New year, but no new schools

The school year starts Tuesday without a single new school opening in the city of Richmond or the counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico.

While the counties have opened schools in recent years, Richmond has not opened one since 1999, when Blackwell, Linwood Holton and Miles Jones elementary schools opened.

But there's noise in City Hall about building a replacement Huguenot High School and four new elementary schools, and the city's chief administrative officer said construction could begin by the end of next year.

Byron C. Marshall, the city's CAO, said $150 million was set aside for construction.

But with four distinct entities involved, getting to this point has not been simple. In Richmond, the school system controls the buildings, the School Board sets school policy, the City Council controls funding and the mayor's office shapes citywide spending priorities.

School officials have long clamored for new facilities, and they have stacks of master plans and studies to back up their desires.

The city's collection of school buildings is among the state's most antiquated. As a group, the buildings are an average of 60 years old. Of four dozen buildings, only eight were built in the past 40 years.

But progress on school construction came to a halt during the four years when L. Douglas Wilder was mayor. He demanded that the school system close schools first and build new ones later. Schools have shut down -- three elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school have been closed in recent years -- but construction never got off the ground.

Mayor Dwight C. Jones campaigned last fall on a promise of building new schools, but he has kept his efforts out of the public eye and out of grasp of the School Board.

At a meeting of the board early last month, a city staff member surprised the board with an update on school construction projects. Work is apparently progressing on a design for a Huguenot replacement, but the School Board has had little input and the public has not been invited to participate.

"What we need to do in the next 45 days is to go to the elected officials," Marshall said. "We'll talk to the School Board and to City Council [about our plan]."

After that, he said, the public would be asked to participate.

"We'll get all of our stakeholders involved," he said.

School Board Vice Chairwoman Kimberly B. Gray said she welcomed the discussion. "I know they're paying for the schools, but if it's going to have a budgetary impact on us -- and it is, if we have to move programs or students -- then we have to be involved," she said.

Gray said the first she heard of the new Huguenot was at the meeting Aug. 3. A month later, she said she hadn't heard much more.

The plan also includes replacements for Broad Rock, George Mason, E.S.H. Greene and Oak Grove elementary schools. There has also been talk of replacing Elkhardt and Martin Luther King Jr. middle schools.

Betsy Carr, chairwoman of the School Board's Facilities Committee, said she had faith the city was moving forward.

"The difference now is that the [call for bids] has gone out" for school design, she said. "We're in the planning stage, then they put the shovel in the ground. That, we haven't had before."

Funding has long been a major hurdle to school construction. Enrollment has fallen by half in the past four decades, and funding has decreased with it. The school system had to cut nearly $10 million from its budget this year, leaving the district with about $260 million.

And while there appears to be excess classroom space in the city, shifting demographics mean that space is often in the wrong places. Elementary schools along the north side of the James River sit woefully under-enrolled, while South Richmond middle and high schools closer to the Chesterfield line are pushing capacity.

Last fall, Jones said he wanted to see three "laboratory" schools that would serve as community anchors. But in the eight months since he took office, there has been little talk of school construction.

"We're in the pre-major aspect of it," Marshall said. "The architects are doing schematic plans. Once they finish that, we'll go to the neighborhoods."

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .

Year opened
1880s
1886: Carver Elementary

1910s
1911: William Fox Elementary
1911: Open High (opened as Grace Arents)
1913: Bellevue Elementary
1913: Oak Grove Elementary
1914: Swansboro Elementary (opened as
Franklin School)
1915: Binford Middle
1916: Ginter Park Elementary
1918: Bellemeade Elementary (now an annex of
Oak Grove Elementary)
1919: Summer Hill Elementary

1920s
1922: George Mason Elementary
1922: J.E.B. Stuart Elementary
1923: Adult Career Development Center (opened as
Armstrong High)
1925: Richmond Community High (opened as
Northside Junior High; later operated as
Chandler Middle)
1926: Albert Hill Middle
1929: Franklin Military (opened as East End
Junior High)

1930s
1930: Thomas Jefferson High
1937: Broad Rock Elementary

1940s
1941: Elkhardt Middle

1950s
1951: Mary Munford Elementary
1951: E.D. Redd Elementary
1953: Mary Scott Elementary (now an annex of
Ginter Park Elementary)
1954: John B. Cary Elementary
1954: Westover Hills Elementary
1954: Woodville Elementary
1957: Maymont Elementary
1958: Fairfield Court Elementary
1958: G.H. Reid Elementary
1959: Southampton Elementary

1960s
1960: Huguenot High
1960: John Marshall High
1960 :George Wythe High
1961: Amelia Street
1964: Martin Luther King Middle
1965: Ruffin Road Elementary (now an annex of
Summer Hill Elementary)
1965: Thompson Middle
1966: J.B. Fisher Elementary
1966: Richmond Technical Center South
1967: Clark Springs Elementary
1968: Armstrong High (opened as Kennedy)
1968: Chimborazo Elementary
1968: J.L. Francis Elementary

1970s
1971: Richmond Technical Center North
1973: Henderson Middle
1977: Overby-Sheppard Elementary

1980s
1986: T.C. Boushall Middle

1990s
1998: Lucille Brown Middle School
1999: Blackwell Elementary
1999: Linwood Holton Elementary
1999: Miles Jones Elementary