C-Ville Weekly's Will Goldsmith has a story in today's issue that has me blogging again. I must admit it has been hard to blog at work all day and then do it again at home on school matters, particularly when serving as Chairman of the Albemarle County School Board during 2008-09. I learned last year that it requires you to got to a LOT more meetings and events. But that's a topic for another day.
Goldsmith's story focuses on the recent completion of the Charlottesville City Schools efficiency study. He called me seeking comments on the public reaction to Albemarle's 2007 Resource Utilization Study. At the end of the interview, he asked me about the prospect of consolidating City and County schools. I said, "Will, are you really going to write that story?" He did, and I was happy to go on the record with some of my thoughts on the subject, speaking only for myself as one member of the Albemarle County School Board.
But with Governor Tim Kaine proposing $700 million in K-12 school cuts over the next two years, is it time to consider the most radical efficiency proposal out there—consolidating city and county schools? It’s something that has been on Wheeler’s mind “given the cooperation between the schools and the economic challenges we both face.”
“It’s going to require a lot of interest by city residents to really see that as a positive way to operate our public schools,” says Wheeler. “But we’ve got two localities that are very similar. The demographics are different in the city, but that doesn’t scare me at all. What is the same is the passion and the leadership wanting all of our students to be successful.” [full story]
It's not just me. School consolidation was a topic raised by two questioners in our November 2008 Telephone Town Hall meeting. I expect it will come up again tomorrow evening when we hold our next town hall meeting. In fact, a lot of people in both the City and County ask me if a change like this could ever happen.
In the C-Ville Weekly article you can see the response from two current members of the Charlottesville School Board. I was encouraged by Kathy Galvin's willingness to entertain at least a discussion of consolidation. A lot has changed since the community last discussed reversion of the City into a town in Albemarle County. We now have an elected City School Board, we have two school division's that have a lot in common (including great Superintendents), and we both face tremendous economic challenges. Plus, merging one department of local government is a lot different from merging ALL of local government.
Maybe it's 'time for change' in Charlottesville-Albemarle too. I hope the public will provide us with feedback on the possibility. It's a discussion I'd like to have in the community.
Brian Wheeler
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