Richmond schools kick off effort to improve their image

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Declining enrollment in Richmond Virginia middle schools



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A couple of familiar faces helped the Richmond school system kick off a new era at Thomas Jefferson High School, and a few hopeful faces did their part at Henderson Middle School yesterday.

With former Gov. Linwood Holton and current Mayor -- and one-time School Board chairman -- Dwight C. Jones waiting at her side, Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon was at Thomas Jefferson to officially launch a marketing campaign geared to helping the system increase enrollment and improve its image. She was at Henderson a few hours later for an open house for a community that in years past has ignored the school.

The first effort included a door-to-door blitz in which students, staff and community volunteers distributed glossy promotional materials to every house in a 100-block area surrounding Thomas Jefferson.

"Go forth throughout this district and spread the word," Brandon told the crowd from the steps of the West End school.

She did, joining four students and School Board member Kimberly Bridges to place door hangers promoting the system as "The Choice" on homes in the First District. Five other School Board members and nearly every top administrator in the school system, plus principals from all corners of Richmond, joined more than four dozen students and dozens of others participating.

The campaign also will include direct mail, advertising on buses and billboards and other print materials. A broadcast component will begin in August.

Before the groups made their way into the neighborhoods surrounding Thomas Jefferson, Brandon shared the stage with Holton and Jones.

Holton pushed the school system as a wise economic choice.

"Why would you want to pay double?" he asked the crowd. "If you're living in Richmond, you're already paying for these schools."

He said those schools, one of which bears his name, worked well for his children in the early 1970s and for his grandchildren -- the children of his daughter, Anne Holton, and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine -- in the past decade or so.

"We are living testimony to the results that can be achieved from this school system," he said. "There's a whole lot more success here than people realize. You couldn't ask for better preparation than our kids and grandkids have had."

Jones said he, too, sent his children to city schools.

"It's important for us to stand up and say, 'If we can succeed with that wonderful foundation, other families can, too,'" he said.

Jones said as he looked around the country and saw mayor after mayor trying to take over school systems, he was glad that wouldn't be the case in Richmond.

"I happen to believe we can work together and get the job done," he said.

Holton offered a reminder of the depths from which the school system is trying to recover.

In 1970, Holton, then governor, sent his children to Richmond's schools at a time when governors of other Southern states were better known for openly defying national mandates to fully integrate schools.

"I was so overcome with exuberance at our chance to be a symbol of compliance," Holton said. "I saw what some of the other governors -- [Ross] Barnett in Mississippi and [George] Wallace in Alabama -- had done, and I was in a position to say, 'We're going to comply.'"

In the years since, though, the school system has lost half its enrollment. Academic performance bottomed out about a decade ago when state assessment tests showed that statewide, only Petersburg was doing a worse job educating its children. And despite improvement in the classroom, public confidence has continued to erode to the point where a third of the school-age children in Richmond aren't in public schools.

That, Jones said, is something everyone in attendance could fix.

"We have to stand up and tell our own story," he said.

At Henderson, six School Board members joined Brandon and other administrators for the open house, but the show belonged to Janine Turner, the school's principal.

While her school is scheduled to grow by 170 or so students next year with the closing of Chandler Middle School, the open house attracted a different crowd.

Most of those in attendance had children at Holton Elementary, where parents have been vocal in past years about seeking opportunities out of the zone.

"It just takes one parent, one family" to change that, Turner said. "Hopefully, the word will spread."

Tim Holtz, the parent of a fifth-grader at Holton, said he and several other parents were investigating options for their children.

"I've never ruled out Henderson," he said. "If it's not good enough for my child, why is it good enough for 500-plus other children?"

But he wasn't certain neighborhood parents were ready to move en masse to the school.

"Our neighborhood would benefit greatly from a middle school it felt were its own," he said. "But I don't think we're to the point that we'd move here as a group. We're not at the point that we wouldn't, either."

The open house, though, was a good step, he said. "It's my first visit to the school."

And that, Turner said, was a good sign.

"If I can get them in," she said shortly before opening the program, "I can keep them."

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or zreid@timesdispatch.com.