Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GFCA and MCA have both done and shared a lot of analysis with Tholen about future growth in the Langley pyramid and in Tysons (which feeds into McLean and Marshall).

FCPS admits its enrollment projections are based on a simplistic methodology that only takes into account new developments if the developer has broken ground, regardless of whether the county has approved the developments or paid the county proffer money. The Tysons development in particular is going to add hundreds more kids to Marshall and McLean.

Tholen listens but is incredibly passive as if it’s all out of her hands. When an MCA member asked her point blank why FCPS isn’t planning now for an addition to McLean, she just smirked and talked about the 37-year renovation cycle, ignoring the other high schools like Justice or Madison where FCPS has built or is building additions outside the renovation cycle.

Great Falls and McLean and the Langley/McLean pyramids have a common interest in replacing Tholen with someone who will fight for fair funding and adequate seats at their pyramid schools, whether it’s Kent Gardens ES, Cooper MS, or McLean HS. Tholen doesn’t have it in her to challenge Jeff Platenberg or other School Board members.

The main point of contention between them is that, when push comes to shove, Great Falls would rather see McLean remain overcrowded than risk overcrowding Cooper or Langley to the point where others would push to move Cooper/Langley kids into the Herndon pyramid. But Herndon doesn’t have much excess capacity of its own and it’s only due to the negligence of FCPS and the School Board that the communities at times get pitted against each other.

If someone can get that message out, whether Republican, Democratic, or Independent, we can get rid of ineffective School Board members like Tholen and start to make some progress.

I'm sorry - the bolded is just completely false. Langley stepped up and urged McLean to send kids to Langley to help alleviate McLean's overcrowding. What did we hear from many of the McLean parents? Complaining and whining. Many of YOU didn't want your kids to go to Langley. Fine. We offered. Not sure what it is you want us to do for you. We agree you need an addition. Beyond that, we've offered space and many of you turned your noses up. Maybe next time don't look a gift horse in the mouth?

Please stop with the constant effort to spin. It’s both unnecessary and untrue.

I sat in FCPS work sessions in 2019 near Langley parents openly complaining that FCPS might send so many kids from McLean to Langley that the school board might bump Langley kids to Herndon, and then saw the GFCA lobby Elaine Tholen to make sure that only an area in Vienna that did not include parts of Tysons slated for future development got moved to Langley. The GFCA then said publicly that it preferred that approach, which effectively capped the number of kids moved, to alternatives that would have required Langley to take on some of the growing areas in Tysons.

So here we are with the MHS enrollment again at an all-time high in 2021-22 and the School Board member from Langley/Great Falls doing absolutely nothing to get us slated for a permanent addition.

I know it’s important to you to suggest that Langley did nothing but extend open arms to McLean families, and that we should bow down in gratitude, but that is not exactly how it played out. It was more complicated, and you are really not credible pretending otherwise.

Anonymous wrote:Tholen has been fundamentally dishonest about the whole situation. No doubt there are capacity challenges at McLean and elsewhere but we deserve better,

It was amusing, though, that she let slip to the MCA last week that it was important that boundaries reflect "geographical boundaries, such as Route 7." That had to have been a Freudian slip, since the area that she moved to Langley (overriding the FCPS staff recommendation) consisted entirely of single-family neighborhoods on the other side of Route 7 from Langley. Just like every other little pocket in Herndon and Reston that's been scopedinto the Langley boundary over the years consists of expensive single-family homes and no apartments.

And, of course, she paid lip service to the idea of eliminating split feeders, while failing to acknowledge that she's left Spring Hill as a split feeder, but now created a situation where every kid who lives in an expensive house goes to Cooper/Langley and every kid who lives in a rental or condo zoned to Spring Hill goes to Longfellow/McLean. She similarly failed to acknowledge that she did nothing about the incredibly lopsided split feeder at Franklin Sherman, where 90% of the kids go to Longfellow/McLean and only 10% to Cooper/Langley. She could have cleaned that up, but didn't touch it.

She also claimed it would be untenable to have a situation where kids zoned to McLean might pass by Langley neighborhoods on their way to McLean, but neither she nor other School Board members have lifted a finger to address the fact that kids in the Westbriar ES island have passed by Colvin Run ES neighborhoods every day for years on their way to Westbriar.

She couldn't be more of a liar and a hypocrite if she tried.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tholen has been fundamentally dishonest about the whole situation. No doubt there are capacity challenges at McLean and elsewhere but we deserve better,

It was amusing, though, that she let slip to the MCA last week that it was important that boundaries reflect "geographical boundaries, such as Route 7." That had to have been a Freudian slip, since the area that she moved to Langley (overriding the FCPS staff recommendation) consisted entirely of single-family neighborhoods on the other side of Route 7 from Langley. Just like every other little pocket in Herndon and Reston that's been scoped into the Langley boundary over the years consists of expensive single-family homes and no apartments.

And, of course, she paid lip service to the idea of eliminating split feeders, while failing to acknowledge that she's left Spring Hill as a split feeder, but now created a situation where every kid who lives in an expensive house goes to Cooper/Langley and every kid who lives in a rental or condo zoned to Spring Hill goes to Longfellow/McLean. She similarly failed to acknowledge that she did nothing about the incredibly lopsided split feeder at Franklin Sherman, where 90% of the kids go to Longfellow/McLean and only 10% to Cooper/Langley. She could have cleaned that up, but didn't touch it.

