Through the 1960s, Fairfax voters were strong supporters of bond issues for school building. But the 1970s have been a time of recession, higher taxes and assessments on homes, and, more subjective but no less important, a perception by many voters that public spending, including for schools, was edging toward extravagance. At the same time the percentage of voters who have school-age children has been gradually declining as the median age in the county goes up.

Bolstering the anti-spending attitude has been the well-publicized phenomenon of an overall decline in the county’s student population. According to the most recent projection, given last week by Davis, the population decline between 1976 and 1981 will be from 134,613 students to 125,957.

Dramatizing the decline has been the closing of some schools and plans to shut down considerably more – all in older sections of the county.

If the number of students is going down, if some schools are actually being closed, the spending critics say, why does the system have to construct expensive new facilities? Some of the critics suggest school districts be radically realigned and busing be extended to keep schools of now-declining enrollments open.

The school officials’ answer is that even though overall school population is going down, it is going up in rapidly developing sections in the northern and western parts of the county – the Herndon-Reston and the Burke areas most predominantly. School officials also say there are limitations on the amount of time students can spend riding to and from school in buses.

School officials say they have been able to hold down the extent of new buildings at schools experiencing temporary surges in enrollment. The newest temporary buildings – called “relocatables” – look like and cost almost as much as permanent buildings. But officials say that because the relocatables can be disassembled and moved to other sites to meet new enrollment trends, the structures more than pay for themselves.

County real estate taxes have increased significantly. Federal tax code change penalize Virginia residents. Inflation up. No 1970s recession yet, but at some point older residents either move out of the County and or State, or they say No.