As Williamsburg-James City County Schools looks for a new location for a fourth middle school, the former James Blair Middle School will remain home to the school board and central offices — at least for the time being.
In a James City County Planning Commission Policy Committee meeting Wednesday, the committee reviewed capital improvement project requests for the fiscal year 2015 submitted by various county agencies. Two WJCC Schools officials — Alan Robertson, facilities management coordinator, and Marcellus Snipes, senior director for operations — were on hand to answer questions about the schools’ project funding requests.
The schools had submitted a request for $8.25 million for a new space for the school board and central office staff. It also requested a total of about $40 million — $8 million in fiscal year 2015 and more than $32 million in 2016 — for a new middle school. Robertson said the amounts were the total requests for the office and middle school buildings, not just James City County’s portion.
Robertson asked the policy committee to not focus on the school board and central office portion, saying the schools are currently in the middle of their own capital improvement process and have solicited comments but not yet gone to the school board. Robertson said things are currently in flux and the school board office was not a priority at this moment.
Planning Commissioner Tim O’Connor (At-Large) compared the need for a new school board office to a chicken-and-egg scenario: If James Blair is determined to be the best site for a new middle school, the school board office may move. If another site is determined to be better suited to a school, the school board office could stay.
Snipes told the committee the schools are currently looking into alternate site locations for a school in conjunction with the county’s planning staff.
Robertson said the James Blair site had previously been considered as a site for the fourth middle school and a study was completed to determine whether that site would work and in what capacity; since that time, Robertson said the schools have started looking into another possible location.
In October, the school board was asked to delay a decision on the fourth middle school. Originally, Superintendent Steven Constantino wanted a decision by November, but wanted to work with James City County and the City of Williamsburg to determine how the area’s population growth would occur in the near future. Using that data, a map will be created to present to the school board for consideration.
As plans come together for a firmer location for the fourth middle school, the schools could return to James City County to ask for funding for a new school board and central office building.
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