News & Letters
NEWS:
July 20, 2010 - Neighbors in rural areas serviced by narrow gravel roads a fair distance southwest of Lovettsville report ongoing site work, suggesting LCPS contractors are evaluating one or more sites in the area. C.L.A.S.S. urges citizens to work cooperatively with each other and engage Supervisors and School Board members tasked with siting to look at all possible options fairly, evaluate all costs and benefits of each and every possible option, and earnestly seek input from the community at large before making a decision, so that the very best school solution for the community and our children can be made.
July 12, 2010 - C.L.A.S.S. co-founder Pamela Baldwin respectfully requested Mayor Walker, Supervisor Sally Kurtz and the entire Board of Supervisors consider a plan (PDF) to re-locate some of the facilities planned for Lovettsville Park (sports fields, equestrian center, community garden, dog park, ampitheatre) across the street to the 74-acre parcel behind the community center (advertised for sale by Lennar Corporation and referred to as the Shoene ["Shanney"] site). The move would accommodate middle and high schools to be sited on a portion of the Lovettsville Park. The water feature and farmstead would be retained in their originally planned location on the existing Park. The Conceptual Plan uniquely afforded pedestrian access for the Town to both the Park and the new schools and presented an associated road network which would simplify car/bus traffic to both the new schools as well as the re-located Park facilities without additional traffic traveling through Town on Broad Way. Lovettsville Mayor Walker refuses to consider the option, or consider even a middle school on the Shoene parcel; despite the new upgrade of the Town's wastewater system reported to be for new schools. The Park Special Exception was approved by Supervisors.
April 2010 - Contracts holding together the McDonough Assemblage in Lovettsville expired. The Assemblage offered Lovettsville a potentially viable HS/MS-10 site and was very favorably received by most members in the community; however, two landowners in the Assemblage have withdrawn from the Assemblage. Their withdrawal suggests that this site alternative (via individual contracts or extended McDonough Assemblage contract) may no longer be available. Because the opportunity to site the schools on the McDonough Assemblage appeared lost, C.L.A.S.S. members began conceptual planning of another alternative, engaging a computer design expert to prepare a preliminary design.
April 2010 - The School Board requested, and was awarded, additional funding from the Board of Supervisors for due diligence studies of sites under consideration.
October 2009 - Advertisement period for western Loudoun school sites closes. LCPS staff begin evaluation of site proposals submitted in response to the advertisement. LCPS staff report to the Joint School/Supervisor Committee that the results of the evaluation will be presented in January 2010.
September 2009 - C.L.A.S.S. mails letters to landowners listed in the County database alerting them to the advertisement.
July 2009 - LCPS issues an advertisement for landowners to submit information for potential school sites. The advertisement is set to run for a period of 4 months.
June 2009 - LCPS staff present the McDonough Assemblage, and the Shoene/Engle assemblage (as requested by local citizens), to the Lovettsville Town Council. During the Council meeting Supervisor Burton expresses support of the McDonough Assemblage and urges the decision to be made soon because the purchase bonds were sold and now debt service is being paid by Loudoun taxpayers without the associated investment of bond funding in the land.
May 2009 - Loudoun County Board of Supervisors respond to citizen disapproval and reject the Burgess/Cangiano site proposed by LCPS.
April 2009 - Former Lovettsville Town Councilman and developer Jim McDonough assembles parcels northwest of the Lovettsville Fire Rescue station and submits a proposal to site MS-10 and HS-10 on the combined 105-acre site, referred to as the McDonough Assemblage. The Assemblage is held together with landowner contracts valid for a period of one-year, providing adequate time for LCPS officials to conduct due diligence studies of the combined site.
February 2009 - LCPS School Board awards Burgess/Cangiano contracts totaling over $11,000,000 for 165-acres to site 3 schools (ES-25, MS-10 and HS-10) in Wheatland, halfway between Lovettsville and Purcellville.
LETTERS:
Dear Editor:
The start of a new school year is a good time to regroup in support of badly needed new school sites. Sites are needed throughout the county, but my concern here focuses on western Loudoun.
After a bruising battle last spring over a proposed three-school campus in Wheatland, the county is back to square one. Wheatland was the wrong site and the huge 4,000-student complex the wrong idea. The downside of its rejection by the Board of Supervisors (despite unwavering School Board support) is that western residents remain without alternative site prospects near Lovettsville.
