Now the oldest continually operating middle school in Virginia, Swanson Middle School faces further uncertainty after last week’s School Board meeting. Plans for a building addition have already drawn criticism from neighbors and members of the county planning commission, who feared the new wing would ruin the character of the original architecture.
Now, the county’s Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board wants to designate the school and its surrounding campus as a historic district.
At their Thursday, Sept. 4, meeting, school board members admitted that the move by the HALRB caught them off guard. Neither the board nor Superintendent Robert Smith met with HALRB prior to last week. In response, schools requested a delay of up to six months to study how historic status would affect operation of the school.
One thing is certain, Smith said; construction of the new wing will proceed. “Those plans have already been made, been approved by this board, and we’re moving forward,” he said.
Charles Monfort, HALRB chair, hoped for more cooperation from the board. “I’m more than a little dismayed,” he said at Thursday’s meeting.
In upcoming months, school officials will develop a position regarding Swanson and historic preservation of school buildings in general.
ELECTED OFFICIALS are used to hearing residents complain about bureaucratic inefficiency, but at last week’s school board meeting, it was the board itself who took shots at the budget process.
“I find this an incredibly frustrating process every single year,” said board member Mary Hynes.
At their meeting last week, board members also discussed plans for developing the fiscal 2005 budget and the fiscal 2005-2010 Capital Improvement Plan. They first discussed those items Monday, Aug. 11, and are expected to approve the plans later this month.
The plans are intended to give Smith guidance from the board in how to approach the school budget. In recent years, those plans have varied from specific to general. This year’s guideline is particularly general, said Martha Moore, chair of the budget advisory council.
The document addresses the following areas: raising student achievement; eliminating the achievement gap; providing a rigorous curriculum that emphasizes students’ understanding; ensuring staff quality; addressing recommendations from the Advisory Council on Instruction; improving community engagement; and providing support to meet No Child Left Behind requirements.
NEXT YEAR, school officials could begin changing the entire budget process, said board member Libby Garvey. The board criticized its own work this year, and members bickered with each other throughout budget talks at Thursday’s meeting.
At times, they were even frustrated trying to decide why they were frustrated. “Part of the challenge here is that we have a hybrid,” said board member Elaine Furlow. In other words, budget plans contain both specific and general guidelines, and every year it’s difficult to balance the two.
But Hynes disagreed. The problem, she said, is that the board as a whole has been unwilling to reject “individuals’ pet concerns” when planning the budget. “What we have not done well is to sort out what our priorities are,” she said.
“We are spinning our wheels. We are plainly spinning our wheels,” said board chair Frank Wilson. But problems haven’t come from a lack of effort, he said. “Maybe this isn’t the type of document we want, but we put a lot of effort into it.”