SOFTBALL: Woodbridge wins Cardinal District tourney over Colgan. PAGES 10, 11
May 23, 2024 | Vol. 23, No. 21 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | $2.00 Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
Data center construction damages 2 Black cemeteries County's historical commission voices concern, calls for action By Cher Muzyk Staff Writer
TIMES STAFF PHOTO/CHER MUZYK
A displaced headstone for Frank Gaskins, who died in 1922, at the Gaskins cemetery, where signs of disturbance include tree stumps and other debris. The cemetery, at 8940 Wellington Road, is next to an electrical substation under construction on property owned by Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative.
The Prince William County Historical Commission is sounding the alarm after two historic African American cemeteries in Brentsville were damaged by the construction of a new data center and a related electrical substation. Both cemeteries are the final resting places for members of the Gaskins family, whose lineage can be traced back to slaves freed in the 1790s by plantation owner Robert Carter III. They are located about 2 miles apart on Wellington Road outside Manassas, where historians say a vibrant community of free African Americans thrived in Prince William County both before and after the Civil War. Both Gaskins cemeteries are registered with the county, documented in the county’s real estate assessments and included on Historic Prince William’s list of the county’s 422 historic cemeteries. Even though the cemeteries are well known, construction activity associated with a new Iron Mountain data center and a Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative substation got within feet of some burial sites despite the county’s required 25-foot buffer See GRAVES, page 5
Prince William schools plan big changes for bus system Fewer stops, longer walks, passenger vans all part of proposed plan for next school year By Meghan Mangrum Deputy Editor
Prince William County Schools will overhaul its busing system next school year in hopes of eliminating mostly empty buses on some routes and ensuring more students arrive at school on time. The changes include fewer stops and sometimes longer walks to those stops for kids in an effort to consolidate and speed up routes. One major goal is to fix the constant problem of late buses. The school system will also offer a way for families to opt-out if they know their student will never ride the bus. “Over the past two years, we’ve experienced many challenges with student transportation,” Superintendent LaTanya McDade said during a recent school board meeting. Those “significant challenges” have included operating buses that on average are half full and 37% of buses arriving late to school, according to
Chief Operating Officer Vernon Bock. The school system has also struggled to recruit new drivers and maintain communication with families, he said. Prince William County Schools transports nearly 73,000 students daily, or about 79% of the entire student population — well above the national average, Bock said. At times, buses transport fewer than 10 students, which makes up more than 1,000 of the trips made daily, he added. In response to these challenges, school leaders contracted 4MATIV, a transportation consultant, and conducted an audit of the system’s bus routes. The company has also worked with other large school districts, including nearby Prince George’s County in Maryland, Houston Independent School District and Indianapolis Public Schools.
The proposed changes
Starting this fall, the division plans to eliminate around 22% of bus stops.
Willing Warriors opens new lodge for wounded military, page 2
PHOTO BY DOUG STROUD
Buses arrive at Gar-Field High School. This means some students will have to walk farther each morning, though all stops likely won’t be eliminated from a single neighborhood. The target walking distances to stops, according to the school division, are: • Pre-K to grade 5 students – a quarter mile • Middle school students – half a mile • High school students – three quarters of a mile Currently, most students, or 57,000 of those who ride buses, walk no more than a quarter mile to and from their bus stop.
All things Star Trek at the libraries, page 7
“(We’re) virtually providing doorto-door service for the vast majority of our students and with the critical bus driver shortage that we’ve experienced, we’ve been unable to keep up,” Bock said. “That’s been a key reason for our poor on-time performance” Students who ride a bus to a specialty school might see a bigger increase. Most students live less than a mile and a half from their current specialty program stop, but board policy only requires it to be less than five miles. See BUS SYSTEM, page 2
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