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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The bloodlust of this subset of Dranesville folks who didn’t get their way is scary.  I think she’s doing a fine job during really bad times.  Not just the pandemic but the radicalization of some in the community.

She seems kind and like she totally does the work.  I disagreed with her TJ vote and I think more should have been done to help the McLean overcrowding but I don’t always get what I want.  And I watched how some in the McLean community came after her about the boundary and it was scary.[/quote]

So easy for you to say, since it sounds like it did not negatively impact your child. If everyone in Dranesville watched her lying, flip-flopping, double talk, and manipulation on the boundary, she would get zero votes in 2023.

What's worse, MHS is at 100% capacity with the new, temporary building, so it did not need a boundary change.   AND the boundary change only moves about 140 kids/year over three years.  According to FCPS numbers, this does NOT change MHS capacity at all -   ZERO change.  So the boundary change did nothing to address capacity at MHS  AND she did not get MHS a bond on the most recent CIP, so no reno coming.  Failure after failure after failure.  And this is only on one issue.  [/quote]

Actually, she has fixed the capacity issue - at least temporarily. Mclean was projected to be at 123% of capacity over the next 5 years prior to the boundary change and modular. And she eliminated a split feeder at Colvin run, which is something Janie Strauss had been promising for years. The school board did not follow gatehouse recommendations, but they did follow the community committee recommendations on the boundary change. Which one do you think did more actual research? Yep - the unpaid community committee.

She has failed in multiple other ways, along with the rest of the board. Schools online for a year, focusing on admissions of one school and renaming schools while school buildings were shuttered. Crazy surveys and expensive studies.

[/quote]

DP. Tholen didn’t “fix” much.  There are only 18 kids from the redistricted area going to Langley this year; the majority of the rising freshmen - who were given an option to choose between schools - opted to attend McLean. And McLean will pick up more students from Longfellow this year due to the change in TJ admissions than it will lose to Langley.  If the stated overcrowding goes down, it will be due to the cheap modular seats getting counted as permanent space and the fed-up parents who’ve pulled their kids out of FCPS entirely.

When Tholen was running for office, she promised to make sure that FCPS would immediately began to scope for a permanent addition to the school.  Not that it would get built right away, but that the planning would start and be reflected in future CIPs. Now that she’s in office all she’ll say is that she’ll “monitor” the enrollment. Sorry, that’s not the same; the school has been above capacity for a decade.  She’s leaving McLean with probably the smallest amount of permanent learning space of any high school in the county, even though there is substantial development taking place in Tysons and also approved for both downtown McLean and the West Falls Church transit area.

As for the “community committee” you mention, it was a small group of people hand-picked by Tholen to provide input. They neither met in public nor issued any public recommendation. It is no surprise that some on that committee from Langley wanted FCPS to exclude any growing area with apartments from a redistricting (even though it was closer to Langley than the Colvin Run area) or that others lobbied to be rezoned to the county’s wealthiest high school.  On the other hand, the staff’s recommendation was public, was informed by multiple community meetings that were open to the public, and was consistent with FCPS’s “One Fairfax” policy and Janie Strauss’s earlier effort to add some housing diversity to Langley for the first time. Tholen cast that aside at the last minute.

It was a one-sided and deceitful debacle.  Add to this Tholen’s other decisions on school closings, etc., and one can understand why so many wanted to see her recalled, or at least hope this is her only term. [/quote]

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