She also claimed it would be untenable to have a situation where kids zoned to McLean might pass by Langley neighborhoods on their way to McLean, but neither she nor other School Board members have lifted a finger to address the fact that kids in the Westbriar ES island have passed by Colvin Run ES neighborhoods every day for years on their way to Westbriar.

She couldn't be more of a liar and a hypocrite if she tried.

When Colvin Run opened part of the Westbriar ES island located north of Route 7 was re assigned to Colvin Run. Those students had no change in middle or high school assignments. Nothing east of Towlston got moved and now Tholen isn't getting Scottie B to move the new Toll Bros at the intersection of Route 7 and Towlston. I doubt Tholen is even aware of yield per developement and school assignments. Obviously she doesn't look at capacity and projections. Nor does she look at budgets and equitable allocations.

Herndon Pyramid has grossly overcrowded schools that share boundaries with some at less than 80%. Overcrowded elementary schools could have relief by changing boundaries and/or moving programs. There are lots of schools between 70 and 80% but no one on the board does anything. Gibson used to do stuff. Strauss was a blockade on movement into Reston schools but one reason was capacity. Now Hunter Mill and Dranesville have under capacity that boundary changes could load from Tysons area schools. They used to call it dominoe.

One thing about Fritsch on Blake Lane Park. That specific school didn't need to be built if they used open cap at Hunter Mill Corridor schools etc.

Anonymous wrote:Tholen has been fundamentally dishonest about the whole situation. No doubt there are capacity challenges at McLean and elsewhere but we deserve better,

It was amusing, though, that she let slip to the MCA last week that it was important that boundaries reflect "geographical boundaries, such as Route 7." That had to have been a Freudian slip, since the area that she moved to Langley (overriding the FCPS staff recommendation) consisted entirely of single-family neighborhoods on the other side of Route 7 from Langley. Just like every other little pocket in Herndon and Reston that's been scoped into the Langley boundary over the years consists of expensive single-family homes and no apartments.

And, of course, she paid lip service to the idea of eliminating split feeders, while failing to acknowledge that she's left Spring Hill as a split feeder, but now created a situation where every kid who lives in an expensive house goes to Cooper/Langley and every kid who lives in a rental or condo zoned to Spring Hill goes to Longfellow/McLean. She similarly failed to acknowledge that she did nothing about the incredibly lopsided split feeder at Franklin Sherman, where 90% of the kids go to Longfellow/McLean and only 10% to Cooper/Langley. She could have cleaned that up, but didn't touch it.

She also claimed it would be untenable to have a situation where kids zoned to McLean might pass by Langley neighborhoods on their way to McLean, but neither she nor other School Board members have lifted a finger to address the fact that kids in the Westbriar ES island have passed by Colvin Run ES neighborhoods every day for years on their way to Westbriar.

She couldn't be more of a liar and a hypocrite if she tried.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GFCA and MCA have both done and shared a lot of analysis with Tholen about future growth in the Langley pyramid and in Tysons (which feeds into McLean and Marshall).

... So as someone from Shouse who sat through the whole boundary nightmare, I can tell you that your words are pure fiction. Great Falls wanted more kids at LHS in order to increase their capacity and not lose teachers/courses. The logical place to turn was Herndon, but Great Falls rejected that immediately, and Tholen did not dare raise it in public. Then FCPS staff made their recommendation, but that included multi family houses. So Elaine, under pressure from Great Falls (you know who you are) went against the staff recommendation and pushed a boundary that did nothing but introduce stress into the lives of the kids who switch pyramids - put them through a second split feeder in two years. That was the only outcome of the boundary.

I dont really care enough to try and help you understand what actually happened vs. what you want to believe happened. But I will clear this up for the record. LHS hand picked the neighborhoods that came into LHS, even though GFCA, LHS, MHS, mcspaces, Elaine, parents, Principals, and everyone else knew that this change would do nothing to help MHS. No one, including GFCA or yourself, did anything righteous here. Elaine least of all.

I think your 'gift horse' analogy is incorrect, more like a "donkey" kicked us when we were down.

Happy Valentines Day!

Shouse Village got a school site, Colvin Run, 2 decades ago. JIP did not move from Great Falls-idea shot down by new administration and Shouse community. CRES got AAP because Forest Edge was over cap and getting a renovation. Plus AAP was easier to move to the unwieldly location and helped fill the new building. Despite all the slams on GFCA etc Great Falls had the highest send rate of accepted students to Forest Edge, Title 1 school.
Nightmare was/is neighborhoods that were sent to fill the building from what should have been the logical school location. Shouse used to be at Spring Hill. Was it ever at Wolf Trap?

Shouse used to go to Langley and was going to be moved to Marshall but that school board caved and moved it to Mclean. An island like Cuba:Florida. This issue of where to put developments all along Route 7 to the Loudoun County line has been a problem for decades. Some Vienna, some Reston, some Herndon and none are part of the 2 towns or the Reston HOA/clusters.

2 sets of high schools with 2 schools close to each other: Langley-Mclean, Oakton-Madison. Langley and Oakton have regional attendance areas while the other 2 have tighter boundaries. Areas currently at South County were not pleased with the regional approach and loaded school board members on a bus to give an exact replica of the commute from Silverbrook attendance area to Hayfield.