Blog Williamsburg

I am not sure that separation would hurt regional cooperation, depending on how it is done.  If we petulantly state “its our ball and we are going home!” then problems will arise.  If, for example, we go to a slow dissolve where we let current high school students phase out and graduate, all the while allowing the county to use the city’s surplus middle school classroom space until such time that the new school already slated for construction can be built, that would greatly reduce the shock to the county system. 

Clearly the two localities are traveling different paths.  The county population will continue to grow at the current rate or greater for the next 20 years even if a complete moratorium on rezoning went into effect today.  The city population increase is modest, with the number of school aged children fairly flat.  I applied for a job in Wake County, NC a few years back.  One of the primary reasons I turned it down was that they too are in boom mode and the school districts are shuffled nearly every year.  I talked to parents in the system and they said the teachers were great and they liked the schools overall, but it was very stressful on the kids to be shifted around every year.  They also complained about overcrowding of schools.  That is what we can look forward to with JCC.  This redistricting will occur on a biannual basis from here on out.  There are already two more on the books.

We pay $10m to educate 789 students - $12,600 each! Plus providing three school facilities.  That more that double Providence Classical School’s $6k tuition.  The shift to an all city school system will bump up noticeably the % of the “free lunch” students we hear so much about, but the significantly smaller classroom sizes should compensate for it.
We have a great model nearby to look at in the Town of West Point Public Schools.  That is a simple working class town, but because they too have a stable school age population, a solid tax base and a commitment to excellence, their schools are among the best in the state.  Academically, they are up their with the better Fairfax County Schools.

Cooperation occurs where it is mutually beneficial.  I see the benefit of shared schools for JCC, but the benefit for Williamsburg is a bit fuzzy to me.  It will be a heck of a lot easier to just sign on the dotted line and renew the contract, but I am sure that it is not the best thing for the city’s students.

My largest concern is how are the children of Williamsburg doing? The redistricting keeps working on ways to import large groups of upper middle class children into Matthew Whaley. Are the children of Williamsburg being educated or are they being drowned out in a flood of imported children? WJC school system has a tracking system that follows students through their education in the public schools. How are the children of Williamsburg doing? Are they scoring on the SOL’s the same as the over-all school district. Do they have the same graduation rate? We are spending a great deal of money per student for the school-age citizens of Williamsburg. Is the money helping our children? It’s time for the City Council to ask the question and demand an answer. HOW ARE THE CHILDREN OF WILLIAMSBURG DOING?