Petersburg considers cutting ties to governor's schools

A budget deficit could keep Petersburg students from attending an elite regional high school in the heart of the city's downtown.

Petersburg School Board Chairman Kenneth L. Pritchett is asking the board to consider cutting programs, rather than eliminating positions, to make up a $2.3 million deficit in its fiscal 2012 budget.

To avoid either scenario, Pritchett and other educators want the Petersburg City Council to increase its support of city schools. They note that Petersburg's school funding is substantially lower than other area localities.

Among Pritchett's suggestions to balance the school budget is reconsidering the system's participation in the region's two full-time governor's schools: Petersburg-based Appomattox Regional Governor's School and Richmond-based Maggie L. Walker Governor's School.

Petersburg currently sends 78 students to the governor's schools and cutting participation completely would save the system about $550,000.

Seventy of those students attend Appomattox, which is located along Washington Street in the former Petersburg High School. They make up about 20 percent of its student population.

The school system's deficit may change based on the Virginia Department of Education's final analysis of the General Assembly's recently passed budget.

Until that new figure is determined, Petersburg must find ways to balance its own budget.

ARGS Executive Director James M. Victory did not specifically comment on the matter, but after conversations with Pritchett, Victory indicated that he is confident that Petersburg will maintain its full support of the school.

"I read Mr. Pritchett's comment as if he was asking if all avenues to balance the budget had been explored," Victory wrote in an e-mail. "In this extremely difficult economy, similar questions were undoubtedly asked by other superintendents and boards of education."

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In a school budget presented last month, Petersburg schools Superintendent Alvera J. Parrish recommended saving $1.2 million by cutting 25 positions, including 11 school positions based on already small class sizes or declining enrollments.

If they are eliminated, the school system will have cut more than 60 positions in the past three years.

The additional cuts, on top of the previous ones, could undo years of gains made in student achievement, Pritchett said.

"We're heading in the right direction, and if we continue to let teachers go, we're going to start to see ourselves going back to where we came from," said Pritchett, whose daughter is a senior at Appomattox. "That's what I'm afraid of."

Pritchett said it is time for the City Council to make education its top priority. The potential sacrifice of the governor's school programs appears to be a calculated political move to rally residents to ask the council to appropriate more funding to the school system.

About 11 percent of the city's budget goes toward education, compared with 40 percent in Colonial Heights, nearly 40 percent in Chesterfield County and almost 50 percent in Henrico County.

Petersburg citywide PTA President John A. Hart Sr. doesn't want to see the school system make cuts to programs like the governor's school.

But to maintain the focus on the students in Petersburg schools, the outside program cuts may be necessary, he said, unless the city increases its funding to the school system.

"I think it's time for the city to step up and start focusing on what they can do to help the next generation," Hart said. "If we can't support education in this city, then what future do we have?"

Petersburg's mayor understands the importance of the governor's school programs.

His three daughters either currently attend or have graduated from the governor's schools.

"We'll work with the School Board and we'll do what's best for the citizens," Moore said. "We've had a good working relationship in the past, and I don't see that changing."

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Cutting participation at the two regional governor's schools may be an unpopular but necessary step for the School Board to take in order to remain in compliance with state Standards of Quality.

"It's never been the board's intention to cut the governor's school or any program, but, we're faced with that as a possibility because, like other school districts, our budgets are being cut," said board member Mary Jane Hendricks, noting that other local school systems receive a higher percentage of funding from their governments.

"We have to take care of the needs of the general student population and meet the SOQ in order to get the money from the state," Hendricks said.

jslayton@timesdispatch.com

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