School Dispute Will Go To Trial

Judge Advances Purcellville Suit

School officials said this week that construction of a high school in western Loudoun County must begin by February if the facility is to open in the fall of 2008, a timeline that looks increasingly uncertain with a court trial hanging over the project.

A Loudoun County Circuit Court judge on Monday turned down the county government's request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Town of Purcellville. Judge Thomas D. Horne decided that a trial should be held to resolve the claim by Purcellville officials that the construction of the school requires town approval.

Although the site is on county-owned property, it is in an area of roughly five square miles that surrounds the town and that is covered by a land-use agreement between the town and county. Purcellville officials argue that the agreement gives them the authority to decide where public facilities should be placed in that area, while county officials maintain that the agreement is just a guide.

Attorneys for the county argued that instead of being decided in a trial, the project's fate should be determined by the outcome of three appeals pending in Circuit Court. Those appeals, filed by Purcellville officials, involve decisions by the county's zoning appeals board, as well as by the town's own zoning appeals board, that the town does not have the authority to make decisions about the construction of schools outside town limits.

One of the appeals pertains to Kenneth W. Culbert Elementary School, whose opening was scheduled for next fall but has been delayed.

Purcellville officials are concerned that another high school would overwhelm the town of 6,500 and compound traffic problems.

School officials want to open the high school in 2008 to ease crowding at Loudoun Valley High School, the only high school serving western Loudoun. The high school has an enrollment of 1,500, and its ninth-graders have been moved to nearby Harmony Intermediate School.

School Board member Priscilla B. Godfrey (Blue Ridge) acknowledged that the legal process is slow and could drag on for months, jeopardizing the school system's plans.

"The train's just moving a little farther down the track," she said after Monday's court hearing.

Other Loudoun schools have been opened before construction was completed, and that remains an option with the proposed high school, Godfrey said.

Broad Run High School opened more than 30 years ago without a completed auditorium, said schools spokesman Wayde B. Byard. "They had to have food brought in because the cafeteria wasn't ready," he said.

But Byard said school officials would not formulate contingency plans unless that step was absolutely necessary.