New elementary school would come at cost of park, trails

Amber is doing better after cancer surgery.

The brown and white 8-year-old boxer-lab-mix had two cysts removed from her stomach late last year. Her owner, Stephanie Dobranski, brings Amber to their favorite place: Chinn Park.

The park is a series of trails behind Chinn Regional Library, and Chinn Aquatics and Fitness Center, just off Prince William Parkway. The trails are nestled in the woods between the library, housing developments, and three popular soccer fields. The trails are used by foxes, deer, squirrels, dogs, and their humans.

“I really think this park has helped Amber in her recovery,” said Dobranski. “She’s doing great.”

Streams run through the park, and so do teens and adults looking to get to the library, to the gym, or to the next neighborhood over. The closer you get to the library, the terrain becomes steeper.

Pink and orange plastic tape hangs along the streams marking their meandering paths. The colors signal potential change in this calm suburban escape.

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Prince William County wants to build a new elementary school here. The new school, dubbed “Prince William Parkway Elementary,” is slated to open in 2018. Schools in eastern Prince William are increasingly crowded, and plots of required 20-acres of land to build them on are becoming ever scarce.

Rob Carswell is head of the Sycamore Ridge Home Owners Association. It’s a neighborhood of 44 homes built next to the park in the early 1990s, It’s developer donated some of the land on which Chinn Park sits to the county as part of a proffer, he said.

The Prince William County Government  owns the land on which the school would be built. Ownership of the land would have to change hands between the county government and the school division for the school to be built on the land.

“It’s a slam dunk for them,” said Carswell, who uses the trails daily. “They don’t have to pay for the land, so I’m sure that’s why they want to build the school here.”

If he had his way, the Prince William Parkway school would be built further east on the Parkway, next to Gar-Field Senior High School. It’s a better, central location, he added.

Other Prince William County elementary schools have been built next to high schools, to include Old Bridge Elementary School outside Woodbridge Senior High School, and Mary Williams Elementary School in Woodbridge. 

Prince William County Neabsco District Supervisor John Jenkins said he’s worked for over a year to find the proposed site, and that he’s heard from parents who don’t want their children attending a school “co-located” with a high school.

Jenkins says the site at Chinn Park is “very cost effective” and would come to little cost to taxpayers. 

“When we found this piece of government-owned property that could be made available to the school division, and it met all of the requirements for the size of an elementary school, the citizens seem relieved about that,” said Jenkins.

The new elementary school is one of three slated to open in Prince William County in 2018. It is the only one of the three that doesn’t have a secured site, which could cost the division up to $4 million. The two other schools opening in 2018 — one at Potomac Shores in Woodbridge will be built on land proffered for a school site, and a new PACE East replacement school will be built on school division-owned land at Independent Hill. 

As the county continues to grow, its school division is in need of up to $70 million for new sites to build elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as a new transportation center in the western portion of the county. The School Board was supposed to hold a work session to discuss these needs on Wednesday, but the hearing was postponed until Jan. 13, 2015.

A public meeting to discuss the new school last night at Gar-Field Senior High School.

If the school is built on Chinn Park, there is little hope that the trail could be relocated. The path of the trail would abut the rear of the new building, and the remainder of the terrain would be too steep to support a trail.

“We’ve been told there’s no money to move the trail. So, we’re just out,” said Carswell.

Also out would be Stephanie Dobranski and her dog Amber. Dobranski’s son is graduating high school this year, and she warns she’ll sell house if they take away her park.

“I’ll turn my house into section-eight housing and let a tribe move in if they take my park away,” said Dobransi, whose lived in the nearby Hillendale neighborhood for 12 years.