Absent two members, the Loudoun County Planning Commission gave unanimous approval for a commission permit and a recommendation for approval of construction of Loudoun’s first two-story middle school, MS-5, in the Dulles South area of the county. LCPS seeks to build the yet unnamed facility–a 1,350 student, 180,000 square foot middle school–on 37 acres south of South Riding at the intersection of Braddock Road and Ticonderoga Road/Loudoun County Parkway.
Loudoun County Public Schools held a community information meeting June 4 at Mercer Middle School regarding plans for MS-5, and heard only support for the much-needed middle school, amidst concerns about possible objections and opposition as experienced in earlier LCPS efforts to bring schools to the Dulles South area of the county. Earlier this year, the LCPS effort to place a middle and a high school on the Lenah Run site was defeated by majority votes of both the Loudoun County Planning Commission and then a majority of Loudoun supervisors. In more recent defeats for LCPS school site efforts, Loudoun supervisors voted 8-1 to reject LCPS efforts in “land banking” and at co-location of three future schools (an elementary, a middle and a high school) on 170 acres near Wheatlands in western Loudoun County.
As the second attempt to find a site for a middle school to serve the growing student population in South Riding, MS-5 proves just how easy it can be when all the stars and players are aligned. The new MS-5 site, like the Lenah Run school site is in the “transition area” of the county. Opposition to placement of schools on the Lenah site in a “transition area” of the county was fierce, but that issue seems to have evaporated, as far as the MS-5 site at Braddock and Ticonderoga is concerned.
Students shifted from the South Riding area and Mercer Middle School to Stone Hill Middle School in Ashburn can look forward to either attending Mercer Middle School, or the new MS-5 depending on future attendance boundary hearings and decisions. Preliminary questions about how attendance boundaries will be split between Mercer and then new MS-5 are premature, say school officials. The Planning Commission’s June 18 public hearing drew few residents to speak on the MS-5 school site, with most supportive the school system’s application.
Potomac Planning Commissioner Chris Brodrick and Catoctin Commissioner Erin Austin were absent for the otherwise unanimous vote to recommend approval of the MS-5 application to supervisors. The Board of Supervisors public hearing on the MS-5 application is projected for September. Information on the MS-5 school and site is available on the Loudoun County Public Schools Website, www.loudoun.k12.va.us under Department of Planning and Legislative Services.
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