Debate over Elementary School No. 19’s location highlights the difficulties the two governing bodies face in the year ahead.
by Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Stafford Board of Supervisors Chair Meg Bohmke had a question for the School Board at a joint meeting of the two bodies to discuss capital projects on January 4.
“I’ve got to explain (to constituents) why we’re building an elementary school next to Brooke Point High School, where we are tearing up assets that the county already owns … when we have a site that is already ready to go,” Bohmke said. “I can’t stand there and tell them how (the Brooke Point) site is justified. I’ve never seen a division tear up assets we already own when we have a site in a specific location where the growth is—in the Embrey Mill area. I need somebody to explain that to me.”
Bohmke was asking specifically for the reasoning behind the School Board’s vote last year against locating elementary school #19 on a proffered school site in the Embrey Mill subdivision. The School Board voted against this site twice last year—once in April and once in May—and both times the vote was 4-to-3.
Board Chair Susan Randall, Vice Chair Patricia Healy and board members Alyssa Halstead and Maureen Siegmund—who represents the Garrisonville District where Embrey Mill is located—voted both times against selecting the parcel after closed session discussions.
The purpose of Thursday’s joint meeting was for the School Board to discuss its approved capital improvement priority list and in particular, present arguments supporting its top three priorities—rebuilds of Drew Middle School, Hartwood Elementary School and the Rising Star Early Childhood Education Center.
The School Board would like all three of these rebuilds completed and reopen by August of 2028. The County’s approved ten-year capital improvement plan has Hartwood reopening in August of 2028, Drew in 2030 and Rising Star in 2032.
The school division estimates the cost of the Hartwood replacement, using a prototype design that is being prepared now for elementary schools #18 and #19, at $76.7 million. The Drew replacement is estimated at $96.5 million and the Rising Star replacement at $67.3 million.
The building that houses Rising Star is the oldest in the school division, completed in the 1930s. Drew Middle School is more than 60 years old, and the aging infrastructure of both buildings makes them potentially dangerous for students and staff, School Board members said.
“Unfortunately, I think we will be lucky if Drew makes it to 2028,” Falmouth representative Sarah Chase said. In just the last year, a sewer pipe broke, a compressor failed, and the intercom system failed. The cost of replacing the school’s aging HVAC system is estimated at $20 million.
Problems at Rising Star—which houses the early childhood education programs Head Start and Virginia Preschool Initiative—include an entryway that floods every time it rains and pipes that need to be flushed every 30 days to prevent lead accumulation.
Hartwood Elementary is not connected to the county’s water and sewer system, but instead is on a well and septic system, and has experienced multiple disruptions to its water service in the past several years.
But in addition to maintenance issues, the school division is also dealing with exponential growth and overcrowding. Last month the board approved purchasing 34 more “modular classrooms” for a total of 48 deployed across the division. Enrollment this year is over 31,000 students and is expected to swell to almost 36,000 by the 2031-32 school year.
The School Board last year decided to tackle the capacity issues first by moving the Drew and Hartwood replacements down its priority list and asking for elementary schools #18 and #19 to instead open together in August 2026. Supervisors approved this proposal, partially based on their understanding that there would be a cost savings associated with building two elementary schools at the same time.
School division staff continue to identify a cost savings of $5.6 million from the two projects sharing a prototype design and estimate a 5% reduction in cost by bidding and constructing both together. However, the cost of both projects has increased due to inflation and the fact that the prototype is bigger than first proposed, with a design capacity for 1,070 students instead of 950.
Elementary school #18, which will be co-located with high school #6 at Truslow Road and U.S. 17 in the Hartwood District, has an estimated opening cost of about $81.4 million. Elementary school #19, which the School Board finally agreed to locate at Brooke Point High School, has an estimated opening cost of $78.8 million.
Construction of elementary school #19 at Brooke Point will necessitate the temporary closure of parking lots, tennis courts and athletic fields.
This fact, plus the rising costs of the new elementary schools, the divided votes on the location of elementary school #19 and the crisis situation at Drew Middle caused supervisors significant consternation on Thursday.
In response to Bohmke’s question about why the School Board voted against the Embrey Mill site, Siegmund said it would have resulted in too many elementary students being bused in from outside the Garrisonville District.
“When you put an elementary school in Embrey Mill, that will force longer bus routes,” she said.
Siegmund said existing elementary schools in the district, such as Anthony Burns and Hampton Oaks, are already filled with students coming from the Aquia and Falmouth Districts.
But supervisors still questioned why the vote against the Embrey Mill site was not unanimous.
“In full transparency, I don’t think there’s unanimous support for (elementary school #19) being at Brooke Point,” said Tinesha Allen, Vice Chair of the Board of Supervisors. “I specifically have reservations about Brook Point. If you’re saying that the busing schedule and bus routes are affected, then I’d like to see data on … bus times and gas cost so I can compare to the cost savings. Math needs to match for me to support elementary school #19 at Brooke Point.”
Supervisor Monica Gary said she would be calling each School Board member to find out why the vote against the Embrey Mill site was divided.
Bohmke and supervisors Darrell English and Deuntay Diggs said they were dismayed to learn about the situation at Drew Middle, and Bohmke said the boards should think about “putting elementary school #19 on hold” and re-prioritizing the Drew rebuild.
“It’s our responsibility to make sure students are in a safe environment,” she said.
Randall said delaying elementary school #19 would be “a huge problem because of the number of trailers we have.”
Supervisors already voted “to say yes to elementary schools #18 and #19 and we are going forward, we paid for plans and are doing site work, and to then pull that back and roll out something different means there’s lost cost,” Randall said.
Supervisor Crystal Vanuch said there may be new sources of revenue to tap to support school construction. She said the recently approved data center agreement with Amazon will be lucrative for the county and also that the board is supportive of new legislation that would permit localities to charge an additional sales tax to support school construction.
Thursday’s meeting ended with no action but promises of continued dialogue.
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