During my four years on the School Board, the question of closing a school or program has come up three times. A month into my term, the School Board voted to pause the Virtual Learning Program, effectively ending it. In 2023, we considered whether to close Nottingham Elementary as a way to create swing space that would facilitate other, future school renovation and construction projects. This spring, we considered eliminating the Integration Station preschool program for budgetary reasons.
There's nothing I can think of that generates more upset for a school division. If Superintendents and School Boards are going to propose closing a school, it has to be done with an ironclad rationale and with the utmost care. In Fairfax County in the 1980s, both my elementary and high schools were closed due to declining enrollment while I attended. As a parent and a PTA leader, I participated in deliberations that led to the closure of McKinley, my kids' elementary school. (At the time APS proposed this, it was not guaranteeing that the entire school community would move together to the newly-constructed Cardinal Elementary, which is why it is correctly categorized as a school closing.) During that same process, APS moved two option programs, Escuela Key and Arlington Traditional School. So--I have some history with this topic. Because of that, and because of my most recent experience with Integration Station, I have been curious about how APS and other school divisions could improve how we take up this topic and make good decisions. I reached out to staff and families who are part of the Integration Station, Nottingham, and VLP communities to learn about their experiences and hear their ideas for how we could do this better. (Please note: While to my knowledge there are no immediate plans to close or move anyone in Arlington, I do think it would behoove us to develop a policy and related processes that would govern this if it comes up again.) I spoke with 13 individuals and here's what I heard: 1. Identify clear goals. What problem(s) are we trying to solve? What initial data suggest that closing or moving this school or program will be a good solution? These goals should not change during the decision making process. The individuals I spoke to felt like the following would be reasonable goals to identify:
2. Involve the right people. Before a closure or move is recommended to the School Board and communicated to the public, there should be serious deliberation among a group that includes:
The individuals I spoke with felt particularly strongly about the need to include the principal(s) as individuals with deep, specific knowledge of their school community and the impacts that would need to be anticipated and planned for. They also strongly recommended incorporating Transportation from the start and consistently including Special Education, English Learning, and DEI so that the needs of specific populations are always factored in. I shared a worry that involving school principals and/or FAC representatives might risk making something public before a recommendation is fully developed. The individuals I spoke with suggested that this worry implies a lack of trust: “Why would you assume that people can’t exercise professionalism and discretion?” They advised that the greater risk was bringing forward an ill-conceived recommendation because we hadn’t involved the right people from the outset. 3. Utilize a clear decision making framework. This group should employ a checklist of essential questions that need to be answered, including:
4. If a recommendation is going to be made to close or move a school or program, develop a comprehensive communications plan in advance. Who needs to be informed? Who needs to be engaged? When and how should we reach out to those groups? This would include families, students, and staff at the school or program in question; staff and students at the school(s) receiving any new students as a result of the change; community organizations partnering with the school or program in question; the County Board; and the general public. The individuals I spoke with observed that sometimes the very valid reasons for recommending a change get lost in the way it is communicated. They suggest the following improvements in communication and engagement:
If you have experience with this issue and can suggest other thoughtful improvements, I'd love to hear from you. I believe that the School Board does its best work when it listens closely and is open to making positive course corrections based on what it learns. In four years, I have never been disappointed when I've done so. When our kids were 5 and 3, my husband Fraser and I were looking to move from our tiny Alexandria duplex to a roomier home. Because I worked in education, and because one of our kids had special needs, it mattered a lot to me where we moved and where they’d go to school.