Until Oct. 30, LCPS is running biweekly ads in the Loudoun Times Mirror, a paper no longer delivered in the Lovettsville area, inviting landowners to sell their properties for future school construction. Parcels must be at least 20 acres for an elementary school, 35 for a middle school and 75 for a high school. The solicitation also appears on the LCPS Web site. Unfortunately, the ad is unlikely to reach most eligible property owners because of its limited distribution. (Some critics suspect a tepid interest in finding Wheatland alternatives.) What is needed is a more robust advertising platform, a mailing to all property owners whose parcels meet the size thresholds, and a public information session. The ad also requires significant documentation from responding owners, including a detailed site plan. It is unrealistic to expect owners to produce expensive site plans while the likelihood of LCPS's interest in their land is unknown.
What happens if no suitable school sites are offered in response to these ads, or if another inappropriate site like Wheatland (or the one before it, Grubb Farm) emerges? What voice will residents have in the selection process?
Past efforts at resident participation in decision-making before school sites are chosen have largely come to naught in western Loudoun. In 1999, the Rural Loudoun School Study Committee was launched by the School Board with parent representatives as well as teachers and administrators. The committee concluded that the community-school connection was most important, and recommended community-friendly size and location policies. In 2007, another Western Schools Task Force convened by the two boards included three citizen members and drew similar conclusions. Both groups were well-intentioned top-down initiatives, but neither produced discernible impact on School Board decisions. Perhaps it's time for a grass-roots movement to advocate the needs of rural western communities for schools that will better serve our area of lower population density and spare our children horrendously long bus rides.
A new grassroots group, Citizens for Lovettsville Area School Solutions (CLASS), aims to give local residents an effective forum for discussion on new schools siting and hopes to determine and convey residents' views more effectively to decision-makers, with real results. We plan an immediate mailing to alert landowners who may be interested in responding to the call for school sites close to Lovettsville, followed by a Web site, blog and online survey later this fall. Residents interested in joining us may e-mail me at: pamela.l.baldwin@gmail.com.
Pamela Baldwin, Lovettsville
2. Letter to Area Landowners - September 2009
Citizens for
Post Office Box 169
Dear Lovettsville Area Landowner:
Our organization, Citizens for Lovettsville Area School Solutions (CLASS), is working to promote the development of badly-needed new schools in the Lovettsville area. As you may be aware, the
LCPS is currently running bi-weekly ads in the Loudoun Times Mirror directed at landowners like you, but because we believe that many eligible landowners may have missed the ads, we are enclosing a copy of the ad for your information and possible action. Please note that the deadline for submitting expressions of interest is
If you have any questions about CLASS or would like to join our efforts to bring new schools to the Lovettsville area, please feel free to email me at pamela.l.baldwin@gmail.com.
Sincerely yours,
Pamela Lane Baldwin
CLASS Coordinator
Reference: LCPS' Request for Land for Public School Site(s) (PDF)
3. Letter - September 10, 2009 - Addressed to:
Sally Kurtz, Catoctin Supervisor
Jim Burton, Blue Ridge Supervisor
Jennifer Bergel, Catoctin School Board Representative
Elaine Walker, Mayor of Lovettsville
Dear Sally, Jim, Jennifer and Elaine:
I just wanted to let you all know about an initiative being undertaken by our new school-focused organization, Citizens for Lovettsville Area School Solutions (CLASS), to support the County's ad soliciting property offers for schools in the Lovettsville area. The consensus of the group was that the biweekly Loudoun Times Mirror ads were unlikely to reach all the potential offerors, especially since the LTM is no longer delivered to addresses in this area. So using the County's online parcel database, we assembled a list of properties that meet the minimum size standards and will mail out copies of the ad. I am attaching, for your information, the cover letter we are sending along with the ad. We expect to complete the mailing within the next several days. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
All the best,
Pamela
4. Response from Supervisor Kurtz - September 11, 2009
From: SallyKurtz
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 7:28 AM
Subject: Re: FW: CLASS Letter to Landowners
Hi Pamela,
Thanks for keeping me in the loop. Yesterday at J-BS/BOS Committee, Randy Vlad, LCPS Planning said they had received responses from their AD so hope between the two there may be lots of choices.
Best,
Sally