Last week, the Prince William County School Board adopted the design and funding package for the upcoming 13th high school in the county.
The new high school will be designed as a modified version of Colgan High School and Patriot High School, and this will be able to accommodate 500 more students, stated a release.
The decision came as a result of a 5-3 vote from the school board to move forward on the larger school design, in exchange for “written assurance from five members of the Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) that they will vote for the county to provide additional funding to cover much of the increased cost of the larger PRICE design of the school,” according to a release.
The letter pledges that the Prince William County Board of Supervisors would provide $10.6 million in additional funding to be used toward construction and renovation projects “to relieve school overcrowding on the east side of the county,” stated a release.
Construction of the 13th high school has already been delayed several times, and the newest projected opening date is 2021.
The new high school is expected to be able to hold 2,557 students.
More on the project, from a release:
More details of the deal may emerge when School Board and BOCS members meet January 10. Questions emerged during the School Board Debate concerning the true value of promised BOCS funding. The deal directly provides $10.6 million for eastern county projects. Additional funds will be paid out over time to cover debt service—similar to a mortgage payment—for the added costs of building the PRICE model instead of the previously selected Battlefield design.
Some School Board members also hope to get assurances that BOCS money pledged in the deal will not come out of the hundreds of millions PWCS receives through the county revenue sharing agreement that funds about half of the School Division’s annual budget.
The most immediate impact of the vote will be to shift construction planning toward the PRICE model of the new school that was first proposed in 2015. School Facilities staff worked with architects, blending the openness of Patriot and Colgan High schools with additional classroom space, while simplifying the architecture. Its name stands for Patriot Redesign Increasing Capacity Effectively, because the resulting cost-per-student is less that of duplicating Patriot or using the Battlefield design.
The School Board’s special meeting was convened at the request of Gainesville representative Alyson Satterwhite and acting Brentsville member Shawn Brann. Most of the Special Meeting was televised live and is available On Demand at pwcstv.com. Recording and broadcast of the of session began only after it was evident that a sufficient number of Board Members were present to constitute a quorum.
