PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY — The 13th high school to be built in Prince William County in an effort to ease overcrowding is predicted to be a success — sort of.
The new high school, to be built on Progress Court near Jiffy Lube Live, is scheduled to open in 2021. Accommodating more than 2,500 students and a price tag of $133.4 million, it is expected to ease the crowded conditions at Battlefield, Patriot and Stonewall high schools.
Unfortunately, as the county population grows, each of these schools is predicted to be over maximum again in two to three years.
Alyson Satterwhite, Gainesville District School Board Member, said that “Battlefield High School is already above the 2020-2021 projections based on the 2017-2018 numbers.”
Overcrowding in Prince William County Schools (PWCS) is an ongoing issue that affects both eastern and western ends of the county. According to Prince William County’s strategic plan for 2017-2020, “PWCS class sizes are at the maximum permitted under Virginia law.”
Concern about overcrowding in PWCS is growing.
“In the 2017-2018 school year, seven out of twelve high schools, nine out of nineteen middle schools and 35 out of 63 elementary schools were forced to accommodate more students than they were designed to do,” said Gil Trenum, Brentsville District School Board representative.
With enrollment in county schools continuing to grow faster than new facilities can be built, this is a continuing problem.
The 13th high school, currently referred to as the PRICE design (Patriot Redesign Increasing Capacity Effectively), is an effort to meet the needs of a growing student population and maintain an esthetically pleasing appearance.
After several rounds of debates and voting, the school board settled on the new school design that will house more students for less money per occupant than Battlefield or Patriot High School. Trenum advocates that the PRICE design keeps the wider hallways, larger classrooms and natural lighting of the Patriot model, while increasing student capacity to 2,500.
The new design was developed during a school board meeting in 2016 following contentious discussions about the cost and need for more classroom space of the two recent high schools, Battlefield and Patriot.
In addition to safety and security concerns, crowded classrooms also impact student learning. The school division’s strategic plan gives outcomes of increasing graduation rates and increasing the percentage of students scoring “Pass Advance on SOLs in reading, math, science.”
Satterwhite stated that overcrowded classes negatively impact student learning by decreasing the amount of one-on-one time students have with teachers, inhibiting group projects and collaboration and increasing faculty workload.
Relieving overcrowding isn’t cheap.
“It isn’t complex, but it takes money and concentrated cooperation” between the school board and the County Board of Supervisors,” said Trenum. He added that “school construction and housing development must sync.”
Satterwhite echoed this sentiment by saying that in an ideal world, “there needs to be a delay of development to allow school construction to catch up.” However, Satterwhite admitted that Prince William County draws families to it because of living conditions and that development will probably not abate.
Currently, there is no solution 10 years out for the overcrowding in county schools. County and School Board officials are working together on a $143 million plan to build new classrooms to get students out of trailers countywide. Late last month, some county officials said the plan could be too costly.
In the meantime, the 13th high school is on schedule to ease current conditions for only two or three years.
