New Falls Church High School Principal Cathy Benner is communicating in an innovative way as classes began this week with an online Principal’s Blog, noting it might be “the first in Fairfax,” which will enable students to comment on her posts, helping her know “what works, what’s needed and what I think will help.” Communication and innova-
tion will be top priority this year, as this past Monday, Falls Church and J.E.B. Stuart High Schools braved the heat outside and from statewide and Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) budget shortfalls to start the 2008-09 school year. Other area schools open Sept. 2. Her first year at FCHS, Benner reported “a lot of new things [are] going on” in an interview with the News-Press this week. Recent news, however, brings some worries, primarily “to watch
discretionary spending” in a fiscal climate across the district that has so far cut “site-based” summer school programming for FCHS – forcing four or five local high schools to consolidate their programs in a central location. Even so, Benner assured that FCHS has “been fairly good” with its spending. “We’re all very aware these are tough times,” she said, adding that Falls Church had prepared for the anticipated
The recent years’ boom in large-scale mixed use projects along the City of Falls Church’s commercial corridors is expected to wane, but the tax revenues generated by the new developments to date will insulate the city from critical fiscal shortfalls that are plaguing neighboring Fairfax County. That was the assessment provided by Falls Church Mayor Robin Gardner, recently reelected to a third four-year term on the City Council and a second two-year term as mayor, in an interview at the offices of the News-Press last week. The interview constituted the News-Press’ annual “State of the City” discussion with the mayor of Falls Church, a tradition dating to the early 1990s. Rather than a press conference format, it has provided mayors an uncensored opportunity to convey to Falls Church readers their outlook. Gardner was relaxed and pleased at the accomplishments of the City Council since she was first elected in 2000, including last week’s approval of the City’s first ever new affordable housing structure, the City Center South Apartments. After more than a decade with no significant new developments, it was on Sept. 10, 2001 that the Council approved the first of a sequence of largescale projects, The Broadway. It was followed by approvals for The Byron, Pearson Square, The Spectrum and the Read Building, all of which have been completed and occupied. Then the Council approved the $319 million Atlantic Realty City Center plan, a new Jefferson