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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1994-05-09 adjMay 9, 1994 (Afternoon Adjourned Meeting) Page 1 ooozzz An adjourned meeting of the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle County, Virginia, was held on May 9, 1994, at 5:30 p.m., Meeting Room 5/6, County Office Building, McIntire Road, Charlottesville, Virginia. PRESENT: Mr. David P. Bowerman, Mrs. Charlotte Y. Humphris, Mr. Walter F. Perkins and Mrs. Sally H. Thomas. ABSENT: Mr. Forrest R. Marshall, Jr. and Mr. Charles S. Martin. OFFICERS PRESENT: County Executive, Robert W. Tucker, Jr., and County Attorney, Larry W. Davis. Agenda Item No. 1. Call to Order. The meeting was called to order at 5:34 p.m., by the Chairman, Mr. Perkins. Agenda Item No. 2. Joint Meeting with School Board. SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Messrs. R. Madison Cummings, Jr. (arrived at 5:35 p.m.), William W. Finley (arrived at 5:42 p.m.), George C. Landrith, III (arrived at 5:38 p.m.), Michael J. Marshall, Mrs. Patricia L. Moore, Mrs. Karen L. Powell and Mrs. Sharon Wood. ABSENT: None. OFFICERS PRESENT: Superintendent, Dr. Robert W. Paskel; Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Carole A. Hastings; Director of Building Services, L. A. Reaser; and, Director of Transportation, Willie Smith. Item No. 2a. Discussion: Long Range Enrollment Projections and Capital Improvements Program Implications. Dr. Paskel provided an overview of where the schools have been and set up questions that staff and the School Board hope to get answers to today or directions on how to obtain the answers. (Mr. Cummings arrived at the meeting at 5:35 p.m.) Dr. Paskel said using a staff-based committee, examining enrollments and forecasting the needs of the school system, the long-range enrollment forecasts were accepted in January for planning purposes by both Boards. In April, the Long-Range Planning Committee presented the recommendations on the school's capacity to both Boards, along with auxiliary space needs. Following that meeting, the School Board requested that staff make some changes in the calculations, at least to assess the impact if capacities changed from 23.5 at the elementary level, 25.5 at the middle school level and 22.0 at the high school level (this represents the average class size or staffing in the school system). In addition, the School Board asked staff to recalculate capacities and insure that the spaces necessary for art, music and enrichment or technology initiatives are available. The School Board, on April 25, accepted staff's recommendation that community forums be held to receive feedback from the public on how the current and future high school enrollments can best be accommodated. The School Board, today, is looking to the Board of Supervisors for direction on how to proceed. Requests for the Capital Improvements Program (CIP) have an early deadline and if there is to be planning or site acquisition money for the next several years, this deadline has to be met. (Mr. Landrith arrived at the meeting at 5:38 p.m.) Dr. Paskel said the three questions the School Board needs answers to are: How many students per class should be used in determining the school capacities?; How many auxiliary spaces should be considered in determining those school capacities?; and 3. How will increased high school enrollments be accommodated? Dr. Hastings reviewed the information which was provided to the Boards. She said the preliminary recommendation of the Long-Range Planning Committee was 23.5 students per classroom for elementary; 25 students per classroom for middle and high school, minus 10 percent for scheduling difficulties. The previous recommendation was that auxiliary uses, many of which are now being accommodated through mobile classrooms, be dealt with as a separate issue. By doing capacity calculations in that manner, the overall school division capacity would be 13,217 students. The School Board requested that the Committee reflect capacities at the current division staffing ratio of 22:1 and that auxiliary space needs be accounted for in calculating school capacities. This calculation brought the capacity down to 10,803 students. Dr. Hastings said when the Committee reviewed the auxiliary space needs, Mr. Reaser talked with the principals and came to an agreement that the essential needs of the schools are to have a music room, art or multipurpose room and enrichment type area for instructional purposes at the elementary level. At the middle school level, basically the auxiliary space needs, in terms of parity between existing middle schools and the new Sutherland School, would be for two health rooms, a computer room and one room for enrichment May 9, 1994 (Afternoon Adjourned Meeting) Page 2 0002;83 purposes or a total of four auxiliary spaces. At the high school level, the principals felt that using the 22:1 ratio and reducing the space by 10 percent for scheduling purposes would give them sufficient space. She also noted that Woodbrook and Brownsville need teacher work rooms which neither currently has. Dr. Hastings then presented a chart comparing previous calculations to new calculations and said the difference between the two methodologies is 2414 seats for students. In looking at the peak projected enrollments, 1998 over the next 10 years, at 11,459 students, there would be a shortfall of 656 seats division-wide. (Mr. Finley arrived at the meeting at 5:42 p.m.) Dr. Hastings then reviewed