Places to Sign Recall Petitions - Tholen/Omeish/Cohen

[Anonymous]

McSpaces is kaput. I think the leader got a lot of grief for not just sticking to the position that McLean deserved an addition.

He went along with Tholen saying there had to be a boundary change first. Then she made the boundary change and Tholen threw them under the bus and didn’t do anything to get them lined up an addition.

Agree she is unelectable now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What embattled Tholen and Cohen fail to recognize is that the recall petitions, even if impeded by local Democratic prosecutors (or, more accurately, non-prosecutors), are a giant vote of “no confidence” in their continued service on the School Board. Both should take a cue from Beth Barts in Loudoun and resign.

what % of the actual voting public in their district signed the petition? How many of them would never vote for Tholen or Cohen anyway?

The petition bar is far lower than the number of people who regularly vote against them. It should be easy to for conservatives to get 10% of voters to sign a petition. The fact that they have trouble meeting that low bar shows you how little trouble the board is actually in.

Most conservatives like myself have given up all hope that Fairfax County will move to the right. Most of the conservatives I know rarely vote when there are only local races (vice a presidential election). This includes the 2019 school board race. No conservative was going to win in that field.

Then the pandemic happened, the board fumbled and failed our kids at every turn, while promoting progressive CRT, p0rn in the libraries, renaming schools instead of opening schools, dumbing down TJ, re-upping braband's contract, and delivering an ineffective boundary change at McLean through a manipulative process. This got many conservatives like myself off the couch and donating to efforts to recall these clowns, holding signs, signing petitions. These progressives motivated people like me. So conservatives will be ready in 2023.

What Elaine and the others need to really worry about is that most of the things (admittedly not all) in my list above cross party lines. There is a noticeable number of Democratic families are not happy with how Elaine and the board handled things over the last 18 months. Even many Democrats dont want to co-parent with FCPS. Does this mean these Democratic families will vote republican? Maybe, maybe not. But it is very likely that these Democratic families will not vote for Elaine and the Clown Club. Add that to the motivated Republicans, and Elaine loses, Karl loses, gamara loses, and possibly rachna. Honestly, Id be happy with just that.

+1
Don't forget about Omeish.

[Anonymous]

Not that Omeish doesn’t have her own issues, but she was the only SB member who didn’t support Tholen’s last-minute decision to reject the FCPS staff recommendation and instead do the bidding of the GFCA (because Omeish thought they needed to look at the impact of Tysons growth more broadly). On that score, she was right.

What Tholen and her cronies did puts all the burden of the Tysons growth in McLean and Marshall. I think Omeish particularly disliked (as someone who had pupil placed from Woodson to Robinson for IB) the fact that Langley sits under-enrolled while Marshall can’t take IB pupil placements any longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not that Omeish doesn’t have her own issues, but she was the only SB member who didn’t support Tholen’s last-minute decision to reject the FCPS staff recommendation and instead do the bidding of the GFCA (because Omeish thought they needed to look at the impact of Tysons growth more broadly). On that score, she was right.

What Tholen and her cronies did puts all the burden of the Tysons growth in McLean and Marshall. I think Omeish particularly disliked (as someone who had pupil placed from Woodson to Robinson for IB) the fact that Langley sits under-enrolled while Marshall can’t take IB pupil placements any longer.

I agree that Omeish has other issues she will have to address at the next election, but you are 100% right. When it came to the vote for the boundary, she literally said that she was voting against it because it did not address the problem and that "we will be right back here again in a few years" facing the same issue. She was 1000% right and I give her credit as she did not fall in line with Tholen's plans. She was the only one smart and strong enough to vote against the boundary and she proved she is not Tholen's puppet.

Again, I realize she has said and done a lot of other things that have made many angry, including myself, but I will always give her a ton of credit for calling out the boundary for what it was.

[Anonymous]

There is a lot of hypocrisy in FCPS but Tholen is among the biggest hypocrites ever to have served on the Board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why recall these three?

Tholen & Cohen are the two who take the least number of signatures of the SB members at all.
Omeish is the least of the at-large and the recall effort kept getting people outside of Springfield and Dranesville asking to sign something.

While motivations for actually signing vary, the petitions themselves are about not reopening school in a timely, evidence based fashion.

Tholen: passivity when it came to reopening schools; complicity when it came to admissions changes that will keep Asian kids from Dranesville out of TJ; duplicity when it came to Langley/McLean boundary change.

She needs to be replaced.

So.... in a nutshell, she did not protect your snowflake's place in an open school during a global pandemic and their path to TJ, choosing instead to place everyone's safety and some semblance of equal chances for all above your little darling?

