Even though the final vote may still be more than a month away, parents of South County Secondary students now know what changes may be made to their school's boundary.
On Thursday, Dec. 21, Office of Facilities Planning chair Gary Chevalier announced his recommendation for changes to the boundary at South County Secondary: Move a total of 530 students, over the next five years, from Lorton Station and Lorton Valley out of South County to Hayfield Secondary.
"What we found in Option 3 was the Hayfield folks were willing to take students back, but they were concerned we'd put too many in," Chevalier said. "We didn't want to transfer the overcrowding problem from South County over to Hayfield, so we found a compromise."
Chevalier said only about 100 students from Mason Neck attend South County. Under the current recommendation, 247 students in seventh, eighth and ninth grade would be moved to Hayfield starting in September.
South County has a capacity of 2,500 students but has a current enrollment of over 3,000, just a year and a half after it opened in September 2005. Most of the students who currently attend South County were originally inside the Hayfield boundary, and their removal left Hayfield drastically under capacity.
Under this recommendation, South County would be utilizing 120 percent of its capacity by 2011, while Hayfield would increase to 92.6 percent capacity, said School Board member Brad Center (Lee).
Dean Tistadt, assistant superintendent for general services with Fairfax County Public Schools, said this compromise is the result of feedback from parents at the two town meetings in October and November.
"I have mixed feelings," Tistadt said of the recommendation. "The Lorton Valley group are the logical ones to stay at South County, but there's so many more students there than in Mason Neck that it wouldn't provide the relief we need."
A SECOND ASPECT of the recommendation is a two-year window of opportunity for local elected officials and parents to find a way to finance a middle school outside the school system's Capital Improvement Program (CIP), which currently lists the school as eligible for funding in 2014.
One concern with this recommendation is that it does not include moving any students to Lake Braddock Secondary, which is currently in the final stages of a major renovation project.
If the possibility of moving students to Lake Braddock were in place, the overcrowding at South County could be reduced even faster, Center said. Parents from Lake Braddock had asked the School Board to consider delaying moving students to their school until after ongoing renovations are completed to have a better idea how much extra space would be available.
"What's the harm in making a decision now about [moving students to] Lake Braddock so we don't have to go through another boundary study in two years?" Center asked. "Unless we find a way to get the middle school built, that's what we'll be looking at. The [enrollment] projections won't be off on the low end in terms of the space we need for students."
Center said he hasn't ruled out the possibility of re-examining relocating students to Lake Braddock for this current study, but said he was "close to comfortable" with the recommendation.
School Board member Dan Storck (Mount Vernon) said he was concerned about the possible impact of this recommendation on families with elementary school-aged children, who cannot be certain where they'll attend middle or high school.
"I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do," Storck said.
In the current recommendation, students from the Mason Neck area would continue to attend South County, despite driving past both Lorton Station and Lorton Valley en route to the school. Storck said the decision to keep Mason Neck at South County was based purely on the number of students in question.
"I need to take more time to look at the recommendation before we vote on it," he said. "I haven't decided how I feel. I need to get out into the community and see how they feel. I need to sit down with Gary (Chevalier) and talk about the details. In his presentation he explained his rationale, but I'm not sure yet."
Storck said he does appreciate the two-year window of time, which also allows for more concrete information about the impact of the 22,000 Army employees that will be relocated to the Engineer Proving Ground and Fort Belvoir as a result of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) reassignments.
"I'm not interested in making a decision now that, in two years, will have another impact on families," Storck said. "Let's make sure these decisions will last."