Plans to accelerate renovation for Fairfax County

Plans to speed up the renovation timeline for Falls Church High School remain in limbo as the Fairfax County School Board wrestles with the school systems construction backlog.

The School Boards drive to accelerate the high schools facilities upgrade stalled when confronted with the realities of the scheme, which would delay the renovations of 13 other schools.

The School Board in January directed staff to identify methods of expediting renovations for the countys five legacy high schools. Though the school system aims to renovate schools at least every 25 years, this group of schools - Falls Church, Herndon, Langley, Oakton and West Springfield - were all built around the same time in the 1960s and have never been fully renovated.

Falls Church faces the longest wait of any of these schools, with the start of construction still at least five years away. FCPS staff used Falls Church as a guinea pig to investigate the feasibility of speedier renovations.

The school is scheduled to receive funding for its renovation through the 2019 school bond referendum - if county voters continue to approve the biennial school bond votes.

To move that timeline up by two years, allowing Falls Church to receive funding from the 2017 bond and start its construction sooner, it would need to leapfrog other schools on the waiting list for renovations.

We simply dont have a silver bullet to deal with this request, said Jeff Platenberg, the assistant superintendent for facilities and transportation services. The challenge is, we have these needs that go beyond just one school, even legacy schools.

The school system contracts independent engineering firms to determine the order of schools for renovation. The last evaluation in 2008 placed 63 schools in a renovation queue based on the age and condition of their facilities, as well as other factors.

Falls Church currently sits at No. 45 on the queue. Accelerating its renovation would move the school up to No. 31.

Platenberg said such queue jumping has only occurred once before, when Chantilly High School was renovated out of order in the 1990s due to structural issues with the school building.

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Plans to accelerate renovation for Fairfax County