Board addresses overcrowding in schools

By: Amanda Stewart | Inside NoVA
Published: February 04, 2010

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors Tuesday unanimously approved a policy aimed at ad-dressing school overcrowding in the Bristow area.

The resolution says that new developments in the Linton Hall area should be timed so that no new building permits are granted until new schools are built in the area.

Specifically the policy says that two new elementary schools and a new high school must be built there, and sites for another elementary and a middle school in that area are acquired before new residential building permits are granted.

School division plans currently call for those new schools to be built and the other sites be acquired by September 2012.

"What this does is make sure those occupancy permits are not issued until the schools are built," Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart said at Tuesday's meeting. "It gives us some assurance that ... you are not going to have the additional residences before you have the new schools."

Stewart, who proposed the resolution last month, said schools in the Linton Hall area, which county plan-ning staff defined to include Bristow, Nokesville, Brentsville and part of the Manassas area, "are bursting at the seams."

This year enrollments at four elementary schools in that area -- Bristow Run, Cedar Point, Glenkirk and Nokesville -- are at more than 140 percent of their student capacity.

Most schools in that area have classroom trailers to accommodate the extra students.

The school division's capital improvements plan calls for T. Clay Wood Elementary School and Patriot High School to open near Kettle Run Road in September 2011. School plans also call for another new elementary school in the Linton Hall area and a 10-classroom addition at Nokesville Elementary School to open in September 2012.

According to county planning staff documents, pending rezoning cases in the Linton Hall area could bring 2,700 new houses there.

At Tuesday's meeting, supervisors said they were in favor of the resolution because it gives the schools time to catch up with the residential growth.

"It's a good first step," said Brentsville District Supervisor Wally Covington.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.