Reply to Langley/McLean/Marshall Boundaries

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[quote=Anonymous]This is a long thread with some tangents, so to recap:

McLean currently has about 2250 students in a building designed for under 2000, and its enrollment is projected to increase to around 2500 by 2023, making it the most overcrowded high school in the county.

Langley currently has about 1925 students (its lowest enrollment for at least the past 12 years) in a building expanded to accommodate about 2300, and its enrollment is projected to decline to around 1860 students by 2023.

These trends have been emerging for years.  It wasn't viewed as a "big deal" because Janie Strauss and others within FCPS provided assurances that FCPS would address the capacity imbalances on a timely basis.

In 2015, for example, Strauss came to a McLean PTA meeting, reported that there were plans to expand McLean (Principal Reilly confirmed Facilities Staff had shared plans with her), and suggested that FCPS would move students from Marshall (i.e., the "Westbriar Island") to Langley.

That did not happen.  Instead, in 2017, FCPS concluded that it would build additions at Justice (then Stuart), Madison, and West Potomac, but not McLean.

People took that in stride, based on the assumption that FCPS would instead move kids from McLean to Langley instead.  But, when Strauss tried to move forward with that plan, both Superintendent Brabrand and other School Board members such as Karen Keys-Gamarra took the position that FCPS shouldn't consider any boundary changes until there had been a comprehensive review of boundary policies and how "One Fairfax" should inform boundary changes.  That sounds great, but it will take a long time to decide upon those priorities, much less implement them.  FCPS already effectively made the decision that it would move kids from Langley to McLean when they expanded Langley, even though its enrollment was declining and left McLean off the list of schools getting an addition, even though its enrollment was increasing.

So is the overcrowding at MHS and under-enrollment at LHS that is now probably guaranteed for at least two more years a "big deal"?  It depends upon how you'll feel when your kids have even more of their classes in trailers at McLean, or when your favorite new teacher at Langley has to leave and Langley starts dropping electives.  Many parents in the area already send their kids to privates, in part because the class sizes there are so much larger than those in privates and other FCPS schools.  If FCPS continues to drag its feet, and ignores the obvious fix to an easy problem, there's no reason to think they'll be more successful when it comes to the hard stuff. [/quote]

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