Fairfax County planners have given their blessing for the first batch of students to start at the new Skyview High School in the upcoming school year.
At its May 13 meeting, the Fairfax County Planning Commission unanimously signed off on the use of the former King Abdullah Academy campus as a public facility.
“This has really been a long road trying to find an adequate spot and the fact that this just materialized is pretty miraculous,” said Braddock District Commissioner Mary Cortina. “I just can’t envision a better scenario of being able to find a place for the school.”
Because it is for public use, the planning commission had to study the proposal as part of a state-required 2232 review. The moniker refers to a section of state law that mandates the compatibility of proposed public facilities with a locality’s Comprehensive Plan. The plan is a nonbinding document used by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to help guide land-use decisions.
The school is on the western end of the county 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. FCPS purchased the campus in August 2025 for $150 million shortly after it ceased operations because the Saudi Arabian government cut off funding.
Officials hope the school will alleviate overcrowding at schools in Herndon, Centreville, Chantilly and Oakton.
Kyle McDaniel, an at-large member of the Fairfax County School Board, was the only speaker at a public hearing prior to the vote. He noted that it could have cost $600 million to acquire land and build an entirely new facility. Skyview will “serve students not just for years to come, but decades to come,” he said.
“This is not an acquisition just to solve a problem for the next four to five years, this is an acquisition to solve challenges that we are going to face as a community for decades,” he said. “Skyview gives us a chance to do that without starting from scratch.”
The original 2232 proposal was for the full planned school with all 2,000 expected students. Last week’s vote, however, only applied to the portion of the building that will be used in the 2026-2027 school year, when FCPS will welcome about 1,000 ninth- and 10th-graders who opt in to attend.
Final attendance boundaries are still being determined by the school board, but the school is expected to fully open for the 2028-2029 school year.
The planning commission will have to review the proposal again ahead of the full opening. Jessica Vara, an attorney with Hunton Andrews Kurth representing the school board, said the second application likely wouldn’t come before the next school year starts, but would be presented in the “near future.”
