Uneasy Peace Settles Over Leesburg as Douglass Boundary Decision Approaches

Boundaries at Leesburg’s eight elementary schools – soon to be nine – dominated discussions at the Loudoun School Board meeting Tuesday night.

Some parents criticized LCPS’s process of drawing an attendance zone for Frederick Douglass Elementary School, which will open next September, but board members reassured them their voices are being heard.

“I want to compliment you on coming together – without egos, strife, and screaming,” Priscilla Godfrey (Blue Ridge) told Leesburg area parents who have worked together to revise a proposed staff plan. But “I will be giving great respect to the three people who represent Leesburg. I am part of a team. The team is lead by the representatives from that area.”

Two of them, Tom Marshall (Leesburg) and Jennifer Bergel (Catoctin), have submitted revised plans. Tom Reed (at-large) of Leesburg has missed several School Board meetings for medical reasons but is monitoring the Douglass attendance process closely, Chairman John Stevens said Tuesday.

Despite Godrey’s comment, there is churn in some neighborhoods. One of the board’s criteria for attendance zones is proximity to a school. But the LCPS staff plan would transport students from Leesburg suburbs to Douglass Elementary to keep the percentage of “low-income families – under 25 percent. “We ask you not to carve us away from our neighbors,” David D’Onofrio of Spring Lakes told the School Board Tuesday.

“No one has lamented the splitting of communities in ‘the triangle’,” Stevens said. “My regret is we don’t have parents from that area coming to talk to us, or writing us. I hear about ‘we are the hole in the donut; we keep getting moved around.’ But look at the Leesburg map. [The triangle] is the hole in the donut. We shouldn’t forget about them.”

Stevens referred to a part of central Leesburg with a high concentration of low-income students living in close proximity to the new school. Douglass is now under construction near the intersection of East Market and Plaza Streets SE.

Residents of Lakes at Red Rock and River Creek say they are happy with revised plans that show their neighborhoods remaining together at Frances Hazel Reid Elementary, rather than LRR being divided between Reid and Douglass.

Jennifer Austin said River Creek her neighborhood is glad "to remain intact at Frances Hazel Reid" and that the LCPS planning staff “followed the recommendations we have supported all along.”

But Micah Green said some parents are only happy “because those communities like better where they have landed.” He said LCPS needs to release “critical data” about the distribution of special education students.

Parents in a northwest Leesburg neighborhood whose children will be reassigned from Reid to Catoctin are not happy either. “I am sad," one said. "My heart is breaking for the kids.” 

“This [process] is setting a precedent that there are rules, and they are broken,” said another. “A kindergartener could look at the colors [on the planning map] and do better.

“In the end, we have to fight the good fight” for the school they have been assigned to, said another parent. “But I am still not going to join the PTA or volunteer.”

A public hearing on Douglass boundaries will be held at the Loudoun Government Center at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 7 and the School Board will approve the final attendance plan Dec. 13.