Reply to Mclean boundary changes - can someone please update?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think Facilities had more to do than Karen Corbett Sanders with reneging on the plans to expand McLean and expand Langley more than originally planned.  I sat in a room where Janie Strauss said McLean would get an addition before any students were moved to Langley and the principal said that Kevin Sneed (who used to report to Platenberg) had already gone over the building plans with her.

For three years the CIPs, which Facilities is primarily responsible for assembling, said Langley's expansion would increase the capacity to 2100.  Only in 2018 as the renovation was wrapping up did they disclose that they had actually increased the capacity to 2350.  As far as I can tell, it was Platenberg who decided it would just be easier and cheaper to do that.

Corbett Sanders was Chair in 2018 when Janie Strauss tried to get a boundary change approved that would have moved part of McLean to Langley, including some Tysons apartments.  Corbett Sanders was among those on the Board who killed that because she said they needed to slow down, do a much bigger review, and make sure any boundary changes were consistent with their "One Fairfax" focus.

So things dragged out for 2-3 more years.  At the end of the day, they made a change that could have been made three years ago and would have been the obvious change if all you wanted was a "cleaner" boundary map.  Elaine Tholen and Rachna Sizemore-Heizer were among those who said at one point it was critical to add diversity to Langley by moving some multi-family housing there, only to flip in the face of pressure from the Colvin Run parents in single-family homes who wanted to move to a school that, in most cases, is further from their homes but wealthier.  And now they are the ones spouting the position of the Colvin Run parents that the staff's recommendation wouldn't have moved the needle much in terms of diversity because some rentals in Tysons (i.e., the most expensive ones) cost as much as a mortgage on a single-family house in Vienna (that may be true, but it's also largely irrelevant, since the area that the staff proposed to move also would have included condos that cost less than 50% of the least expensive housing anywhere in the Langley district and absolutely would have contributed to greater diversity there).

I get that this is a done deal, and that we need to move on.  But it's also a case study in how inept and two-faced FCPS and the School Board has been and how the decisions they routinely make are 180 degrees the opposite of the values they pretend to hold.  We should get new School Board members, and they should just toss "One Fairfax" in the trash can, because all it really does is slow things down.  [/quote]

Thanks for the recap on the history. I agree it was a huge waste of time and effort on their part to end up here, and a colossal waste of time for parents potentially affected to follow their 3 year plus saga. Plus I agree certain SB members were two faced, and that they were totally incompetent. I just wanted to add to your comment re: "only to flip in the face of pressure from the Colvin Run parents in single-family homes who wanted to move to a school that, in most cases, is further from their homes but wealthier."

I'm one of the parents living in that boundary island where we got flipped from McLean to Langley. I am not a parent in those boundary islands who wanted to switch to Langley because it's "wealthier."

While there are many reasons we prefer McLean High, one of them is that the FARMS rate is too low in Langley at 3.6% as opposed to 10.6% for  Mckean(2019-2020 stats), and we do NOT like the minimal socioeconomic diversity at Langley. I would say most houses in that boundary island that got flipped are only in the $850k- $1.1 mil range, which is on the lower end of house prices zoned for Langley. We are not super wealthy people trying to stay with only super wealthy people despite a longer hike to school, for goodness sake.

And yes, in my case, McLean High is 5.5 miles away from us as opposed to 6.6 miles away for Langley. But during commuting times, I would guess they both take similar amount of time, +/- 5 minutes. That is not a meaningful difference for me.

Whatever the reason was that caused Tholen to change her mind to push a different option, my family is stuck with the effects of the vote. We are upset about it, to the point we've already started talking about when would be a realistic time to put our house for sale and move to McLean proper to stay zoned to McLean High. 
[/quote]

Langley parent here.  I’d like to point out that there are *plenty* of homes zoned to Langley which fall in the $850-1.1 million range.  I live in one of them, as do many of my kids’ friends.  Honestly, this obsession some have with the “socioeconomic diversity” of the two schools is bizarre.  [/quote]

Langley having to take in families living in homes only worth $1 million, at this rate they'll be a title I school in no time [/quote]

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