Reply to Tell me more about the School Board election process

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What’s the deal with the reports that McElveen is planning to run again?  [/quote]

Not sure, but he was a very popular school board member and a big booster for the then-underdog schools like Justice and Marshall. (He’s a Marshall grad, back when it’s reputation was not as good at today.) McElveen is intelligent as well, and worked (may still work) at the Brookings Institution.

If he is running, I’d say he’s a shoe-in, but not sure right now if I’d vote for him. I need to know more about his platform. [/quote]

In what universe has Marshall ever been an "underdog school"? WTF?  McElveen is creepy AF.[/quote]

Back in the 90s Marshall had a rough reputation when McElveen was a student. It was one of the rougher schools in FCPS, back when schools like Lee (now Lewis) for example were not considered rough. Pimmit Hills had not yet gentrified and a lot of the high-end homes in the parts of Falls Church and Vienna zoned to Marshall had not yet been built. It was also a weak sports school at the time. [/quote]

Your dates are off.  He graduated from Marshall in 2004.  But Marshall was in the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 of FCPS high schools in the 90s.  At one point the enrollment dropped to around 1100 and FCPS toyed with the idea of closing GCM and selling the land. [/quote]

McElveen would often talk about how Madison HS families looked down on Marshall in not so subtle ways when he was a student. It’s a good thing its reputation rose from the low point of the 90s. The lowest point was that gang affiliated incident there 25 years ago. The school’s catchment area is largely affluent today. And even more than South Lakes, Marshall reversed its fortunes in quite a stunning way. The power of real estate to improve a school’s fortunes can not be understated.

That said, I don’t remember McElveen as a bad school board member. He was embraced by the one fairfax movement and supported the school names changes before others were convinced. He had a keen eye to see where the political winds were blowing so to speak. Might be due to his research at the Brookings Insitute. [/quote]

Marshall's reputation improved because of the changes within its boundaries - expensive housing got built within the area area already zoned to the school.  The School Board addressed the issues at South Lakes by reassigning neighborhoods zoned to Westfield, Oakton, and Madison to the school.

Most of the new housing getting built in Tysons will feed to Marshall.  There's a chance FCPS will end up moving some of Marshall's wealthiest neighborhoods in Vienna to Madison at some point and turning Marshall into a more urban school mostly serving the Tysons/Pimmit area. If McElveen is back on the School Board, it will be interesting to see how he reacts.  Last I heard he lives in the Langley district now, but until relatively recently his father was still a teacher at Kilmer. [/quote]

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