VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Virginia Beach City Public Schools is holding multiple community feedback meetings as it looks to eventually replace four of the city’s oldest schools: Princess Anne High School, Bayside High School, Bayside Sixth Grade Campus and Bettie F. Williams Elementary.

This comes after city council and the district’s school board approved in March a $15 million interim PPEA (Public Private Education Act) agreement with local builder S.B. Ballard (which submitted the unsolicited PPEA proposal back in May 2021) for work to create designs for the replacement schools.

That agreement only authorized 30% of design work for the replacement schools, but school district officials have said a more extensive agreement based on those designs could save the district tens of millions of dollars by streamlining the construction process through Ballard’s “wealth of relevant experience in the programming, planning, design and construction.”

“SBBCC will utilize the PPEA process to ensure transparency and collaboration and to explore potential expedited schedules, construction cost savings and future energy cost savings, VBCPS says. “One of the other asks from the School Board and City Council in this process is to find efficiencies of size and scale prior to or during the design process/community input process.”

S.B. Ballard representatives will attend the meetings alongside VBCPS Planning Advisory Teams, which include teachers, staff and administrators, students, parents and community members.

Here are the dates:

Bayside High School community input meetings:

  • May 3 (6-7:30) – Bayside HS Library
  • May 31 (6-7:30) – Bayside HS Library
  • Sept 12 (6-7:30) – Bayside HS Library
  • Oct 26 (6-7:30) – Bayside HS Library

Princess Anne High School community input meetings:

  • May 3 (6-7:30) – Bayside HS Library
  • June 1 (6-7:30) – Princess Anne HS Library
  • Sept 13 (6-7:30) – Princess Anne HS Library
  • Oct 25 (6-7:30) – Princess Anne HS Library

Bettie F. Williams Elementary School/Bayside Sixth Grade Campus community input meetings:

  • May 1 (6-7:30) – Williams ES Cafeteria
  • May 30 (6-7:30) – Bayside 6th Grade Cafeteria
  • Sept 14 (6-7:30) – Williams ES Cafeteria
  • Oct 23 (6-7:30) – Bayside 6th Grade Cafeteria

VBCPS says the meetings will also help develop the space requirements for classrooms and other areas inside the school, after some in the community have said schools are being built too large and with too elaborate of designs.

If you can’t make a meeting, VBCPS has a feedback form on its “Schools of the Future” website.