Parents rally, ask board for new school boundaries

It’s probably safe to say that parents living in Sheffield Manor won’t want their children going to Stonewall Jackson High School when the county opens its 11th high school at Kettle Run and Vint Hill roads in 2011.

Roughly 200 of them showed up at the Prince William County School Board meeting Wednesday night to say so.

All of the plans submitted the Prince William County School Board would have students living in the Bristow-area subdivision attending Stonewall Jackson High School, which is several miles away, said John O’Leary, a Sheffield Manor resident who brought a petition of signatures from roughly 400 of the 673 homes in Sheffield Manor.

“All exclude Sheffield Manor residents from the Bristow community,” O’Leary said of the plans for the new high school that is meant ease overcrowding at Battlefield and Brentsville District high schools.

The parents, with students in Victory Elementary School, Gainesville Middle School and Marstellar Middle School, said Stonewall Jackson High School was not part of their community and they didn’t want their children going there.

Sending students to Stonewall Jackson High School would disrupt the community and split the friendships their children had made through elementary and middle school, they said.

“It’s simply not in the best interest of our children and defies common sense to pull this group of children that attend Marstellar and send them off to a separate high school, away from the peers with whom they shared their early formative years,” Colleen Osinski told the school board.

The parents said it made more sense to send their children to the new high school because it was closer to where they lived.

Mario Umana said he and his wife moved to the Linton Hall corridor a couple of years ago and found that they rarely go to the Manassas area.

“Our community is the Linton Hall Gainesville Community. That’s where we do our community life. We have learned in the last two years that our community is not the Manassas area. It is this other area and we want to keep belonging to this community and to have our children attend high school in this community,” Umana said.

Kirby Kennedy spoke of keeping the community together.

“Please allow our children to maintain their sense of community and continuity with the rest of their Linton Hall neighbors,” Kennedy said.

Kevin Mahoney of Sheffield Manor also asked the board to consider drawing new boundaries.

“The community is where you live. It’s where you shop. It’s where you play ball. It’s where you worship. It’s more than any single subdivision,” Mahoney said.

Kristina Dixon said she didn’t want to be split from her friends once she started high school.

“Learning is not the only part of what school is about. It is also about friends and community, so I am here tonight to ask that you consider keeping Sheffield Manor neighborhood within the Bristow community,” the 11-year-old Kristina told the board. “By attending Stonewall Jackson High School, I feel that we would break up a tightly knit community, also many great friendships.”

Juliana Akhavan said her friends didn’t want to be separated when they went to high school either, and got 102 signatures from the neighborhood students to prove it.

“We the students of Sheffield Manor want to let you know that we want to attend the 11th high school at Kettle Run,” the 10-year-old told the board. “By attending this school, we will continue to have a connection between our community and our school. This will also allow us to be closer to home and spare us from a long bus commute. It will also save on fuel cost and pollution.”

Manassas Bureau Chief Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.