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mandate would mean for Rappahannock.
“That’s not going to pass this year,” Dr. Gangel answered, explaining that the General Assembly is being dissuaded by the fiscal impact on local governments. “Every school division in Virginia would face capital problems. It would put us all in a tail spin.” But such legislation “is possible down the road” and any requirement to provide programs for 4-year-olds would create an immediate need for at least three new classrooms at the elementary school, he added.
Looking over Dr. Gangel’s figures on the maximum capacity of Rappahannock’s schools, County Administrator John McCarthy put the need for planning in simple terms: “If we get one 100-lot subdivision, we build a school. That’s it. There’s no margin for error.”
Dr. Krebser proposed that acquisition of a school site be considered now before land values climb any higher. “Let’s get the land and set it aside.”
The Board of Supervisors’ representative to the Planning Commission agreed, saying he believed a growth rate of IV2 to two percent could come from the transfer of students from private to public schools alone, without any new houses being built.
And Dr. Gangel’s projections on “trigger” enrollment are especially important here because with the elderly comprising a growing percentage of the county’s population, a Literary Loan seems the only way to finance a school construction project, noted Mr. McCarthy.
Rappahannock’s current growth rate is three percent, but the increase in school-aged population is just 1.5 percent, he reported. The other half of the population increase
88.7%