Norfolk schools spared, at least for now

NORFOLK

A few weeks ago, Karen Roberts stood at an education budget hearing and begged the School Board not to close Willoughby Elementary, where she teaches.

"What we do for our children matters to them. It is not a place that can be closed," Roberts said tearfully. "There is nothing more important than our school. It is not disposable."

Roberts got her wish - for now.

The board's $307 million budget for next year cut neither Willoughby nor any other regular public school, although it will shut down Coronado school for pregnant students and teen mothers to save $807,000.

But as early as this summer, closing grade schools will be among the board's top discussion topics, Chairman Stephen Tonelson said. It has to be considered as enrollment continues a 12-year decline and state funding trends downward, he said.

With 31,511 students this year, Norfolk's public school enrollment is 9.8 percent below the 2002-03 school year, when the division had 34,925 students, according to the district's data. The long slide is projected to continue at least five more years.

Which of Norfolk's schools could be affected? "When you start looking at closures, you need to start looking at redistricting, so I don't know that anything is off the table as we explore what the options are," Tonelson said.

But the most likely candidates are described in a division report recently made public in response to a Freedom of Information Request by The Virginian-Pilot.

At the top of the list:

- Closing Willoughby, at 9500 Fourth View St., and sending its students to Ocean View Elementary at 9501 Mason Creek Rd. Willoughby has 253 students, and future enrollment could drop so low that the state might be willing to fund only a part-time principal for the school, Chief Operations Officer Michael Spencer said.

The merger could require some portable classrooms but also envisions a newly built Ocean View grade school.

"We have two out in Ocean View right by each other," Board member Jim Driggers said. "Why we haven't closed one of those already, I don't know."

- Closing Dreamkeepers Academy at 2600 E. Princess Anne Rd. and sending its students to Richard Bowling Elementary at 2861 E. Princess Anne. Dreamkeepers has 394 students, but as a specialized magnet school, half its enrollment comes from outside the facility's zone. Consolidation would send the out-of-zone pupils to their home schools; the remainder would go to a newly built Bowling.

School leaders caution, though, that consolidation might not be the cash cow it seems.

While each shuttered school eliminates the need for a principal and some administrative and custodial staff, a full allotment of teachers is still needed for the students who'd be merged into another school, Spencer said.

Nonetheless, each elementary school that's closed saves the division about $800,000 annually, he said. That sum would be enough to restore some of the division's services and employees cut from next year's budget, such as guidance counselors or Middle College, which lets high schoolers take community college classes for free.

But closing schools also is politically sensitive, given the emotional attachment many residents have to their local schools.

"In many of our neighborhoods, the school building is the most visible building in the community, maybe the most important building they identify with," Spencer said. "It's not something we jump into lightly."

Willoughby PTA President Patti Dermady said parents are upset that their school might be closed. Some have said the school could be saved by expanding its enrollment zone or converting it to a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school.

"My kids have been there just a few years, but they love the entire staff," Dermady said. At Willoughby, "everybody's more like a family; everybody works together."

Emotional attachments haven't stopped school leaders from pulling the plug, though.

Oakwood Elementary at 900 Asbury Ave. already is scheduled to close in late 2011 when the new Crossroads School is built and able to absorb some Oakwood students. The division will also relinquish the Shirland Avenue building now housing Meadowbrook middle school when that school program relocates this summer to the Rosemont Middle School building.

Other prospective, but less likely, scenarios described in the division's analysis:

- Tidewater Park Elementary School, 1045 E. Brambleton Ave. No nearby grade schools have enough room to absorb its students if the school were shut down, and the division would spend extra money busing the students, who now walk.

- Lindenwood Elementary School, 2700 Ludlow St. If closed, its 406 students would be dispersed among Willard, P.B. Young, Jacox, Monroe and Coleman Place grade schools, requiring new district boundary lines for each of those schools.

- St. Helena Elementary School, 903 S. Main St. Closing it would stress the capacity of Campostella Elementary, 1106 Campostella Rd., which, along with the Berkley/Campostella Early Childhood Center, would absorb the St. Helena pupils. New busing would also be required because all St. Helena students walk to school.

- Ghent School, 200 Shirley Ave. This K-8 school is popular and widely regarded as successful; if closed, its 585 students would return to their home schools. The division could save as much as $240,000 now spent on busing the students, who come from across the city.

- Easton Pre school, 6045 Curlew Dr. Easton is a unique program required by state and federal regulations that serves 210 special education children. If the building were closed, the program would have to continue at other locations that would need to be retrofitted for the children's needs; transportation costs would rise as well.

"It's important for us to note that schools are not the buildings," Spencer said. "Schools are the kids and the activities they're exposed to."

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com