capacity conflicts. There was a capacity conflict at Stony Point through 1997 and there were also capacity conflicts at the two high schools. By using the new requested capacity figures, there are capacity conflicts throughout most of the school division in terms of available seats. This is taking into consideration auxiliary space needs and trying to look at what other kinds of capacity conflicts student placement would present throughout the school division. By using the new capacity figures there are capacity conflicts throughout most of the elementary schools, middle schools and high school problems begin as early as next year. The Committee wanted to give the Boards some other way of looking at this. One way was to look at the higher elementary calculations and the higher middle and high school calculations and account for auxiliary spaces in those calculations, thereby reducing the capacity conflict from the lower enrollments and auxiliary spaces. Mrs. Thomas asked if it is assumed that the auxiliary classroom needs are not being addressed in these figures. Dr. Hastings said these figures assume that auxiliary classroom needs are being addressed because it is placing more students in each classroom, but taking out the auxiliary spaces that the schools need. Dr. Hastings said another option would be to use lower enrollments provided by the Committee and the ratio requested by the School Board. This figure would bring the average to 22.75 at the elementary, and 27.5 at the middle schools, but does not account for auxiliary spaces. The last option uses the lower enrollment figure which more accurately reflects the County's staffing pattern of 22:1, on the average, throughout the school division, but does not account for the auxiliary spaces. When these discussions began in April, the idea was to try and deal with the auxiliary spaces as a separate issue through the CIP. Dr. Hastings said if the lower enrollment figures are used and auxiliary spaces taken into consideration, it would mean construction at Brownsville or Crozet, Cale or Red Hill, Stony Point and Woodbrook (which would be under construction if redistricting did not take place), and an additional 35 mobile classrooms would be needed (in addition to the current mobile classrooms) by 1997 and Agnor-Hurt and Greer would be under-utilized. Since the Boards met in April, the projected construction costs have increased to $80.00 per square foot, versus the $75.00 figure used in April. Staff has also provided a scenario with three different options for a high school. The first scenario is the same information which was provided to the Board in April, but uses the $80.00 per square foot figure and is based on 25 students per classroom which totals $16.9 million, excluding land purchase. The second scenario uses a 22 student per classroom figure and a total project cost of $19.5 million, excluding land. Because of the new capacity calculations, the new high school would be nearly full when it opened. One thing the Boards may want to consider is building a 1000 pupil school with a core of 1500 so that if high school enrollments grow beyond the projections, the capacity would be present to renovate the school. If that option is used, it would cost $20.9 million excluding land. Dr. Hastings said before any additional work can be done, the following questions must be answered: 1) Which average classroom capacity should be used? 2) Should the auxiliary space needs be included in the Long-Range Plan now, or be dealt with as a separate issue? Dr. Paskel said the third question staff needs answered is how the increasing high school enrollment will be accommodated. If no additional space is provided by the year 2000, Albemarle High School will have an enrollment of 2170 students and Western Albemarle High School will have an enrollment of 1502 based on enrollment projections with no redistricting to redistribute the students between those two schools. This scenario shows that if no additional space is provided, including mobile units, the following would have to be done: class sizes increased, all rooms in the schools would have to be used every available minute of the day, alternative schedules (i.e., staggered schedules, dual sessions, longer operating hours) or some year-round operation (this forces people to make a choice as to which part of the year to attend school). As the figures indicate, Albemarle High School is already over its capacity. If temporary space, in the form of mobile units, is provided, each unit will cost approximately $45,000 and at least 23 will be needed by 1997 to accommodate the high school enrollment. That totals approximately $1,035,000. She asked the Board of Supervisors to help provide direction or suggest an alternative way of getting to the preferred or desired method of accommodating these methods for high school enrollments. Mr. Tucker said he would like to comment about the process. The information that has been provided today is critical since decisions have to May 9, 1994 (Afternoon Adjourned Meeting) Page 3 000224 be made in the near future. On June 10, 1994, the School Board and all other agencies are scheduled to submit requests for the next five-year CIP update. The Long-Range Planning Committee staff members have already scheduled three public forums to seek input on data that was presented to the Boards at their last joint meeting, as well as today. Mr. Tucker said staff and the School Board would like guidance on these issues from the Board of