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A modular classroom building behind Carrsville Elementary is here to stay.

In 2022, Isle of Wight County Schools sought and received permission from county supervisors to place a 1,700-square-foot “learning cottage,” as school officials refer to the building, on an existing concrete pad. A condition of that approval required IWCS to obtain a conditional use permit if the building remained for more than a year.

County supervisors voted unanimously on Aug. 15 to grant the requested permit.

IWCS Deputy Superintendent Christopher Coleman, in July, told the county Planning Commission, who vetted the permit application prior to its reaching the supervisors, that the building can house up to 40 students in its two back-to-back classrooms, each of which has its own bathroom.

IWCS used just over $37,000 of its federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, funds from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, to purchase the building, which Coleman said was originally intended to facilitate social distancing coming off the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it houses Carrsville’s preschool students, Coleman said.

Carrsville had 234 students, 13 of them in preschool, during the 2023-24 school year according to enrollment data on the Virginia Department of Education’s school quality profiles website.