A proposed middle school that would relieve one of Fairfax County’s worst cases of student overcrowding won a crucial infusion of funding from the Board of Supervisors Monday.
The South County Middle School has long been a dream of parents tired of sending their children to the jam-packed South County Secondary School, which was over capacity when it opened in 2005 and now has nearly 500 students too many. The Board of Supervisors on Monday set aside $10 million for the new school’s construction.
It’s an especially critical project in light of the influx of students expected to accompany the 19,000 military jobs moving to Fort Belvoir over the next few years as part of Base Realignment and Closure, officials said.
School Board Chairman Dan Storck, who supports the proposal, said his board also will need to act on the funding.
“It’s absolutely the right thing to do,” said Storck, whose district encompasses the proposed school site. “The school is needed. It’s something that was committed to the community when the original [South County Secondary] school was built.”
Supervisors and parents in the area had soured on an earlier proposal that would have built an annex on the secondary school instead of a new facility, which, based on current plans, would sit near the existing school on the former Lorton Prison site.
Under a proposed public-private partnership, Clark Construction Group would devote $15 million in exchange for being able to build single-family homes on a nearby parcel, said Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, who with Mount Vernon Supervisor Gerald Hyland pushed for the funding. About $4 million in state BRAC funding also is set aside for the proposed middle school.
“If you build the school in today’s dollars, it costs you $50 million,” Herrity said.
The decision Monday was met favorably by Christine Morin, co-chairwoman of the South County Middle School Solutions Group of parents.
“It’s great the county realizes there is a very huge need down here for the middle school,” she said.
