Reply to Should FCPS Reassign New Affordable Housing from Marshall to Langley?

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Reply to "Should FCPS Reassign New Affordable Housing from Marshall to Langley?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous].

This is simple.  FCPS can decide whether [b]the Langley pyramid, which has more capacity than others near Tysons[/b], should take on these additional students, or not.  If not, they should budgeting now to add capacity to schools in other pyramids. The fact that you're so overwrought about it doesn't make it any more complicated.   [/quote]

If you are talking about future capacity (which is the only thing relevant to a discussion of future development), Madison is projected to have much more capacity than Langley post-renovation.[/quote]

The area in question is contiguous to Langley's boundaries, not Madison's.  [/quote]

The area in question is actually contiguous to McLean's boundaries, not Langley's, thanks to Tholen's boundary shift switcheroo last year.[/quote]

It's actually now contiguous to both Langley's boundaries (to the northwest) and McLean's boundaries (to the east), thanks to Tholen's boundary change.

And McLean has no capacity but like Marshall (and unlike Langley) has plenty of apartments in Tysons and Merrifield. [/quote]

No, it's not contiguous to Langley's boundaries due to Tholen's boundary change. As another poster said, it's about 1/4 mile from any part of Langley zone. And that alone will be used as an argument that it couldn't possibly be assigned to Langley because then it would be a small attendance island which is not fair to the future residents/students to be isolated. This is an oh-so-convenient artifact of Tholen's change last year, is that it essentially isolates Langley from even [i]abutting[/i] potential lower-income housing options, further entrenching its demographic status quo.[/quote]

The additional 1/4 mile to which you refer is largely commercial and can easily be reassigned to Langley as well, so there would be no island.

The thread demonstrates just how hostile Langley and some others are to adding any housing diversity to their school, even when Langley remains under-capacity and otherwise stands to be unaffected by the growth affecting nearby schools with less capacity. [/quote]

I do not see any of the commenters in this thread being hostile to adding diversity to Langley generally.  The discussion is focused on whether it makes sense to move this specific development to Langley, or whether another approach makes more sense.  Your view appears to be that equity/diversity considerations should be paramount and, for that reason, the development should go to Langley.  Others have focused on practical considerations that support keeping the development in Marshall (keepong the status quo) or moving it (and adjoining areas) to Madison because it will have the most space.  None of the arguments -- on either side -- is at root unreasonable or irrational.  It's just different perspectives.

As I have written above, I think it's unlikely this development gets moved to Langley.  It seems far more likely that any further Langley boundary changes in the near future remain targeted at relieving overcrowding at McLean.  As with the last boundary change, Langley is the best positioned school (geographically) to relieve McLean.  That's a more pressing issue from a capacity standpoint than any potential future concern with Marshall's capacity.  Madison and Falls Church are both projected to have plenty of future capacity to relieve Marshall, if needed (indeed, they are projected to be two of the three high schools with the lowest future utilization rates -- Mount Vernon being the other).[/quote]

I honestly think you'd have to be myopic to an extreme not to acknowledge the hostility that many Langley parents and community residents have to either adding diversity to their school or, even worse from their perspective, ever being redistricted to another school.  In some instances, it overlaps with the concern that the areas that might add diversity also might end up adding more students than other areas, but it's there.

It's how we've gotten to where we are today, where one school has surplus capacity and almost no diversity, and other schools with more diversity are near or above capacity and poised to confront further overcrowding.  The proposed solution will always be to kick the can down the road and reassign students living in less wealthy areas to other pyramids, if and when that opportunity presents itself.  [/quote]

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