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What you can do help the school board make the right decision

The Loudoun County School Board is planning to triple the size of the Waterford Elementary School (WES) from 265 students to 875. This means that the proposed school will use twice as much water as the entire village and will generate hundreds of additional cars on our country roads, not to mention the affect on the quality of education for our students.

The School Board will be making its decision by January 10 whether to go ahead with it's plan.
The Waterford PTO is asking the school board to conduct a community-based planning process that will look at all the issues facing the village: the site limitations, traffic, water and the historic district/Landmark before making any recommendations to its Capitol Improvement Program (or CIP). The WCA and the Waterford Foundation intend to sit on the planning committee if successful. If you support removing this item from the CIP and asking the School Board to conduct a community-based planning process, please contact the School Board members before November 29 and then attend the November 29 pubic hearing.

To take action, read on:

At the November 8th School Board meeting, the new Capitol Improvement Program (or CIP) was introduced. This is the roadmap of all school renovation and construction projects for fiscal years 2007-2012. On year two of that plan is the plan to raze WES and replace it with a new 875-student capacity school. Here are the facts: 875 students, 10.6 acres (our current acreage), two-story building, yet to be designed. The design will be used for all other new two story schools in Loudoun.

The Waterford Parent Teachers Organization (PTO), the WCA, and the Waterford Foundation are asking for two distinct actions: (1) the removal of this item from the CIP and (2) the creation of a community-based planning process that will ensure the concerns of all Waterford citizens will be considered. That's it. We're not saying that the school should stay as is. We are not saying that bigger is better. We're simply asking that the LCPS staff work with the community on a solution that supports the community in which this school resides. The project, once better defined, can be added to the CIP next year. We'll not loose any time and it will allow us a little breathing room for fact-finding with the staff, the parents and the community.

Ways to influence the Board
As hard as it will be, this is not the forum to address issues of growth unless you are speaking to the Board of Supervisors. As you know, the school board does not set growth policy but is charged with accommodating the growth. We really need to focus on what will happen to the school. And please, do not begin discussing boundary scenarios. It will only weaken our case. Remember that there is not going to be any boundary discussion until the 2006 school year. We can prepare for that topic when the time comes.

Email Board members (See list below) 
Mr. Reed, Vice Chairman of the School Board, said: Emails are effective with one caveat, do not send duplicate copies of the same email. In other words, don't just take what has been written and send it in or forward what your neighbor has sent. Out of the list of topics, find one that speaks to your concerns and put it in your own words. We believe these are our strongest areas of concern, and think Mr. Reed gave us sage advice; however, we'd like to add one additional comment. We have a truly unique situation in Waterford and will be the most effective if we focus on items that are not subjective. Traffic and water issues are not subjective. The fact that we want don't want WES to change because our parents met there in third grade is subjective. Again, focus on what cannot be easily dismissed i.e.: site limitations, traffic, National Historic Landmark, and water. These are things that need to be further studied and the community engaged in the process.

If you send an email to the school board, please copy Beth Erickson at . She will be keeping count of the emails so that it can be mentioned on November 29 hearing as part of our presentation. If you want to keep your email private, just let her know that an email was sent.

 

School Board Members 

Chairman John Andrews
Potomac District
andcominv@aol.com

Vice Chairman Tom Reed
tomreedatlarge@aol.com

Pricilla Godfrey
Blue Ridge District
qbeeme@aol.com

Bob Ohneiser
Broad Run District
ohneiser@adelphia.net

Mark Nuzzaco
Catoctin District
mark@nuzzacolcps.org

Robert Dupree
Dulles District
rfdupree@aol.com

Sarah Smith
Leesburg District
sarahbsmith@adelphia.net

J. Warren Geurin
Sterling District
jwgeurin@aol.com

Joseph Guzman
Sugarland Run District
mail@josephguzman.com

 

 

 

 

 

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