Developments’ Impact On School Enrollment

Every new residential construction project in Verona has faced the same question: What will your impact on school class sizes be? The question is particularly apt for the Verona Place apartments that will go under construction soon opposite the Richfield Regency and the Annin Lofts project, which just unveiled its plans. The improvements at both developments will be taxed under a PILOT, a payment in lieu of taxes that is not shared with the Board of Education the way regular property taxes are. What’s more, the new apartments are going up within the Brookdale Avenue elementary school zone, which is the smallest of Verona’s four elementary schools.

Across town on Durrell Street, there’s been a lot of new construction and the residents of many of those homes moved in as school was starting. The new townhouses and single family homes in the area are all larger than the apartments being planned at Verona Place and Annin Flag. So we asked Superintendent Rui Dionisio what impact that was having on F.N. Brown elementary school, H.B. Whitehorne middle school and Verona High School.

Bahr Circle, the main road through the townhouse development built on the former Bahr Lumber property, is sending one student to kindergarten, two to third grade, one to fourth grade and one to seventh grade. There is also one sixth grade student from Burdett Court, which bisects the property. There are no enrollments at VHS and, paradoxically, there are no new students enrolled from the homes on Rawding Court, a clutch of large luxury homes built on the former Fresco Landscaping property.

“There is no impact to our scheduling and staffing based on these enrollments,” said Dionisio, “as the numbers are negligible.”