VMDO Architects

In recent years, Albemarle County Public Schools has experienced significant overcrowding issues at two of its five middle schools, including Henley Middle School in Crozet and Journey Middle School on Lambs Lane. In an effort to curb these ongoing challenges and building off a long history of collaborations with the school district, Albemarle County engaged with VMDO in 2023 to support a comprehensive facilties master plan for its dedicated middle schools.

VMDO’s approach to the master planning effort is embedded in ACPS’ larger strategic vision of “Learning for All,” reinforcing equity goals to ensure that every family and child has access to a high-quality education and mitigate barriers to that access. As such, it was essential for a robust engagement process to inform the overall mission and goals of the master plan. VMDO worked directly with ACPS in a “Planning to Plan” process to directly tailor engagement exercises and events to the specific needs of the School Board and the County’s families. This engagement will serve to create consensus amongst various stakeholders to establish a clear and representative framework for the master planning effort.

Using feedback and information collected from the engagement process, VMDO will begin to explore both long and short term solutions for the County’s middle school population. These solutions will reflect considerations for a number of interrelated factors, including capacity needs, feeder patterns, boundaries, and most importantly, the bolstering of equitable access to educational resources across the County. An analysis of existing conditions and assets will contribute to key decision-making for both tangible and strategic solutions, from architectural renovations and new construction, to grade level reconfigurations and innovative programming. VMDO and the District will continue to return these suggested ideas to invested stakeholders, verifying that high-level planning is meeting on-the-ground educational, social, financial, and ecological goals.

The result of the planning effort will produce a series of architectural concepts, current assessments, and design guidelines that will serve as a guiding document for future development across the school district. As the opposite of a “one size fits all” approach, the process will unearth specialized solutions that uplift ACPS students and meet the District’s long-term goals for building equity and expanding access to a dynamic educational ecosystem.