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Cutting costs

A less-expensive funding option could allow the Buford Middle School reconfiguration project to move forward. Photo: City of Charlottesville

For more than a decade, Charlottesville’s school reconfiguration has remained in limbo, thanks to a plethora of financial setbacks. As the city works to finalize its budget for fiscal year 2023, leadership has struggled to figure out how to fund the $75 million project, which would move fifth grade from Walker Upper Elementary—currently home to fifth and sixth grades—back down to elementary schools, and sixth grade up to Buford Middle School.  

Last month, interim City Manager Michael Rogers recommended a pause in the massive project until more funding is found. He suggested City Council raise the real estate tax by 2 cents, and use that moderate tax hike to generate funds for the reconfiguration over the next five to 10 years. The suggested delay sparked outcry from frustrated community members. But last week, city staff presented alternative funding options during a budget work session that could prevent the project from being delayed.

According to senior budget analyst Krisy Hammill, the city could sell either $50 or $54 million in bonds, and use $7.5 million in American Rescue Plan funds from city schools to pay for a cheaper $68.8 million reconfiguration, which would delay construction on the 54-year-old middle school’s auditorium—and completely put off revamping Walker into a centralized preschool. However, the city would need to find up to around $5 million in additional cash, depending on how much of the project is covered by bonds.

At the budget work session, Mayor Lloyd Snook said he discussed the reconfiguration funding with Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Royal Gurley and school board chair Lisa Larson-Torres, and got them on board with the $68.8 million option. 

“I told the school folks quite frankly that I was not confident there were going to be three votes for the full $75 million worth of bonds,” Snook explained. “But if we get the project down to something in the neighborhood of $50 million…I thought there would be a majority on council willing to support that position.”

“This plan doesn’t exactly deal with how do we get to Walker,” he added. “Hopefully our economy continues to rebound [and] in another year or two we can look at it and say, ‘Okay, now we know how we’re going to do Walker [and] the auditorium.’”

Thanks to rising property value assessments—combined with an increase in sales, meals, and lodging tax revenue—the city is expecting a $12 million budget surplus at the end of fiscal year 2022, which could be used to pay off future debt service on the reconfiguration bonds. State and federal grants could also offset project costs. 

The reconfiguration funding scenarios did not include a rise in real estate, meals, or personal property taxes. However, several councilors voiced support for slightly increasing taxes, in case the end-of-year surplus is less than projected.

“I would feel more comfortable if we had a 1 cent [real estate tax increase] at least that we are putting towards the school fund, not because I distrust any of these numbers…but a lot of this surplus is because we’ve been short staffed,” said councilor Sena Magill.  

Councilor Brian Pinkston suggested increasing the meals tax from 6 to 6.5 percent and lowering the personal property tax, while councilor Michael Payne recommended raising the real estate tax.

The last budget work session will be held on April 7. Council will approve the final budget on April 12.

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Open dialogue: Group helps special education community

Rachel Rasnake, a special education teacher at Walker Upper Elementary School, says concerns voiced by her students’ parents have helped her remodel some of her practices. Rammelkamp Foto

The parent of an eighth-grader who receives special education at Buford Middle School says her daughter doesn’t appear like she’s disabled.

Lisa Torres’ daughter is moderately to severely dyslexic and has some difficulty with speech articulation, but she’s enrolled in advanced classes and also in the band.

“I’m a parent who’s at a different end of the spectrum,” she says, adding that when people think of a disabled student, they often think of a child in a wheelchair or with autism. “My daughter’s is more silent,” she says, but “a disability is a disability.”

Torres is a member of the Charlottesville Special Education Advisory Committee, which aims to give people involved in special education a voice, along with dealing with unmet needs and developing plans for improving the performance of disabled students.

Torres describes her daughter as “a child who wants to be looked at as normal and a teenager,” who is “struggling with acceptance of the fact that she needs these accommodations and, yet, doesn’t want to have to raise her hand and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, I didn’t get that.’”

The committee gives Torres a platform to make her concerns known. For example, she believes it would be helpful if students could stay with the same case manager, instead of being introduced to a new one each year, like her daughter has.

SEACs have been mandated for every school district in Virginia since January 2012, according to Emily Dreyfus, chair of the local SEAC for most of the past decade, and a member from 1998 to 2013. She says 571 disabled students are currently enrolled in Charlottesville public schools.

Daphne Ingene, co-chair of the Charlottesville SEAC, says students in special education receive little attention from the general public and their needs can go unnoticed and unaddressed.

Parents, guardians and family members of students with disabilities, people with disabilities, related community service providers and other community members make up the 25-person committee, which formally meets four times each school year and informally every second Thursday of the month. Though members must apply to be on the committee and are appointed by the Charlottesville City School Board, all meetings are open to the public.

Ingene, along with co-chair Tina Dumheller, hosted a teacher/administrator and parent dialogue dinner November 16, after one of the major concerns brought up to the committee was that these two groups lacked sufficient communication.

