Potomac Falls High This article is one of seven looking at the challenges that educators, parents and students faced in creating a new Virginia high school. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Part 1: Boundary Decision Delayed Part 2: Dispute Over School's Size Part 3: A Study in Starting Fresh Part 4: A Learning Experience Part 5: New High School Debuts Part 6: Club Membership Lags Part 7: "Big Game" Unites Students

By Victoria Benning
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 14 1996; Page V01

A Loudoun County Circuit Court judge has thrown out a School Board lawsuit against the Board of Supervisors in a dispute over the size of a new high school, but the issue is far from being resolved.

Ruling that there was no "justifiable controversy," Judge Thomas D. Horne last week granted the Board of Supervisors' motion for dismissal of a lawsuit asking the court to determine whether the School Board or the Board of Supervisors has the authority to set school capacity.

In his ruling, Horne said the School Board's lawsuit was a moot issue because the supervisors already had removed the school in dispute from a bond issue that county residents voted on last week -- in effect dissolving the controversy. The matter then returned to being a dispute between two elected bodies, Horne said.

The School Board is "asking the court to enter the political forum . . . an invitation that this court declines," he said.

The ruling does not preclude the court from getting involved in the dispute at a future time and under different circumstances, if needed.

County officials were obviously pleased with the ruling. "The court has put this matter back where it belongs, back in the political process," County Attorney John R. Roberts said.

School officials said that they were disappointed in the outcome of the case but that they hoped the two sides could work together to reach a compromise on the issue. The School Board already had instructed its staff to gather data and research on various size schools from the perspectives of cost effectiveness and educational quality.

Staff members were instructed to compile data comparing 1,350-, 1,600- and 1,800-student-capacity schools.

"We're going to continue gathering the data and hopefully sit down with the Board of Supervisors and negotiate some kind of agreement," said School Board Chairman Joseph W. Vogric (Dulles). "Once we have that information, we can sit down and have an intelligent conversation with [supervisors] and reach a conclusion -- hopefully rather quickly."

Supervisor David G. McWatters (R-Broad Run) said he was willing to sit down and work out a compromise, too.

McWatters, who represents constituents who are upset with a School Board decision that split a subdivision in setting new boundaries for a high school set to open next fall, already has put together a proposal.

He has proposed allowing the school system to go ahead with plans for the 1,350-student high school in Ashburn if officials redraw the boundaries for the new Potomac Falls High School to keep all of the Countryside subdivision students together.

McWatters, a member of the board's finance committee, said the issue of size could be revisited with subsequent schools.

"I'm certainly willing to sit down and work something out," McWatters said. "The bottom line is that the kids are being hurt. . . . They're the ones being used as pawns in all this."

A quick resolution to the dispute is necessary for the School Board to get another bond issue before voters in March 1997.

But even under the best-case scenario, there is probably no chance the new school could open any earlier than September 2000, a year behind schedule, according to Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III. Hatrick said the delay will result in crowding problems at Broad Run and Loudoun County high schools.

Last week's ruling caps a dispute that began during the summer when the Board of Supervisors, which previously had approved the new high school to serve the Ashburn area, suddenly reversed itself. Supervisors decided they wanted a school large enough to serve at least 1,800 students and threatened to hold up funding for the project unless the School Board agreed.

The School Board, which says it believes smaller schools are better for learning and has long had a policy setting high school capacity at 1,350, took the issue to court.

Supervisors had approved a resolution calling for a $40 million, 1,800-student school and had planned to include the project in the school construction bond referendum presented to Loudoun County voters last week.

But the supervisors hastily withdrew the resolution after the School Board filed its lawsuit. Residents instead voted on and approved a scaled-back $14 million bond issue that will pay for a new Ashburn area elementary school and improvements and additions to three other schools.

Loudoun supervisors, who control the county purse strings, say that building larger schools means that fewer new schools will be needed. Loudoun, the fastest-growing jurisdiction in the Washington area, is expecting school enrollment to grow by about 2,000 students a year into the next decade.

The dispute is being closely watched by other Virginia school districts that fear that a victory for Loudoun supervisors will encourage supervisors in other jurisdictions to micromanage school systems and education policy.

School boards in Virginia do not have the power to levy taxes. The fight in Loudoun, combined with skirmishes between school boards and supervisors in other jurisdictions across the state, has prompted several school boards to consider asking the General Assembly to give them fiscal autonomy.