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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hello Everyone:

I would be happy to discuss my platform with you at your convenience over the coming weeks and months. Please reach out to be at ardavan@ardavan2019.com and I would be happy to schedule a meet & greet shortly.

I am running an independent campaign that will not be beholden to any party and ideologies. I did not seek nor would I have accepted the endorsements of any party, nor am I accepting funding from any of them

I am not doing the bidding for any town and am not prioritizing any town over the other. My platform seeks to resolve:

1) The overcrowding in McLean by finding a long term solution to what will be causing the overcrowding to get worse in the coming decades which is the expansion in Tysons. Do I know that there are others who will not necessarily agree with me on the board? Of course, I do. But that is not a reason not to fight for it.

2) Provide the necessary resources to allow Herndon HS to improve its statewide ratings and standing by trying to level the playing field for its many lower-income students.

3) Keeping all of Great Falls as one town, one community, and one school pyramid.

[/quote]  The overcrowding at McLean is NOW, and needs to be addressed NOW- not after some BS study to determine the "long term solution.  It is a NO BRAINER- one school is vastly under enrolled, one school is vastly over enrolled.  Move part of Tysons (where the growth is expected) from the over enrolled school to the under enrolled school.  It. is. not. rocket. science. [/quote]
 
GF resident here
The school board would have done this already.  Strauss claims she was shocked by the jump in enrollment in one year in McLean. I find this hard to believe. [/quote]

If you go back and look at prior CIPs, they have been projecting a big increase in the enrollment at McLean for years.  Sometimes the CIPs overstated the growth that would occur, and sometimes they understated it, but they consistently projected enrollment growth.

Conversely, they consistently projected that Langley's enrollment would be flat or decline.

Given the projections, it's hard to see how they had anything in mind other than moving McLean kids to Langley when they decided to expand Langley during its renovation, but did not authorize an addition at McLean (like at Justice, Madison, and West Potomac).

The only reasons they haven't gone ahead with the boundary change are (1)  Strauss apparently had been planning to leave the details to her successor, and was then caught flat-footed when the increase in 2018-19 was larger than expected; and (2) other School Board members want to hold McLean and Langley hostage while they debate "One Fairfax" and see what they can get for their own districts before allowing a boundary change to happen.

This inaction has real consequences.   McLean will be well over 300 kids over capacity this fall, with over 18 trailers.  Langley won't be able to offer the same range of electives as McLean and other schools, and had to appeal to avoid getting moved down to a lower VHSL division this coming year.  Meanwhile, the School Board doesn't have a new framework yet for considering boundary changes and individual members send out conflicting and confusing messages (i.e., Strauss "promises" Langley parents that they won't be redistricted to Herndon for at least another decade, while Hynes tweets away that "Changing school boundaries must be the primary tool of integrating schools for diversity" and "The school bd. and Supt are developing a comprehensive boundary plan, to serve the goal of diversity above all").

If Tholen, Mobasheri, or Karloutsos can cut through this nonsense,  they'd be a giant improvement.   When Tholen launched her campaign, she declared her allegiance to "One Fairfax" and only mentioned addressing capacity issues in passing.  She seems to now realize it's a big issue in Dranesville.  Mobasheri's materials seem to suggest that all he really cares about is keeping Great Falls zoned for Langley, but maybe he'll recognize that McLean needs capacity relief now, and that many in Herndon feel ignored.  Karloutsos doesn't seem to have a web site yet. [/quote]

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