RCA Reston 2020 Discussions with Fairfax County School Officials

                                                               R. Rogers

                                                                         1 May 2013

RCA Reston 2020 Discussions with Fairfax County School Officials

Summary: FCPS officials recognize that several Reston schools are currently at or over capacity and are planning to accommodate this in the intermediate term.  In particular, a major expansion of South Lakes High School in planned.  The officials anticipate that ”Scenario G”—the baseline development plan County staff is using to build a new Comprehensive Plan for Reston's transit station areas-- could bring a significant expansion of the school population. They see a need build two elementary schools in Reston and an intermediate and senior high school in the “southwest” portion of the County to accommodate a build out of that planned residential density as well as expected growth in the Centerville/Chantilly area.  Although they have no specific plans, they hope the master plan will include specific language that will help them accommodate this growth.

On 25 April 2013 Terry Maynard and Dick Rogers met with Fairfax School officials to discuss future school capacity issues relating to Reston.  Participating for the County were:

• Pat Hynes—Fairfax County School Board representative from Hunter Mill District (and Reston resident)
• Ajay Rawat--Acting Director Office of Facilities Planning Services
• Greg Bokan --Planner, Office of Facilities Planning Services

Ajay and Greg are responsible for analyzing demographics and other factors to determine long term school facility needs.

Background

Dick Rogers and Tammy Petrine had met in early April with Ajay and Greg to discuss school planning issues (they had earlier discussed these issues in May 2010).   In April, the FCPS officers gave them a December 2012 memo to DPZ done in conjunction with the Reston Master Planning process.  The memo outlined long term needs of Scenario G development—the scenario around which the County Planning staff is now developing Comprehensive Plan language despite the absence of Task Force endorsement—as requiring two new elementary schools, and facilities for about 1,000 middle school and 1,000 high school students.  The County planning staff still has not shared this memorandum with the Reston Task Force although Reston 2020 has posted it on its blog. 

They based these projections on “yield factors” associated with different types of housing development.  For example, the 20,080 high-rise multi-family units projected under Scenario G are estimated to yield 1,747 students.

Near Term Outlook

Standard FCPS school enrollment projections look out about six years.  They are based on highly specific criteria like births, established school enrollment, demographic changes, and school program changes that have been shown to be reliable indicators of future school populations.  Residential development completed and being occupied is taken into account, but they do not take into account approved but not constructed projects like Spectrum and Fairways in their projections.

• Elementary Schools.  Several Reston schools are projected to be at or over capacity in 2017-2018.   To meet this need, Lake Anne has just gone through expansion, Sunrise Valley will soon undergo a modest expansion and Terraset will be increased by about one-third.  There is also tentative thinking about moving parts of special programs from more crowded to less crowded schools in the area.

• Middle School: Hughes Middle School is at capacity now and will be about 130 students over by 2017-2018. 

• High School.  The most serious situation is faced by South Lakes High School.  It is currently 200-300 students over capacity.  By 2017-18 the projection is that South Lakes will be 858 students over current capacity.  Herndon HS will also be 300 students over by then.

To meet the needs at South Lakes High School, FCPS plans to substantially augment the school to handle another 800 students. This $17 million “capacity enhancement” will involve real brick and mortar construction, not temporary classrooms.  This will probably be completed in time for the 2017-2018 school year if a bond issue passes in 2014.  This hopefully will take South Lakes to 2025 or so and it will be a school of about 3,000 students, which FCPS does not consider “too large.”  It is also possible that additional program changes could be made at South Lakes that would send students elsewhere.  For example, they mentioned the special education placements program which brings 200 or so students to the school.

Elsewhere in the area, they noted that Herndon HS and Oakton HS are also slated for expansion.

They noted that boundary changes might also be considered but they are usually highly controversial.

They also noted that some elementary schools to the west of Reston face even more pressing problems.  They mentioned McNair, to the West of Polo Fields, and Coates, near Route 28 and south of Dulles Toll Road.  Coates is projected to be 600 students over capacity in 2018.  This area is heavily populated by a younger Indian-American population and has one of the highest birth rates in the county.  They mentioned 200 new kindergarteners a year within the next few years at Coates Elementary!

Longer Term

FCPS does not appear to have any firm plans at this point to meet the needs of new development in Reston generated by Scenario G.

Re elementary schools:  They note their projection is that if Scenario G is built out, there will be a need for two new elementary schools in Reston.  They are very open to an urban setting for these schools, with a smaller school site (they mentioned the 2 ½ acre Arbor row school proposed for Tysons).  They can see it co-located with other civic facilities or even in a commercial building.  They could envision co-location of outdoor space with other park facilities. 

We discussed possible locations in Reston including Town Center, Isaac Newton Square, and the southwest corner of Baron Cameron Park.  They particularly like the idea of using land already owned by the county. They also took aboard the idea of locating a school in North Town Center with a new Library, governmental center, and park facilities.

We noted that Phase Two of the Reston Task Force will focus on the village centers and could entail population increases in those areas.  They had no firm idea of school needs in these areas and suggested that some of the existing elementary schools could undergo further expansion.

Beyond the elementary schools, the FCPS Scenario G memorandum projected a need for half a high school and half a middle school to meet the growth in student populations in Reston and Herndon.  They have no specific plans in mind for meeting this need, but noted a general need for a new Fairfax County high school in southwestern Fairfax County to meet the growing student population.  The new middle and high schools would probably be located in the Centerville area, is badly needed.  The County is looking for a substantial amount of land (perhaps costing $10 million) and has a contractor looking at potential sites.

We noted skepticism among some task force members to the idea that future Reston development would entail a substantial expansion of the student population, and especially the notion that any new student population should be accommodated within the transit station areas now being studied.  They noted several factors at work that they think will lead to student numbers growing substantially:

• The changing demographic mix in the county means that the Hispanic and Asian-American households are more likely to remain in high rises even as family size grows.

• The County experience is that high rises begin with a low number of children but as the population matures the student population tends to rise to the projected “yield” rate.

• In residential areas there is a cycle of children early on, then fewer children as the population matures and then a re-population by families with children.  They suspect this is going on in various Reston neighborhoods now.  (Anecdotal information indicates this process is underway in Reston as a new generation of families moves into established neighborhoods.)

Regarding planning, they emphasize that the language in the comprehensive plan is most important.  (Comment: Attached to their December 2012 paper was a “draft comprehensive plan text” for DPZ review.  That text has not been provided to the Task Force by either FCPS or DPZ.  It apparently looks for developers to provide support “in kind” in the form of land or space contributions and monetary proffers.)