The Army and Fairfax County school officials have made little progress in forging a consensus on the number and destination of incoming students who can be expected when the military shifts 19,000 new jobs to Fort Belvoir.
Letters sent in recent months between Col. Brian Lauritzen, Belvoir’s commander, and Jack Dale, superintendent of the county’s school system, show the two remain at odds over whether the federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) orders will overburden an already overcrowded school system.
The outcome of the discussion will help determine whether, and how much, the military will pay to offset the expense of building additional schools.
Lauritzen argues the final destination of the new pupils is essentially in the hands of local officials, who make land-use decisions, and not the Army. Dale disagrees.
“We clearly will be impacted by BRAC no matter where people move in Fairfax County,” Dale wrote in a March 27 letter. “I believe we must recognize this reality and plan appropriately to mitigate the effects of BRAC.”
Early planning documents from the Army predicted the Belvoir job relocation would bring 3,200 new children. But in August, the Army cut that number down to a net 265, based on a broader analysis that included students leaving the county as part of BRAC. School officials have spent months arguing that the pared-down revision is bogus.
At issue is not only the schools surrounding the base in southern Fairfax County, some of which are already overcrowded, but also the Fort Belvoir Elementary School, which sits on-base and has a population of nearly 1,300 students.
Overall, the system’s elementary schools were already “about 2,000 students over-capacity in Sept. 2007,” Dale wrote.
Dale sent the letter to complain that the base commander had misrepresented his words during a February meeting, in which Lauritzen recounted Dale dismissing BRAC’s burden on the school system.
“On the contrary,” Dale wrote. “I am very concerned about BRAC’s impact on [Fairfax County schools].”
Lauritzen, in the April 25 reply, stood by his account as accurate, pointing to what he said were Dale’s statements at an earlier 2006 meeting.
“You made it clear that the need for schools is a function of wherepeople live … regardless of where the residents themselves may be employed,” the commander wrote.
Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity said both student enrollment figures — 3,200 and 265 — could be underestimates because they don’t take into account contractors and support services that will move in alongside the military jobs.