Supervisors. If it is unable to come to a conclusion or suggestion today, he would like to offer a few suggestions: 1) another joint meeting be scheduled in the near future for a long work session to discuss these issues; 2) appoint a joint committee to be made up of members of the School Board and Board of Supervisors to meet with staff and bring a recommendation to both Boards; or 3) give the School Board authority to make a recommendation and the Board deal with it when it deals with the CIP. Ms. Moore said she feels the School Board has devoted a lot of time to these issues; it has had work sessions and basically decided that the auxiliary space is very important since it has been trying to build art, music and computer technology into the school division. The School Board also moved facilitators back to the classrooms to try and reduce class sizes and the student to teacher ratios. To move ratios up and eliminate the auxiliary space would, for some members, be a step backwards from where the school system has come in improving the quality of education. It was not the School Board's intent to tell the Committee to go forward and pick out sites for schools, but it realized there was a time-line so it asked the Committee to get feedback and review various sites, but leave site selection in the hands of the Board of Supervisors. She feels the School Board has already sent recommendations forward but may need to put them in more formal language. Mr. Bowerman said how to deal with high school enrollments and the formation of a Site Selection Committee are two different things. In April, the Boards decided the question of accommodating the increased enrollment in the high schools needed to be answered. It was his understanding that there would be three meetings at separate sites to receive public input. He asked if the meetings were to be site selection meetings. Mr. Tucker said "no." Dr. Paskel said in recognition of the CIP schedule and the various options both Boards received, he felt it was important that some parallel activities be done without making any commitments. A Site Selection Committee had already looked at potential sites. If the decision was made to build a new high school, they would be three to four months ahead of schedule on the project. Dr. Hastings said staff, in April, had said the earliest possible opening date for a high school would be 1997. With the deadline for requesting CIP funds set for June 10, if the decision is made beyond that date, the opening date would not be until 1998. The enrollment projections for the high schools are based on present students and are not dependent on kindergarten students. Mrs. Humphris said based on everything she knows and believes about the future of the County, the County is not going to stop growing unless there is such a poor job of planning that people stop wanting to come here. To her, based on all of the numbers she has reviewed, these Boards would be doing their best for the people who currently live in the County or for those who move here, if a school is built for 1000 pupils with core space for 1500, and this should be done as soon as possible. She would feel more comfortable if the School Board would give the Board of Supervisors a more firm recommendation on the issue of auxiliary spaces. Mrs. Humphris said she is not interested in wasting money on leasing mobile classrooms and she feels the public has let the Boards know that they are not interested in year-round schools. She feels the public would disagree with staggered classes or dual sessions and it would be very difficult for both students and faculty. She does not think this community should put its students and faculty in a situation like that. In terms of what is best for education, she feels the County needs another high school. Mr. Bowerman said he does not disagree with Mrs. Humphris, but feels two signals are being sent. Meetings have been scheduled to decide how to accommodate an increased high school enrollment which begs the question of what to do to house the students. At the same time, the signal was sent saying that a high school was going to be built. If a high school is going to be built, he feels the three meetings about the real issue should be held rather than false issues. If the County needs a high school, then he feels the decision to build it should be made, but he does not feel both should be done at the same time. Mrs. Moore said the meetings were scheduled because people living in the southern part of the County want to have input on the location of the school. The rest of the School Board members decided that if a meeting was going to be scheduled in one end of the County to receive comments it should also be done in other parts of the County to allow broad community comments. Dr. Hastings said when the issue of how to accommodate increased high school enrollments was discussed by the School Board, it asked that a forum be held in the community to discuss the increased high school enrollments to hear if the citizens had other ideas. The School Board also felt that the May 9, 1994 (Afternoon Adjourned Meeting) Page 4 000225 community may have other ideas about how to build the new school. Before there was a recommendation submitted, the School Board asked staff to first hear from the public, then at a later time there would be community input taken at public hearings on the committee's recommendations. Mr. Bowerman said he feels this sends a mixed message and asked if the School Board