Here are the Prince William middle and high school buildings that need renewal now

People are talking about the disparity between the old and new school buildings.

In eastern Prince William County and near Manassas, the county school division has aging middle and high schools that opened more than 40 years ago. In the county’s western subdivisions, the schools are newer.

“Everybody notices the differences between the older ones and the newer ones,” said Brentsville School Board member Gil Trenum. “Our parents, and definitely our staff notices the difference.”

For the past two years, the School Board has been talking about the differences between school facilities across the county. It charged an infrastructure task force with reviewing operating conditions at these facilities, and with making recommendations on how to bring the older schools up to par with their newer counterparts.

“The most common thing we’re seeing in all of the older schools is that its to serve more students than it was designed to handle,” said Don Richardson, task force chairman. “Reducing school overcrowding overall will save many of those”

On December 12, Richardson presented the task force’s final report to the Prince William County School Board. His committee identified “Tier 1” middle and high schools that are in need of renovation. Richardson urged the School Board to prioritize renovations of these school buildings in the division’s Capital Improvement Plan.

High schools

1. Brentsville
2. Gar-Field Senior
3. Stonewall Jackson Senior
4. Woodbridge Senior
5. Osbourn Park
6. Potomac Senior (recently renovated)

Middle schools

1. Graham Park
2. Parkside
3. Fred Lynn
4. Stonewall
5. Woodbridge
6. Rippon
7. Pennington
8. Hampton

The task force interviewed administrators at the preceding schools and learned the buildings had common “systems” issues, ad Richardson called them. There are common problems with similar systems to include:

• Heating and air conditioning
• Plumbing
• Intercom systems

“There have been a lot of schools that have had staff come out with work orders to fix things, many of the same things that aren’t working right,” said Richardson. “Schools so old, the electrical infrastructure is not designed to handle modern electrical technology in today’s classrooms.”

The task force urged the School Board to place the following high schools at the top of it renovation list at an estimated cost of $25 to $37 million each:

• Woodbridge (opened 1974 and last renovated 2004)
• Stonewall Jackson (opened 1975 and last renovated 2005)
• Osbourn Park (opened 1975 and last renovated 2006)

Right now, Brentsville (opened 1965 and last renovated 200) and Forest Park near Dumfries (opened 2000) and Woodbridge sit at the top of the list.

As for middle schools the task force says should be at the top:

• Graham Park and Fred Lynn middle schools (opened 1964 and last renovated 2001)
• Woodbridge Middle (opened in 1964 and last renovated 2003)

That would bump down the priority list Saunders (1988) and Beville middle (1991) schools in Dale City, and Lake Ridge Middle School (1989).

The school division has renovated 14 schools in the last five years. There’s $605 million in the budget to renovate schools over the next 10 years,

“Even if you had the money there would be too many projects for staff to manage effectively to do all at once,” Richardson told the School Board.

The School Board will need to decide if it can implement the task force’s recommendations into the capital improvement plan. A year ago, the task force issued a report on the disparity between the county’s elementary schools.