The news is very good concerning the City of Falls Church’s fiscal health as presented in a report to the annual early December joint meeting of the City Council and School Board this week. That comes as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to what has been going on here in the last decade or more. As an economic downturn nationally appears to be inevitable, and as that is reflected in less than glowing expectations among Falls Church’s neighboring jurisdictions and the DMV (D,C., Maryland, Virginia) as a whole, conditions are much better for The Little City, if only because of the economic growth that has been encouraged here for the last two dozen years.

A lot has been done, a lot is in the process of getting done, and even more is waiting to happen. And before the voices that are bellowing “enough already” try to step in at this point, citizens here may need to be reminded of why the extraordinary push for development was set in motion in the first place, and how it continues to define us. That is, it’s all about the future, about the next generations of young people who are being prepared to lead the world in precarious times.

In this context, the City and its prized school system have been working in tandem in an extraordinarily effective manner. The fact that a long-awaited revenue sharing approach by the two components of what makes this city tick has kicked in the last half dozen years to remove a lot of unproductive challenges about who gets what revenues and, while it has made for fewer provocative headlines in this newspaper, it has brought the realities of what has been the key to the success of Falls Church still more to the fore.

As Superintendent Dr. Peter Noonan expressed to Monday’s joint meeting, the public schools here are now a complete pre-kindergarten through high school International Baccalaureate (IB) defined and vetted system that, in its mission statement, “offers personalized learning to support each child’s unique needs and to prepare every student to be a responsible, caring and internationally-minded citizen.” This is done by, as the FCCPS Vision statement adds, “striving to create a student-centered innovative learning environment where all students belong, are included, and are empowered to excel” by fostering an “IB learner mindset to help every child develop skills necessary to succeed in the classroom and beyond.”

That is some mighty heady stuff! And the economic development here has done wonders not only to see this approach to education succeeds, but to back it up with first-rate facilities, including a brand new state-of-the-art high school and major upgrades to all the other schools in the City, and doing so while at the same time lowering the real estate tax rate for every citizen.

Everyone should feel rightly proud to be living in The Little City and pitching in to make sure its unique mission and role are advanced.