Reply to King Abdullah Academy Closing: FCPS Buy for HS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wealthy Saudis used to special treatment and hand-holding, LOL. I am honestly shocked that you expect FCPS to reach out to EVERY private school in its boundary that closes to personally counsel students on their options. All the info is on their website. [/quote]

FCPS isn’t paying $150M to acquire every such school, and then likely needing to engage in several months of due diligence thereafter before closing a deal.  Perfect opportunity to be decent human beings, something that apparently doesn’t align with your value system. [/quote]

There is no 'due diligence'. This isn't a corporate merger. Its a real estate transaction. You buy the property, current owner vacates when you close.

Its a very nice property in a perfect location-adjacent to Carson. I'm honestly shocked FCPS is doing something smart, for once. [/quote]

So you're analogizing this to a residential property being sold "as is"?  LOL.  FCPS still needs to do a fair amount of due diligence, which is why the agreement in principle to acquire KAA allows for closing through mid-August.

It may be smart in the long run, but at this point no one has a clue how this fits into FCPS's longer-term plans or if FCPS even has longer-term plans.  They just saw something at a price that seemed too good to be true, and snapped it up.  And we know the short-term effects will include (1) rendering much of the boundary work that's been done over the past year irrelevant; (2) deferring or canceling other capital projects that FCPS has been claiming are priorities; and (3) creating substantial excess capacity in multiple high schools in western Fairfax, which calls into question much of FCPS's facilities planning over the past 15 years.

As county residents and taxpayers we deserve a lot more robust explanation than we've been provided to date.  [/quote]

This affects only the western part of the county - there is a ton of boundary stuff in other parts of the county (southeastern part) that have zero impact from this. I don't know why you keep going on and on about this when it's not true. [/quote]

It's absolutely true for several reasons.

First, you typically don't open a new HS without adjusting many boundaries.  You look at the boundaries for the new school, the schools that will feed into it, and the schools that may need to send kids to the schools that are feeding to the new school.  There are typically a lot of domino effects.

So, for example, Westfield may send as many as three feeders (Floris, Coates, and McNair) to "McLearen HS."  That likely means moving kids from Centreville to Westfield, even if no one from Centreville goes to McLearen.  And, then, with the additional space at Centreville, you'll have Willow Springs asking to be moved from Fairfax to Centreville, and people considering whether they need to move kids from Woodson to Fairfax to keep Fairfax afloat.  That's just one example, but pretty soon they'll be looking at many boundaries.  It's a big undertaking, and anything Thru was doing to look at boundaries in those areas is now moot.

Second, the broader justification for the county-wide study was that FCPS couldn't "build its way" out of overcrowding anywhere in the county because it was cash-strapped and already had massive long-term capital commitments, including over $450M budgeted to acquire land and construct a new HS in western Fairfax.  Now, FCPS is flipping that narrative and saying it can "buy its way" out of overcrowding at some schools in western Fairfax, and free up roughly $300M in the process to be used elsewhere.  If we are to take Mateo Dunne and others at their word, then FCPS should not be changing boundaries in southeastern Fairfax or elsewhere without first fully exploring how those savings can be deployed.

You only see the potential benefits to your part of the county, and clearly would be more than happy if FCPS pushes everything aside to open McLearen, even if that means doubling down on screwing others.  If this is really the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that FCPS is claiming it is, then they should proceed very carefully, and focus on the McLearen-related boundary adjustments and then the benefits that can eventually accrue to others in the county from these purported cost savings.

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