felt that way. Dr. Hastings said she thinks the members of the School Board felt it was important to hear from the community first. Ms. Moore said the School Board also did not want to end up with a recommendation from a Site Selection Committee without any public input being taken. There was much public comment during redistricting about the School Board making decisions before discussing those decisions with the public. The intent was to do both simultaneously and allow the Committee to bring them together and see what came from them. Mr. Michael Marshall said last year the School Board put a new high school at the top of its CIP requests. Mr. Bowerman said if the decision is to build a new high school then he feels the question of increased high school enrollments can be eliminated. Mr. Michael Marshall said the question of accommodating increased high school enrollments came about because the Walton Middle School community heard that there may be a high school built next to it and they wanted to have a "say-so" as to that being a good or bad idea and it was particular to that region. Mr. Bowerman said he does not have a problem with that, but now the School Board is talking about site selection. Mr. Michael Marshall said he thinks the School Board did not want to lose time since its recommendation had been to build a new school. Mrs. Humphris said she feels this is very confusing, but knows that when the Site Selection Committee was discussed at the Board of Supervisor's meeting on May 4, 1994, the Board members present felt this site needed to be the best site for the entire County and not any particular school or group of people. It is important that everyone understand that there are a lot of factors that are considered in selecting a site for a school particularly one as major as a high school. The School Board has an obligation to consider all of the factors. Mrs. Moore said the School Board has clearly come forward unanimously, twice, after reviewing all of the information, and stated that it feels the County needs a new high school. It would be presumptuous for the School Board to hold public hearings on a new high school without the Board of Supervisor's approval. To her, it boils down to how the Board of Supervisors feel about it. She asked the Board if it feels it would accept the School Board's recommendation for a new high school. She agrees with Mr. Bowerman's statement that it does, in some ways, appear to send mixed signals, but the School Board's "hands are tied" because it cannot take one side or the other and hold public hearings since it does not have the authority to build a new high school. The School Board wanted to get public input without taking a step that it has no authority to take. Mr. Finley said he does not remember things happening that way. When the School Board first backed out of the long-range planning and created the new committee, it decided the questions must get back to the community (should a new school be renovated and what are the options?). It looks as if time has caught up and this decision is late, but originally the idea, as he remembers it, was to establish a Long-Range Planning Committee before a decision was made. Dr. Hastings said the public forum idea was supposed to lead to a committee meeting and then make a recommendation to the School Board. The School Board would then hold a public hearing on the recommendation and a final decision would be made. Mr. Perkins said it seems the Boards are dealing with a number of questions. He was taken aback by this, particularly the auxiliary space question and how many students should be in a classroom. All of these things have dollar figures, whether it be additional teachers or auxiliary spaces being added to the present schools. There is the question of how many students will be in each classroom. There needs to be flexibility in those things. There is no endless bucket of money available and those numbers need to be kept as low as possible. It seems that the real questions are about a new high school. He agrees with Mrs. Humphris and feels that there will be a new high school and he does feel the County will continue to grow. Anytime a new school is built, it takes money to open and operate it, not only for construction, but additional debt service, new staff and new equipment. Mr. Perkins said another question he would like to ask is, excluding the cost of the auxiliary space, does the County need five middle schools? If Walton were eliminated, there is still a capacity of 2775 students in the middle schools. As far as a new high school is concerned, the Boards may want to look at making Walton a high school rather than a middle school and only have four middle schools. Some classrooms may need to be added to the existing middle schools, but all factors must be considered. He feels that, when this much money is involved, the voters should have some opportunity to express its feelings about what is done. Mr. Bowerman said if a motion is made that this Board support the construction of a new high school, he will support the motion. He has always supported what he believes to be convincing arguments for the construction of May 9, 1994 (Afternoon Adjourned Meeting) Page 5 000226 a new facility versus adding onto Western Albemarle High School (WAHS) or trying to accommodate at WAHS or Albemarle High School (AHS) with any increases. He wants to understand the questions. If a vote is taken and a decision made to build a new high school, then