Alexandria City Council and School Board members agreed Monday during a joint work session to update the city’s long-range school facilities plan as middle schools operate at more than 120% capacity and some elementary buildings approach 90 years old.
The decision to revise the decade-old planning document comes as officials confront both immediate overcrowding and long-term infrastructure decay that officials say redistricting alone cannot solve.
“It became very, very apparent that redistricting alone is not going to solve our middle school challenges,” School Board member Kelly Booz said. “Our schools would still hover around the 120% or more utilization no matter what.”
The Long Range Educational Facilities Plan, last comprehensively updated in 2015, would guide school construction and renovation decisions for the next 10 to 15 years. Officials said it needs to be updated to reflect changed demographics, enrollment projections, and fiscal realities following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2015 plan recommended building a new middle school, but that remains unfulfilled nearly a decade later. Councilman Abdel-Rahman Elnoubi noted the project was included in the city’s Capital Improvement Program budget at one point, but was removed after the School Board rejected a proposed location.
“The money should have stayed in the CIP from a planning perspective, even if the land is not there,” Elnoubi said.
Mayor Alyia Gaskins cautioned that planning for a new middle school cannot be treated as a standalone project.
“While a middle school is a goal that we are all committed to, the way we do planning, it’s not going to be as simple as like just pulling out a middle school and having like a middle school committee,” Gaskins said.
The stalled middle school project illustrates the difficulty officials face in executing long-range plans.
Beyond capacity issues, aging infrastructure presents another urgent concern. ACPS Chief Operating Officer Dr. Alicia Hart said some elementary buildings are nearing the end of their useful life.
“We have some elementary schools that are pushing 90 years old, and if they’re not in the immediate forecast for replacement, they will be coming up soon,” Hart said.
Hart raised questions about whether fiscal constraints should influence planning from the outset.
“Are we developing this plan based off of our current fiscal picture? Are we developing a plan without considering that?” Hart said. “I’m saying that because they’re going to be two very different outcomes.”
Gaskins reframed the discussion around trade-offs rather than whether officials support addressing the needs.
“I don’t think it’s a question of whether or not we support joint and shared facilities,” Gaskins said. “I think we need to get to the point of what would you give up in order to be able to achieve that?”
Despite these challenges, officials expressed support for creative solutions. Elnoubi suggested co-locating different school levels on the same property to maximize the use of limited land.
“I strongly support the concept of shared facilities for sure,” Elnoubi said. “But like I said, I mean, I go further than that and talk about, like, thinking about putting an elementary school and a middle school on the same lot.”
Councilman John Chapman urged staff to build on previous planning work rather than starting from scratch.
“I would love to see this not as a new effort, but kind of an update on what we’ve already done,” Chapman said. “I think there are some lessons already learned that we’ve already put in a document. We build off of that.”
Chapman also emphasized the importance of long-range planning even without guaranteed funding, citing past failures to execute planned projects. “If we have the funding and there’s no planning there, we have nothing,” Chapman said.
The updated plan would integrate city and school planning more closely than in the past. City Manager Jim Parajon emphasized the need for integrated planning across city services and school facilities over the next decade.
The planning process would examine how small area plans throughout the city could accommodate school sites, including three sites already dedicated through previous planning efforts. Katherine Carraway, Principal Planner for the Department of Planning and Zoning, said joint planning helps “better meet the community needs through a collaboration, more holistic approach.”
Sophie Huemer, Director of the Office of Capital Programs, Planning, and Design Services at Alexandria City Public Schools, said staff will develop a joint scope of work for both elected bodies to review before formally beginning the planning process. The scope would establish timelines, identify stakeholders, create communication plans, and define work required from planning consultants.
The process would require significant community engagement and could take several years to complete. ACPS has a small planning staff, Huemer noted, and would need to “look at how we can procure that and go through consultants to help us with that.”
ACPS will present information about middle school capacity and land acquisition options to the School Board in October, providing the first concrete step toward addressing the overcrowding crisis.
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