I can see anger over poorly run distance learning last year, but the schools needed to be closed. And they may close again, if not for nitwits like you who stir trouble for tough decisions not to your liking.

As for TJ, don;t worry. The same faces will still be there when the school year opens, because of people like you. There's more than TJ to FCPS.

[Anonymous]

LOL - that post does a great job of boiling down why Elaine is so unpopular.

You must be one of Elaine's fan-girls or fan-boys like "V the Clash" or the creepy FCDC unicorn dude. Rest assured we WILL be thinking about our "snowflakes" when it comes time to replace her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that Omeish doesn’t have her own issues, but she was the only SB member who didn’t support Tholen’s last-minute decision to reject the FCPS staff recommendation and instead do the bidding of the GFCA (because Omeish thought they needed to look at the impact of Tysons growth more broadly). On that score, she was right.

What Tholen and her cronies did puts all the burden of the Tysons growth in McLean and Marshall. I think Omeish particularly disliked (as someone who had pupil placed from Woodson to Robinson for IB) the fact that Langley sits under-enrolled while Marshall can’t take IB pupil placements any longer.

I agree that Omeish has other issues she will have to address at the next election, but you are 100% right. When it came to the vote for the boundary, she literally said that she was voting against it because it did not address the problem and that "we will be right back here again in a few years" facing the same issue. She was 1000% right and I give her credit as she did not fall in line with Tholen's plans. She was the only one smart and strong enough to vote against the boundary and she proved she is not Tholen's puppet.

Again, I realize she has said and done a lot of other things that have made many angry, including myself, but I will always give her a ton of credit for calling out the boundary for what it was.

DP. Regarding the bolded, her many other shortcomings outweigh that one instance, in my opinion. She has been a terrible example to our kids - especially with her arrest video which is available for anyone to view. Her focus is purely on social justice issues and race-baiting - not education. She needs to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why recall these three?

Tholen & Cohen are the two who take the least number of signatures of the SB members at all.
Omeish is the least of the at-large and the recall effort kept getting people outside of Springfield and Dranesville asking to sign something.

While motivations for actually signing vary, the petitions themselves are about not reopening school in a timely, evidence based fashion.

Tholen: passivity when it came to reopening schools; complicity when it came to admissions changes that will keep Asian kids from Dranesville out of TJ; duplicity when it came to Langley/McLean boundary change.

She needs to be replaced.

So.... in a nutshell, she did not protect your snowflake's place in an open school during a global pandemic and their path to TJ, choosing instead to place everyone's safety and some semblance of equal chances for all above your little darling?

I can see anger over poorly run distance learning last year, but the schools needed to be closed. And they may close again, if not for nitwits like you who stir trouble for tough decisions not to your liking.

As for TJ, don;t worry. The same faces will still be there when the school year opens, because of people like you. There's more than TJ to FCPS.

They closed down all schools, even though there were lightly impacted pyramids, because it would have been “inequitable” otherwise.

This came up AGAIN when they were discussing reopening. They were talking about conditions for having to close, and that students in areas that had good metrics would continue in person and high infection/hospitalization would close. Some members started saying that would be unfair and only Meghan pointed out that the county is too large and diverse to go back to such ridiculousness.

Yes, maybe Dranesville and some other areas should have reopened sooner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that Omeish doesn’t have her own issues, but she was the only SB member who didn’t support Tholen’s last-minute decision to reject the FCPS staff recommendation and instead do the bidding of the GFCA (because Omeish thought they needed to look at the impact of Tysons growth more broadly). On that score, she was right.

What Tholen and her cronies did puts all the burden of the Tysons growth in McLean and Marshall. I think Omeish particularly disliked (as someone who had pupil placed from Woodson to Robinson for IB) the fact that Langley sits under-enrolled while Marshall can’t take IB pupil placements any longer.

I agree that Omeish has other issues she will have to address at the next election, but you are 100% right. When it came to the vote for the boundary, she literally said that she was voting against it because it did not address the problem and that "we will be right back here again in a few years" facing the same issue. She was 1000% right and I give her credit as she did not fall in line with Tholen's plans. She was the only one smart and strong enough to vote against the boundary and she proved she is not Tholen's puppet.

Again, I realize she has said and done a lot of other things that have made many angry, including myself, but I will always give her a ton of credit for calling out the boundary for what it was.

DP. Regarding the bolded, her many other shortcomings outweigh that one instance, in my opinion. She has been a terrible example to our kids - especially with her arrest video which is available for anyone to view. Her focus is purely on social justice issues and race-baiting - not education. She needs to go.

