By Tammy Ashworth (May 13, 2003)

Saying that he is "conflicted" over the idea of another school being built anywhere on George Mason's campus, high school and building principal Bob Snee has suggested an alternative idea as to where to construct the City's much-needed new middle school.
 

Citing his especial concern about the new school being built upon the recently renovated fields behind the high school, Snee recommends instead that planners consider razing what is currently the 7th and 8th grade wing of the middle school and build a "new, self-sufficient school in its place." The present middle school houses 450 students in grades 6-8. The school board's most recent plan calls for the construction of a new, $30 million middle school for grades 5 through 7 with an enrollment capacity of 600 students upon the brand new tennis courts. George Mason High School would then expand into the current middle school area to accommodate the eighth graders, in addition to its normal 9th through 12th grade student population. This would mean a total of eight grades housed on the George Mason campus..

Principal Bob Snee gestures toward the tennis courts that  would be razed and relocated to the city "Transfer Site" bordering the Metro access road in order to make room for the proposed new middle school. Snee has developed an  alternative  proposal.  (Photo by Eileen Backofen)

Over the past two years, many other sites have been explored in the continuing saga of attempts to build a new school in hopes of alleviating the exploding population growth the City's school system has experienced in recent years. These locations include Fairfax County's former Devonshire School, the Cherry Street property between Route 50 and Hillwood Avenue, and the Winchester Homes property on Great Falls Street near McLean, as well as the Diener Tract and Madison Park sites here in the City.

In all instances, property owners, neighbors, or others have turned down the City's request. Most recently, officials sought to build the veritable "little school that nobody wanted" in the words of one Mason faculty member at the Northern Virginia Graduate Center campus adjacent to the George Mason High School grounds, but Virginia Tech and University of Virginia representatives rejected the idea.

For a time, many supported the addition of a second story to the current Mason building, but the foundation and walls of the school were not designed to support another level.

While Snee has no input on the school board's final decision, he hopes that the community will consider his recently hatched plan.
 

"Rather than so completely changing George Mason's appearance, traffic flow, parking -- simply the daily comings and goings of people to utilize our facilities - this would seem to me the better choice," Snee explained. "The area that the 7th and 8th grade wing currently occupies would yield a significant new construction space." The seventh and eighth grade wing now houses 12 classrooms. Under Snee’s plan, a multi-level rectangular middle school would be built, expanding upon the 7th and 8th grade wing by 50 feet to include the grassy slope on the east to the sidewalk by the flagpole in front of the school. The floor of the new school then would be nearly 50 feet wider than the existing wing, hosting upwards of 19 classrooms per floor. With the proper foundation, the school could be built as high as five stories.

Under Snee's proposal the current 7th and 8th grade wing  would be razed and a four to five story middle school built  in its place.  (Photo by Eileen Backofen)

The current 34-acre George Mason campus is already "an administrator's nightmare," as Snee put it, with "87 exterior doors where most schools normally only have six to eight," and some 200 rooftop units. The 250,000 square foot building also sprawls in many different directions, making it difficult for custodians to clean and maintain.

The addition of another school on the already-crowded property will require the hiring of additional personnel; not only teachers and other faculty but also counselors, custodians, cafeteria workers, and other school aides. There is also difficulty in deciding what extra facilities must be constructed. In 1993-94, a state-of-the-art kitchen was installed at Mason, at great expense. Snee's plan would have that one kitchen serving the needs of both schools, thus eliminating a significant expenditure in the currently proposed middle school plan.

As Mason senior Dan Bray reported in the article "Responding to Traffic Tie-ups, School Changes Traffic Patterns," for Lasso Online earlier this year, over 300 cars already pass through the school parking lots on busy days. With the addition of an entire grade, the traffic situation would only worsen. There is also quiet discussion among the school board plan’s proponents to replace the student parking area with a new tennis court, which is where the courts were located before the new ones were built in back of the school. Such a decision would either eliminate students’ ability to drive to school altogether, or introduce a lottery system where only a very limited number of students would be allowed to park on campus.

Even once the difficulty of selecting a site is overcome, there are still many obstacles ahead. Since the George Mason campus is housed on land owned by Falls Church City in Fairfax County, Fairfax too must approve any construction done on the new school, and issue permits for the City to begin building.

"In order for the City to borrow money to pay for a new school, there needs to be a referendum vote. The current plan is for that referendum to be part of the regular election held on November 4. The City Council must submit its referendum question 60 days in advance of the election. That means that they will need to decide by the end of August whether to ask for the funding, and how much to ask to borrow," says Falls Church City Schools Superintendent Mary Ellen Shaw.

Builders must also follow industry guidelines for school construction, which dictate the necessary composition of the building itself, and the proportion of square feet devoted to the building, blacktop, and parking spaces in the overall site. The physical plant of the school must increase as students age.

"Everyone's preference is that the middle school could have its own property and building, and have an independent life. Why wouldn't you want that? But if circumstances force us, then we all have to be well aware of the fact that there are going to be lots of questions. We have to find the answers," Snee says.