Berkeley Middle and Matthew Whaley Elementary schools will each add a classroom trailer to their campuses next year to help accommodate overcapacity issues for the next four years.
Williamsburg’s City Council approved special-use permits to add a trailer to both schools, as well as an extension for the permits of the two existing trailers behind Berkeley. The permits will allow the four trailers, which hold two classrooms each, until July 31, 2018.
The applications for both schools passed on a 3-1 vote, with Councilman Douglas Pons voting against, at the council’s Thursday meeting. Mayor Clyde Haulman was absent from the meeting.
Before casting the only opposing vote, Pons said he anticipated both applications would pass but wanted to “send the message that I’m not sure that we’ve explored all the options.”
Earlier in the meeting, Pons told his fellow council members he wanted a better solution to the overcrowding at Berkeley — which will be overcapacity by an estimated 113 students in the 2014-15 school year — than adding trailers while waiting for a fourth middle school to be built.
“I wonder if there isn’t another solution to deal with the population at the school rather than providing more classroom space. The problem goes beyond the classroom,” Pons said, offering spot redistricting as a possible solution.
While Toano and Hornsby middle schools are also reaching their capacity limits, they have not yet reached the crowding problem that faces Berkeley – the district’s oldest middle school – nor do those schools have an issue with the size of their cafeterias.
Alan Robertson, the facilities manager for Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools, said the problematic lunch schedule for Berkeley has not gone unnoticed.
“We have considered expanding the cafeteria’s seating slightly just so we can reduce the number of lunch periods because we recognize that is an issue,” said Robertson, who added the project is in the planning stages and no contract for a renovation has been awarded.
Berkeley Middle School has built in six 27-minute lunch periods for its current population of 901 students with the earliest block starting at 10:09 a.m. Toano Middle and Lois S. Hornsby Middle schools each have three 30-minute lunch periods; Toano has its first lunch block at 10:40 a.m. and Hornsby starts lunch at 10:45 a.m.
“We’re only going to exacerbate the problem of the lunch schedule, crowded hallways, and I don’t even know what the impact is from a fire safety standpoint,” Pons said of the Berkeley trailers application.
Matthew Whaley’s enrollment increased by 60 students between 2012 and 2013, putting the school overcapacity by 42 students. Projections show an increase of an estimated 20 students for the 2014-15 school year, with the population expected to increase by about 20 students each year for the foreseeable future.
The trailer is meant to accommodate the school’s current population problem until a permanent solution can be put in place. No suggestion for that permanent solution was offered at Thursday’s meeting.
“I’m not sure the problem at Matthew Whaley isn’t worse than it is at Berkeley,” Vice Mayor Paul Freiling said.
The WJCC school board is scheduled to award a contract for the Matthew Whaley trailer at its meeting Tuesday. Of the seven submitted, Modular Technologies gave the lowest bid at $78,504.