Fine, get rid of all of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not that Omeish doesn’t have her own issues, but she was the only SB member who didn’t support Tholen’s last-minute decision to reject the FCPS staff recommendation and instead do the bidding of the GFCA (because Omeish thought they needed to look at the impact of Tysons growth more broadly). On that score, she was right.

What Tholen and her cronies did puts all the burden of the Tysons growth in McLean and Marshall. I think Omeish particularly disliked (as someone who had pupil placed from Woodson to Robinson for IB) the fact that Langley sits under-enrolled while Marshall can’t take IB pupil placements any longer.

I agree that Omeish has other issues she will have to address at the next election, but you are 100% right. When it came to the vote for the boundary, she literally said that she was voting against it because it did not address the problem and that "we will be right back here again in a few years" facing the same issue. She was 1000% right and I give her credit as she did not fall in line with Tholen's plans. She was the only one smart and strong enough to vote against the boundary and she proved she is not Tholen's puppet.

Again, I realize she has said and done a lot of other things that have made many angry, including myself, but I will always give her a ton of credit for calling out the boundary for what it was.

DP. Regarding the bolded, her many other shortcomings outweigh that one instance, in my opinion. She has been a terrible example to our kids - especially with her arrest video which is available for anyone to view. Her focus is purely on social justice issues and race-baiting - not education. She needs to go.

Im the one that posted the above and I dont disagree with you. The arrest video was an incredibly poor example for our kids and school board members should focus on our school system, not Gaza. My only point is that on the boundary issue, she not only got it right, but she called out the other stooges for the ridiculousness of the Tholen-boundary change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McSpaces is kaput. I think the leader got a lot of grief for not just sticking to the position that McLean deserved an addition.

He went along with Tholen saying there had to be a boundary change first. Then she made the boundary change and Tholen threw them under the bus and didn’t do anything to get them lined up an addition.

Agree she is unelectable now.

I just checked mcspaces website and it has not been updated in a long time, so you must be right - they are kaput. Elaine made a fool of the mcspaces mouthpiece VG, and he played the part well, pushing for a boundary change when he should have pushed for real change. I blame him and all those mcspaces members who did not use critical thinking to ask themselves why everyone was working so hard, for and against a boundary change, when we all should have been working together for a reno. VG messed up - he earned what he got for both himself and MHS - a big fat nothing.

Question is whether all the mcspaces people will hold this against Elaine in 2023, or will they have short memories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McSpaces is kaput. I think the leader got a lot of grief for not just sticking to the position that McLean deserved an addition.

He went along with Tholen saying there had to be a boundary change first. Then she made the boundary change and Tholen threw them under the bus and didn’t do anything to get them lined up an addition.

Agree she is unelectable now.

I just checked mcspaces website and it has not been updated in a long time, so you must be right - they are kaput. Elaine made a fool of the mcspaces mouthpiece VG, and he played the part well, pushing for a boundary change when he should have pushed for real change. I blame him and all those mcspaces members who did not use critical thinking to ask themselves why everyone was working so hard, for and against a boundary change, when we all should have been working together for a reno. VG messed up - he earned what he got for both himself and MHS - a big fat nothing.

Question is whether all the mcspaces people will hold this against Elaine in 2023, or will they have short memories.

Some of the McSpaces people just wanted to reduce the enrollment at MHS so kids weren't leaving the main building for classes in trailers. My impression was the main guy had an extreme concern about the safety implications of kids leaving the main building during school hours.

Over time, more of those involved said the priority ought to be an addition, so that MHS had comparable facilities to other schools and didn't end up losing teachers and electives if the enrollment was gutted.

At every point Tholen said nothing could happen without a boundary change first. Blame that not on McSpaces, or on Tholen, but on Jeff Platenberg, who built out Langley to 2370 seats during its renovation despite Langley's flat/declining enrollment. Once that happened, it was clear that FCPS's goal was going to be back-filling Langley with more kids so Platenberg looked less like an idiot.

Where Tholen screwed them was making a boundary change that was decidedly in Langley's favor, and then doing nothing to get McLean slated for an addition. Undoubtedly she heard the same stuff from other Board members as a PP asserted earlier - it wouldn't be fair for McLean to "jump the line." That is total bullshit. FCPS had revised its capital spending plans earlier and funded additions (not renovations) at Justice, Madison, and West Potomac, even though none of those schools was in the 2008 queue for a renovation. They can and should have done the same thing for McLean, but Tholen is too passive to fight for McLean and doesn't really care about the school anyway.

Some people give up, and others lose interest when their own kids graduate. But there are others who still have kids in the pyramid or have long memories, and Tholen would be hounded relentlessly for her ineffectiveness and not living up to her campaign pledges if she ran again. Many have said she has no interest in doing so, and that is probably best for all.

