Fairfax, VA neighborhood assigned to Falls Church High? (Arlington, McLean: low income, 2014)

[danliu]

Interested in purchasing a house in Fairfax, VA close to Vienna Metro. However the house is in the small part of Fairfax that feeds into Falls Church High which from what I'm reading doesn't have a great reputation. No kids at the moment so high school is not on top of my list but does the fact that it feeds into Falls Church High will hurt the house value?

[DAXhound]

I don't think Marshall or Stuart would be any better....plenty of million plus homes there...Vienna, Madison has survived the ages pretty well, and that might command a premium...West Springfield might be close to Madison scorewise for just an arm, not arm and leg I know the principal at langely, who actually went to Lee, as well as Commander, US Army Europe and Africa.

[NOVAmtneer82]

I don't think any of the other schools in that immediate area would be any better- definitely starting to see a lot of infill development in the Falls Church High cluster. Same with Pimmit Hills in the Marshall district. Gentrification of older aging suburban strip centers and neighborhoods will likely only further enhance the schools. Not saying they are bad to begin with - I am just talking when compared to Langley, McLean, Madison, etc.

[leighland]

We were looking to remain in Falls Church High boundary.
1. smaller school; every kid has the ability to join any extra activity- from STEM to Football
2. more blue collar more diverse, hard working small business families, not entitled doctor or diplomat kids
3. Its getting a massive renovation next year which will make it look and perform like a jewel
4. the other high we could have been assigned to, Woodson High, has a reputation for lots of drug abuse and at the time had a spat of suicides spreading thru the school [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/after-woodson-high-suicides-a-search-for-solace-and-answers/2014/04/11/8dd2a3b4-7f1d-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html"]https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/after-woodson-high-suicides-a-search-for-solace-and-answers/2014/04/11/8dd2a3b4-7f1d-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html[/URL]

The diff in schools is:

smaller FCHS has more latino/vietnamese kids
woodson, ave size for a Nova high school, has less

Falls Church High: [URL="https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:::NO::P0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:090, 0"]https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:::NO::P0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:090, 0[/URL]

Woodson High: [URL="https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:::NO::P0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:130, 0"]https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:::NO::P0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:130, 0[/URL]

With the boom of Merrifield, etc in the past decade, both schools will increase the high income/rich kids in the next decade. Plus boundaries will change in next couple of years, as it does every decade due to the transitive population of Nova. McLean will be split into 2 diff high schools in a decade as well.

[skeddy]

Originally Posted by NOVAmtneer82

I don't think any of the other schools in that immediate area would be any better- definitely starting to see a lot of infill development in the Falls Church High cluster. Same with Pimmit Hills in the Marshall district. Gentrification of older aging suburban strip centers and neighborhoods will likely only further enhance the schools. Not saying they are bad to begin with - I am just talking when compared to Langley, McLean, Madison, etc.

I remember when they built Pimmitt Hills, late 50's. The houses sold for $9,950. Owners did not have to make a down payment; mortgages cost $62.18 per month.

[Veritas Vincit]

Originally Posted by leighland

We were looking to remain in Falls Church High boundary.
1. smaller school; every kid has the ability to join any extra activity- from STEM to Football
2. more blue collar more diverse, hard working small business families, not entitled doctor or diplomat kids
3. Its getting a massive renovation next year which will make it look and perform like a jewel
4. the other high we could have been assigned to, Woodson High, has a reputation for lots of drug abuse and at the time had a spat of suicides spreading thru the school https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...ea1_story.html

The diff in schools is:

smaller FCHS has more latino/vietnamese kids
woodson, ave size for a Nova high school, has less

Falls Church High: https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schl...,P0_EDSL:090,0

Woodson High: https://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schl...,P0_EDSL:130,0

With the boom of Merrifield, etc in the past decade, both schools will increase the high income/rich kids in the next decade. Plus boundaries will change in next couple of years, as it does every decade due to the transitive population of Nova. McLean will be split into 2 diff high schools in a decade as well.

I somewhat question the relationship between gentrification and schools. Gentrification in dense areas tends to bring a lot of DINKS and 20-30 something singles who won't send their non-existent kids to schools. What it however does also bring is the need for service workers many of whom do have a lot of kids even on low incomes.


I mean if you look at Arlington the best high school is Yorktown, which basically covers the part of Arlington with the most stable structure of established SFH neighborhoods and relatively little new development.

[NOVAmtneer82]

I think it has more of an impact than many think- they've already had to up the timing for turning a formerly closed Dunn Loring school that houses a Fairfax County Schools operations office into an elementary school based on growth in and around Tysons and Merrifield. Especially when you have shopping centers turning into these large townhouse clusters or in the case of Falls Church portion of Fairfax County these old neighborhoods of small WWII era homes that are seeing old people move out and young people with kids or planning to have kids move in. Or in Pimmit Hills where there has been a huge uptick in teardowns for new larger single-family homes. Maybe gentrification isn't the best word - neighborhood transition?

