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Dear FCPS Families,

As we enter into the fall season, I wanted to give you an update on three key issues that the School Board is managing:

Division-wide Boundary Review

FCPS is in the latter stages of completing a very lengthy boundary review process as directed by the School Board in July, 2024. This is the first comprehensive boundary review in nearly four decades, and it has been a monumental undertaking by staff.

The fourth round of proposed boundaries were released today and the Superintendent is following through with another round of community meetings. You can view the maps here and provide feedback here. The School Board is scheduled to vote on the final proposal in Late January, 2026, for implementation of the new boundaries beginning in the 2026-2027 school year.

Western High School

Earlier this year, the School Board purchased a turn-key high school adjacent to Carson Middle School. This new facility is adding 33 acres and 355,000 square feet to the FCPS portfolio complete with athletic fields, parking and circulation, a main building and two multi-purpose buildings, with state-of-the art lab and collaborative work spaces. This acquisition accelerated the opening of the long-promised Western High School (WHS) by at least a decade, and saved the taxpayers around $350m.

Based on FCPS staff analysis, the WHS facility will put 2,000 seats of additional capacity into service, and provide much-needed overcrowding relief to the western communities. At a recent work session, I spoke on the need to accomplish three things with this site: 1) provide capacity relief to existing high schools that draw from the western neighborhoods; 2) clean up the split feeders in that area which are the worst in the County; and 3) eliminating the very long bus trips from western Fairfax to Oakton High School.

The Superintendent will propose boundary lines for the new school later this fall, and I will be looking at the proposals, keeping in mind these three goals.

School Start Times

Conversations on changing middle school start times have been ongoing for many years now, dating back to 2011. Earlier this year, an outside consultant presented their findings which, in my opinion, were lacking a realistic approach to changing the middle school schedule. More importantly, the conclusion drawn from their analysis was that there are only two ways to change middle school start times: 1) change start times for all grade levels; or 2) increase the transportation budget by $6.4-$17.3 million to acquire and run 75-100 additional busses.

I will not support option 2, which is not grounded in fiscal reality. As a result, and as I made clear back in February when this was presented to the School Board, if we have to shift all school start times, it is no longer a conversation on changing Middle School times, it is a conversation on changing all start times. As a result, the School Board tasked FCPS staff with developing options to shift all start times, and to collect community feedback on the most viable options.

The two options that were presented were: 1) All Elementary School start times are shifted earlier (7:45-8:10am); or 2) All school start times are shifted 30 minutes later which would have some Elementary School not starting to nearly 10am.

Based on analysis and community feedback, neither of these options are realistically viable. To put it more plainly, the only way to shift Middle School start times without causing significant disruption to the other 11 grade levels is to increase the transportation budget by ~$15m.

With those being the only two options, I do not support moving forward with changing any start times right now.

Sincerely,

Kyle McDaniel
Fairfax County School Board
Member, At-Large

Upcoming School Board Meetings

Meeting information and materials will be posted to BoardDocs.

• October 23 at 7 p.m. - Regular Meeting: New Western High School Discussion, Secondary Course Offerings
• November 12 at 10 a.m. - Work Session: Budget, Legislative Agenda, Boundries
• October 23 at 7 p.m. - Regular Meeting: Western High School, Preformance and Plicy Review on Learning Environment

Please note that times and topics are subject to change.

The work sessions and meetings will be broadcast live on Channel 99 (Verizon channel 11) and the FCPS website. Both will be recorded for future viewing and posted to the FCPS School Board YouTube channel.

For Spanish speakers, to watch recorded School Board meetings or live during regular meetings, visit the FCPS en Español YouTube channel.

Visit the Community Participation webpage to sign up to speak at a regular meeting. Visit BoardDocs for more meeting logistics, agendas, and handouts.

ACSD Town Hall

Other Updates