Board Postpones Boundary Vote

The Loudoun County School Board on Tuesday night postponed a decision on the attendance boundaries for a long-awaited elementary school south of Leesburg.

The board initially approved a proposal that would have left neighboring schools at or above capacity. But board members then reconsidered and postponed a final decision until Jan. 9 to give themselves time to develop alternative solutions.

Under the proposal by board member Mark J. Nuzzaco (Catoctin), Sycolin Creek Elementary, the new school, would have opened at only 24 percent capacity in 2007 with 183 students, while Evergreen Mill Elementary, which has a program capacity of 763, would have enrolled 812 students. Cool Spring Elementary, with a building capacity of 753, would have been at capacity by 2008.

The proposal would have helped some residents to keep their children at their neighborhood schools.

Nuzzaco's plan was passed by a vote of 6 to 2, with one abstention. But the board later voted 8 to 1 to table the plan.

The board also voted to approve, with minor amendments, staff-recommended boundaries for two other new schools, Rosa Lee Carter Elementary and Arcola Elementary.

About 100 parents attended the meeting, many wearing colors representing their subdivisions and requesting that their children not be moved to Sycolin Creek Elementary and away from their neighborhood elementary schools -- Evergreen Mill, Cool Spring and John W. Tolbert.

Among them were residents of Evergreen Meadows, a six-year-old subdivision across the street from Evergreen Mill Elementary. Sycolin Creek will be built in the Red Cedar subdivision south of Leesburg and is scheduled to open in 2007.

"The problem is that they built a school where there are no students," said David Carver, president of the Evergreen Meadows homeowners association and a parent of a fifth-grader and a second-grader at Evergreen Mill.

"Now they are asking us to drive six extra miles to pick up our kids; it's disruptive to send us so far away," he said in an interview.

Under Nuzzaco's plan, those students would have been able to stay put, but opposition to his proposed amendment mounted.

"I understand it's tough," said School Board Chairman Robert F. DuPree Jr., but he added that another school would not be built in southern Leesburg for six years. "We are building this school to provide relief," he said.