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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Forget the name. I think it will be a magnet. The sad truth is that our population is declining in terms of children. It peaked with the 2025 class and it's going to now wither away on the vine based on enrollments in earlier grades- 10-20%, difficult to say but people are not having their 2.3 population replacement kids and FCPS will solve its over-enrollment organically by people refusing to have 3+ kids.[/quote]
Regardless of if this is true nationally, it is not true for all parts of the county.  The schools in the western part of Fairfax County are gaining students, as are the ones around Tysons.  [b]Capacity relief is needed and will continue to be needed in the future.[/b]  That is why we overwhelmingly rejected the magnet idea and the board voted it down.  You need to give it up, you lost that battle already.[/quote]

Have you actually looked at the published CIP data that shows future utilization forecasts by school and by pyramid?  There are a few projected increases, but many, many more schools where enrollment is dropping off significantly.[/quote]

Space in one part of FCPS does not necessarily translate to space in the Western part.  The Western part is increasing.[/quote]

The enrollments at Centreville, Herndon, and South Lakes are down more than the enrollments at Oakton and Westfield are up.  Even Chantilly is down some from its peak in 2023-24.  Plenty of capacity now and they still plan to expand Centreville.

Skyview was just a shiny toy they couldn't pass up.  And the amount they'll end up spending on it will be similar or greater to what MCPS is spending to build Crown HS (likely the new Wootton HS building).  They inflated how much a new HS would cost to build when they didn't intend to build one, so the claims of big savings are another FCPS lie.  [/quote]I have heard about the Wootton/Crown debacle but have not exactly been following it.

The western debacle, being more local, has been easier for me to follow.

With that in mind, can a Wootton/Crown follower please explain this connection/reference.[/quote]

Wootton is a successful, but dilapidated HS, in Rockville with a large Asian population.

MCPS just built a new HS further north in the Crown area of Gaithersburg for about $230 million.

The original plan was to open Crown as an additional HS without closing any current HS in MCPS.  However, with declining enrollment on the horizon, MCPS leadership has proposed to relocate Wootton to the new building.  There would be some boundary adjustments but most of the current Wootton feeders would move to Crown and it would retain the Wootton name.

It’s relevant to Skyview insofar as the actual cost of building Crown was about 50% of what FCPS was projecting a new western HS would cost if built from scratch. That suggests that FCPS was inflating the potential cost at a time when it didn’t really intend to build a new HS so it could say it was cost-prohibitive.

It is also relevant insofar as MCPS (like PWCPS) is acknowledging that enrollments are likely to decline in the coming years, whereas FCPS is adding a ton of capacity in western Fairfax between the recent Herndon expansion, the acquisition and planned modifications to KAA/Skyview, and the planned Centreville expansion. All that money for additional seats in western Fairfax, along with the unnecessary new Dunn Loring ES in Vienna, will delay renovations to other schools throughout the county, but Reid and the School Board are either unable or unwilling to manage the FCPS capital budget more effectively. They neither expect nor receive scrutiny because they are instruments of a county under one-party rule, where those who challenge their spending decisions are treated like traitors. [/quote]

Since you are leaving out the cost of purchasing the land the HS was built on, the overall cost of purchasing and renovating Skyview will be about the same as building the new school on donated land. Excellent information to have. FCPS paid a fair price for an existing school with furniture and technology included. Plus two out buildings that can be used for other purposes if needed. Sounds like FCPS got an excellent deal. [/quote]

The jury is still out on whether this purchase was a good deal. The fact that they couldn’t quickly establish a clear date for when Skyview would open as a traditional school or set boundaries suggests they made a financial commitment without fully understanding what they were buying.

And, as noted, they had been inflating the cost of building a new school from scratch because they didn’t really want to build a school given the cost and all the capacity they had been adding elsewhere. They all went out the window when KAA became available and they got googly eyes.

It’s sad we have a school system that acts on impulse and otherwise can’t plan its way out of a paper bag.  [/quote]

It was a quick purchase that was not planned for and disrupted the boundary review that had already started, we all know that. The area it is in needs relief,  the building was available for less then half the projected price of buying the land and building a new building. I know that some people are upset but those of us who live in this part of the County know that it is needed. We also know that they have bungled setting the school up but there is not much anyone can do about that.

I am focused on getting my kids classes sorted out and helping him figure out what types of clubs he wants to be a part of so that he can help to build a school that he is happy with. It's done. Maybe we would be better off if we stopped complaining that it happened and lean into building it's future.

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