Willie DeutschNewly elected Coles District School Board representative Willie Deutsch expressed his concern that the school division relied too heavily upon building a new high school on a portion of the proposed Stone Haven development in Bristow.
Following a joint meeting between the Prince William County Board of County Supervisors and the School Board Saturday, Deutsch commented on social media that the Board should consider other options than the controversial development.
“All the school system's eggs are in the Stone Haven basket,” Deutsch posted on Facebook. “There isn't even any money budgeted for the possibility of buying land for the new high school.”
The Stone Haven development has now been withdrawn, meaning that the school site will not be proffered to the county.
Deutsch is concerned that the opening of the 13th high school, which was planned to relieve overcrowding at Patriot, Battlefield and Stonewall Jackson high schools, will likely be delayed another year.
Bristow Beat reached out to Deutsch, who said the school division should have planned better.
The school division should have been more proactive in planning for contingencies. I was surprised that we don’t have the money on hand. Everyone knew [Stone Haven] wasn’t a done deal. To not even budget money to potential buy land for a school site seems very imprudent.
Deutsch also said one had to just follow the Brentsville District Special Election last year to know that Supervisor Jeanine Lawson was opposed to Stone Haven.
"She ran hard on that issue, and she won overwhelmingly,” he said.
Deutsch said that surely the school division is looking into alternative sites, but thus far no one has put forth an official proposal.
Lawson did work with the Brentsville School Board member Gil Trenum and the school division to look into using the Rollins Ford Park site as a school site. However, the joint meeting of the Board of County Supervisors and School Board revealed it might be more difficult to use the Rollins Ford park site than the school division previously thought.
According to School Board Chairman At-Large Milt Johns, most of what he knows about the Rollins Ford site has to remain confidential, but he could disclose that "to use the site as a school, the school system needs permission of a prior owner."
Deutsch said that while there is bond money available to buy the new school, it would have been preferable to have money on hand.
He does advocate for buying the Stone Haven school site.
" need money; we need land. Let’s make an agreement," he said.
He notes the school division planned for a bond even bigger than the one used to build Colgan High School, including its aquatic center, so funds should become available.
Deutsch would also like to see the 13th high school be built according to the hybrid design for which Brentsville School Board member Gil Trenum had advocated.
"We are planning to be overcrowded very quickly. We basically have pretty close to those numbers even without Stone Haven," he said.
Noting that another high school is not planned for that area for 10 years or more, he said it is a good deal to get another 500 student seats.
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