Prince William School Board to vote on 13th high school design — again

The Prince William County School Board will again vote on what model it will use for the 13th high school.

The $125 million school is slated to be built in the western portion of the county, to open in 2021, and relieve overcrowding at Battlefield, Patriot, and Stonewall Jackson High School. School officials haven’t’ said where the school will be built.

Unlike other schools built on land proffered by developers, there is no such proffered land this time around. A school site proffered by the developers of the now dead Stonehaven development off Linton Hall Road is no longer on the table. Last fall, school board officials ur 

Last year, Prince William County officials offered to use a 69-acre site slated for Rollins Ford Park off Vint Hill Road to be used instead as a school site. School officials have not said if this plan is still being discussed. Unlike last year, an urgency from school administration staff to select a floor plan to use to make sure the school would open on time is no longer there following the Stonehaven site being taken off the table and the school divsiion being allotted more time to acquire land for the new school, said said Coles District School Board member Willie Deutsch.

The school division needs 80 acres to build its high school. If it must buy more land at Rollins Ford or a new site altogether, there are fears the price tag could rise to $140 million, according to Occoquan District School Board member Lilly Jessie.

Colgan High School opening this fall cost $110 million, to include the cost of the county’s first aquatics facility located inside a school, and is the second-most expensive high school ever to be built in the state.

The Prince William County School Board last fall voted to save money use a 20-year-old floor plan modeled after Battlefield High School instead of a newer floor plan used at Patriot High School. However, following an election in November, a majority of new members now sit on the Board and will vote on whether or not to use a hybrid model mash-up of the Patriot and Battlefield models.

“Things are always examined after an election on any legislative body, so there is no shocker there are new votes for this on the Board,” said Deutsch, who brought the school floor plan discussion back to the School Board.

The hybrid model, called the PRICE (Patriot Redesign Increasing Capacity Effectively), is the brainchild of Bresntsville School Board member Gill Trenum who argued last fall for the design. The PRICE model will cost $9.5 million than the Battlefield model, but will have 500 more seats.

“These seats were talking about are the cheapest 500 seats we can build in this County,’ said Potomac District School Board member Justin Wilk.

The school division plans to renovate at Antietam, Springwoods, and Lake Ridge elementary schools in the Occoquan District for about $11 million each, netting a total of 312 new seats in each school. Planned renovations at Rippon Middle School and Belmont and Henderson elementary schools will cost between $7 and $ 9 million per school and net a total of 168, 240, and 240 new seats, respectively.

School officials argue for a larger 13th high school as the school is expected to be full to student capacity when it opens. If the 13th high school and 14th high school (slated to be built on east side of the county) both open with 2,000 seats, the school division will still be short some 2,000 high school seats by the year 2025, said Deutsch.

One change from the PRICE model dicussed last year by Trenum vs. the one under discussion today — the school auditorium. Under the new plan, the new school would be built with a larger audiutorum containing 1,200 seats as opposed to the 800 seats in last fall’s proposal.