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Daily Updates Online
NOVEMBER 13, 2014
Number 22
Educa t io n
Volume 8
Danielle Nadler
s many in Northern Virginia waited for election results to roll in last Tuesday, likely keeping a close watch on how their party would fare, Wendy Wooley was waiting for a different voter tally. She wasn’t rooting for a particular candidate but instead for the approval of the $162.9 million school bond referendum. Minutes after the polls closed, she pulled up a Web link to the Loudoun
County Voter Registrar’s spreadsheet and watched the numbers trickle in, precinct by precinct, with her breath held. “I was worried,” she said. “I didn’t want to take anything for granted.” As a member of Loudoun’s Citizen Volunteer Workgroup, a joint advisory committee of the School Board and Board of Supervisors, Wooley was tasked with drumming up support for the Academies of Loudoun in the months leading up to Election Day. The school bond question—approved by 66 percent of voters last week—included funding for
an elementary school and a middle school, but the largest ticket item is the $114.6 million Academies of Loudoun. The project, now planned for a 2018 opening, will combine expanded versions of the advanced high school the Academy of Science and the county’s career and technical school, C.S. Monroe Technology Center, as well as the new Academy of Engineering and Technology. Voters did more than approve how the project would be funded, as Wooley, a parent of a teenager who “lives and breathes robotics,” sees it. They showed their support for a project that has been pushed down the priority list for more
than a decade to make room for new elementary, middle and high schools. “It’s more than just a school,” she said. “It truly is a STEM initiative that involves the entire community of Loudoun County.”
More Than High School
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Academies Advocates Eye Next Steps
The approval of the bond referendum gives the official nudge for school, county and business leaders to continue the planning process on everything from the academies’ building and site Continued on Page 21
Cla ss if ie d
Supervisors Nix Pay Raise Proposal Jonathan Hunley
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Veterans Day ceremonies in Loudoun Tuesday, including VFW Post 1177’s sunrise service at Ball’s Bluff National Cemetery, honored veterans throughout the nation’s history, from those who fought in the American Revolutionary War to those serving today. Leading up to the holiday, Gov. Terry McAuliffe pledged to end veterans’ homelessness. See story, Page 10.
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The committee’s recommendation incited lots of comments in Loudoun and elsewhere. But the board’s action last week came with barely any discussion. “I will say I’ve been unequivocal from day one with everybody on this board that, under no circumstances, would I support a raise or salary adjustment for the next board coming into office, and I stand by that,” Supervisor Ralph M. Buona (R-Ashburn) said before making the motion to table. And Supervisor Matthew F. LetourContinued on Page 45
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“Clearly, there wasn’t support on the board for this discussion.” O pinio n
Ashburn Today/Norman K. Styer
oudoun County supervisors won’t be getting a pay raise anytime soon. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously last week to table indefinitely a proposal to raise its chairman’s salary by $20,000 and individual supervisors’ pay by $10,000. Currently, Board Chairman Scott K. York (R-At Large) earns $50,000, Vice Chairman Shawn M. Williams (R-Broad Run) is paid $45,320 and the remaining members of the board are compensated $41,200 each. The board’s’ finance committee voted Oct. 14 to recommend that the full board make the pay increases, which wouldn’t have been effective until the next Board of Supervisors takes office in January 2016. State law stipulates that supervisors currently in office can’t vote to raise their own pay.
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