York County School Division leaders have long said the construction of a new elementary school is becoming more critical, but their advocacy has not yet yielded the funding needed from the county.
Capacity has been a longstanding issue in the school division, but at an Oct. 13 work session of the YCSD School Board, interim Superintendent Carl James said an increase in residential development in the county could push some schools over capacity.
Four elementary schools in the division have administrators most worried: Magruder, Waller Mill, Yorktown and Grafton Bethel.
Those concerns are due to a number of approved and proposed residential developments in the county. Nelson’s Grant, Yorktown Arch, Yorktown Crescent and Riverwalk Townes are projected to add 1,918 residential units within the school division.
In Upper York County, the expansion of the Marquis at Williamsburg, the proposed development at Whittaker’s Mill, the removal of age restrictions for The Reserve at Williamsburg and the addition of 400 military personnel at the Naval Weapons Station could add hundreds more housing units — and new students — to already-crowded Magruder and Waller Mill elementary schools.
Both Magruder and Waller Mill are already near their maximum capacities. Magruder, which had 631 students Sept. 30, has a maximum building capacity of 740 and an instructional capacity of 645. Waller Mill’s 286 students on Sept. 30 is within the building capacity of 297, but exceeds its maximum instructional capacity of 235.
YCSD Spokesperson Katherine Goff said the school division temporarily addressed that situation through the use of classroom trailers.
Through examinations of the school division’s growth trends and consultations with York County officials, Goff said YCSD projected at least “slight to moderate growth” in the next few years.
“With the projections, of course our recommendation is the construction of a new elementary school, based on what we see for development in the Magruder Elementary Zone and the York Elementary Zone,” James told board members.
Mark Tschirhart, associate director for capital plans and improvements, said the division’s 10-year master plan for facilities includes $23 million in fiscal years 2016 — which begins July 1, 2015 — and 2017 for the construction of a new elementary school. The master plan also includes a proposal to add 10 classrooms and construct a new gymnasium at Waller Mill.
The completion of a new elementary school would ease the capacity issues at Magruder and Yorktown elementary schools. For Grafton Bethel, however, the master plan suggests reviewing “enrollment projections in the lower county and [balancing] enrollment at elementary schools accordingly.” It states that rezoning the elementary schools is not recommended for fiscal year 2016, but could be on the table through the establishment of an Attendance Balancing Committee after that.
James’ announcement was the latest call for a new elementary school in York County, as the school division has included construction funds for an elementary school in each of its proposed budgets since fiscal year 2011.
“We’ve been aware of this for a long time,” Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Thomas Shepperd said. “There’s been a request out there for about seven years.”
Last year, the school division proposed building a new 500-seat elementary school on the campus of Yorktown Middle School for $23 million, but the York County Board of Supervisors did not approve funds in its Capital Improvements Plan, which coordinates funding for major construction expenditures.
A footnote in the approved document said the supervisors recognized the likely need for a new school, but current funding projections and the requirement for a fiscally constrained CIP made its construction unfeasible.
Supervisor Walt Zaremba said previous requests by the school division for funding for a new elementary school had not always matched the stated need in terms of enrollment figures.
“It’s not just, ‘We’d like another middle school,’” Zaremba said in an interview with WYDaily. “It has to be justified in terms of the numbers.”
While Zaremba credited analyses of population growth and other statistics as reasons for the denial of funds for previous building requests, Board of Supervisors Chairman Don Wiggins said a lack of communication between the two boards had caused difficulties in the process.
“I think now we’re able to communicate better than in the past,” Wiggins said. “The Board of Supervisors recognizes the need now more than in the past.”
Wiggins also said the fiscal implications of funding school construction made the process difficult. School divisions in Virginia cannot levy their own taxes, and rely on local funding contributions to support their annual budgets. Wiggins said the Board of Supervisors was hesitant to raise taxes in the county to avoid stifling economic growth and harming the county’s residents living on fixed incomes. Instead, Wiggins said any school construction would likely be funded by a bond taken out by the county.
In recent interviews with WYDaily, Zaremba and School Board Chairman Mark Medford disagreed with Wiggins there had been a lack of communication between the two Boards, but agreed that keeping an open dialogue would be essential to solving the elementary school issue.
At a May meeting of the Board of Supervisors, Zaremba criticized the state of communications between the supervisors and school division officials, criticizing their down-to-the-wire budget negotiations for fiscal year 2015, which began July 1, as embarrassing.
“Our staff and their staff work closely together,” Medford said. “I know there’s communication because we’ve discussed this need for multiple years.”
The Board of Supervisors typically begins its budget discussions in January, but Zaremba said he wanted to initiate discussion on the new elementary school between his board and the school board before the holidays. Shepperd said any movement on the issue would have to wait until after the supervisors and school board have reviewed the school division’s enrollment projections and the county has issued its preliminary guidelines for the budget.
Although Shepperd said he would not be surprised if architectural and engineering work were included in the county’s next budget cycle, Medford said the need for a new elementary school was reaching a critical phase. Getting a school in the next CIP would be the starting point.
“We don’t want to get to the situation with a school not in the CIP, and then rush to get something done,” he said. “It takes a good chunk of time to do right.”
Without a new building, Medford said increased enrollment would stretch already stressed classroom space to the breaking point and would force the school division to invest in trailers as temporary classrooms.
With the funding issue left to be decided by the Board of Supervisors, the school division is doing what work it can to expedite the process. Tschirhart said YCSD was close to awarding a contract for feasibility studies on two parcels of land the division is considering as future school sites: a location on the campus of Yorktown Middle School, and a parcel near the Marquis at Williamsburg shopping center near Water Country USA.
As part of the expansion of the Marquis, York County received a 7-acre parcel of land, which the developer identified as a potential site for a new school. The county is not obligated to use the land for a school and has the power to sell it. The Marquis developer, Texas-based Todd Interests, estimated the parcel could be worth as much as $2 million to a developer interested in using it for residential units.
Tschirhart said the Marquis site would have drawbacks as a new school, particularly due to its lack of available parking. In order to accommodate school bus traffic, Tschirhart said a bus parking lot would also have to be constructed.
Medford agreed early discussions between the two boards could help expedite the process.
“We’ll be asking for a joint work session,” Medford said. “We’re always encouraging [the supervisors] to get involved. We try to make sure they know what’s out there, and we try to answer all their questions.”
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