Officials from Fairfax County Public Schools met with community members Tuesday, Oct. 11, in the first of three town meetings on boundaries for a new elementary school that would relieve Centreville area schools.
The school, which will be located in the Fair Chase subdivision just north of Route 29 near the Government Center, has no name yet, said John Bertocchi of the FCPS Office of Facilities Planning Services. The site will be called "West Fairfax Elementary" until a PTA is formed to vote on a new name.
At the meeting, school officials reviewed background data and the process to be used for the boundary study, said Bertocchi. They discussed school board policy and regulations as they related to boundary changes, such as school feeder alignment, contiguous school attendance, walking distance, and geographic features. None of these considerations are more important than the others, said Bertocchi, and are all considered on a case-by-case basis.
The study will affect students of Brookfield, Colin Powell, Fairfax Villa, Greenbriar East, Greenbriar West, Poplar Tree, and Willow Springs elementary schools.
Officials also reviewed demographic information, such as the number of students in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs and the number of students who receive fee-reduced lunches, said Bertocchi.
"People are obviously concerned about reducing overcrowding in schools that are overcrowded to begin with," said Bertocchi. Other community concerns included the future growth expected in the area of the new school, as well as middle school and high school feeders. The majority of the students would go from the new school to Sidney Lanier Middle School and Fairfax High School, he said.
West Fairfax Elementary School will have 36 classrooms and will be designed much like Colin Powell Elementary School. It opens for kindergarten through fifth grades in 2006, and for sixth grades in 2007, said Bertocchi.