Bucknell Elementary boundary study funded in new CIP

An aerial view of Bucknell Elementary School taken in November. (Keller Brothers Construction)

A boundary study for Bucknell Elementary School was among the items funded in the FY 2018-22 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) passed by the Fairfax County Public School Board last week.

Bucknell, which is currently undergoing a major renovation, is one of the smallest schools in the county. It will see its capacity jump from 382 to 600 when the work is completed in 2018, according to Karen Corbett Sanders, the Mount Vernon District representative to the school board. The study funded by the CIP will begin in fall 2017 and the new boundaries will be put in place for the 2018-2019 school year, Sanders said. 

The new boundaries will help ease crowding at a number of nearby elementary schools. Eventually a new elementary school will be also constructed in the Richmond Highway area that will also handle projected growth in the area.

“There’s so much growth expected as a result of Embark Richmond Highway, BRAC, and the growth in South County,” Corbett Sanders said. “This whole area is evolving quite rapidly.”

The new elementary school, funded by a bond approved by voters in 2015, is slated to be built on land in the Pinewood Lake neighborhood on the west side of Route 1, not far from the South County Government building. The school is still in the planning stages and does not have a firm projected opening date yet. 

For the next five years, most elementary schools in the Richmond Highway area are estimated to be below capacity. Waynewood, Hybla Valley and Hayfield are the only three projected to be over 100 percent of their capacity utilization during that time, and it is possible that increased capacity at other renovated schools and boundary changes will alleviate those situations.. Renovations to Hollin Meadows, Stratford Landing, Waynewood and Bucknell are all scheduled to be completed within the next three years. 

Capacity estimates included in the FY 2018-22 CIP. Click to enlarge.

Two Route 1-area middle schools, Mark Twain and Carl Sandberg, are project to be over capacity in the next five years. 

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West Potomac, currently at 119 percent capacity, is projected to be the most over-capacity high school in the county over the next five years. Currently designed to accommodate 2,231 students, West Potomac is already more than 300 students over that capacity this year.

Crowding issues at West Potomac will need to be alleviated “through [a] permanent addition or usage of an additional FCPS facility to accommodate membership,” according to the CIP.

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The full FY 2018-22 CIP can be viewed here.