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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not nearly as much as the giant hissy fit that the Langley parents threw in 2019 after Janie Strauss stated publicly that "I've warned Langley, sorry, a big chunk is going to get reboundaried [when the new HS is built]."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM4AfGQqTWE
[/quote]

It's very clear if you watch the actual work sessions that the school board was talking about changing boundaries for race/class reasons.  They weren't discussing the new high school.  Jane Strauss mentioned Langley specifically so parents from that pyramid had every right to inform the school board that they disagreed with changing schools because the board saw fit to rearrange schools by class and race.

It was too close to an election to press forward with their plans to redo boundary policy to prioritize class/racial makeup of the schools, as Langley pyramid parents weren't the only ones who realized that their kids could be sent to different schools based on their race and class.

Instead of standing up and telling the community that it would be great to rearrange kids based on their immutable characteristics and their parents bank account, and they believed in this and were going to pass the policy anyway, they backed down.  They amended the CIP at the last minute to send children from overcrowded Mclean to Langley, which had space.  They had to do that to demonstrate that they were not holding Mclean, 2 miles away (ish) overcrowded because Langley had space because they wanted to spread those kids around to other schools based on race and class.  Anyone who actually watched the work sessions knows that that is exactly what they are doing, as a new boundary could have easily been timed to coincide with the conclusion of Langley's renovation in 2018.

As to the Western High School which looks like it will finally be built in the next few years, new schools obviously mean new boundaries.  It's perfectly reasonable to expect that the Langley boundary might be impacted. It will be interesting to see which areas would be proposed to replace those removed, but we will have to wait and see.
So they stopped working on policy, placated parents, and got their desired result:  Dem-endorsed incumbents kept their seats and the last two Rep-endorsed candidates lost theirs to Dems.[/quote]

Whoops.

Let me rearrange that a bit.
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It's very clear if you watch the actual work sessions that the school board was talking about changing boundaries for race/class reasons.  They weren't discussing the planned new high school.  Jane Strauss mentioned Langley specifically so parents from that pyramid had every right to inform the school board that they disagreed with changing schools because the board saw fit to rearrange schools by class and race.

Instead of standing up and telling the community that it would be great to rearrange kids based on their immutable characteristics and their parents' bank accounts, and they believed in this and were going to pass the policy anyway, they backed down.  They amended the CIP at the last minute to send children from overcrowded Mclean to Langley, which had space.  They had to do that to demonstrate that they were not holding Mclean, 2 miles away (ish) overcrowded because Langley had space because they wanted to spread those kids around to other schools based on race and class.  Anyone who actually watched the work sessions knows that that is exactly what they are doing, as a new boundary could have easily been timed to coincide with the conclusion of Langley's renovation in 2018.

So the school board stopped working on policy, placated parents, and got their desired result:  Dem-endorsed incumbents kept their seats and the last two Rep-endorsed candidates lost theirs to Dems.

Strauss was the last person who ever would have gone out to Great Falls and told them to expect boundary changes simply to effect some type of equity-based balancing.  She was quite moderate, and only mentioned boundary changes so they’d understand Langley’s western boundaries would be revisited if and when the new high school was built.

Of course, when Forestville and Great Falls pitched a fit, she made clear she wasn’t supporting an immediate boundary change.  And Tholen is a complete coward who hasn’t mentioned the new high school once and then only made a slight adjustment to the Langley/McLean boundaries that was acceptable to the Great Falls Civic Association because it effectively capped the number of kids who’d move to Langley (whereas the staff’s recommendation would have required Langley to share in the ongoing Tysons growth along with Marshall and McLean, which had been part of the original rationale for expanding chronically under-enrolled Langley to 2370 seats during its renovation).

It’s been a total shit-show, like so much of FCPS in recent years, and it just illustrates the headwinds FCPS and the lack of trust that exists when they simultaneously keep referring to a new high school in planning and bond documents, yet studiously avoid actually discussing the school with the communities that would be affected by the opening of a new school, [/quote]

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