Fairfax County Public Schools has long planned to renovate and expand the aging facilities at Centreville High School to serve as many as 3,000 students.
But after unexpectedly purchasing a new campus in Herndon last year in the hopes of alleviate overcrowding at four high schools in the western end of the county, FCPS officials are facing a quandary: Does Centreville High School, which serves about 2,350 students today, still need an expansion?
Last Thursday (June 25), the Fairfax County School Board voted unanimously to direct Superintendent Michelle Reid to evaluate the planned renovation, including capacity needs in light of the impending opening of Skyview High School as well as planned construction in the Centreville area. Reid will return to provide an update to the board by Aug. 28.
While several board members expressed agreement that a renovation — which voters approved funding for in 2021 — was still in order, the future of the expansion seemed in doubt.
“We need to ensure that the facility we built today actually matches the student population of tomorrow, and this is about doing our due diligence for the Centreville community,” said Sandy Anderson, who chairs the school board and represents the Springfield District.
The school is fed by Bull Run, Centre Ridge, Centreville, Powell and Union Mill elementary schools as well as Liberty Middle School. While Skyview may help alleviate overcrowding, county supervisors recently approved a plan for Centreville that could add 5,000 housing units and, by extension, many new students to the area over a period of many years.
Further complicating matters is the issue of a long-expired lease.
FCPS owns the school’s 36.4-acre plot at 6001 Union Mill Road in Clifton, but because the school is in a resource conservation area of the county, when it was constructed in 1988, it leased the density rights from the nearby Braddock Park (13000 Braddock Road) to satisfy the county’s zoning requirements.
That lease was largely forgotten until, while planning for the Centreville renovations, FCPS staff discovered the rights had expired years ago.
“The logical question is, well, how come no one knew about that?” at-large school board member Kyle McDaniel said. “And unfortunately … back in 1988, before we had digital files of things, these things were stuffed in file cabinets. In 2023, when our staff went to pull permits to renovate Centreville High School, that is when this was caught.”
The bottom line is that FCPS needs to renew the lease not just to expand an already overcrowded high school, but to maintain the existing one, members said.
“Up to this point, the only option that we have been provided by the park authority is to do a one-to-one lease for the 22-acre FCPS property that sits under Cub Run Rec Center, a proposal that hasn’t been deemed viable by our board,” Anderson said.
The board wants a third party — the county government — to help find a long-term solution, she added.
The Board of Supervisors gave FCPS a full-year extension in April 2025 to submit planning documents for the school’s expansion.
Also complicating the school system’s ability to plan is Fairfax County Land Development Services’ ongoing consideration of revisions to the residential conservation district regulations “that could allow increased floor area ratio for public uses,” Reid said.
Those changes would affect 12 schools total, though Centreville is the only one leasing density. The school board also directed Reid to report quarterly on efforts to resolve the issue system-wide.
Now authorized to begin talks with the Fairfax County Park Authority, Reid said she would report back on Aug. 28 with scenarios that her staff thinks are viable, based on the information they’ve gathered.
“I appreciate that … for many people, their patience is running out,” said Ilryong Moon, an at-large member. “And also for this board, our term is going to be over in 18 months, and I don’t want to just punt this to the next board.”
