New Kent Charles City Chronicle

News for New Kent County and Charles City County, Virginia | March 29, 2024

New Kent boards meet, discuss new elementary school construction

By Andre Jones | September 17, 2019 4:07 pm

A proposed concept for the new elementary school in New Kent County was presented at Monday night's joint board meeting.

Photo courtesy of New Kent County Public Schools

With the continuing growth of population in New Kent County, both the county’s school board and board of supervisors met in a joint meeting Monday evening to discuss the upcoming elementary school that will be constructed in the Quinton part of the county.

New Kent Superintendent of Schools Brian Nichols commented about the task at hand as the enrollment of the school system is increasing at a rapid rate.

“We are working with a very tight schedule to get this done,” he commented. “As you know New Kent is one of the fastest growing localities in Virginia and our school system is no different.”

Nichols presented enrollment numbers to county leaders. Excluding pre-kindergarten, the four current schools in the county is the home to 3,303 students. Of that amount, approximately 773 are educated at New Kent Elementary School and 751 study at George Watkins Elementary School. Based on current projections, the school system could have as many as 3,800 students by 2024.

On Feb. 26, county leaders approved the purchasing of 15.1 acres of land from Oak Ridge Farm LLC on New Kent Highway for $375,000. The location is directly across from the Quinton Recreation Center. The project is estimated at $28 million dollars. With inflation, the project may total $31,460,800 upon its competition.

New Kent Public Schools Director of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Byron Bishop talked about the process of designing the new building. Bishop mentioned several workshops held with school members, faculty, and the community. He also presented goals during those discussions that included the mission statement of the school and also what the priorities would be for the building.

A tentative concept was also presented to county leaders. The two-story building consisted of two academic wings on two levels that allows for grades pre-K to third to be on the bottom floor and grades 4-5 to be on the upper floor. A gym, auxiliary gym, learning spaces, and cafeteria will be located in a centralized location. Security measures proposed for the building include easier lockdown accessibility, division between public space and class space, and open site lines for cameras.

A time schedule for the 95,064 square foot building was presented. A review of the site will take place from September 2019-Jan. 2020. Bids for the project are expected to go out from Jan. 2020-Feb. 2020, with the bid being awarded in Mar. 2020. Construction is expected to take place from Mar. 2020 and be completed by Aug. 2021, with the building opening the doors prior to the start of the school year in Sept. 2021.

Community members and the public will have an opportunity to view the project and for additional input at New Kent school board’s Sept. 30 public meeting on the project to be held at 7 p.m. at the high school, directly following the school board’s regular monthly meeting.