SchoolMatters Weblog

Where is Albemarle Growing as of 1st Quarter 2008?

Albemarle County has released the 2008 First Quarter Building Report. Thus I have updated my previous analysis of where new building permits are being issued in the County.  These do NOT reflect all newly approved developments, but rather homes in developments previously approved where a building permit has now been issued.  ALSO, while the County's report includes ALL types of housing, my analysis is limited to single family detached (SFD) homes, as those are a leading indicator of future enrollment growth for Albemarle County Public Schools.

Looking back over the last twelve month period (April 2007-March 2008), SFD building permits were issued as follows in Albemarle's six magisterial districts:

94 (34.2%) in White Hall
62 (22.5%) in Scottsville
55 (20.0%) in Rivanna
37 (13.5%) in Samuel Miller
17 (6.2%) in Rio
10 (3.6%) in Jack Jouett

From my website you can download a historical view of this data by magisterial district (chart above). http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/2008Q1-BuildingReport-chart.pdf

For the SFD permits detailed above (last 12 months), the two largest sub-groups geographically were Albemarle's rural areas (65.09% of SFD permits) and the Crozet designated growth area (16.36% of SFD permits). HOWEVER, for building permits of all housing types in the County thus far in 2008 (127 permits in first quarter), 49 are in the rural areas, or 38.6%.  While the percentage in the rural area is a higher number this quarter, historically the total number of permits is low for this quarter and that skews the percentages.

Brian Wheeler

Where do County employees live?

At a recent joint meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and School Board, members asked staff to prepare a map showing the home localities of County employees.  We received the map yesterday and I was surprised to see that 66.51% of our employees live in Charlottesville or Albemarle.  I expected more employees to live outside the immediate area. 

That said, the map notes 345 employees did not provide a response, and I wonder if the School Division's data would look differently if mapped by itself.

Brian Wheeler

Update on long range plans & redistricting

The Albemarle County School Board just received an update on long range planning and redistricting issues.  The Crozet and Brownsville Elementary communities should expect a thorough update from the School Division in May 2008 related to Phase II of the redistricting plans to open the addition being built at Brownsville.

Boundary Adjustments - The first phase of adjustments will examine different options for moving students from Crozet Elementary to Brownsville Elementary for the fall of 2009. Staff is currently reviewing 5-year projections, numbers of students at each grade level, current location of students, and predicted growth to develop viable options to be presented to the community in May. After the community presentation. a web-site will be developed to receive input through the summer. Staff will then consider the input, look at September 30th enrollment numbers, and finalize options to be brought forward to the Superintendent and ultimately to the School Board.

Over the next year, staff will toke a comprehensive look at capacity, projected enrollment numbers, and anticipated growth to address capacity issues for the entire Division. Topics of discussion will include the current structure of K-5, 6-8, and 9-12, assumptions regarding feeder patterns, and routing of buses.

Download entire memo as a PDF.

Brian Wheeler

Where is Albemarle Growing as of 4th Quarter 2007?

Albemarle County has released the 2007 Fourth Quarter Building Report and 2007 Year End Building Report. Thus I have updated my previous analysis of where new building permits are being issued in the County.  These do NOT reflect all newly approved developments, but rather homes in developments previously approved where a building permit has now been issued.  ALSO, while the County's report includes ALL types of housing, my analysis is limited to single family detached (SFD) homes, as those are a leading indicator of future enrollment growth for Albemarle County Public Schools.

Looking back over the last twelve month period (January 2007-December 2007), SFD building permits were issued as follows in Albemarle's six magisterial districts:

105 (35.4%) in White Hall
68 (22.9%) in Rivanna
63 (21.2%) in Scottsville
42 (14.1%) in Samuel Miller
10 (3.4%) in Rio
9 (3%) in Jack Jouett

I have been tracking this data for the past four years and this past quarter had the fewest number of building permits (54) issued for single family detached homes in any quarter.

From my website you can download a historical view of this data by magisterial district (chart above). http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/2007Q4-BuildingReport-chart.pdf

For the SFD permits detailed above (last 12 months), the two largest sub-groups geographically were Albemarle's rural areas (65.32% of SFD permits) and the Crozet designated growth area (19.19% of SFD permits). HOWEVER, for building permits of all housing types in the County in 2007 (831 permits), 202 are in the rural areas, or 24.3%.

Brian Wheeler

Updated 5-year enrollment projections

The enrollment in Albemarle County Public Schools has increased by 45 students over last year and is projected to grow by 259 students over the next 5 years.  That is about 2 additional students per school per year.  At a recent meeting, the School Board received the updated five-year enrollment projections which will be used in the upcoming budget.  Superintendent Pam Moran presents her proposed FY2009-10 budget to the School Board tomorrow.

Today's enrollment: 12,491 students in 2007-08
Last year's enrollment: 12,446 students in 2006-07
Enrollment projected in 5 years: 12,750 students in 2012-13

This chart that shows the actual enrollment compared to a series of past 5-year projections.

