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Settlement puts new high school back on track
Woodgrove High School may have finished its run in the headlines and be headed for actual construction on the Fields Farm north of Purcellville."We have reached a settlement with the Town of Purcellville and can begin to move forward with the construction” of the high school, said Scott York, chairman of the Board of Supervisors after supervisors, school staff and attorneys spent three hours in closed session Nov. 18.
"We can begin to do what we need to do to relieve the crowding at Loudoun Valley High School and at Blue Ridge Middle School," York said.
Western Loudoun's second high school has been delayed, first by a search for a place to build it, then by a protracted disagreement between the county and the town over who can do what, under the terms of a joint management agreement, in the town's urban growth area.
The School Board opted for the county-owned Fields Farm in the urban growth area in May 2006. Purcellville's leaders within a week threatened legal action if the county did not comply with the Purcellville Urban Growth Area Management Plan. That planning agreement, the town insisted, allows the school to go there only with the town's concurrence, and only by hooking the school up to the town's water and sewer systems.
The agreement reached Tuesday makes that happen: Both town and county will amend the comprehensive plans required and bring the Fields Farm into the town by annexation. The town will drop its remaining active lawsuit and will supply water and sewer service to the school.
The county has pledged $5.78 million to the town for upgrading the road system to take care of the extra traffic. According to Purcellville Mayor Bob Lazaro, the negotiators behind closed doors Tuesday arrived at a payment schedule of $1.7 million when the town and county adopt the required amendment to the comprehensive plan, $2 million when the annexation of the Fields Farm is completed, and the final $2 million when the school is given a certificate of occupancy.
Voters approved borrowing $70.56 million to build the school back in 2005, and it was scheduled to open for students in 2008.
Wayde Byard, at the schools' central office, said it is far too early to speculate whether that $70.56 million will be enough to cover the cost of the project. Bids will go out, he said, as soon as lawyers for town, county and schools have vetted the settlement and given it the go-ahead.
In the meantime, the student population has only increased at Loudoun Valley High School, Blue Ridge Middle School and Harmony Intermediate School. All are now overcrowded. Schools Superintendent Edgar Hatrick has suggested that if settlement were not reached, and the high school did not open in 2010, Culbert Elementary School in Hamilton would open in 2009 not as an elementary school but as an overflow for sixth-graders from overcrowded middle schools.
Loudoun Valley High School was cut back to 10th through 12th grades – the ninth-graders were assigned to Harmony – and added 10 trailer classrooms to try to fit in its 2008 enrollment of more than 1,650 students.
Blue Ridge Middle School added four trailers and sent its eighth-graders to Harmony to find seats for its nearly 1,200 students in the fall of 2008.
If the agreement announced Tuesday holds, Woodgrove High School will open in the fall of 2010 with room for 1,600 students. Harmony will go back to being the sixth-through-eighth-grade middle school it was designed to be. Blue Ridge will shed its four trailers and go back to being a middle school. Loudoun Valley will get rid of its 10 trailers and welcome ninth-graders – the class of 2014 -- for the first time since 2002.
Byard at the public schools central office cautioned that the agreement still has to be vetted by all the lawyers. As soon as the lawyers for town, county and schools give it their approval, Byard said, bids can go out and work can start on the school.
Contact the reporter at jjacks@timespapers.com
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