Anonymous wrote:FCPS as a whole has capacity available to enroll over 2000 new students as it stands currently. We do not need to spend hundreds of millions on additions to placate whiny parents.

A full boundary study is long overdue to address gross discrepancies in size for neighboring schools like the situation between McLean and Langley.

Uh huh.

So what have you done to pause the planned Justice HS addition that would add 500 seats there or the plan to expand Centreville HS to 3000 seats?

We’ll wait.

Anonymous wrote:FCPS as a whole has capacity available to enroll over 2000 new students as it stands currently. We do not need to spend hundreds of millions on additions to placate whiny parents.

A full boundary study is long overdue to address gross discrepancies in size for neighboring schools like the situation between McLean and Langley.

An elected School Board in FCPS has never undertaken a county-wide boundary study and is unlikely to do so any time soon.

It would not cost hundreds of millions to build additions to the county’s most overcrowded high schools, of which there are just a handful.

They have already adjusted the Langley/McLean boundaries two years ago. We do not need to go through that again.

What is fiscally irresponsible is not building an overdue addition to McLean, but instead watching a county that signals that developing Tysons is its #1 economic priority but then can’t get its act together to ensure that the schools that serve Tysons have adequate permanent capacity. That is a self-inflicted wound by a Board of Supervisors and School Board that don’t coordinate their plans effectively.

Some of you folks never said a word when FCPS was spending $40M to expand West Potomac to 3000 seats or budgeting $160M to renovate and expand Falls Church to 2500 seats, but you’re sure hell-bent to draw the line when it comes to spending $20 million to expand McLean and get kids out of trailers and a cheap modular. That tells me your agenda has nothing very little to do with fiscal prudence of any kind.

FCPS as a whole has capacity available to enroll over 2000 new students as it stands currently. We do not need to spend hundreds of millions on additions to placate whiny parents.

A full boundary study is long overdue to address gross discrepancies in size for neighboring schools like the situation between McLean and Langley.

Anonymous wrote:Marshall is full and growing! Natural boundary changes would be Timber Lane and moving kids to the underenrolled and recently renovated Langley.

But an addition is wise too because the area is growing by leaps and bounds.

They just changed the boundary with Langley and it complicates everything exponentially when they hear they may be part of a boundary change.

Moving the Timber Lane island to Falls Church in a few years and building an addition is what makes the most sense. Some will complain about moving FARMS kids off Lee Highway out of McLean but it makes sense logistically and McLean will still be getting a ton of additional multi-family housing because everything planned in Tysons, WFC, and downtown McLean is multi-family or townhouses.

Marshall is full and growing! Natural boundary changes would be Timber Lane and moving kids to the underenrolled and recently renovated Langley.

But an addition is wise too because the area is growing by leaps and bounds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought McLean high school shouldn’t really get an addition because there really isn’t enough parking as is. They can’t expand the area around the school.

They should keep the school the same size and move some more of the kids out to other schools.

Each of Justice HS and Madison HS has less acreage and parking than McLean HS and received or is receiving a permanent addition. McLean has fewer than 2000 permanent seats now. Expanding the permanent seats to 2500 like Justice and Madison is needed to accommodate the current enrollment (around 2450). That would not foreclose future boundary changes - in particular, with all the slated development in Tysons, West Falls Church, and downtown McLean that would feed into McLean, there’s a good chance the Timber Lane island that currently attends Longfellow/McLean will get moved to Jackson/Falls Church once the FCHS renovation is finished.

They really need a multi-pronged approach given all the development. One necessary component is a permanent addition.

With FCHS's new renovation, it makes a lot more sense fiscally to simply adjust the boundaries of the McLean pyramid and send a little bit more of southern McLean (below 66) to Falls Church and western McLean (west of 267) to Marshall. This would certainly help to reduce the overcrowding at McLean and provide relief!

Marshall is really not an option. It is basically at full capacity now and it stands to get even more growth from the Tysons development than McLean.

They can send Timber Lane to Falls Church (which is getting expanded to 2500 seats even though there won’t be the same growth within the Falls Church boundaries as within the McLean and Marshall areas) but they still need to build an addition to McLean.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought McLean high school shouldn’t really get an addition because there really isn’t enough parking as is. They can’t expand the area around the school.

They should keep the school the same size and move some more of the kids out to other schools.

Each of Justice HS and Madison HS has less acreage and parking than McLean HS and received or is receiving a permanent addition. McLean has fewer than 2000 permanent seats now. Expanding the permanent seats to 2500 like Justice and Madison is needed to accommodate the current enrollment (around 2450). That would not foreclose future boundary changes - in particular, with all the slated development in Tysons, West Falls Church, and downtown McLean that would feed into McLean, there’s a good chance the Timber Lane island that currently attends Longfellow/McLean will get moved to Jackson/Falls Church once the FCHS renovation is finished.

