Reply to Changes in boundaries for schools (including AAP Centers) and Capital Improvement Program

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It makes sense for some movement based on current numbers.[/quote]

No question that there are current capacity issues, and to the extent that adjustments can be made to alleviate them, those conversations should occur. But it is pretty clear if you look at enrollment projections in the CIPs that FCPS has literally no ability to forecast enrollment increases in any competent fashion. To make recommendations based upon a 5-year projection that has no track record of reliability is irresponsible.[/quote]

I agree with you.  The McLean HS five-year projections keep skyrocketing.  While I'd love to think it's because people are moving into a pyramid with a good reputation, it seems like maybe FCPS wants an excuse to move kids to Langley to justify the addition it plans to add as part of Langley's renovation.  I'd rather see FCPS adding ES capacity that's needed now closer to Tysons and then build an addition to McLean later if it's really needed.  [/quote]

This is PRECISELY what they do.[/quote]

The problem is that with the expected growth of Tyson's, ALL the High Schools will have to be expanded.  I tis more of a matter of which one first.  Since Langley needs a renovation and McLean + Marshall have had ones recently, it makes sense to build capacity during Langley's planned renovation.   I can imagine the uproar if McLean or Marshall got another renovation/addition before Langley even had a recent update.  [/quote]

It definitely makes sense to renovate Langley now, as it's up for a renovation.  It's less clear that it makes sense to expand Langley's capacity when (1) all the recent projections have shown Langley's enrollment declining, (2) renovating Langley doesn't foreclose the School Board from building an addition at McLean and Marshall, which are closer to the expected growth, and (3) moving kids to Langley means that we'll end up spending more money on transportation costs over the long run and potentially doing so based on expected enrollment growth that may not occur.  It is not a foregone conclusion that every project contemplated for Tysons will happen as planned.

The risk is that capital projects take place so slowly that there's no ability to adjust to changing conditions, so that FCPS Staff has an incentive to play with the numbers to justify projects that were approved years earlier under different circumstances.

There was actually a pretty good discussion at the FCPS School Board Work Session on April 23rd.   The School Board members made it clear to the FCPS Staff that future CIPs needed to be more transparent when it came to explaining, for example, why the recent projections have been so erratic (with some of the latest five-year projections varying widely from the projections in the latest CIP approved just a few months ago).   Ted Velkoff also made a good suggestion that, if FCPS expects a boat load of boundary changes in future years, it should provide more information as to the expected timing and sequence, rather than just float a bunch of potential changes with no dates attached.      [/quote]

Langley will have to absorb some of Tyson's growth.  There is not enough capacity even if they doubled Marshall and McLean to absorb the number of HS students from the anticipated 100,000 more residents.  They can do this by moving whole ES schools that currently matriculate to Longfellow/ McLean (like the rest of Franklin Sherman and Chesterbrook) or by taking some of the current Islands that feed into McLean in Tysons and too the west.  Langley cannot remain as small as it is- especially with the land it has.  The expanded area of its boundary would be closer to Langley (and some even walkable/bikeable if there were sidewalks) than much of its current boundary.  McLean and Marshall are shoehorned in there as it is -with no where to go but up.  [/quote]

When I've looked on the Capacity Dashboard, it appears that the current zoning for both McLean and Marshall provides for some additions - whether vertical or horizontal.

If one were building sensibly, Langley would be among the smallest schools in the county.  Its boundaries are already huge.  We should be adding seats closer to where students actually live, and not filling Langley up with students from more and more neighborhoods because not as many people want to live in far-out parts of Great Falls.  It may be that, as a matter of resources, there won't be an alternative, but it should be done sensibly - and not simply because someone has a pipe dream about what Tysons will look like in 2050.  [/quote]

If you are worried about the size of Langley's boundary area, it could be made much smaller yet yield more students by having the current wester half lopped off and go to Herndon and/or the proposed new western Fairfax HS and add a much smaller area around Tyson's and on the other side of Rt123.  Then, there could be more students, a smaller boundary and a more economically diverse Langley.  Win-win-win![/quote]

Mostly I want decisions to be based on actual conditions at the schools and realistic projections that have been properly challenged, and not simply on whatever the latest projections are that FCPS Staff has churned out to justify boundary or program changes.  Their projections simply are not very good and there isn't much transparency about the models they use.  So if you go back and look at prior projections, you'd see they often are wildly off the mark and that they sometimes adjust their projections up or down by large amounts from year to year with no explanation as to what has changed in terms of either the underlying facts or their models. [/quote]

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