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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We have been to a lot of different middle and high schools for travel basketball this season, and the condition of most of the schools is kind of depressing. [/quote]

Exact situation with here and I have been shocked at how grimy/dirty/depressing the school buildings are...Annandale HS did not have working heat in its upstairs gym, Edison HS, LIberty MS, Jackson MS...all just grimy and depressing. The schools in Gainesville are lovely.[/quote]

Gainesville was the boonies until the last 10-15 years.  I would take a look at the population increase and age of it's schools.  Of course they are newer and nicer, the area has all this new money from more and more suburban development.  Same with Loudoun. Once it is fully built out, like Fairfax has been for decades, and the schools start to age and there is no more space for new development, the same problems will arise.  This entire thread is built on an apples to oranges comparison.  You really have to do the comparison with other school systems who have the same conditions.  Then we can really peel back the layers and see if other places are truly doing it better.  And then learn from them.[/quote]

The problem is that people come up with argument like this and insist on “apples-to-apples” comparisons when the main focus ought to be on why the apple is now so bruised and about ready to be thrown into the garbage bin.

It’s one variation after another on the notion that the county is just now too old or too poor to have nice things any longer.  Since schools were once one of the main reasons to live in this county, it’s a self-defeating line of argument. [/quote]

PP from above.  I think the county should do both of those things.  But the reality is that Fairfax County is not, will never, and shouldn't ever, be a rich homogenous enclave a single mega school to fund.  So why should we keep going green with envy over it.  Better to study those districts similar to ours who have the nice things and see what they are doing and emulate it.  While simultaneously trying to study and remediate what went wrong.  Many call it the "Continuous Improvement Plan" and governments and corporations who are successful do it.[/quote]

Well, that’s fair.  Start with Montgomery County.  It’s another large, aging county with poorer demographics now than Fairfax, yet they just built a brand-new Seneca Valley HS, have a new Crown HS in the works, and will be reopened a new Woodward HS.

I’m not suggesting it’s all rosy there because they also have some older, neglected schools but even so they are doing a better job than moribund and incompetent FCPS.  Why?  Is it because they are more generous and willing to invest more in their children?  Do they have better planners or better lawyers?  Are their BOE members more civic-minded and not narrow-minded hypocrites like so many of the FCPS School Board members?  [/quote]

Fairfax has multiple schools either being renovated now, recently renovated, of slated to be renovated soon.  [/quote]

The renovation queue is a joke. When is Mclean going to be renovated? [/quote]

I hear a lot of references to McLean High School needed a renovation.  Is it just overcrowded and has a lot of trailers?  Or is the building actually becoming non-functional?  No snark implied, I'm just really curious what the issues are.  Are there pictures? [/quote]

It's overcrowded, but not falling apart.  It had a renovation in the early 2000s.[/quote]

They have four trailers and a cheap detached modular with 12 classrooms. At one point before the modular arrived they had 21 trailers.

FCPS openly discriminates against the school.  Justice and Madison were built after McLean and are less overcrowded and FCPS built permanent addition with new classrooms that cost $15-20M at each school.  McLean got the cheap modular and is getting $1M this summer to renovate some gross bathrooms.

The local School Board member got elected telling McLean families she’d prioritize getting money for a permanent addition at McLean like the ones at Justice and Madison.  She turned out to be a fraud who was only interested in cherry-picking a few McLean neighborhoods to reassign to her own high school. People  dislike her intensely now and she isn’t running for re-election this fall. When she leaves the school will be more overcrowded than when she arrived.

Having said that, the administrators and custodians do what they can to make the school clean and welcoming, and the academics and extra-curricular programs are very good.  It just frustrates people that the school doesn’t seem to be getting its fair share of FCPS resources and that FCPS does things like expand West Potomac HS to 3000 seats when McLean still has fewer than 2000 permanent seats. [/quote]

This. 22101 is treated like a cash machine for the rest of FCPS. [/quote]

And the residents of 22101 of sick of this nonsense, treat us better or McLean is better off seceding.[/quote]

I would fully support this. [/quote]

It is not going to happen.

There are a small number of retirees who are members of the McLean Citizens Association who are examining the Virginia laws around incorporating as a separate municipality, in light of the moratorium being scheduled to expire in 2024.  They do it in their spare time when they aren't pursuing their other hobbies (probably things like model trains in their basement or Civil War re-enactments).  They are smart people but they don't have a lot of firepower.  On the other hand, the county has every incentive to fight secession tooth-and-nail, especially given that the two high schools in McLean also serve students living in other areas like Great Falls, Falls Church, and Vienna.

Also, much of McLean feeds into Cooper MS (being renovated now) or Langley HS (which received an $80M renovation that was completed in 2018).  Why would you favor secession if you know it's going to mean higher taxes as in Falls Church City?  I suppose county taxes could get high enough that a separate jurisdiction might have lower taxes, but that's speculative, while it's clear that a smaller jurisdiction wouldn't enjoy the same economies of scale as a larger jurisdiction.

The main issue in McLean is all about McLean HS and the county's decade-long neglect and second-class treatment of the school building.  It is a real problem.  The school was built in 1955 and received a cheap renovation in the early 2000s that was not nearly as comprehensive as more recent school renovations.  And FCPS refuses to treat the school similarly to newer, less overcrowded schools that have received additions outside the scheduled school renovation queue, including Justice HS and Madison HS.  Meanwhile, the BOS is promoting growth in Tysons and West Falls Church, in areas that feed into McLean and Marshall, yet the local School Board member from Great Falls, Elaine Tholen, made sure in 2021 that none of that growth feeds into Langley, which was expanded to 2370 seats based on FCPS staff's expectation that Langley could then accommodate some of the Tysons growth.  Why?  Because Tholen's neighbors in Great Falls do not want Langley to be at full capacity, which would increase the risk that part of Great Falls would be rezoned to Herndon HS, which they consider beneath them.

However, FCPS is also expanding Falls Church HS to 2500 seats, and Falls Church is not expected to see the same enrollment growth as McLean, which has slightly under 2000 permanent seats.  As a result, when Falls Church's renovation is finished, assuming continued growth in Tysons and no plans to expand McLean, there will be considerable pressure on FCPS to rezone the Timber Lane area in Falls Church that feeds into McLean to Falls Church.  That's going to be controversial, because much of the economic diversity at McLean comes from Timber Lane, but the other McLean parents are going to point out that:  (1) they asked FCPS to expand McLean for years to accommodate all the students at the school, including those from Timber Lane, and were consistently ignored; (2) Timber Lane is closer to Falls Church HS than it is to McLean HS; and (3) Falls Church now (after its renovation) has extra space.  In addition, by the time that happens, FCPS will have released a new school renovation queue, so McLean will also have a better sense as to when it's going to get a full renovation.

So the script has already been written; it just hasn't been made public yet.  
[/quote]

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