They really need a multi-pronged approach given all the development. One necessary component is a permanent addition.

With FCHS's new renovation, it makes a lot more sense fiscally to simply adjust the boundaries of the McLean pyramid and send a little bit more of southern McLean (below 66) to Falls Church and western McLean (west of 267) to Marshall. This would certainly help to reduce the overcrowding at McLean and provide relief!

Anonymous wrote:I thought McLean high school shouldn’t really get an addition because there really isn’t enough parking as is. They can’t expand the area around the school.

They should keep the school the same size and move some more of the kids out to other schools.

Centreville HS only has a few more acres than McLean and they are expanding it to 3000 permanent seats. McLean should just get 2500.

Anonymous wrote:I thought McLean high school shouldn’t really get an addition because there really isn’t enough parking as is. They can’t expand the area around the school.

They should keep the school the same size and move some more of the kids out to other schools.

Each of Justice HS and Madison HS has less acreage and parking than McLean HS and received or is receiving a permanent addition. McLean has fewer than 2000 permanent seats now. Expanding the permanent seats to 2500 like Justice and Madison is needed to accommodate the current enrollment (around 2450). That would not foreclose future boundary changes - in particular, with all the slated development in Tysons, West Falls Church, and downtown McLean that would feed into McLean, there’s a good chance the Timber Lane island that currently attends Longfellow/McLean will get moved to Jackson/Falls Church once the FCHS renovation is finished.

They really need a multi-pronged approach given all the development. One necessary component is a permanent addition.

I thought McLean high school shouldn’t really get an addition because there really isn’t enough parking as is. They can’t expand the area around the school.

They should keep the school the same size and move some more of the kids out to other schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just in McLean this week dropping off paperwork. Buckets lining the halls, ceiling tiles remived as water dripped into the buckets. A small crane was outside the main entrance. It appeared that roof work was being done on one gym ceiling. But the buckets were in the hallways( not the gym).

Well, dang. Maybe it should be condemned and students sent to other schools. There is capacity within the county to absorb them.

It stands that if you do prep work to repair a roof you are going to have issues like this in the interim.

The solution is to add capacity where it is needed like McLean and to stop adding capacity where it isn’t needed or pretending we’re somehow going to change all the boundaries.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outdoor classrooms aren’t trailers. The outdoor learning spaces that are part of the environmental effort.

The text below is taken directly from the 6/23 email w/ the subject "June 2023: Year in Review and Thank You" under the heading "Facilities and Transportation". Also, are we sure that "outdoor classrooms" doesn't mean some sort of trailers?


McLean HS capacity and facilities upgrades

- Summer renovation of all McLean HS bathrooms
- Roof work
- Installation of stadium bathrooms

Addition of outdoor classrooms in the Dranesville high school and middle schools

Outdoor classrooms aren’t trailers. They are outdoors. No walls. They are working on implementing these throughout the district.

Correct!

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/outdoor-learning-becomes-second-nature-fcps-elementary-students-centreville

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outdoor classrooms aren’t trailers. The outdoor learning spaces that are part of the environmental effort.

The text below is taken directly from the 6/23 email w/ the subject "June 2023: Year in Review and Thank You" under the heading "Facilities and Transportation". Also, are we sure that "outdoor classrooms" doesn't mean some sort of trailers?


McLean HS capacity and facilities upgrades

- Summer renovation of all McLean HS bathrooms
- Roof work
- Installation of stadium bathrooms

Addition of outdoor classrooms in the Dranesville high school and middle schools

Outdoor classrooms aren’t trailers. They are outdoors. No walls. They are working on implementing these throughout the district.

Anonymous wrote:Outdoor classrooms aren’t trailers. The outdoor learning spaces that are part of the environmental effort.

The text below is taken directly from the 6/23 email w/ the subject "June 2023: Year in Review and Thank You" under the heading "Facilities and Transportation". Also, are we sure that "outdoor classrooms" doesn't mean some sort of trailers?


McLean HS capacity and facilities upgrades

- Summer renovation of all McLean HS bathrooms
- Roof work
- Installation of stadium bathrooms

Addition of outdoor classrooms in the Dranesville high school and middle schools

Anonymous wrote:I was just in McLean this week dropping off paperwork. Buckets lining the halls, ceiling tiles remived as water dripped into the buckets. A small crane was outside the main entrance. It appeared that roof work was being done on one gym ceiling. But the buckets were in the hallways( not the gym).

Well, dang. Maybe it should be condemned and students sent to other schools. There is capacity within the county to absorb them.