CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Albemarle County is considering addressing overcrowding in the division by building a fourth high school, something that will be discussed at the upcoming Sept. 11 meeting.

That’s one of the options the county will consider, according to information provided by school board chairperson Dr. Kate Acuff during a Friday morning appearance on WINA Morning News.

“Everyone is familiar with the overcrowding at Albemarle High School,” Acuff said, noting the division is using trailers to house 16 classrooms currently. “Western is significantly over capacity now, and even Monticello in the next five years, it’s inching up now. We need to have a broad solution.”

The county is currently building two new schools, Mountain View Upper Elementary and Center Two, a supplementary high school educational building.

But, Acuff said the other high schools have capacity pressures, as well, and the school board at its upcoming Sept. 11 meeting will, “provide guidance to the Long-Range Planning and Advisory Committee to study the matter.”

Acuff said the decisions made up until now have been building the center currently under construction and modifying the existing schools. But partly because of a five-year delay in Center Two, and the fact it was reduced in size by about a-third, the board is “revisiting what we should do about the high schools.”

The options the advisory committee will be asked to consider are continuing the Center Model, doing a combination of school expansions plus centers to be located near the schools, or building the new traditional high school along 29.

The high school considerations happen as the county is already building its first two new schools in some 20 years, both to open at the beginning of the 2026-27 academic year.

Center Two, formally known as Albemarle Career Exploration (ACE) Academy Lambs Lane, is under construction next to Albemarle High School where the old Building Services building used to be. Its 60,000 square-feet will house some 400 students a day. Acuff has maintained over the past several months the project only has a temporary effect on high schools’ capacities because of its limited size.

Mountain View Upper Elementary is the school under construction behind the Monticello fire station, and they’re having a topping-out ceremony September 4. It’s slated to open next school year for 3rd-through-5th graders, and the current Mountain View Elementary will host pre-school-through-2nd grade.

Acuff called a North Pointe elementary school project “contemplative” at this point since funds for design work won’t be available until July 2026. Preliminary work selecting architects and engineering firms will happen in the spring as they look toward the 2029 school year opening.

The high school needs came up as a topic at the school board meeting two weeks ago, and the Long-Range Planning Advisory Committee will be asked at the next meeting to make a recommendation on options this fall.