The Stafford County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved a conditional use permit for a drive-through built into a new Dairy Queen restaurant.
The restaurant, known for ice cream-based desserts like the Blizzard, will be near a Waffle House at Celebrate Virginia, off of Route 17 in the Hartwood district in south Stafford.
The single-story, 2,375 square foot restaurant will sit on nearly two acres. The site would also include a separate 1,400 square foot quick-service restaurant attached to the Dairy Queen.
The new Dairy Queen will also share a vehicle access road with the nearby Waffle House. Vehicles will access either restaurant via an existing access drive between Route 17 and Civilian Street. There would be no direct access for cars from Route 17.
A county traffic study of the area showed there would be minimal traffic issues due to the development of the new Dairy Queen. The only negative result to traffic found in the study was an additional one-second delay of traffic at a stoplight leading into the access road.
Before Supervisors heard the case, the permit county Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the conditional use permit at its meeting on January 12. A permit is required for a restaurant to have a drive-through window.
This will be the fourth Dairy Queen to open in the Stafford County/ Fredericksburg area; the three existing restaurants are located at the Spotsylvania Towne Center in Fredericksburg as well as 207 Kings Highway and 10907 Courthouse Road in Stafford County.
Once located at Aquia Town Center in North Stafford, a Dairy Queen restaurant closed.
The Stafford County Board of Supervisors voted to rezone 46 acres from suburban residential to residential mixed-use to develop a new neighborhood called Mainline.
The Norfolk-based S.L. Nusbaum Realty Company sought the rezoning and will build 260 apartments in 11 three-story buildings, 114 townhomes, and 4,776 square feet of commercial space.
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A pair of local filmmakers are preparing to shoot an independent horror movie in the Fredericksburg area.
669 Productions and JB Concepts are currently pre-production for their first full-length film, a horror movie entitled "Poison Tree." Filmmakers Aaron Crocker and Justin Bridges plan to use backdrops in Fredericksburg and Stafford County for their psychological horror film.
The pair plan to film at the newly rebuilt Chatham Bridge over Rappahannock River, linking Fredericksburg and Stafford, and George Washington's boyhood home, Ferry Farm.
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Woodbridge-based Hot Chikn Kitchn plans to open a new location in Stafford by the end of March.
The restaurant, which offers fresh, Nashville-style cooked chicken, is in the midst of its final inspection that would make way for its official opening sometime in late March or early April.
The new 2400 square foot location at 50 North Stafford Center Complex, next to a Walmart Neighborhood Market, will offer the same chicken and sauces offered at its Woodbridge location, across from Potomac Mills mall.
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Religious and political leaders from across the region reacted today to war in Ukraine.
Over the weekend, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin called the Virginia Retirement System Board of Trustees and university endowment funds to divest any Russian currency and all securities of Russian companies.
Youngkin also ordered a review of all government contracts with Russian companies and called on Norfolk and Roanoke to end sister city partnerships with Russian cities.
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Occoquan will hold a public meeting on tonight, Tuesday, March 1 to discuss how the town will use money received through the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF).
The meeting will replace a Town Council meeting that had originally scheduled for tonight.
During the meeting, residents will learn how the town aims to spend more than $900,000 in SLFRF funds the town is to receive. The presentation will be followed by questions and feedback from the public regarding the use of the funding.
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Class passing rates dropped from 86.3 percent to 84.8 percent in county middle schools in the second quarter. The number of middle school students that are failing two or more subjects increased from 5.2 percent in the first quarter to 6.5 percent in the second quarter.
According to Dr. Jennifer Cassata, a director and researcher of Accountability and Strategic planning for the county schools, the overall proportion of students failing two or more classes is similar to the rate during the 2019-2020 school year, which was 5.2 percent. However, the rate is significantly lower than the 2020-2021 school year, which was 17.9 percent.
Passing rates for county high school students also saw a drop from 69.9 percent in the first quarter to 65.7 percent in the second quarter. The number of high school students failing two or more subjects increased from 16.8 percent in the first quarter to 20.3 percent in the second quarter.
As for middle school numbers, the failure rates were higher than seen in the 2019-2020 school year, 15.1 percent. However, the failure rate was also lower than the 2020-2021 school year, 26.3 percent.