[Anonymous]

They can always adjust their capital spending plans - just look at what Frisch did taking $35 million set aside to build a new elementary school in Fairfax/Oakton and reallocating it to the Dunn Loring renovation. That entire change was made last year between the time the draft CIP is presented in late 2020 and approved in early 2021.

If the ES was truly no longer needed in Fairfax/Oakton, they could have taken the $35 million and reallocated it to additions at Chantilly and McLean, two of the county's three most overcrowded high schools (the third, Centreville, is slated to get a renovation/expansion). But Frisch had to make sure the money was spent in his district, and that the Fairfax/Oakton site was taken off the table, so he got them to reallocate the money to the Dunn Loring site. The sad thing is that FCPS has no compelling need for a new ES in Dunn Loring. When it's finished, it will border another elementary school (Freedom Hill) that is expected to be about 40% under capacity in five years.

One of Brabrand's biggest failures has been his terrible oversight of Facilities. They pat themselves on the back every year for producing a Capital Improvement Program that has more data than the last CIP, and don't acknowledge that their actual plans often make little sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McSpaces is kaput. I think the leader got a lot of grief for not just sticking to the position that McLean deserved an addition.

He went along with Tholen saying there had to be a boundary change first. Then she made the boundary change and Tholen threw them under the bus and didn’t do anything to get them lined up an addition.

Agree she is unelectable now.

I just checked mcspaces website and it has not been updated in a long time, so you must be right - they are kaput. Elaine made a fool of the mcspaces mouthpiece VG, and he played the part well, pushing for a boundary change when he should have pushed for real change. I blame him and all those mcspaces members who did not use critical thinking to ask themselves why everyone was working so hard, for and against a boundary change, when we all should have been working together for a reno. VG messed up - he earned what he got for both himself and MHS - a big fat nothing.

Question is whether all the mcspaces people will hold this against Elaine in 2023, or will they have short memories.

Some of the McSpaces people just wanted to reduce the enrollment at MHS so kids weren't leaving the main building for classes in trailers. My impression was the main guy had an extreme concern about the safety implications of kids leaving the main building during school hours.

Over time, more of those involved said the priority ought to be an addition, so that MHS had comparable facilities to other schools and didn't end up losing teachers and electives if the enrollment was gutted.

At every point Tholen said nothing could happen without a boundary change first. Blame that not on McSpaces, or on Tholen, but on Jeff Platenberg, who built out Langley to 2370 seats during its renovation despite Langley's flat/declining enrollment. Once that happened, it was clear that FCPS's goal was going to be back-filling Langley with more kids so Platenberg looked less like an idiot.

Where Tholen screwed them was making a boundary change that was decidedly in Langley's favor, and then doing nothing to get McLean slated for an addition. Undoubtedly she heard the same stuff from other Board members as a PP asserted earlier - it wouldn't be fair for McLean to "jump the line." That is total bullshit. FCPS had revised its capital spending plans earlier and funded additions (not renovations) at Justice, Madison, and West Potomac, even though none of those schools was in the 2008 queue for a renovation. They can and should have done the same thing for McLean, but Tholen is too passive to fight for McLean and doesn't really care about the school anyway.

Some people give up, and others lose interest when their own kids graduate. But there are others who still have kids in the pyramid or have long memories, and Tholen would be hounded relentlessly for her ineffectiveness and not living up to her campaign pledges if she ran again. Many have said she has no interest in doing so, and that is probably best for all.

I agree with everything you say, with one exception. I specifically blame VG, mcspaces, and those who pushed the boundary change - they were all fools who were fooled by a fool - they illogically bought Elaine's logic on a lot of levels, always believing that she would come through. Everyone, including VG and mcspacs, heard Elaine's fictional account of how a boundary had to precede a reno, how the boundary would offer relief to overcrowding, and how there was a deliberate process to the reno q. Elaine effectively pushed Jeff "I make up numbers" Platenberg between her and parents - referring back to Platenberg's data to support her (Elaine's) position. When I asked Platenberg the Pretender and his minions, including Douglas "Im an idiot" Tyson to show their data and how it supported the boundary proposals, they had no answer. Nothing to address how the scenarios would offset growth; in fact they could not define the projected growth. They were either playing stupid or playing us for stupid, but some of us never bought it and instead called them out on it. Not VG and mcspaces - they hid behind Plats, Tysons, and Elaine, nodding vigorously in their defense, waiting for their reward like Elaine's lap-dogs.

Shame on VG, mcspaces, and those who deliberately and blindly supported Elaine.

Enemy of my enemy is my friend - hoping that all of us who were ill-served by Elaine will unite at the ballot box and toss her aside. She deserves nothing less.