You can view all the details by school in this document:
http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/enrollment-2007-projection.pdf

Brian Wheeler

Improving how we use our resources

In June, the Albemarle County School Board retained the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute (CEPI) at VCU to conduct a "resource management review" of our school operations.  At our business meeting last week, the School Board received our first presentation about the findings and we have scheduled an in-depth work session to review the Institute's recommendations for this Thursday.

I can tell you that during the presentation by Dr. William Bosher, I was squirming in my seat frequently.  It appears they have identified a number of key areas where we can make improvements in our school operations.  He also had plenty of accolades for things Albemarle is doing really well.  That's exactly what I was hoping for with this review, but it can be difficult to hear it all at once.  Some things we have held sacred may need adjustments.  The end result should be a better operating school division that makes the most efficient use of your tax dollars in pursuit of our community's goal for a world class school division.

I am still reviewing the final report, but I am making both the slides and the report available on my website for your review.  The report includes 176 findings and observations, and 117 recommendations in eight focus areas.  Here is a list of the chapters to give you some sense of the scope of the project:

1. Part One: Fiscal Planning, Budgeting and Related Services
2. Part Two: Facilities and Student Population Planning
3. Part Three: Curriculum, Instruction and Student Services
4. Part Four: Technology Planning, Systems, and Utilization (Instructional & Administrative)
5. Part Five: Human Resources
6. Part Six: Policy Development, Communications and Community Relations
7. Part Seven: Support Operations: Building, Food Services and Transportation
8. Part Eight: Organizational Development, Leadership, Central Administration

The school division has also created a website home for this study and here you will be able to track our next steps as well as the short-term and long-term decisions we make to address these findings.

Please let me know what you think about the report's conclusions.  Now back to my reading...

Brian Wheeler

Where is Albemarle Growing as of 3rd Quarter 2007?

Albemarle County has released the 2007 Third Quarter Building Report. Thus I have updated my previous analysis of where new building permits are being issued in the County.  These do NOT reflect all newly approved developments, but rather homes in developments previously approved where a building permit has now been issued.  ALSO, while the County's report includes ALL types of housing, my analysis is limited to single family detached (SFD) homes, as those are a leading indicator of future enrollment growth for Albemarle County Public Schools.

Looking back over the last twelve month period (October 2006-September 2007), SFD building permits were issued as follows in Albemarle's six magisterial districts:

112 (35.2%) in White Hall
77 (24.2%) in Rivanna
67 (21.1%) in Scottsville
42 (13.2%) in Samuel Miller
10 (3.1%) in Rio
10 (3.1%) in Jack Jouett

From my website you can download a historical view of this data by magisterial district (chart above). http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/2007Q3-BuildingReport-chart.pdf

For the SFD permits detailed above (last 12 months), the two largest sub-groups geographically were Albemarle's rural areas (64.15% of SFD permits) and the Crozet designated growth area (19.18% of SFD permits). HOWEVER, for building permits of all housing types in the County thus far in 2007 (734 permits), 162 are in the rural areas, or 22%.

Brian Wheeler

Where is Albemarle Growing as of 2nd Quarter 2007?

Albemarle County has released the 2007 Second Quarter Building Report (and revised the 1st Quarter).  Thus I have updated my previous analysis of where new building permits are being issued in the County.  These do NOT reflect all newly approved developments, but rather homes in developments previously approved where a building permit has now been issued.  ALSO, while the County's report includes ALL types of housing, my analysis is limited to single family detached (SFD) homes, as those are a leading indicator of future enrollment growth for Albemarle County Public Schools.

Looking back over the last twelve month period (July 2006-June 2007), SFD building permits were issued as follows in Albemarle's six magisterial districts:

116 (35.6%) in White Hall
73 (22.4%) in Rivanna
72 (22.1%) in Scottsville
49 (15.0%) in Samuel Miller
10 (3.1%) in Rio
6 (1.8%) in Jack Jouett

From my website you can download a historical view of this data by magisterial district (chart above). http://www.wheeleronboard.com/docs/2007Q2-BuildingReport-chart.pdf

For the SFD permits detailed above (last 12 months), 61.4% were in rural areas and 20.25% were in the Crozet designated growth area (i.e. not all the White Hall housing shown above is in Crozet). HOWEVER (and I don't usually report this), for ALL building permits in the County thus far in 2007 (594), only 95 are in the rural areas, or 16%.  This calendar year has a very different trend in growth area vs. rural area development.

Brian Wheeler

Daily Progress article on schools for Biscuit Run

As a good follow up to my last post on Biscuit Run, today's Daily Progress has an article on the school issues related to the proposed 3,100 home development. 

Reporter Matt Deegan did a good job, but I'd like to expand on my comments quoted in the article.  He said I was confident the 738 student estimate for Biscuit Run was accurate.  I am very confident we will have lots of students living in Biscuit Run, enrollment projections are not an exact science.  I pointed out that Old Trail Village in Crozet was delivering the number of students our multipliers (i.e. enrollment projections based on housing types) had predicted. 

