Stafford's Hartwood High School on Track to Open in August 2026
The school is proposed to house a specialty center dedicated to preparing students for careers in the arts, media, and production.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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Inside Hartwood High School, the room that will be the dance studio is sunken just slightly, ready to receive its wooden floor.
Down the hall is a blackbox theater with walls that stretch thorugh to building’s second level, where a student in a control booth will be able to oversee the drama unfolding below.
Across from that is the 1,000-seat theater, where above the second story balcony level, acoustic ceiling clouds are being installed.
Stafford County’s sixth high school is about 75% complete, and it is taking the shape of a modern educational facility ready to house the division’s proposed specialty center dedicated to media and the arts. In addition to the blackbox theater and dance studio, there will be TV recording and editing studios—not to mention the orchestra, band, and choir classrooms with built-in, soundproof practice and recording studios, and two fine arts labs.
Hartwood High School is on track to welcome students in August of 2026, construction team leaders said during a site visit last week. The 290,000-square-foot, $139 million school has a design capacity of 2,150 students, making it the biggest of the county’s high schools—the next largest, Brooke Point, has a design capacity of 2,000 students.
The academic core of the new school consists of two wings, each three stories tall. The main gym already boasts acoustic panels painted black, silver, and gold, which the School Board chose in August to be the new high school’s colors.
The athletics complex will include a baseball field and softball field with associated dugouts, a field house, three soccer fields, six tennis courts, and a track/football field.
The school, located between Truslow Road and U.S. 17 in the Hartwood district of the county, was designed by the Tysons Corner-based architecture firm Grimm and Parker, along with Timmons Group, designers and civil engineers based in Richmond.
The construction contractor is Shockey, which is also building Falls Run Elementary—formerly known as elementary school #18—across Stafford Plaza Drive from the high school.
Cody Wickline is a 2023 graduate of Stafford High School who is now helping to build Falls Run Elementary as an employee of subcontractor Phillips. He studied carpentry, masonry, and electricity at Stafford High and he participated in the division’s house construction project BOOTS—an acronym for Bringing Occupational Opportunities to Schools (BOOTS)
Wickline, who’s completed grading and other site work at Falls Run, said he didn’t expect to be able to work locally after graduation.
“I figured I’d be working in Northern Virginia,” he said, adding that he’s excited to be helping to build a school for a new generation of Stafford County students.
Wickline said he encourages upcoming high school students to participate in the county’s trade and industrial education program, which includes the Engineering Professions and Industries of Construction specialty center at Stafford High School.
“We need the help,” he said.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment opportunities in construction are projected to grow faster than the average for all occupations in the next 10 years, with about 649,300 openings projected each year, on average.
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