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Here's to a job well done, coming soon .... Woodgrove High
It took way too long, but sanity appears to have prevailed and Woodgrove High School is going to open its doors in 2010.
There's a fair amount of blame to distribute for the long delay, for freshmen relegated to middle school, for trailer classrooms and overcrowded halls and gyms and classrooms. But we'll stick to the kudos.
To Board of Supervisors Chairman Scott York for keeping the talks between the sometimes warring parties going. Outside closed doors, at least, he injected a note of civility into the proceedings.
To Purcellville Mayor Bob Lazaro, who worked with his council to accept the school ?which some, for legitimate reasons, did not want in their town ?without sacrificing the town's control over development around its borders.
To Purcellville Councilman Tom Priscilla, who kept the talks going and kept them focused on issues, not egos.
To the parents of western Loudoun, who kept the pressure on and reminded everyone that the real issue is their children.
Now it's up to the school system's construction crew, which has proven time and again that it can pull rabbits out of hats and get schools built and open in a ridiculously short amount of time.
Now would be a good time for the schools' administrators and the School Board to do a little attitude adjustment while they look for places to build the next schools on the construction budget.
Time and again, over the last five years, sites other than the Purcellville one, which got everyone mired in two years of expensive litigation, were put forward -- at least four in Round Hill, two in Lovettsville. The answer from education central in Broadlands was always, "It's not perfect."
We don't live in a perfect world. The years ahead will bring more students and less land available to put them on.
Let's try, "It's not perfect, but here's how we can make it work."
Job well done??? In the private sector heads would roll for this debacle.
The County which had the power and control to change course at any time finally did so by agreeing to follow a process (annexation) that they previously agreed to and promised to follow in an agreement (PUGAMP) they signed in 1995 for the towns commitment not to stick-it to the county as the county has royally stuck-it to them. Just brilliant!
The big lie for Round Hill and Lovettsville sites not being “perfect” is they were too far away from the feeder school Harmony Intermediate in Hamilton; period! One site never considered that met the LCPS criteria; “County owned, along the Route 7 corridor with access to central utilities” was Franklin Park. So much for due diligence.
This school scheduled to open in 2006, then 2008, and now 2010 have some significant hurdles to overcome; at the top of the list is the Upper Loudoun Football League (ULYFL) annexation that has to be finished first so the remainder of the property will be contiguous to the town required by PUGAMP. It has been more than 5 years since ULYFL started this project at Fields Farm which the County put on the “fast track” should give you pause as to the likelihood that Woodgrove HS will open in 2010!
Posted by BillDruhan
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