Quantico base schools to place all students on one site

After 30 years at Ashurst Elementary, kindergarten teacher Lori Lee said she would be a little sad to leave the school for a new one in a couple of years, “but the opportunity to teach in a new building will make that a thing of the past pretty quickly.”

Congress has already allotted the money for Quantico’s three elementary schools to be replaced by a single building in 2013, and Department of Defense Education Activity headquarters has approved plans to rebuild Quantico Middle/High School by 2015. The rebuilding of the middle/high school will rely on congressional approval of funds for fiscal year 2013. It is also possible that new standards for DoDEA schools will delay the construction timeline by up to a year.

Both schools are to be located on the campus where Russell Elementary and the middle/high school now sit.

Zach McKissick, logistics supervisor for the New York/Virginia school district, said it was possible that cuts to the federal budget could affect the plan, “but everybody feels pretty confident that both these projects will go forward.”

The new schools are to represent the cutting edge in education research and technology.

“We’re not just building a school like we’ve always built schools; we’re trying to build schools for the future,” Superintendent Michael Gould said. “What we’re building right now needs to have the capacity and flexibility to still be used in 2060.”

He said that would mean environmentally friendly buildings, flexible arrangements of classroom space and infrastructure to accommodate the latest technology.

Not long after the Department of Defense identified money in its budget for rebuilding and renovating older military schools last year, Congress passed the Facilities for the 21st Century Learning initiative, which mandates that new DoDEA schools be designed with the next half-century clearly in mind, Gould said. In response, the agency gathered the latest education research, solicited input from employees and met with design leaders to come up with a new set of school specifications.

What came out of that process, Gould said, was the idea that each school should have its own identity, encourage a sense of community, incorporate a variety of learning environments and other spaces for small- and large-group, as well as individual, activities. Classrooms might have three walls instead of four or moveable dividers allowing them to be opened up. The schools will also be learning tools themselves, with data readout banks monitoring how much energy the building is using, the cost of that electricity, and other information.

“That takes the teaching and it makes it very real because it’s about the buildings the students are in,” Gould said.

He said designs for the elementary school were well underway and could only be changed so much to accommodate the new requirements. The middle/high school, on the other hand, is in the earliest stages of planning.

Ground was expected to be broken for the elementary school’s construction late this fall, but McKissick said the introduction of the 21st Century Learning standards might hold that process back a little. He said changes to existing designs and the construction timetable should be worked out at a planning meeting this month.

Each school will cost more than $40 million and will have the capacity to accommodate about 10 percent more than current enrollment, said Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools facilities engineer Russ Barnhart. The elementary school will be built for 750 students and the middle/high school is being designed for 350.

Barnhart said the existing schools need to be replaced due to their age, with Russell Elementary already 58 years old and Ashurst Elementary and Quantico Middle/High both 49.

“All three schools have served beyond their useful life capacity,” he wrote in an email. “These schools have classrooms, multi-purpose spaces and other instructional spaces that are less than what the DoDEA Education Specifications require. Thus, it is more economical to replace them than to renovate or repair.”

The lower level of 20-year-old Burrows Elementary will house the superintendant’s offices, and the upper level will become one of three hubs for an online DoDEA “virtual school,” McKissick said, adding that Ashurst Elementary would be turned over to the base for whatever use command saw fit. Russell Elementary and the existing middle/high school are to be demolished.

As of now, the plan is to build the consolidated elementary school where the middle/high school parking lot and sports fields are now located and to place the new middle/high school, along with new sports fields, across Purvis Road where Russell Elementary School now sits.

Base commander Col. Dan Choike said the base was working to provide space for the middle/high school’s sports games, most likely at Butler Stadium, as the existing fields will be unavailable after construction of the new elementary school begins and the new fields will not be completed for three years.

“The base wants to make sure their sports are not adversely affected,” said Choike.

Otherwise, he said, the base was supporting the project by making the process as easy as possible.

“The installation did not want to impose any kind of land-use restrictions that could add any cost to the construction,” he said, adding that the base would also host public meetings to discuss plans for the schools and would continue to work closely with school officials.

Choike said the base had a vested interest in the schools’ success.

“The number one reason that people want to live on the base is because of the education benefits of the school system,” he said.

Choike noted that one drawback to the new arrangement would be that some families would lose the ability to walk their children to school. However, he said the state-of-the-art technology, modern classrooms and improved education that would be made possible through the money saved by consolidating facilities “are all things that really to me are of a greater benefit and higher need.”

Gould said schools built for 500 to 800 students are more cost-effective than small facilities.

While the existing elementary schools are located in neighborhoods, allowing many of their students to walk, the only students who will be able to go to the new elementary school on foot will likely be those who live in the Thompson Park neighborhood, Gould said. Even those who now attend Russell Elementary will probably have to ride a bus because the consolidated elementary school is planned to be on the other side of Purvis Road.

But Gould said the new arrangement would also provide some conveniences.

“The good news about this location is it puts us close to the current child development center, as well as the youth center,” he said. “And for families with multiple grade levels, it will consolidate the education programs in one area of the base.”

He said the consolidation of the schools would allow for greater collaboration, for example, between the lower-grade elementary teachers, who are now separated in two buildings, as well as between two new schools.

Quantico Middle/High School Principal Michael Hollier said he students often help the elementary schools with activities such as Back to School Night or the Burrows Elementary School Fair, and some work with elementary school teachers through the Career Practicum program.

“I think it will enhance the possibility of having more of these activities with the elementary school kids,” he said.

Ashurst music teacher Carl Ruck, who has taught on base for 31 years, said he thought collaboration between the newly united elementary school teachers would benefit students.

“As long as people can see the value of it, I don’t think it’s going to be a hard sell,” he said.

Lee envisioned classes taking similar field trips or having large-scale pajama days. Moreover, she said, it would be helpful to have twice as many kindergarten teachers to bounce ideas off of and talk to about what was or wasn’t working in the classroom.

“That kind of cross-conversation is so helpful to each of us for improving our instructional days,” Lee said.

School board member Christel Anderson said having all the grades on the same site would “better connect students, teachers, parents and administrators o see what might be lacking and what’s being done about it.”

“It’s going to be a great opportunity for families on Quantico,” Anderson said.

Ruck said he would also appreciate the more flexible classroom spaces.

“That tends to be very much the model of the future,” he said. “Research seems to show that more flexible use of space is to everyone’s advantage.”

In addition to providing flexibility, Gould said the new schools would also eliminate the need for temporary classrooms such as those currently situated behind the middle/high school.

“That will increase safety and security because everybody will be in the building,” he explained.

If there are no delays, the new elementary school is to open in the fall of 2013, with the demolition of Russell Elementary and construction of the new middle/high school to begin in the following months.

“I think the transition will work very well, in all honesty,” Lee said. “And change is good. It keeps us young.”