Supreme Court ruling on high school expected
By Shannon Sollinger
Purcellville, the county and a lot of frustrated parents expect the state Supreme Court to release its ruling Sept. 12 on the land-use disputes that have blocked construction of a western high school.
Purcellville Town Council has scheduled a closed-door session for 7 p.m. Sept. 12 to discuss the rulings and its response to them. Any votes will have to be held in public.
Since early this year, the town and county have been locked in a legal battle over who can do what in the town's urban growth area – subject to the town's land-use rulings, but not part of the town. The county has gone ahead with plans to build a high school there without seeking an OK from the town's Planning Commission.
Circuit Court Judge Thomas Horne ruled earlier this year that the PUGAMP – Purcellville Urban Growth Area Management Plan – requires the town and county to agree on land development in that area.
At the same time, he ruled that the county could go ahead with the school – already named Woodgrove High School -- on the Fields Farm northwest of the town even though that location is several miles to the west of a PUGAMP map siting of a high school.
Loudoun Valley High School has grown only more crowded as the litigation has stalled any progress toward a second high school for the western part of the county. One plan to alleviate the crowding in the meantime would redistribute students among school buildings next year, putting all the west's sixth-graders in the new Culbert Elementary School just west of Hamilton, all the seventh- and eighth-graders at Harmony Intermediate School on the same campus, and all the ninth- and 10th-graders at Blue Ridge Middle School in Purcellville. Loudoun Valley High School, under that scenario, would be home only to the junior and senior classes.
"We just want a school for our kids," said parent Karen Sargent. "We don't care who's right or wrong. We're just tired of seeing our kids caught in the middle."
Should the Supreme Court rule in favor of the high school, Purcellville Town Council will likely continue to raise legal challenges to the county's plan to use what the town calls alternative sewage disposal systems for the school.
The Supreme Court also could direct town and county to use the arbitration procedures outlined in the PUGAMP.
Town council earlier this year proposed a settlement to the county that would allow the school to be built and would require the county to pay more for traffic improvements. Those negotiations fell apart.