Chesapeake board revisits need for 8th high school

CHESAPEAKE

The halls of Indian River, Oscar Smith, Great Bridge and Hickory high schools might be empty now, but next week they'll be very, very full.

Altogether, those schools will have about 950 more students than they were built to hold. To ease that, the division has planned to open a new high school on Elbow Road in 2013.

Now, with the economy stalled and enrollment trends moving away from the boom of years past, some School Board members say it might be time to change that. The money might be better spent renovating older buildings instead, they say.

"We're not going to build a school in anticipation of all these kids coming, then have an empty school for $100 million," said Vice Chairman Harry Murphy. "Particularly when we have all these infrastructure needs."

Not long ago, it was believed that the division needed an eighth high school - and fast.

In 2004, it was estimated that by 2015, there would be almost 5,000 more high school students than the schools could hold. Before Grassfield - Chesapeake's newest high school - was even complete, board members said constructing the Elbow Road school should be a priority, perhaps bumped up to open as soon as 2009.

Grassfield took some of the pressure off of Deep Creek, Great Bridge and Hickory high schools, and the slowing economy took away some of the appeal of adding a new building when repairs on older buildings are needed.

Five of the seven high schools still are over capacity. When school started last fall, Western Branch's enrollment was 576 more than its stated capacity. The school used 36 portable classrooms.

But Deep Creek and Grassfield now have empty seats. D emographic trends show that Chesapeake may be in the middle of a bump in high school enrollment that could taper off.

"I was very much an advocate of building this eighth high school," Murphy said. "I still think we need the eighth high school. I'm not sure we need to start building it next year."

When the city was growing at its fastest, during the mid-'90s, enrollment was rising at every grade level, said J. Paige Stutz, program administrator for planning and development. But recent construction has mostly consisted of higher-end homes, which tend to be bought by families with older children. In the meantime, the children who went to elementary school in the 1990s have reached secondary-school age.

"So the high schools have been hit with this double-whammy," she said.

Now, some of that high school population is aging out, and their numbers aren't being replenished by new youngsters, Stutz said.

The division continues to project small decreases in the number of students for the next few years.

A similar pattern played out a few years ago in Virginia Beach, where the school district decided to drop the idea of building a 12th high school.

Still, Chesapeake did experience small baby booms in 2003 and 2004, Stutz said. Those students will start elementary school this fall and next year.

E ven if the number of high school students peaks in the next few years, enrollment projections still show that Chesapeake will have 710 more high school students than seats by 2018.

If construction starts in the next few years, the school could be built using the plans for Grassfield High, board member Tom Mercer said.

The longer the division waits, he said, the more outdated the plans will be.

The downturn in the economy also means that school construction comes cheaper, Mercer said. The division already owns the land.

"The question is, at the high school level, do we need extra space? The answer is yes," he said. "We'll never get this building at a lower cost."

"You can be penny-wise and pound-foolish."

The debate could be renewed in October, when Supt. W. Randolph Nichols presents a revised version of the capital improvement plan.

Alicia Wittmeyer, (757) 222-5216, alicia.wittmeyer@pilotonline.com