Valley View Elementary School Opening Gets Held Back

Mike Roberts, Village Life, July 31, 2012

The Valley View Elementary School is nearly complete, but won’t open its doors to students until more homes are sold in the Blackstone master planned community it serves.

Until then, the $16 million school will become an interim district headquarters.

Woodland-based Broward Construction is on track to turn the site over to the Buckeye Union School District in May 2013. The campus can be student-ready for the fall semester of 2013.

The March 2011 district census found just 40 students in kindergarten through fifth grade in Blackstone, leaving outgoing Superintendent Terry Wenig  and her board with a tough decision: whether or not to break ground knowing that, barring a groundswell of home sales in Blackstone, there wouldn’t be enough students to support opening the school.

Village Life reported the groundbreaking in June 2011 as one of Wenig’s last official acts before retirement.

Lennar officials report that an estimated 200 homes are currently occupied, but even if those homes contain the district average .45 elementary school student per household — new communities often fall well below that average for the first several years — the school is well short of a quorum.

Blackstone students currently attend Brooks Elementary School in Park Village. Wenig’s successor David Roth, who took over as superintendent last year, said those students will continue to attend Brooks through the 2013-14 school year, at least — with simple math driving if, when and how the new school opens.

The key determinant, said Roth, will be whether enough students reside within school boundaries in some combination of grade levels to justify forming an inaugural Valley View class.

He left open the possibility that ...

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