Students returning to ACPS schools this year have noticed something is off. Hallways are more crowded, bathroom lines are longer, chairs have become a hot commodity. Were there always so many students? The answer is no. ACPS is in the midst of a yearslong overcrowding crisis, which is worsening by the year. Students are beginning to notice the issue now, with buildings at capacity and aging facilities unable to keep up with unprecedented numbers of kids. Overcrowding featured heavily at September’s Albemarle County School Board meeting, with both parents and students stepping up to demand action.
The meeting’s public comment section was dominated by calls for expansion and funding to address overcrowding. Additionally, two Albemarle High School students brought the board’s attention to the new challenges posed by weapons screening systems in over-capacity schools. Senior Sydney Duncan discussed her personal experience with screening-related delays: “These are four working detectors during the hours of 8:15 through 9:00, when 90% of our students enter the building for a student body of over 2,000.” Duncan went on to note that some of her classmates were up to an hour late for class due to the lines caused by overwhelmed screening systems.
Fellow AHS senior Indigo Mathon also highlighted the new issues arising from the lack of bathroom space. Virginia Administrative Code dictates that high schools must have at least one bathroom stall per 30 students, but Mathon claims that the ratio is approaching one to 55 at Albemarle. Both Duncan and Mathon expressed a general feeling of dehumanization and control brought on by the new policies and overcrowded schools. Mathon said that rather than making students feel safer, weapons screening “makes us feel stressed, punished, and frankly unwelcome in the place where we spend most of our time.”
Overcrowding was also on the official agenda for the meeting, with members of the Long Range Planning Advisory Committee joining the board members to discuss next steps. One option presented was an addition to WAHS and the construction of a third Center, housing 400 and 600 new students, respectively. The second plan involved an addition to the ACE Academy Lambs Lane campus, with smaller expansions at Monticello and Albemarle, resulting in space for another 800 students.
Board member Allison Spillman stressed the need for closer cooperation with the Board of Supervisors in order to overcome financial hurdles to expansion. A proposed sales tax, if enacted in 2026, could raise $10 million in potential funding over the next several years. She expressed her belief that building additional Centers is a waste of valuable funding and distracts from the issue at hand. While Spillman acknowledged that a small addition to WAHS could be constructed with current funding, she noted that a new high school in the Hollymead area is the only long-term solution.
Dr. Rebecca Berlin, the White Hall District’s representative, agreed with her colleague and emphasized that immediate action was necessary to rectify the overcrowding issue: “I think this board needs to be much more aggressive in funding the building of a new school…we need to look at all options that are on the table.” She described windowless classrooms in schools across the district and shared concerns that educational quality was suffering as a result of overloaded facilities.
Dr. Kate Acuff, the board’s chair, acknowledged that a new high school would ultimately need to be built. Half of ACPS students attend schools that are over capacity, and the school system has been attempting to rectify the issue since 2016, when trailers were installed outside several schools. However, she raised concerns about the disruption that would arise from the project. A fourth high school would require a complete redistricting, sending long-time WAHS students to other schools. Acuff lamented that the “Center model has never been fully implemented. It’s been delayed five years, it’s been cut one-third in size, and by now we were supposed to be having some other Centers.” Board member Graham Paige chimed in, mentioning that the initial Centers proposal included additions to the high schools that were later cut.
Despite differing views on the best path forward, the board members agreed this issue would only worsen if action was not taken immediately. Acuff summed up the general sense of urgency that was palpable in the room: “If you look at the pattern of growth, it’s sort of terrifying.”