the meetings to be held will not be on the question of how to accommodate the students, but where to locate the school. Mrs. Humphris said if that decision is made, there has to be an understanding that the meetings are simply advisory and the School Board is obligated to put into the ingredients for the decision-making on the location of the school all of the other factors besides the self-interest of the parents speaking at those various meetings. She hopes the people who attend those meetings understand that just because they may want a school and voice their opinion, it does not mean they will get a high school at that particular location. There is a group of people who feel they may be a driving force and she does not believe they can be and must not be or all of the rational decision-making goes "out of the window." Mrs. Humphris then made motion, seconded by Mrs. Thomas, that the Board of Supervisors go on record as supporting the School Board's request to build a new 1000 pupil high school with core spaces for 1500 pupils, as soon as possible. Mr. Bowerman said he thinks Mr. Perkins is correct in his analysis of the rest of the information and this needs to be addressed by both Boards. Mrs. Thomas said usually when the Boards hold a public hearing it is with some idea or proposal that the public can react to rather than just on a wide-open question. Usually the public complains that they have not had input early enough. A decision has been reached and now a site question is being asked of them, unless it is framed differently. It is misleading to the public to have meetings that appear to be asking some question if the Boards are not listening to what the public is saying. Mrs. Humphris said she thinks it is up to the School Board to deal with that question but she feels it may have been misrepresented to the public as to what the meetings are for. Mr. Perkins said he will support the motion, but feels everyone needs to keep in mind the ramifications of a decision like this in terms of the added costs. There is only so much money available and he thinks a decision will have to be made as to whether employee raises will be given for the next two years so this new high school can be built. Mrs. Humphris said there are a lot of implications, like growth costs, since the pressures on rural property taxes will most likely cause them to be increased. If people do not like this, they need to talk with their representatives at the State level to get the County other revenue-raising alternatives. It is unfortunate that the County did not get the citizens to approve a meals tax. The bottom line is that growth costs money and children have to have seats in schools; these Boards are obligated to give them the best education possible. There being no further discussion, roll was called and the motion carried by the following recorded vote: AYES: Mr. Perkins, Mrs. Thomas, Mr. Bowerman and Mrs. Humphris. NAYS: None. ABSENT: Mr. Marshall and Mr. Martin. Mrs. Thomas said regarding the question of whether the auxiliary spaces should be determined separately, it seems that it involves money either way. Whether it is dealt with separately or not, it still must be addressed. She does not feel it should be dealt with separately unless someone can show her why this is rational. She feels the decision-making process regaridng the auxiliary spaces should be made up-front. Mrs. Humphris concurred. Mrs. Thomas said she is not sure about the various scenarios of class sizes and how many auxiliary spaces there should be. She feels there needs to be more discussion and education on these issues. Agenda Item No. 2b. Other Matters not Listed on the Agenda. Mrs. Thomas asked the School Board to consider how it can participate in the Comprehensive Plan update because there is no section in the Plan dealing with education. Since a large portion of the County's budget goes toward education, she thinks that reports of committees such as the Blue Ribbon Commission and the Long Range Planning Committee should be a part of the Plan. Ms. Moore said she is very interested in this and the School Board has said for a long time that it would like to "have some say so" as to where growth is occurring for educational purposes. Mr. Tucker said most of the issues in the Comprehensive Plan that deal with schools and education relate strictly to facility planning. He believes Mrs. Thomas is talking about an element on education that would reflect some of the issues that the School Board has already dealt with, such as what the May 9~ 1994 (Afternoon Adjourned Meeting) Page 6 000227 School Board sees as the educational opportunities and needs for the County over the next 20 years. Ms. Moore asked if information that has been developed to project where growth will occur would be valuable in the development of the Comprehensive Plan as far as places that cannot handle anymore growth from an educational standpoint. Mr. Tucker said this would not stop growth in any particular area. Ms. Moore said she's not implying there should be no more growth, but is asking if areas where education cannot handle growth could become a "red flag area" in the Comprehensive Plan. Mr. Tucker said it is difficult to dictate where growth can be encouraged and discouraged. Some of this can be done with utilities or encouraging development in certain areas where there is capacity. Agenda Item No. 3. Adjourn. There being no further discussion by the two Boards, the meeting was adjourned at 6:27 p.m. Chairman