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McSPaCES Questionnaire

 
What actions would you take to relieve overcrowding at McLean High School?
What would you consider a realistic time frame to provide overcrowding relief?
Do you believe boundary adjustments between McLean High School and Langley High
School should be undertaken before any comprehensive, county-wide boundary study is
initiated and completed?

    Immediate relief. – Starting in September 2020, I will allow McLean High School (McLean)
students to pupil place into Langley High School (Langley), as long as Langley remains under-
capacity. Moreover, once a McLean student pupil places into Langley, I will guarantee him or
her the ability to continue pupil placing into Langley as long as they live in the McLean pyramid.
To encourage more McLean students to pupil place into Langley, I will look for ways to quickly
enhance existing programs or add additional programs at Langley. For example, I will talk with
students, parents and FCPS employees about adding to Langley a STEM magnet program, which
could include robotics, cyber-security and/or engineering systems. Given the demand in this
region for students with industry-recognized certifications, this program will open up business
partnership and internship opportunities for students as well.

    Expedited boundary study. I support an expedited boundary study for McLean, which results
in boundary changes no later than the 2021-22 school year. As a School Board Member, I will
be a vigilant watchdog of FCPS enrollment and capacity assumptions, to avoid repeating past
mistakes. This boundary study should not be delayed due to One Fairfax discussions. Once new
McLean boundaries are adopted, I will push to give existing McLean students from any
neighborhood that is moved from McLean to a different high school the option to transfer to the
new high school.

    Improved Enrollment Projections. Given new developments requested and approved in the
greater Tysons area, FCPS and the County must re-evaluate how they estimate the number of
future school-aged children in those buildings. FCPS should disclose and explain the rationale to
Board Members and the public for current and proposed assumptions about the number and ages
of school-aged children living in each new development, as well as in existing subdivisions and
neighborhoods. Further, FCPS must disclose assumptions about children in each development,
subdivision, or neighborhood who will attend private school rather than FCPS, as a recession
could cause parents to switch from private to public schools—further skewing these
assumptions.

    More accurate projections could lead to revised conclusions about how to best address
overcrowding at McLean in the medium and longer-term. For example, FCPS might need to
expedite an addition at McLean HS, which would require revisions to the Capital Improvement
Plan (CIP). These revisions should be made with input not only from the Facilities and Planning
Advisory Committee and the Comprehensive Planning Development Committee, but also from
the community, parents, and teachers.

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Should the safety and security of students be a high priority when considering boundary
adjustments?

   Student safety and security should be a top priority when considering facilities investments and
boundary adjustments. FCPS must reduce the number of trailers and modular classrooms, which
expose students to more security risks. As a School Board Member, I will immediately begin
meeting with McLean parents, students, teachers and administrators to ask for their suggestions
on short-term, medium-term and long-term proposals to improve safety and security. I will
work closely with the future Dranesville District School Board Member on this effort, and also
communicate regularly with other School Board Members, to maximize the likelihood that they
would support requests for resources to improve the safety of McLean HS students.

How do you see the county's One Fairfax policy affecting solutions to the overcrowding at McLean High School?

    In general, school districts avoid changing boundaries too frequently for households. FCPS
school board members and staff may have been reluctant to allow an expedited boundary change
for McLean, in part, because they did not want to constrain their ability to engage in more
dramatic boundary changes in the near future.

    My son graduated from McLean HS in 2012 and reminded me that McLean had trailers when he
was a student. The implementation of One Fairfax has delayed McLean’s expedited boundary
study by nearly two years, while the school board discussed how One Fairfax should affect its
overarching boundary policy.

    Thankfully, public advocacy just before the upcoming School Board Election has caused some
School Board Members to consider amending the CIP and allowing an expedited boundary
change for McLean. However, we will not know until after the Election whether that boundary
study’s recommendations will be based on the current 8130.7 policy, the proposed 8130.8 policy
or yet another policy draft. Even if the recommendations are made under the current School
Board’s boundary policy, we do not know how staff and school board members with weigh the
factors.

    As a School Board Member, I will support boundary changes that prioritize shorter student
commutes, minimize split feeders, and keep children with their neighborhood friends. FCPS has
long considered student demographics in the boundary change process, and I will work with my
colleagues on the School Board to determine the best way to balance all the criteria.

Is there any further information would you like to share with the McSPaCES membership?
 

My family lives in the Middleton neighborhood, which experienced boundary changes in 2003,
when Colvin Run ES opened. We were delighted that our neighborhood was one of the ones
assigned to Longfellow MS and McLean HS. Nevertheless, as a split-feeder school, with the
majority of students attending Cooper MS and Langley, they started at a disadvantage in making
friendships compared with the students from single-feeder schools attending Longfellow MS.
Situations like this must be minimized and having already personally experienced this, I will

always have these students’ well-being and success in mind during any boundary change
discussions.