School Board gets first look at plans for new Tucker, Highland Springs high schools
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Henrico School Board members got a look into the not-so-distant future Feb. 28, when school system officials presented them with architectural renderings of the new Highland Springs and Tucker high schools during a work session.
The two new schools will be built concurrently on an accelerated construction timeline, beginning in September, so that they'll be ready for the start of the 2021-22 school year. Each project will cost $80 million.
The new version of Tucker High School will be situated facing Parham Road and sit partially where the school's existing football stadium is located. Students will continue attending class in the existing campus-style buildings until the new school is completed, and then crews will demolish the old buildings and construct a new football stadium near the back of the site adjacent to Homeview Drive, Assistant Superintendent for Operations Al Ciarochi told the board.
That will mean that Tucker will be without a football stadium and field house for three years, he said, and without a gymnasium for two years.
At Highland Springs, the new school will be built away from the existing facility, adjacent to Beal Street facing South Airport Drive. The new school will be built partially on the site of the existing football stadium, necessitating the construction of a new one that would open when the new school does. The school also would be without its tennis courts until the new school opens, Ciarochi said.
Highland Springs students will continue attending class in the existing building until the new school is open. School and county officials haven't yet decided how they might use the existing school, but it could become a career and technical education center (for which $42 million was included in the 2016 bond referendum but is being redirected for the construction of the new school).
Henrico officials plan to pay for the facilities through a combination of funding sources:
• $97 million from a 2016 bond referendum (the $42 million cited above, plus $55 million originally earmarked for a renovation of Tucker);
• $26 million in money raised from the county's meal tax;
• as much as $32.2 million in Virginia Public School Authority bonds;
• $4.8 million in other available funds.
Both new schools will feature new collaborative learning areas, where students and teachers could gather in open settings. School officials anticipate awarding construction contracts this summer.
