New school land for expanded Monroe Tech?

Loudoun's Monroe Technology Center is an amazing resource for what's called "Career and Technical Education". It offers a diverse array of programs from traditional trades (masonry, HVAC, auto repair and others) to advanced technology (CAD design, CISCO networking, medical technology). One of my daughters is enrolled at Monroe and the next has applied.

MTC is housed in an older high school building in Leesburg, the same since the early 80s when this county and school district had a much smaller population. The space has been augmented somewhat by use of facilities at INOVA Loudoun, but the lack of space has kept out many kids who would otherwise be able to graduate and go on to college with marketable job skills.

I wrote in 2007,

This project has had a very herky-jerky history with the outgoing Board of Supervisors that I don't have time to write about at the moment, but a year ago it was on the School Board's list of projects for this year, and the Board of Supervisors put it off. Trying to stay within the Supervisor's debt cap, the Superintendent has now proposed to delay the construction an additional three years to allow us to catch up on base Elementary, Middle and High Schools. This is distressing to the School Board, which is committed to updating the career & technical education facilities as soon as possible.  [post]

That was five years ago, and still Monroe is out there somewhere on the horizon. In short, this can has continually been kicked down the road, to the detriment of our students. So I am thrilled to see the current School Board and Board of Supervisors moving quickly to acquire land for a new Monroe Tech building.

The Loudoun County School Board authorized a contract to purchase a 119-acre site off Sycolin Road in Leesburg at its regular meeting Tuesday. The site will be purchased for $2.53 million when the money is made available by the county Board of Supervisors. The property may be used for the future site of an advanced technology academy to replace Charles S. Monroe Technology Center, which is located along Catoctin Circle SW in Leesburg. The Capital Improvement Program adopted by the board in February has the construction of the advanced technology academy slated for 2016.

The land isn't as centrally located as Leesburg, but it is along major North/South and East/West corridors. There will be pressure to use the site for a new Ashburn-area high school if anything goes wrong with the NCC site for HS-8, but it isn't adjacent to removed from any existing or planned residential developments and the resulting boundary process would be insane. Perhaps the School Board would consider leasing part of the site to a new charter school?

[Leesburg Today]
[Loudoun Times Mirror]