The Williamsburg-James City County School Board discussed how conversations about the future of James Blair Middle School should proceed during their meeting Tuesday.
In the two years that have passed since the 1950s-era school closed its doors to become an administrative office building, the school board, county leaders and city officials have said a conversation needs to be had before the middle school capacity demands a fourth middle school.
Last month, James City County Board of Supervisors Chair John McGlennon suggested his board vote to establish a working group to help the school division make plans to move out of James Blair and find a new location for its administrative offices. The working group will include County Administrator Robert Middaugh, City Manager Jack Tuttle and Superintendent Steven Constantino, the superintendent said Tuesday.
What isn’t clear to the board is what that group’s role will be, and what role the WJCC board will play in the conversation about the future of James Blair. Board Chair Ruth Larson said Tuesday that nothing has been communicated to the board about the plans for the working group.
When he first proposed the idea, McGlennon suggested the working group brainstorm ideas for appropriate locations for new offices and to help identify WJCC’s requirements for new space.
WJCC Board Vice Chair Joe Fuentes said Tuesday that the administration should do an assessment of its space needs, both in the present and in the future, and bring that information to the board and to the local funding partners when they meet to work on the Capital Improvements Plan for the division.
Senior Director for Operations Marcellus Snipes and Facilities Management Coordinator Alan Robertson told the board that a study completed by RRMM Architects found that the office space currently provided by James Blair is on par with U.S. office space standards prescribed by the International Facilities Management Association. Those standards are 280 square feet for upper management, 192 square feet for senior staff and 142 square feet for staff. RRMM estimated that for 125 people, the division’s administration would need approximately 48,000 square feet.
Snipes added, however, that the administration has yet to figure out exactly what square footage is needed for conference rooms, hallways and bathrooms. Robertson said staff instructed RRMM to find out what it would take to find the same amount of space afforded by Blair and move it somewhere else; Fuentes said that wasn’t the right way to go about it.
At a joint budget meeting in March, the administration told funding partners that they were working with a real estate professional to find an existing space to rent or purchase as a central office, but hadn’t found anything to accommodate the needs identified by their 125 employees.
In 2009, the board first began to consider closing Blair in the face of projections that showed the middle school population, combined with budget pressures, didn’t yet merit four middle schools. At the time, the division administration was housed in Building C (now demolished) of the James City County Complex, and leased space throughout the county. A feasibility study showed the school could serve as administrative space, and temporary walls were put up to transition the classrooms to offices.
It could cost up to $6 million to refurbish and renovate James Blair, plus an additional $2.2 million to staff a fourth middle school, according to an estimate provided to the board in 2011 (read more here).
In March, Constantino presented one vision for a fourth middle school that would be built on the same property occupied by James Blair. He proposed replacing a line item for a central office in the Capital Improvements Plan with $33.6 million to build a fourth middle school on the same property by 2017.
He told the leaders it was an opportunity to build a “unique, forward-thinking” school with the flexibility to fit individual students, and could possible be a charter school, offer virtual learning classes for high schoolers in the evenings or have dedicated space to adult education and English language classes. Read more about his March presentation here.
On Tuesday, he said the board and the administration might need to put a group together to study the learning needs of students of the future. He added that the supervisors-supported group will offer “an opportunity to help all of our partners understand our needs.”
The board agreed a middle school committee, possibly including teachers and experts from the College of William & Mary, needs to be formed to research the future needs of students. Meanwhile, he will participate in the working group.
Constantino said that before a solution can be found, the community will have to find answers to the following questions: What does research say about what a school of the future should be like? Can a building be retrofitted to suit that vision, or would it demand a new facility? Where should it be located? And finally, can the community financially support that vision?
