Between Math and History, Va. Students Hit Gridlock

Jasmine Dexter, 16, heads east on B Street into a traffic system crammed with road-raging bullies and rubbernecking gossips. She hits the intersection of B and Second streets -- darkly nicknamed "The Mixing Bowl" -- and sees a path that could be a straight shot to her destination.

But bright red posters, including one with the familiar red octagon, say it's forbidden: "DO NOT ENTER" and "STOP." So she finds a different route, extending her commute.

Jasmine is nowhere near a highway. She's leaving home economics at Brentsville District High School in Prince William County and heading for science.

"I'm just ready to sit down," Jasmine says, withstanding shoves and sideways glares, one after another. "I feel like a pinball getting knocked around."

Crowding is an enduring epidemic in school systems nationwide. But the problem at Brentsville, where the enrollment of about 1,500 students is more than 400 above capacity, is so pronounced that an unusually extensive traffic pattern dominates school life. One-way hallways and staircases and rules of the "road" make for a school experience that can be both comical and stressful.

Many Brentsville students say that the congested corridors make them edgy as they settle in for classes and that they have a hard time focusing on the teacher when lessons begin. With only five minutes between classes, many forego a trip to their lockers and haul all their books to each class. Others avoid bathroom breaks by monitoring their intake of water or soda (strawberry Fanta is a favorite).

"Often, there'll be times when I have to wait in front of my history class's door for three or four minutes before someone will let me get in," said Zachary Blinkinsop, 15, a sophomore. "I can't concentrate on my work for 10 or 15 minutes until I push those feelings of resentment or anger aside."

To Zachary's father, Sonny, an Air Force officer, his son's travails at least give them a quintessentially Washington subject to bond over. "You have dinner at night as a family and can you commiserate with each other about how bad the commute is," the elder Blinkinsop said cheerfully.

School officials in the region say one-way stairwells or hallways have been used sporadically over the past several years. But they said they do not know of such an extreme case as Brentsville's.

In Fairfax and Montgomery counties, South County Secondary School and Thomas S. Wootton High School, respectively, are several hundred students over capacity. But strict traffic patterns are not essential because the corridors are wide enough, school officials said.

"I don't know of any special circumstances where we've had to do pedestrian one-way hallways or stairway traffic in the schools," said Dean Tistadt, the Fairfax school system's chief operating officer. "It sounds like in Prince William, that's a pretty creative way of dealing with the situation."

Brentsville's predicament illustrates why trailers, or "learning cottages," the widely used answer to overcrowding, do not completely solve gridlock. Main hallways cannot easily be expanded. Moving load-bearing walls requires costly reconstruction, and hallway expansion would eat into classroom space.