"By looking exclusively at school enrollment trends, 'you wouldn’t have predicted that we would have needed to redistrict Crozet,' Wheeler said."  By that I meant, if you looked at the division-wide enrollment trends, which are increasing about one student per school per year, you could see how anyone might argue their new development wouldn't generate the need for school seats.  Clearly, that's not the case in Crozet where schools are already overcrowded and we are rapidly building an addition at Brownsville Elementary.  I don't expect Biscuit Run to be any different.

My main points:

• If Biscuit Run is a family-friendly neighborhood model development like it is being advertised, families with children will live here.  We need to plan for that. 
• The only time the community can get a proffer to support the capital costs for school seats is at the time of the rezoning.  Our attention to that need should not be diverted by plans for retirees or current enrollment trends. 
• If the developer thinks current enrollment trends should be the driving factor, then what about looking at the current housing and population trends?  One could argue nobody needs Biscuit Run's new houses and thus we shouldn't approve the development yet because population is growing by less than 1% annually, the current housing market is soft, and there is a full pipeline of recently approved developments that remain unbuilt. The response might be... but UVA is growing, but NGIC is expanding, we are putting more tax dollars into economic development - we need housing for these people.  So we are going to grow!  That means more kids in our schools.
• Developments like Old Trail Village and Glenmore pay cash proffers for each home built into the County's capital budget.  Biscuit Run has no cash proffers to support school construction.
• Let's negotiate a good deal for the taxpayers in Albemarle.

Brian Wheeler

Expected school costs for Biscuit Run

I am often asked about the school division's plans to accommodate new development.  Crozet's growth has been a case in point.  As the White Hall district continues to lead the way in construction of new single family detached housing, people ask me--When we are going to build a new elementary school in Crozet to address overcrowded schools?  When are we going to add on to Western Albemarle HS?  What are we going to do when Henley (already expanded to 900 student capacity) fills up?  Who is going to pay for all these buildings?

Short answers: We are expanding Brownsville elementary starting this year (the Charlottesville firm VMDO has been selected as the architect).  We have approved a redistricting to alleviate some overcrowding at Crozet.  Additions to high school capacity and additional elementary schools are in the long range capital plans. When Henley fills up, we will have to redistrict students out of the Western feeder pattern.  We are ALL going to pay for the infrastructure through our property taxes.

When Old Trail Village was approved in Crozet, the school division calculated an estimate of the number of children that would attend Crozet schools--A total of 476 students from this one development's 2,200 homes. A similar calculation has now been done for the Biscuit Run development.  At 3,100 homes, Biscuit Run is the largest development ever to come before decision makers in Albemarle County.  When fully developed over the next 15-20 years, Biscuit Run is expected to have 738 students attending County schools in the area around Monticello HS and Cale Elementary.  Unlike Old Trail, Biscuit Run's developers have proffered the site for a new neighborhood elementary school.  A similar proffer was made in the North Pointe development on Route 29 North.  While we will have the land for two new schools, the community still has to pay to build the infrastructure.  That comes out of the County's capital budget.

In a recent memo from the school division to Assistant County Executive Tom Foley, school staff put a price tag on the 738 new pupil seats of $19 million.  That represents the one-time capital costs to build adequate school capacity to accommodate future families living in Biscuit Run.  That is in 2007 dollars.  The developers are not proffering any contribution to support those capital expenses.  In fact, the Biscuit Run developers predict Albemarle County is going to be closing schools as our community attracts more retirees.  They foresee a graying population and declining enrollments. 

The Albemarle County Planning Commission has already weighed in and indicated they will not request funding from the developer for middle and high school capital needs.  I also don't expect the developers to hand us a check for $19 million to build new schools.  However, per household cash proffers have been used in the past to mitigate school capital costs.  For example, every home in Glenmore contributes $1,000 in a one-time proffer towards school capital projects.  That was from an agreement negotiated in 2000 and funds have been used for projects at Stone-Robinson Elementary and Monticello HS.  Recent cash proffers for new developments have been negotiated at about $3,200 per home.  However, after getting a report from the County's Fiscal Impact Advisory Committee, the Board of Supervisors determined earlier this month that cash proffers for a single family home should realistically be about $17,500 to accommodate just the immediate capital projects for roads, schools, and fire/rescue projects ALREADY in the capital budget.  That $17,500 figure doesn't include water, sewer, or longer term capital needs (e.g. what if the new school or road or bridge isn't already on the ledger to be built in the next 10 years?). 

As I said, there are no per-household cash proffers being proposed for the Biscuit Run development to address school needs.  The developer's proffers are currently valued by the County at $30.9 million and are focused on other priorities like transportation, parks, and affordable housing.  We certainly need those things too.

The School Board was told last Thursday that the developers were not very happy to have a price tag of $19 million for schools put on the Biscuit Run development.  Maybe we haven't made those estimates in advance before, but the data speaks for itself.  I think we are getting smarter about recognizing and planning for these costs and the public should be aware that our decision makers have this information in front of them.  Now it is available to you too.

The Albemarle County Planning Commission holds a public hearing on Biscuit Run Tuesday evening, May 29th, starting at 6:00 PM. 

Brian Wheeler