[JD984]

Originally Posted by danliu

Interested in purchasing a house in Fairfax, VA close to Vienna Metro. However the house is in the small part of Fairfax that feeds into Falls Church High which from what I'm reading doesn't have a great reputation. No kids at the moment so high school is not on top of my list but does the fact that it feeds into Falls Church High will hurt the house value?

Not sure I understand, since the current zoning to Falls Church HS is baked into the current value. You don't have to pay as much for the same property zoned to Falls Church as you would if it were assigned to Woodson, Madison, or Marshall - all of which share a boundary with Falls Church.

So if your question is really whether you might expect to see the same appreciation if you buy zoned for Falls Church as if you bought elsewhere, that's a crap shoot but:

(1) Falls Church is just starting a $135 million renovation that will be among the most expensive school renovations ever undertaken by FCPS;

(2) the catchment area is convenient to jobs in DC, Tysons, etc, and the Mosaic area in Merrifield is also within Falls Church's boundaries;

(3) as new construction in areas like Pimmit Hills (zoned to Marshall HS) increasingly sells for over $1.4-1.5 million, there will be more tear downs in some of the Falls Church neighborhoods, which could push up prices in some of the single-family areas over time; and

(4) with Falls Church about to be both renovated and expanded, most of the lower-income areas that feed into FCHS are likely to remain there, unless FCPS undertakes a major county-wide redistricting, which they occasionally talk about but never have the courage to do.

I'd be fairly bullish on the area.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by NOVAmtneer82

I think it has more of an impact than many think- they've already had to up the timing for turning a formerly closed Dunn Loring school that houses a Fairfax County Schools operations office into an elementary school based on growth in and around Tysons and Merrifield. Especially when you have shopping centers turning into these large townhouse clusters or in the case of Falls Church portion of Fairfax County these old neighborhoods of small WWII era homes that are seeing old people move out and young people with kids or planning to have kids move in. Or in Pimmit Hills where there has been a huge uptick in teardowns for new larger single-family homes. Maybe gentrification isn't the best word - neighborhood transition?

That's a whole different story.

FCPS had previosuly ear-marked about $35 million to build a new elementary in the Fairfax/Oakton area near a park called Blake Lane Park. A number of the nearby residents were adamantly against building at that site, as they wanted to leave the park alone.

Separately, FCPS had long-term plans to convert both the Dunn Loring administrative building and the former Pimmit Hills ES, which now has an adult day-care program, back into functioning elementary schools.

The Providence District member on the School Board basically saw an opportunity to put the final nail in the coffin of the Blake Lane site by re-allocating the money to accelerate the renovation of the Dunn Loring site, miles away from the original Fairfax/Oakton site. But the Dunn Loring site is located near multiple other elementary schools (including Freedom Hill ES and Stenwood ES) that FCPS now projects will be substantially under-enrolled in the future, and not especially close to where hundreds of additional housing units are getting built in Tysons further north.

The eventual result will be that far more kids get reassigned to new schools than otherwise will be necessary, and FCPS will then probably end up delaying the construction of another new elementary school planned in central Tysons. That will hurt their efforts to market Tysons as a place to "live, work, and play," rather than just two shopping malls, a bunch of office buildings, and a ton of traffic congestion. But by the time this plays out, the School Board member who engineered this boondoggle likely will have moved on to other endeavors.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit

I somewhat question the relationship between gentrification and schools. Gentrification in dense areas tends to bring a lot of DINKS and 20-30 something singles who won't send their non-existent kids to schools. What it however does also bring is the need for service workers many of whom do have a lot of kids even on low incomes.


I mean if you look at Arlington the best high school is Yorktown, which basically covers the part of Arlington with the most stable structure of established SFH neighborhoods and relatively little new development.

The more relevant comparison probably wouldn't be Yorktown, but Washington-Liberty. W-L has a lot of families who started out renting in the denser parts of Arlington along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, liked it, and decided to stay in the general area of Arlington once they started having kids (who eventually reached school age). Comparatively speaking, it's a wealthier and higher-performing school relative to Yorktown than was the case 30 years ago.

And W-L is probably considered stronger than Yorktown now in some respects because, even though Yorktown serves a wealthier area, APS allows W-L to offer both Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses, whereas Yorktown only has AP. So W-L gets a lot of pupil placements from Yorktown (and Wakefield) for IB, but the kids at W-L who want to do AP or mostly AP stay there.