The Prince William School Board voted at least temporarily to redistrict the new Avendale development to the Nokesville Elementary attendance area for new students at their Dec. 19 meeting.
Previously, future Avendale students would have attended T. Clay Wood Elementary.
The resolution also allows for the six Avendale students currently attending T.Clay Woods to stay at their current school and be provided with bus transportation.
The motion, proposed by Brentsville District Representative Gil Trenum passed 5:2 with Neabsco District Representative Lisa Bell opposing and Lillie Jessie of Occoquan abstaining.
Trenum said it was a matter of “continuity,” as he expects when the formal boundary committee meets, they will decide to uphold that boundary, sending the students to the new Nokesville K-8 when it opens in Sept. 2014.
When it opens, Nokesville K-8 would have 600 unfilled elementary seats to accommodate Avendale students. However, T. Clay Wood, which opened in 2011, is already at capacity and has students in one so-called learning cottage.
Yet, the resolution specifically addresses students in the year and a half before Nokesville K-8 opens, leaving Avendale students to attend Nokesville Elementary for a time, which is even more crowded than T.Clay Wood.
However, Trenum felt it was more important that those students not have to change schools within a year.
“(It will give) continuity for future students; otherwise they may get bounced around from school to school. If we can avoid that, I believe, it provides better continuity for the students,” Trenum said.
While the School Planning Department is not predicting a large influx of students, seven is the number they estimated as the developers are only expected 20 homes to be built and sold at Avendale within the current school year.
Due to the small number of students who would be affected, Bell questioned if it warranted the redrawing of boundaries and the additional bus stops before the Boundary Committee could present a decision in the spring. Bell said she did not want to start the precedence of drawing districts before hearing from the committee.
Trenum responded, “Now is an opportune time to move it before we negatively affect people with that process.”
Trenum did not want the School Board to give new homebuyers the wrong impression about which schools their children would attend. He said that was an issue in New Bristow Village because buyers were told what schools their students would attend even when the area was being considered for redistricting.
Ultimately, Trenum said he wanted to make sure the Board was “proactive,” in its boundary decisions.
“A lot of times we have to just take the brunt of the growth as it comes,” Trenum said. He told the Board this was an opportunity to prevent an issue before it arises.
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