Schools
School Board to Discuss Human Bones, Graves Found Under New Football Field
The public meeting of the Prince William County School Board is tonight, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m.
The Prince William County School Board is meeting at 7 p.m. today, Dec. 16 to get some public feedback on what should be done with human bone fragments found in graves discovered at the construction site of a new high school.
The school division learned this summer that human graves were found at the construction site of the currently-unnamed 12th high school in the Prince William County School division. The remains are thought to date back to pre-Civil War times, school officials said in earlier reports.
Evidence of the graves were found as early as 2008 by contractors working at the site, but that information wasn't shared with school division officials until five years later, according to the PWCS website.
- See video of what grave information was shared with the school board on Nov. 19, here.
In November, the Lynn Family of Prince William County told local television media that the graves are that of their ancestors, who lived in the area in the early 1800s.
School officials said DNA tests will be done on the bones, if possible, but so far what has been discovered is too deteriorated for such tests.
The bones will be removed and reinterred at Stonewall Memorial Gardens at the school division's expense. The exact cost isn't yet known, a spokesman for the school division said in November.
The meeting is at the Edward L. Kelly Leadership Center, 14715 Bristow Rd. in Manassas. Meetings are also broadcast live on the web at www.pwcstv.com/. They can also be viewed live on TV on Comcast Channel 18 and Verizon FiOs Channel 36.
What do you think should be done with the graves? Should the school division really have to pay? Tell us in the commenting section of this story.
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