JAMES CITY — James City County’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday learned it would cost millions and disrupt thousands of students to divide the current Williamsburg-James City County school division.
The county commissioned its own study on the heels of Williamsburg’s decision to explore the possibility of creating an independent school system. In March, Williamsburg released the results of a study that showed a higher cost to city taxpayers than with the existing arrangement with James City County, along with a stark difference in achievement levels between city and county students.
The city has not made a decision on whether to split and has been gathering input from the community as well as information on a student performance action plan.
The county enlisted the help of Gaston Education Consulting in looking at a possible transition plan if 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 timelines are based on reasonable estimates, they could change.
There is limited guidance for separating a school system enveloping two localities, but the laws on the books were taken into account, Gaston said. However, he said the three partners — Williamsburg, the county and the school board — would all have to agree to termination.
After the involved process that leads to the termination votes, each locality would need to come up with a transition plan, “which is essentially what we have here.”
Gaston emphasized that the findings from the study are meant to draw attention to things that would need to be done to create an independent school system.
Last year, after the City Council decided to study the feasibility of an independent city school system, James City County voted to terminate the existing contract for the joint system. At the time, the Board of Supervisors asked that if the city decided not to renegotiate the contract for the joint system, they would agree to extend the termination date to the end of the 2027-28 school year.
“I don’t want to get into any anticipated cost savings or projections,” Gaston said, noting that the presentation did not include fiscal analysis of the situation. However, he said the redistribution of tangible property would be a major task.
“We have to basically account for every textbook, every piece of technology equipment, every desk, every chair, every bus, every tool, everything that we have basically in our school division as it stands right now that we all share and that we all use,” he said. The city and the county would have to collaborate with a neutral third party to assign value to all of the items and figure out who gets what.
Additionally, a new middle school would be needed for the county if the school system splits, and it would cost around $100 million and take about three years to construct.
He said staffing would also be a major undertaking.
“Instructional staffing has to look at … programming needs. We have to take a look at operational and support staff that are out there to look at the buildings, maintenance.” He said bus infrastructure is currently housed in the county, but it would require a reassessment of needed staffing, and that will affect the school board and county budgets.
Another major consideration would be how to handle students.
“We are literally going to be taking county kids that exist in city schools and city kids that exist in county schools and moving jurisdictions,” Gaston said.
The best interest of the children needs to be considered, Gaston said. The presentation recommended having school success teams advocate for the incoming students and their success to make a warm and welcoming environment for students after redistricting.
Board Chair Ruth Larson said this was an important topic to consider after the city indicated it would look into possibly running its own school system.
“We are in limbo,” Larson said. “And so we do need to proceed so that we are fully aware and so we are putting some processes in place should we hear back, which we hope that we do, from our colleagues.”
Sam Schaffer, samuel.schaffer@virginiamedia.com
