From today’s Daily Progress –
The Albemarle County School Board unanimously agreed Thursday to transfer 100 pupils from Crozet Elementary to Brownsville Elementary. The affected pupils live in the Grayrock area.
…
The proposal is part of a long-term plan to handle the increase in students in Crozet. Crozet Elementary, which has a capacity for 380 students, has an enrollment of 428.
Because there is little room for expansion at Crozet Elementary, the county is building a $10.27 million expansion to Brownsville Elementary. The expansion, which includes a new wing of classrooms, more kitchen space and a new gymnasium, is slated to be finished in the spring.
There are 402 students at Brownsville Elementary, and the additions will allow for 716, according to a school official.
The transfer of the 100 pupils will take effect next school year, Wheeler said.
In May, it was noted that only 15 people had expressed opinions about the redistricting plans.
If you are thinking about buying (or selling, really) in Crozet – check the school district yourself – don’t necessarily trust the MLS (as much as it pains me, as a Realtor, to write that).
Maybe if the developer of Crozet hadn’t wasted all the space in the middle of the school and had built rooms, Crozet wouldn’t have this problem. That’s one of the dumbest designs I’ve seen. That’s 3 levels where classrooms should be. Once again it looks like the County went on the cheap for Crozet and agreed to let this happen and now kids have to pay the price of being moved and loosing friends until they meet in Henley.
I don’t know that it is productive to try to lay blame on anyone for this. When Crozet was designated a Growth District, eventually the schools would feel the result of the growth. Too bad a plan for schools to absorb that growth was not concurrent. The overcrowding at Crozet Elementary really came about because the new developments on Jarmans Gap brought in a ton of kids. When we redistricted a couple of years ago, we knew that phase two of moving more kids would come once Brownsville’s addition was complete. The parents have a harder time with the move than the kids really do – I am a former Crozet parent and have not heard anything negative from my friends whose kids were moved two years ago. Those who got sent to Merriweather had a harder time coming to terms with the move because it took them out of the Crozet community altogether, but again, the kids did just fine.