As Stafford County’s population booms, elected leaders on the Board of Supervisors and School Board are trying to work together to accommodate a surge in the student population.
With tension between the two elected bodies, getting new schools built and operational seems to be going at a slower pace than what the school board would prefer.
- A new high school and middle school are projected to be built by 2023 and 2024, respectively to accommodate the rise in students.
- The School Board’s projections claim that they’ll need those new schools a year sooner than previous projections had established.
- According to the School Board’s projections, without the new schools ready the already existing schools in the county are expected to exceed 100% capacity.
There is a possibility of discrepancies when it comes to such projections, states School Board Vice-Chair Dr. Sarah Chase in an email, who represents the Falmouth District.
“The School Board is using student projection models to try and predict when we will need new schools, with any estimate, there is the possibility of it being high or low. If our model is projecting too high, we will be okay to delay construction a bit. If our model’s projection is too low, we may have serious crowding issues if we don’t have new schools built.”
The Board of Supervisors, for their part, says it knows about the fallibility of such projections and are continuing on schedule. At this point things are just coming into the planning stages.
- There have been no decisions on where in Stafford County to put the new schools.
- There has been no land purchased to build the new schools nor have designs for the schools actually been drawn up.
Another source of contention is regarding the expansion of the Northstar Early Childhood Education Center. The school in North Stafford is also being eyed for expansion to accommodate the projected growth.
- The Board of Supervisors wants to wait and see the actual growth of the County’s student body before committing to expansion.
- Early Childhood education has been a major initiative of Governor Ralph Northam.
- If the County is required to serve additional children below kindergarten age, that could potentially accelerate the need for additional elementary school space, according to Chase.
A joint meeting of the two boards is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 21, at 5:30 p.m. at the Stafford County Government Center at 1300 Courthouse Road in Stafford.
