Fairfax County Public Schools is increasing opportunities for public input on the proposed attendance boundary for the new Skyview High School.
Superintendent Michele Reid told the Fairfax County School Board at its work session Tuesday (May 5) that she wants to add a third round of community engagement.
“We just feel like we need to take a very measured approach at this time,” she said.
The school will be at the site of the former King Abdullah Academy campus at 2949 Education Drive, near Dulles International Airport and the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in the Floris area south of Herndon.
Officials held a community engagement session at the end of April shortly after posting three boundary scenarios that would have affected elementary, middle and high schools in the Centreville, Chantilly, Oakton, South Lakes and Westfield high school pyramids.
Reid said the consultant studying the boundaries planned to narrow those options to two for a community engagement session at the end of this month and present a final scenario for board review in June or July.
On Tuesday, Reid proposed keeping three scenarios for this month’s community engagement session, but having those scenarios incorporate feedback from the first meeting. Then, the consultant would narrow its proposals down to two options for June and have a final scenario for the board to vote on at its second July meeting.
“We want to make sure we get this right and we want to make sure we’re thoughtful about hearing our community’s feedback,” Reid said.
The initial proposals also included boundary changes for elementary schools, which won’t be included moving forward. Reid said elementary schools will instead be included in the regular redistricting process that must now occur every five years under a policy adopted by the school board in 2024.
Erik Gordon, chief of facilities services and capital programs for FCPS, said that in the existing area around the school, 22 schools are at target capacity levels and seven are over capacity. The area also has 11 split feeder schools.
The first proposed scenario would reduce the number of near-capacity schools to one, cut the number of split feeders to eight and redistrict about 12% of students in the area. The second scenario only redistricts 9.9% of students, but increases the number of split feeders by two. The final scenario would redistrict the most number of students at 13.8% and leave six split feeders.
“Overall each scenario offers a distinct tradeoff,” Gordon said.
So far, through a community survey, the school system has received 1,481 responses about the boundary plan, plus 5,000 comments on an interactive map.
Sully District Representative Seema Dixit, whose district would be affected by the boundary adjustments, said she’s received more than 1,000 emails.
“It is really something everybody is thinking about right now in the district,” she said.
Additional information sessions are planned for May 28 and May 30 at the new school.
At-Large Representative Kyle McDaniel said the school board will take the community input seriously.
“We’ll get to the right decision and we will open the high school this fall,” he said. “And this is going to be a great asset and a great opportunity for our students.”
