Albemarle County is expecting an increase in its student population over the next few years, but it doesn’t have enough space for them. The solution? More schools.
Albemarle County Public Schools is constructing its 16th elementary school, the first new elementary school in the county in 20 years, near the southern end of the county.
The new elementary school will open for the 2026-2027 school year, wrote Matt Wertman, interim director of building services at ACPS, in an email to Charlottesville Tomorrow. The new elementary school is within walking distance of Mountain View Elementary School, off of Galaxie Farm Lane.
“After an exhaustive property search that failed to locate any suitable properties within the timeline that was necessary for the scheduled opening of the new school, the School Board opted to locate the new school on a piece of property that it already owned,” Wertman wrote in an email to Charlottesville Tomorrow.
Mountain View will switch to pre-kindergarten through second grade, and the new elementary school will house third through fifth graders. Albemarle Schools is dividing up the student population this way to avoid having to reconfigure other elementary schools and address overpopulation Mountain View Elementary School had 756 students in 2024, but has capacity for 624 students, according to a 2021 presentation created by RRMM Architects. Wertman projects 379 students will attend the new elementary school when it opens. The capacity of the new school will be 500 students, according to the ACPS website.
The construction is estimated to cost $38,422,864, according to VMDO Architects, the company designing the school. Albemarle County, which contributes three quarters of the school division’s budget, allocated over $44 million to the project over five years in its 2024 budget.
The elementary school is one of three new school construction projects in response to the county’s population growth. By 2034, ACPS expects to serve more than 14,500 students, about 1,000 more students than are currently enrolled, according to a draft funding request from county schools. The school division used projections from the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia, which predicts that Albemarle County’s population will grow by almost 40,000 people by 2050.
Center II, the expansion of the county’s high school education, is in the midst of construction at the Lambs Lane Campus, which already houses Albemarle High School, Journey Middle School and Greer Elementary School. The building is expected to open for the 2026-2027 school year. In addition, the school division will build its 17th elementary school in 2028 to address the growing number of families who live in the northern end of the county.
These three schools are also a part of the county’s capital improvement plan which is expected to cost Albemarle County $525 million through 2028.
The new elementary school has yet to be named. Albemarle Schools and its community members will go through a naming process like it did when it renamed 14 of its schools over the last four years.
On Thursday, July 11 the Albemarle County School Board will hear the first round of name recommendations for the new elementary school. Karen Waters, director of community education for Albemarle Schools, will suggest Mountain View Primary School to replace Mountain View Elementary School and name Mountain View Intermediate School for the new elementary school.
Take Action
Want to offer a comment to the ACPS Board? The meeting will be at 6 p.m. at the Albemarle County Building Office auditorium on 401 McIntire Road. Sign up online or call the clerk at (434) 972-4055 by 2 p.m. on Thursday, or sign up in person at the beginning of the meeting.
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