The School Board will approve new high school attendance zones in December. The division is preparing to open a new high school and two new elementary schools in August of 2026.
The Stafford School Board will begin the process of a county-wide high school redistricting later this month.
Construction is underway on the county’s sixth high school, which is scheduled to open in August of 2026 off U.S. 17 in the Hartwood district, at the same time as two new elementary schools.
“Redistricting is necessary because we are opening three new schools and we need to fill those schools up and alleviate overcrowding,” said Lionel White, supervisor of planning and GIS, at Tuesday afternoon’s School Board work session.
Staff propose that the attendance lines for the new high school be completed first, so future students will have the opportunity to provide input into the name, mascot, and colors of the new school, White said.
The process will begin with a School Board work session on August 27, at which staff will present initial boundary scenarios. There will be three community engagement sessions scheduled in September and October and a public hearing in November.
The School Board will vote on new high school attendance zones on December 10, according to the timeline proposed this week.
The process of naming the new high school and both new elementary schools will start early next year and end in September of 2025.
According to the School Board’s naming policy, elementary and high schools will be named “for the street on which the school faces, the historical or current name of the district or community in which the school is located, or after a Stafford County resident of historical significance.”
White also proposed a timeline for a county-wide elementary redistricting to prepare for the opening of the two new elementaries. That process will start in the spring of 2025.
An outside contractor worked on the last elementary level redistricting in Stafford, which took place in 2019, but school division planning and GIS will be in charge of the upcoming process.
Also at Tuesday’s work session, the Board heard an update on capital improvement projects, including a cost update for elementary school 18, which will be located on the same campus as high school 6.
According to Jason Towery, executive director of facilities and maintenance, the low bid on the project was $44.1 million—$10 million less than was budgeted.
Towery said that based on professional estimates, the division had budgeted $451 per square foot, and comparison projects were costing as much as $460 per square foot.
“The actual bid was $337 per square foot, which blew us away,” he said.
Acting superintendent Chris R. Fulmer said he anticipates that savings from elementary school 18—and from elementary school 19, which goes out to bid later this month—can offset the cost of rebuilding Drew Middle School, which is the next major priority project after the three new schools.
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