STAFFORD-- The Stafford County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of the 2020-2029 Capital Improvement Plan during their June 18 meeting. This year’s CIP includes upgrades to county schools, the county’s courthouse, and transportation.
The Board also included a public safety joint training center in it’s proposed CIP. The public safety joint training center being placed above transportation didn’t sit well with some supervisors. “Our roads are much more important than the planned public safety training center,” Rock Hill District Supervisor Wendy Maurer said.
The planned sixth county high school was listed as the most expensive school construction project at more than $120 million. It would open during the 2028-2029 school year if all goes to plank.
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STAFFORD -- The Stafford County School Board will consider a controversial amendment to the school division’s non-discrimination policy later this summer.
School officials aim to add additional protections for transgender students. The School Board is reviewing a new non-discrimination policy that includes protection from discrimination against “race, color, national origin, political affiliation, religion, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, age, or genetic information.”
“I’m not clear why some disabilities are being brought out and given special attention,” said Chairwoman Patricia Healy. “My understanding is that pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions are all considered disabilities. Why are we only singling these conditions out?”
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STAFFORD -- Students called Stafford’s antiquated two-lane roads dangerous as they remembered their friend, a 17-year-old girl who died behind the wheel of her car on her birthday.
Helen Wang, Colonial Forge High School student, was hit and killed after a picnic with her friends on her 17th birthday on May 16. She was leaving the Abel Lake Boat Ramp, where she met her friends for an afternoon at the reservoir.
While attempting to pull onto the narrow two-lane Kellogg Mill Road, she unable to see past the overgrown vegetation that blocked her view of oncoming traffic, said students who saw the accident. The truck ultimately t-boned Wang’s car as she was attempting to turn onto Kellogg Mill Road from the Abel Lake boat ramp.
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FREDERICKSBURG -- Although construction vehicles have yet to appear at the planned Fredericksburg Baseball stadium site, fans and residents have no reason to fear an Opening Day delay according to Fredericksburg’s Director of Economic Development and Tourism Bill Freehling.
“The team continues to make significant progress toward the beginning of construction work,” Freehling wrote in an email to Potomac Local. “They [Fredericksburg Baseball] hope to be underway early this summer.”
The site of the stadium, located directly next to the Fredericksburg Expo Center, sits vacant with trees, dirt, rocks and even a business sign that still need to be excavated when the team starts construction on the $35 million multi-purpose stadium. The only dirt that looks to have been moved at the site was during the groundbreaking ceremony held back in late Feb.
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STAFFORD -- The Stafford County School Board approved a 5% raise for all school employees in the county.
The across-the-board raise will cover teachers, bus drivers, administrators, and the superintendent which will cost the county a total of $10.6 million.
“I am happy that we are giving out a reasonable raise,” Chairwoman Patricia Healy said. “There are a lot of challenges ahead but today is a day to celebrate.”
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STAFFORD — Germanna Community College’s Stafford campus is growing quickly forcing the college to expand the overcrowded campus.
The Stafford campus named the Barbara J. Fried Center when it opened in summer 2018 near Stafford Hospital is already having capacity problems. The campus already has 700 students enrolled in its first year of use.
“We have very little space left in our new Barbra J. Fried Center,” Germanna’s President Janet Gullickson said at the Board of Supervisors budget public hearing on April 2.
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STAFFORD -- The Stafford County School Board reached a final consensus on the nine-month-long elementary school redistricting process, voting in favor of Plan E 2-1.
The plan affects 3,036 students and splits nine neighborhoods. There are entire neighborhoods, like Aquia Harbour, whose children would be moving from Ann E. Moncure Elementary School to Hampton Oaks Elementary. Many Aquia Harbour parents and students spoke out against the plan.
“Ann E. Moncure is my second home,” Aquia Harbour resident and Ann E. Moncure student Victoria Sear-Walker said during the public comments section of the School Board meeting. “It has shaped me into the person I am now.”
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STAFFORD -- The Stafford Board of Supervisors could approve a five percent raise for all school system employees, forcing an increase in property taxes.
The School Board presented its proposed budget to the Board of Supervisors on March 20 calling the employee raise which would cost the School Board $1.2 million. The School Board also wants to add another one percent increase for educators with 13 years or more of experience, equating their total raises to six percent.
The Stafford Education Association called for the original five percent raise in November.and are advocating for the county’s real estate tax to be raised to $1.04 per $100 of assessed property value, up from 99 cents per $100 of assessed property value.
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STAFFORD -- The proposed plans to move children to new Stafford County elementary schools is ready for prime time.
The Stafford County School Board held two public hearings regarding the nine-month-long redistricting process.
A total of 10 redistricting plans have been created by a Herndon-based consulting firm ArcBridge the, which the county School Board retained to help it through the process. The School Board’s decision at its upcoming March 26 meeting will come down between two different versions of Plan E.
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STAFFORD — The Stafford County School Board will be moving forward with its effort to change the attendance boundaries of all 17 elementary schools in the county.
After the Feb. 28 redistricting work session the School Board kept two of the three options available, plan C and E. School Board members made revisions to both plans.
The board held another work session, their fifth of the process on March 7. The School Board was presented with two different versions of plan E.
