Close 1 school, fire 6 assistant principals, consultant says

Charlottesville should close one of its six elementary schools, cut six assistant principals and increase class sizes, an efficiency review has concluded in a 331-page report that outlines more than $16.8 million in potential cost savings.

Jo Ann Cox of MGT America, the educational consulting firm that completed the report, said that the division is failing to use its school space efficiently, especially in light of enrollment trends.

“Despite the decreased student enrollment, the division has kept the same number of fully staffed schools,” Cox said.

Which school should be shuttered was not specified in the report, which took five months to compile and was presented to the Charlottesville School Board at its Thursday meeting.

School Board member Kathleen Galvin — who, like her co-board members and the entire community, was seeing the audit’s findings for the first time — wondered if the division could restructure its schools so that fifth grade was incorporated back to the elementary level and adjust the city’s one middle school accordingly.

“It’s been bandied about in this community for a while,” Galvin said.

Still, the recommendation came as a shock to many teachers and parents in the audience.

“I’m really surprised,” said Brian Dublirer, who has been a counselor at Clark Elementary School for 20 years.

Many of the report’s recommendations target the division’s instructional staff and administrators at the school level, not the division’s central office, which the consultant recommended be restructured instead of adjusted in size.

“We’ve always thought that people were working,” School Board Chairman Ned Michie quipped.

In addition to reducing the number of assistant principals, the report suggests cutting 62 instructional assistants, roughly half the number currently working in the division.

The report also recommends increasing class sizes, noting that some classes were underenrolled. Currently, city schools have an average class size of roughly 17 students among its nine schools.

The division paid $30,000 for the study, which cost a total of $120,000 but was mostly subsidized by the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget. The subsidy requires the division to implement at least 50 percent of the review’s recommendations or 50 percent of the cost-saving methods over the course of two years, with the first round of changes beginning in six months. If the city schools do not enact the ideas, they must pay the state an additional $30,000.

“I don’t see us not being able to do that,” Michie said. “We’ll be implementing a lot of recommendations.”

In addition to the 62 recommendations, the study offered 54 acclamations for the division and its practices — including that the city’s schools offer “a challenging, rigorous course of studies.”

The findings come on the heels of news that the division will receive less local and state funds over the next few years.

Charlottesville’s contribution to the school division will not increase as much as it has in the past. Division finance director Ed Gillaspie told the School Board on Thursday that the city is expected to set aside about $500,000 more for the division in fiscal 2010 than it did this year. The increase from fiscal 2008 to the current budget, however, was roughly $1.44 million.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s updated budget also showed that Charlottesville’s schools are expected to get $1.88 million less in state funding by fiscal 2010 than the amount approved in this year’s budget, which was $21.4 million.