“I feel like a lot of our parents are overwhelmed and not active participants,” says Rachel Rasnake, a fifth-grade special education teacher at Walker Upper Elementary and a SEAC member. “I didn’t realize that our parents were intimidated…and that was something that I could address immediately by making sure my [students’] parents knew that my door was open and that they were as much a part of the team as everyone else.”

Rasnake is currently working toward improving communication with Charlottesville parents by making sure everyone in Walker’s community is informed of school events and that they’re accessible to everybody—“not just physically, but making sure everybody feels included.”

“As a parent,” adds Dreyfus, “it was always very gratifying when my [disabled] son’s teachers heard our ideas and ran with them.” When she wanted her son to gain employment skills, special educators at Charlottesville High School started a program that helped more than 15 students with disabilities gain hands-on experience in community organizations.

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Wyld thing: Parents at Buford concerned about recruiting tactics

Word of fliers about a Christian group party caused consternation among some parents at Buford Middle School. Staff photo

When Manuel Lerdau heard from his seventh-grader a couple of weeks ago that a Christian youth organization was recruiting at Buford Middle School under the guise of a party, he became concerned.

“Representatives from WyldLife were at Buford during lunch recruiting students to attend WyldLife events, and doing it in a way that was not making it clear the religious nature of the group, while emphasizing the social nature of the event,” says Lerdau.

While his own kids participate in religious youth events, he says, “My response is this is not something that should happen on school grounds during school hours.”

Pam DeGuzman’s daughter came home in October and said she wanted to go to a WyldLife party—until her mom told her it was a religious group. “It seems like they don’t completely expose they’re a Christian organization,” says DeGuzman.

WyldLife group leaders were passing out fliers in the lunchroom, according to DeGuzman. Her concern? “You mean other than it’s against the law?” she asks. “My concern is it’s illegal and they’re doing it when parents are not involved.”

DeGuzman says she has friends who are in Young Life, a worldwide Christian youth organization dedicated to helping teens, “and they’re lovely. It’s just that they’re recruiting at school.”

Buford Principal Eric Johnson says he doesn’t know anything about the fliers. He is aware of students involved with WyldLife, the younger-brother arm of Young Life. The local chapter is a UVA-funded student group.

A couple of Young Life volunteers are mentors for Buford students and have permission to stop by and say hi to their kids, says Johnson. He believes the incident that riled some Buford parents was when a student overheard news about the party and told the Young Life volunteer he wanted to go. The volunteer wrote a phone number on a card and gave it to the student, urging the student to talk to his or her parents, says Johnson. And while he calls it “an innocent mistake,” he says, “I don’t condone any adult coming in and giving their number to a child.”

Johnson says he met with the Young Life representatives about what can and cannot happen on school grounds. And, for now, they’re stepping back.

“I do not allow organizations to come in and recruit,” he says. And if anyone wants to distribute a flier, it has to be approved through his office.

City schools spokesperson Beth Cheuk says the school division welcomes mentors from organizations such as Young Life and 100 Black Men of Central Virginia, and that Johnson screened the Young Lifers. “These students are super nice,” she says. “It seems a shame to turn away mentors.” The Young Life volunteers were not there to proselytize, says Cheuk, but to reach out to students with whom they already have a relationship.

Cheuk, too, had heard nothing about flier distribution. “If there really is a flier, we need to know about it because we have a strict policy on fliers on school property,” she says.

Heather Beam, Young Life area director, confirms that her members have passed out fliers at Buford, although in an e-mail to Johnson, she says they were given to kids who were involved in WyldLife and she apologizes for not knowing that was a no-no on school grounds.

She says in an e-mail to C-VILLE that many Buford students attend WyldLife programs, such as weekly meetings, weekend events and summer camping trips, and that Young Life volunteers are actively involved with adolescents, teen moms and students with special needs in a dozen local schools.

To parents who claim Young Life is trying to recruit kids to Christianity under the guise of social events, Beam responds, “We are a Christian organization. Our gatherings give students a chance to have fun in a safe, socially neutral space off campus and all students are welcome. Club meetings often include a simple discussion of the life of Jesus and His example.”

For now, Young Lifers will not be lunching at Buford. “They don’t want to come while people feel uncomfortable,” says Cheuk.

Civil libertarian John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, says his organization took a case to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 in which the court ruled that if a public school allows other groups, it can’t practice viewpoint discrimination.

“If I were a principal, I’d be very careful about letting any group in,” says Whitehead. “I think it’s a little troublesome to have adults giving kids phone numbers.” Whitehead also advises that schools have clear, written guidelines.

“We have and always will comply with any requirements set by the school administration,” says Beam.

Lerdau says he was satisfied with the quick action Johnson took at Buford. “It was too suggestive of the government endorsing that particular religion or religious group,” he says. “I don’t think there should be any religious activity during school hours.”