On Monday, February 22 and Wednesday, February 24, Mayfield Intermediate School will host a School Board Meeting and redistricting presentation from 7 to 9 p.m.
The Monday meeting will focus on students from pre-k to fourth grade while the Wednesday meeting will focus on students in fifth and sixth grade. The city school division has been working on redistricting, particularly within elementary schools.
This has prompted the question: “Who will be affected and where are the students going to go?”
The meeting is meant to be a community engagement to discuss the proposed boundaries for the upcoming 2016-2017 school year. The initiative for these new district lines is due to the pertinent overcrowding within the elementary schools of Manassas.
“Manassas City Public Schools has experienced tremendous growth over the last few years,” said Catherine Magouyrk, Superintendent of Schools in a press release about the upcoming meeting next week.
The redistricting recommendation will impact students in kindergarten through 6th grades, among the division’s five elementary schools. Baldwin and Mayfield Intermediate schools will also be affected.
However, the call for redistricting has also been ignited with the opening of three new schools within the next two years.
According to Manassas schools spokeswoman Almeta Radford, the new schools will open their doors staring 2017. Baldwin Elementary will open in January of 2017, Baldwin Intermediate (which will be strictly limited to fifth grade students) will open in August 2017, and Baldwin Intermediate (limited to fifth and sixth grade) will open in August of 2018.
“This is a staggered occupancy,” Radford said.
The capacity of Baldwin Elementary will be 700 students. Likewise, Baldwin Intermediate will be able to invite 316 students to its learning premises.
After the School Board meeting and redistricting presentation, there will be a public hearing on Pre-K through 4th grade redistricting on March 29 at 7 p.m. at City Hall. The hearing for grades five and six will follow the next 7 o’clock in the evening. The final recommendations to alter school boundaries will go to the school board on April 12.
The new district lines will be implemented beginning in August of this year.
