JAMES CITY – The James City County Board of Supervisors learned Tuesday that splitting the current Williamsburg-James City County School District would cost millions and displace thousands of students.
The county commissioned its own study immediately after Williamsburg decided to explore the possibility of creating an independent school system. In March, Williamsburg released the results of a study that showed higher costs to city taxpayers than the existing arrangement with James City County, as well as a significant difference in achievement levels between city and county students.
The city has not yet made a decision regarding a possible split and is gathering input from the public and information on an action plan to improve student performance.
The county has enlisted the help of Gaston Education Consulting to develop a potential transition plan in the event that the current school system breaks up. The Williamsburg-James City County School District has operated as a joint system since 1955.
Dave Gaston, founder of the consulting firm, told the Board of Supervisors that creating an independent school system is a task that could take until 2030. And while the timelines are based on reasonable estimates, they could change.
There are limited guidelines for separating a school system that includes two localities, but existing laws will be taken into account, Gaston said. However, he said all three partners – Williamsburg, the county and the school board – would have to agree to the separation.
After the complicated procedure that leads to the vote on ending the program, each municipality would have to draw up a transition plan, “and that is essentially what we have here.”
Gaston stressed that the results of the study should draw attention to what needs to be done to create an independent school system.
Last year, after the City Council voted to study the feasibility of an independent municipal school system, James City County voted to terminate the existing joint system contract. At the time, the Board of Supervisors asked that if the city decided not to renegotiate the joint system contract, it would agree to extend the termination date through the end of the 2027-28 school year.
“I don’t want to go into expected cost savings or forecasts,” Gaston said, pointing out that the presentation did not include a financial analysis of the situation. However, he said that the reallocation of physical assets will be a major task.
“We basically need to account for every textbook, every piece of technology, every desk, every chair, every bus, every tool, everything we have in our school division as it is now, what we all share and what we all use,” he said. The city and county would need to work with a neutral third party to assign a value to all the items and figure out who gets what.
In addition, if the school system were to be split, the county would need a new middle school, which would cost about $100 million and take about three years to build.
He said staffing would also be a major undertaking.
“With instructional staff, you have to look at programming needs, we have to look at operations and support staff that take care of the buildings and maintenance.” He said bus infrastructure is currently housed in the county, but a reassessment of the staff needed is needed, and that will impact school board and county budgets.
Another important consideration would be how to deal with the students.
“We will literally take county kids who live in city schools and city kids who live in county schools and move them to other districts,” Gaston said.
The well-being of the children must be taken into account, Gaston said. The presentation recommended that school success teams be committed to the new students and their success in order to create a warm and welcoming environment for students after the redistricting.
Board Chair Ruth Larson said this was an important issue to consider after the city indicated it would explore the possibility of running its own school system.
“We’re in limbo,” Larson said. “So we have to keep going to be fully aware, and we’re putting some processes in place in case we get feedback from our colleagues, which we hope.”
Sam Schaffer, [email protected]
