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This article was written by WTOP’s news partner, InsideNoVa.com, and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
The Prince William County Schools committee tasked with drawing potential boundaries for the new Rosemount Lewis Elementary School has released its recommendations, which would rezone hundreds of students from Sinclair, Suella Ellis and George Mullen elementary schools into the new school set to open in the fall.
On Wednesday night, the committee will present its boundary recommendations to the School Board, which will have the ultimate say in which boundary proposal for the new western Prince William is implemented. But after two public meetings, the four-person committee is unanimously recommending a proposal that would not only move some of the students in those schools to Rosemount Lewis, it would also move some students from Loch Lomond and West Gate schools to Ellis and others from Yorkshire to Loch Lomond.
According to the committee’s presentation, the biggest impacts would be to alleviate overcrowding at Loch Lomond, West Gate and Sinclair. Projected to reach 120.7% of its official capacity next school year, Lomond would instead drop to 97.2% under the proposal. Sinclair would go from 117.5% to 97.2%, and West Gate would fall from 102.9% to 86.9%. According to their 2021-22 school profiles, Lomond and Sinclair were using seven trailers last year, while West Gate had five.
The following communities would be rezoned under the recommended plan. Children at Coverstone, Coverstone IV, Crestwood, Marwood Apartments, Rosemary Ridge, Stonebridge, Sudley Crossing Apartments, Summertree Condos, The Knolls at Bull Run and Winchester at Bull Run would all move from their current schools to Rosemount Lewis. Students living at Fairmont, Heritage Crossing Condos, Highland Park, Stonewall Acres and Sunnybrook would all move from Lomond to Ellis. Meanwhile, children at Hallmark Manor would go from West Gate to Ellis, while students from Yorkshire and the Bull Run Mobile Home Community would move from Yorkshire Elementary School to Lomond.
The changes would put Lewis at a projected 555 students to start the 2023-24 school year, 85.5% of its capacity. Over 60% of the students in the school’s attendance area would be English-language learners, while 91% would be minority.
“Since the assemblage of the Committee, its members have become educated on the various analyses conducted by the Facilities Department, considered criteria pertinent to viable attendance areas, and incorporated input from potentially affected communities,” the boundary planning committee’s report reads. “… With the support of staff from Transportation, the committee was able to minimize the number of occurrences in which students residing within the walker boundary of a school were proposed for reassignment to another school to which they would be bussed.”
Located just outside the Manassas city limits, the roughly $40 million building will be the first three-story elementary school in the county. It will also be the sixth new school built in the division in as many years.
In May, the school system announced that Kelle Stroud had been hired as the school’s first principal. Stroud has been with Prince William County Schools since 2007, moving from fifth-grade teacher to assistant principal and then principal at Buckland Mills Elementary in 2018.
“I think the school’s going to mean to the community a brand-new start, a fresh start, an innovative building space where they can have incredible opportunities to learn and new opportunities to make new friends,” Stroud said at a ceremony for the school in April. “I look forward to working to the Rosemount Elementary School community, I look forward to opening our doors well before the start of school so that our students and staff and community members can see the school and be a part of the school well before we open our doors for the first day of school year 2023.”
