from McLean in 2023 and his graduation had over 750 students. My DS graduated in '21 and her class had almost 800 students.

McLean HS had 2419 students last month, down 16 students from October 2023.

It had 624 seniors in June 2023 and 574 seniors in June 2021. Your numbers are significantly inflated.

source?

FCPS monthly membership reports, available on the FCPS web site.

https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/performance-and-accountability/student-reporting

Anyone actually verifies that the data is not rigged?

Wow, that's quite the question... any evidence other than that based on crackpot "FCPS is kerrupt" thinking to suggest that it might be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I’ve seen, Langley is turning into a magnet school by default, for better or worse. With the changes in TJ admissions, many students who don’t get into TJ are being placed at Langley instead by their parents.

If this keeps up, Langley might hit capacity soon, and that could potentially make it easier for FCPS to move Forestville students over to Herndon. The transfer students are generally great students and no behavior problems. It might make sense to start planning for a certain number of transfer students at Langley.

Langley administration appears to be on board with encouraging transfer students. Here are some examples:

- Making Russian placements/transfer easy. As long as you get the form in by the deadline, you’re good.
- Allowing a parent-funded shuttle. Parents have organized a small bus to help with transportation for transfer students.
- Creating a support group specifically for transfer families
-Expanding math, CS and science offerings due to student interest.

It’s about 100 pupil placements at a school with slightly under 2200 kids, so calling Langley a “magnet” is a bit of a conceit. Lake Braddock has about 3X as many pupil placements and you don’t hear people calling it a “magnet.”

Seems more likely they might send the Tysons attendance island at McLean to Langley, which would eliminate the split feeder at Spring Hill and add about 170-180 more kids to Langley. Then, if needed, they would close Langley to new pupil placements.

They would have done that when they did the McLean->Langley move a couple years ago, if it weren't for Cooper MS. They want to avoid split feeders (for good reason), so those kids would need to move to Cooper as well as Langley. Except, either by design or by folly, decided that when Cooper was recently renovated it would maintain a 1075 capacity, or roughly 537 per grade... while Langley supports something like 587 per grade. So the only way to take advantage of Langley's capacity is to send Cooper over capacity (and/or add a modular)... or to fill the additional ~50 per grade capacity via transfers so that Cooper remains at capacity (which it already is). And I think there'd be too much blowback to putting trailers/modular at Cooper just after it was renovated, would make us look bad, so rather than admit the mistake let's just handle it via transfers and leave the split feeder/island in place. I expect the upcoming boundary change process will correct for the split feeder/island issue, but they'll have to make other adjustments to fit within Cooper's capacity (my guess is Forestville ES gets reassigned).

Cooper has no capacity issues when they move that island to the Langley pyramid. Again to be clear, you’re advocating to overcrowd Herndon middle school. The very definition of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The fact remains that there is a misalignment in middle schools and high schools in the area. You can’t fix HHS being under without making HMS over, unless you make MORE schools split feeders, which violates one of the sacred four.

Who knows what the school board will do, but an unnecessary move that creates a split feeder would be particularly offensive.