To Preserve Local Land, Town Fights School Plan

Kenneth W. Culbert Elementary School was planned to open on 80 acres outside Hamilton next year. But when the town decided to challenge it in court, the school system decided to move it about 800 feet northeast so it would be outside the boundary of Purcellville's urban growth plan.

Although the move means the school will not be subject to a court challenge, it will still take extra time to apply for permits and the district will need to have the property rezoned. That led Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III to announce this month that the school's opening would be delayed by a year.

The 236-acre site north of Purcellville known as Fields Farm was the School Board's choice for the second western Loudoun high school when voters approved a $65 million bond to build it in 2005, said board Chairman Robert F. DuPree Jr. (Dulles).

But recognizing the town's opposition, he said, the board worked hard to find an alternative site. "We looked under every rock and explored every hill and dale in western Loudoun," he said.

Last winter, School Board members held a meeting with the Board of Supervisors to show 20 alternative sites. School planners eventually identified significant problems with each one. Hoping to be able to open the school by 2008, the School Board voted in May for the Fields Farm site once again. The Board of Supervisors approved the site a month later.

Loudoun County Supervisor James Burton (I-Blue Ridge), who represents Purcellville and the rural areas around it, has been a firm supporter of the Fields Farm location.

Despite the town's legal challenge, he said, plans for the school are well underway. The school system is preparing its application for a special exception permit and could be on track to break ground in the winter, he said.

"There hasn't been a halt," he said. "Things have been proceeding. The only thing that will stop that is an adverse decision by the courts."