Out of the auditorium and into the boardroom moved the boundary process for the new South County High School in Lorton.
With Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) staff having signed off on the plan and set it before the School Board, the panel’s 14 members got more than an earful from concerned citizens representing a myriad of emotions, ranging from jubilation to outrage.
“Hurray! A community school for our children. I urge you to approve the plan before you,” said Chris Kormis, president of the Newington Forest Elementary Parent-Teacher Association Tuesday night, at the first of two public hearings to take place at Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church. That meeting lasted more than five hours and featured the statements of nearly 120 scheduled speakers, including eight students from Hayfield Secondary, Lee High, Newington Forest Elementary, Keene Mill Elementary and Lorton Station Elementary schools. An additional 120 people spoke at the second meeting on Wednesday.
The public hearings led up to the Jan. 27 vote by the School Board on FCPS staff’s boundary recommendations for the new secondary school, located on Silverbrook Road in Lorton. The school, which will open in September for Grades 7-10, and possibly Grade 11, will draw students from the entire attendance areas of Silverbrook, Newington Forest, and Halley elementary schools, as well as a portion of Lorton Station Elementary, under the plan presented by the Office of Facilities Planning Services to the School Board in mid-December.
MANY PARENTS from Newington Forest Elementary were involved in the Hayfield Pyramid Solutions Group, which approached the school system with the possibility of utilizing a public/private partnership to finance the school’s construction, in the absence of available funds in the Capital Improvement Program (CIP). That partnership, which materialized in 2003, resulted in the construction of the 2,500-seat school, which will be in the Mount Vernon magisterial district and in the school system’s Cluster V.
More than half of those who spoke on Tuesday offered their wholehearted endorsement of the plan. The remainder of the participants in the public hearings, however, voiced opposition to the current boundary proposal. Several residents of Mason Neck, who had expressed concern prior to the final town meeting in November, again expressed their desire that their students be included in the boundary plan.
“The boundary process has pitted the residents of Lorton against one another,” said Diana McIntyre, a resident of Mason Neck. Others to speak included Carol Corso, Gunston Elementary PTA president, and Mason Neck Citizens Association president Marilyn Hildebeidel and vice president Gary Knipling. Essentially, the Mason Neck argument for inclusion stems from the long commute faced by students who currently travel from the historic portion of Lorton, one of the southernmost locales in Fairfax County, and the small number of students in Mason Neck who would be able to attend, nearly 70 according to Karen Snow, another Mason Neck resident who spoke.
Parents of children in Hunt Valley Elementary also expressed displeasure at the county plan, saying their current situation — feeding both Lee and West Springfield high schools — has divided their community.
“We’ve been fighting for 20 years to get back to a community school, and we thought that would finally happen,” said Kim Basse.
Under the proposed plan, the portion of students at Hunt Valley currently feeding Lee High would feed Lake Braddock Secondary.
Although most parents from included schools expressed relief that they would be included in the new school’s boundary plan, others, like parent Paul Halvorson, offered a word of caution regarding overcrowding.
“We believe the county’s plan does not adequately reflect the development in the area around the new school,” said Halvorson.
What that means in terms of Board action remains to be seen. Many of those expressing concern about overcrowding suggested removing Lorton Station Elementary from the equation and limiting the included schools to just three, in anticipation of growth in the Laurel Hill area.