Hanover Public Schools announces fourth boundary adjustment option for overcrowding

HANOVER COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- Hanover County Public Schools has announced another boundary adjustment scenario to help with future student capacity needs, as well as a recommendation to delay the implementation of any approved boundary adjustments.

On Friday, Feb. 21, Hanover Schools announced that School Board members received another scenario to help with student capacity needs in schools, called Indigo, which will join the three other scenarios up for consideration -- Blue, Green and Purple.

The announcement comes after members of the Hanover County School Board held a work session earlier on Friday to meet with MGT, the third-party vendor leading the process, to discuss the boundary adjustment process.

Hanover Schools said the Indigo scenario is not a recommendation, rather it is a draft and an additional point of discussion for the Board.

The following is a summary of the drafted Indigo scenario for elementary schools, according to Hanover Schools:

• The entire Kings Charter neighborhood would move from Cool Spring Elementary School to Pearson’s Corner Elementary School.
• The majority of Rutland -- everything north of Atlee Road -- would move from Pearson’s Corner to Washington-Henry Elementary School.
• An area south of Meadowbridge Road would move from Washington-Henry to Mechanicsville Elementary School.
• Garrison Manor would move from Rural Point Elementary School to Washington-Henry when the replacement Washington-Henry school opens, which is slated for the 2027-28 school year.

The school district said the Indigo scenario is similar to the other three scenarios in that it would align middle and high school boundaries with the updated elementary school boundaries to create clean feeder patterns for all schools except Mechanicsville Elementary School.

According to Hanover Schools, the Board is closely analyzing the Indigo scenario and additional revisions are expected.

The Board will hold another work session on Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 1 p.m. at Hanover County Public Schools Central Office's John M. Gandy Building, located at 200 Berkley St. in Ashland, to discuss boundary adjustments.

"Further work is expected at the Board’s work session next week, including the development of another scenario(s) that incorporates the Board’s initial feedback on the Indigo scenario," Hanover Schools said in its release. "Any additional scenarios will be shared as they become available from our vendor, MGT."

Additionally, Hanover Schools said that a workgroup of Board members will recommend delaying the implementation of any approved boundary adjustments to the start of the 2026-27 school year, which will be considered at its March meeting.

According to the school district, the adjustments were originally scheduled to take effect at the start of the 2025-26 school year.

"As we have done since the start of this process, we will continue to keep you informed, including with regard to the School Board’s planned March vote on the implementation timeline," the school district said in its release.

Officials said the final vote on the boundary adjustments will take place in the Spring as planned.

According to Hanover Schools, the Indigo scenario has been added to MGT's advanced mapping tool, which allows people to review all of the proposed options.