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New trailers bring extra students, issues to Brentsville
Last year, a battle raged in the quiet community of Nokesville.
No, it wasn’t like the Battles of Bull Run or anything gory. But there were plenty of irked parents, school administrators and politicians who all had something to say about installing more trailers at Brentsville District High School.
The Board of County Supervisors eventually voted 7-1 in favor of adding five new detached classrooms to the high school, which already featured a dozen trailers.
This past Monday, BDHS principal Robert Scott explained what happened to the campus after all the hoopla ended and the new trailers were installed.
“On good-weather days, having additional trailers outside allows kids to create more routes between classes,” he said, noting the rectangular classrooms cleared some doorway bottlenecks for the 1,580 to 1,590 students navigating the hallways. “On one hand, the trailers have alleviated some of the congestion.”
Scott stepped inside Lori Sterne’s English 12 class in a trailer.
About two feet of space separated a podium from the closest student desk at the front of the room. The top of the blackboard stood at about six-feet high and the individual air-conditioning unit was ready to cool the 26 students and one teacher in the room.
The seniors were lined up in eight rows; four rows facing center in each direction so the students were essentially looking at each other.
Classroom setups like this “still have a path for the teacher to be able to work the crowd,” Scott whispered as class went on around him. Sure enough, Sterne could conduct her lesson while pacing across the aisle.
Some teachers volunteered to work in the trailers partly because they have to share their classrooms fewer times than other faculty members indoors, according to Scott.
Fortunately for teachers and students inside the trailers that day, the weather was as perfect as one could want on a September day in Nokesville. In fact, clusters of upperclassmen could be seen eating lunch outside around 10 a.m.
But on rainy or snowy days, those same students are going to be less inclined to take longer outdoor routes to class or to have lunch in scenic locations.
Until the new high school near Nokesville Road (Route 28) and Vint Hill Road is finished in 2011, overcrowding is something Brentsville students, teachers and administrators will deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Scott confirmed there are no plans to add a new wing or building to the campus, and budget constraints will not permit a covered walkway to be built.
One of the biggest impacts this year's additional 60 students have on Brentsville’s budget is lunch costs, according to the second-year principal. Also, jamming extra people into an already-packed lunchroom was a non-starter for Scott.
But the school receives money on a per-pupil basis and the county pitched in at no cost to Scott’s budget to set up a satellite cafeteria.
“It’s a congestion issue,” Scott said of the need for a second cafeteria.
At 9:54 a.m., the start of the first lunch period, the lunch line opened up.
Within thirty seconds of the buzzer signaling the class change, the lonely buzz of the pizza oven quickly died out in a sea of chatter and footsteps.
Scott said keeping the satellite cafeteria at a 50-55 student capacity “makes it so we can get the kids fed, the place cleaned and get everybody back to class” on time.
Administrators stop the flow of student traffic between the lunch room and the lunch hallway about five minutes into each lunch shift. Essentially, the point is to keep student traffic to a minimum.
“The crowding issue is certainly one that never goes away,” said Scott, later adding with a smile, “I told the faculty I’m like Walt Disney: [I’m] someone who knows how to move large groups of people well.”
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