Fraser will tell you I got a little manic about our neighborhood-and-school search. (He is not wrong.) I researched schools in Alexandria, Fairfax, and Arlington and made a spreadsheet. I visited some of the schools to get a feel for them. The visits enabled us to rule out certain schools, like the one in FCPS where the assistant principal talked about nothing but test scores (at best, only a partial indicator of a great school, IMO). I really liked one of the elementary schools in Alexandria, but the principal told me we couldn’t be assured of attending there, even if we lived nearby, because of the citywide kindergarten lottery program that was in effect at the time. Ultimately, we moved to Arlington and our kids attended McKinley. We settled on the school first and then looked for a house in that attendance zone. In short, we did what many families do: pick a neighborhood based on its schools. Now in my role as a School Board member, I hear from many other community members who apply the same calculus and therefore feel strongly when APS adjusts boundaries or recommends other enrollment changes. Often these changes are intended to help us use our available space more efficiently; for example, to relieve overenrollment at certain schools, or to convert certain sites for alternative uses if it’s in the best interest of the school district as a whole. I attended Fairfax County Public Schools K-12 and both my elementary and high school were converted for alternative uses while I attended them. My elementary became the FCPS Human Resources Department (now it’s an adult education center). My high school became the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology; my class was the last to graduate before the conversion. At the time, I could not understand why FCPS would choose to close what by all accounts was a well-functioning, successful neighborhood high school. As a high school freshman I spoke to the School Board; as a college freshman, I penned a sharply critical editorial in The Fairfax Journal titled “Business Decisions Run Our Schools.” FCPS closed my high school during an era of declining enrollment in Northern Virginia. I knew this to be so, but still resisted the idea that attendance numbers and dollars should rule the day. I see things a little differently now. As a School Board member, I now can see how facility decisions affect the resources we have available for other things, like staff compensation, extra support and enrichment for students who need it, school safety, and more. Our annual operating budget includes the costs to run all of our schools: staffing, supplies, routine maintenance, utilities, and more. Our capital improvement budget includes costs for major system repair and replacement, as well as renovation and new construction. That entirely separate capital budget is funded primarily through voter-approved bonds (essentially, loans)—but the repayment of that money, or debt service, is part of our regular operating budget. This year APS is paying $65 million in debt service, which is about 9% of our general expenditures (see FY24 budget book, p.540). Three years ago, we paid $59 million to debt service out of the annual operating budget. Five years ago, it was also $59 million, which was 9% of that year’s budget. About 80% of each year’s budget goes to pay for staffing, which means that there’s only about 20% available for everything else. So—9% for debt service (or almost half of our “non-staffing” funds available) is significant. This is why facility management matters. It matters that we maximize use of our available facilities. Whether it happens during my time on the board or after I’m gone, Arlington will need to reckon with a projected 1900-seat surplus at the elementary level within the next decade. What will we do when we have the excess-capacity-equivalent of two and a half elementary schools? If swing space is required for the renovation and reconstruction we know many of our schools need, what’s the best way to obtain it? What factors will we prioritize in making that decision? This is not thinly-veiled commentary aimed at any particular school community or project. It’s simply an acknowledgement that there are some difficult decisions ahead, and that the advocacy of 1980s Mary does not completely match the knowledge I have today. The larger question is how communities like Arlington can build in the “flex” that will help us ride out the highs and lows in student enrollment and can ensure that we locate our schools strategically—as opposed to the situation in my part of the county, where the construction of Discovery and Cardinal in close proximity now mean we have too many seats, and not where they’re most needed. This is why I support the creation of a public facilities master plan that would encompass all of our public buildings—schools, libraries, community centers and more—to plan holistically and expand our thinking about what sites and properties we can tap for different purposes. It’s why we should think more creatively about the kinds of spaces we build and renovate, so that they can serve different purposes in different decades. Groups like the Joint Facilities Advisory Commission can be instrumental in this work, collaborating constructively with APS and County staff. In parallel, though, I hope we will be thoughtful about how we steward our capital funding and acknowledge that “business decisions run our schools”—not in a way that cancels out other considerations, but as a necessary reality. |
AuthorMary Kadera is a school board member in Arlington, VA. Opinions expressed here are entirely her own and do not represent the position of any other individual or organization. Categories
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