Despite the drop, the data showed that most students across the different school levels were still passing their lessons.
However, middle and high schools saw their highest failure rates among English Language learners, students with disabilities, and Hispanic students. While those groups have lower failure rates than they did in the 2020-2021 school year, they are still higher than the division average for the school system.
Occoquan Representative Lillie Jessie expressed concern for the number of failure rates for those student cohorts and asked when they would get to see some of the root causes of the rates.
“When I look at the numbers, I wonder, why? And when we’re going to get some information on this,” said Jessie.
The Prince William County School Board received a presentation dealing with updated data that would compare student progress between the first and second quarters of the 2021-2022 school year. Reading levels are up for elementary school students in Prince William County, but there’s a long way to go to bring students back up to speed.
The county has been highly concerned with remedying student learning loss throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
While some numbers showed some marked improvement in some areas, other data points show that the road back will be a long and arduous one.
“Our data continues to show that we must remain steadfast in our work and remain deliberative in our approach to deal with learning gaps,” said Schools Superintendent Dr. LaTanya McDade.
According to Cassata’s data, 68 percent of elementary school students (grades 1-5) in the county were reading at or above their grade level in the second quarter. This is a five percent improvement from the school year’s first quarter.
The most significant improvement came from the fifth-grade class, where 75 percent were reading at their grade level or higher.
Another takeaway from the data is that virtual students scored higher in their subjects than in-person students. However, there is a vast difference in the number of virtual students versus in-person students. Over 200 elementary students are on virtual learning in the county, while over 19,000 students returned to he classroom.
Overall, McDade added that the data was but one aspect of the bigger picture and didn’t tell the whole story. The superintendent said that she planned to stay the course on the a strategic plan that had been developed to address unfinished learning.
Coles District Representative Lisa Zargarpur suggested the failures could be attributed to the “second-quarter lull.” According to Zargapur, learning rates drop slightly from the first to the second quarter due to the holiday season. A January snowstorm also kept students out of class for a week.
“When it feels like you’re struggling like you’re underwater, I don’t want any of our students to think, that’s it, you’re done. That’s the end of your career. Because we have all these people who want to support and I just wanted to make sure our students hear that as well,” said Zargapur.
McDade said that the data was being dispersed to the schools to help them plan and strategize their next steps in tackling the learning loss issues. School Board Chairman, At-large Babur Lateef, stated that getting students back on track was his and the board’s number one priority.
Only 54 percent of Prince William County students passed the state’s Standards of Learning math test in 2021, down from 83 percent in 2019. The SOLs took a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic when students were forced to learn virtually from home.
Only 57 percent passed the science test, down from 81 percent in 2019. Seventy-two percent of children passed the English-reading test, down from 79 percent in 2019.
The city fire department identified concrete medians in the middle of Golf and Rosebud courts as being impediments. The department first brought this to the Governing Body’s attention on September 7, 2021.
According to the department, the issue was compounded due to residents parking within the cul-de-sacs narrowing the roadway restricting impending fire and rescue department vehicle access. Many fire trucks got stuck due to parked cars and the islands.
The city decided to investigate the issue and found that the islands didn’t meet fire code standards in their construction, according to the City Fire Marshall. The report explicitly states that the islands’ dimensions and dead ends do not adhere to those safety standards.
Surveys conducted by the city sought the opinion of residents surrounding the cul-de-sacs regarding the removal of the islands. The residents that responded to the study had expressed a desire to keep the islands by a slim majority.
Ultimately the decision made by the governing body to remove the islands came down to a combination of public safety concerns and the costs of the islands’ upkeep. The annual fee for the maintenance for both islands would cost Manassas City $2,883.84 just this year, according to Wewerka Construction Company, Inc.,
The city’s cost analysis report shows that it would cost a total of $17,907 to remove the islands, including material, labor, equipment, and contingencies. Manassas Park estimates that the island’s removal would save money, in the long run, starting in Fiscal Year 2028.
According to City Manager Laszlo Palko, the process of removing the islands is expected to begin sometime in the next two months.
The Stafford County Board of Zoning Appeals has denied Lupine Grove's application to run a commercial kennel from their home located in the Rock Hill District.
It's the second denial for the Stafford County couple vying to operate the kennel in as many years.
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