CONSOLIDATION COMMITTEE SUMMARY

TO: Consolidation Steering Committee

The School Consolidation Subcommittee has met seven times, including the organizational meeting. During the course of its study the subcommittee has met with the following people to better explore the advantages and disadvantages of consolidation:

• Dan Sleeper, the county administrator for Pittsylvania County. He has worked with six annexations, one city reversion and the consolidation of a city and county.
• Mary Minor, a representative from the James City County-Williamsburg School Board. James City County-Williamsburg is a joint elected-appointed school board.
• Harry Smith of the Handley Trust. He discussed a possible consolidation as it relates to the unique relationship the trust has with Winchester.
• Janice Miller, chair of the Fairfax City School Board. Fairfax City contracts with Fairfax County for all its personnel and support functions while retaining and maintaining its school buildings.
• Attorney Douglas L. Guynn of the firm Timberlake, Smith, Thomas & Moses. He also is the city attorney for Staunton. Guynn presented a legal overview of consolidation in Virginia and the ways in which the various forms of consolidation affect schools.

After hearing these experts and working with school staff from Frederick County and Winchester, the subcommittee came up with the following advantages and disadvantages for consolidation:

Reasons for Consolidation
1. Redistricting could improve bus route efficiency in certain locations. While you may not use fewer buses, you will use the buses you have more efficiently. No more buses driving past schools to get to a school in their jurisdiction.
2. Purchasing in large quantities will be more efficient. There is an economy of scale when purchasing supplies.
3. Centralized services, including transportation and administrative functions, would eliminate confusion regarding two school divisions for new residents. This also would apply to businesses looking to relocate to the area.
4. Transfer of students among city/county schools would be more seamless once the same curriculum, materials, programs, schedules and policies and regulations pertaining to students and instruction are in place.
5. A larger school division offers the ability to provide additional course options and an expanded alternative program.
6. School re-zonings will retain the concept of community schools as much as possible. Hopefully you will go to a school that makes geographic sense. Some current school zones are awkward to accommodate city/county boundary. Neighborhood schools are always preferable.
7. A larger jurisdiction provides greater financial stability. Conversely, everyone in the consolidated jurisdiction would share any benefits of economic growth in the area.
8. A consolidated school system would embrace a broader cultural and economic diversity. Our students are entering a more diverse, multicultural society. If they adapt to this in school, handling diversity in later life will be much easier. Remember, we are preparing them for their world, not ours.

Possible Disadvantages with Consolidation
1. Significantly increased short- and long-term financial obligations offering no cost savings and likely a cost increase to both the city and county. Schools will cost more whether you stay separate or consolidate. (This is in part because of the pressures put upon local schools by federal No Child Left Behind legislation.) Consolidation would mean “leveling up” to the higher salaries offered by Winchester. Consolidation law states that you must go to the higher salary and that employees can’t be harmed fiscally by consolidation.
2. Loss of current identity for both communities. The idea would be that students would be identified only as students of the consolidated school system. The old city/county designations would be wiped away.
3. Parallel systems required for two or three years. (FCPS and WPS will continue to operate while a consolidated school division is developed.) This will be more costly in the short run, but it will be necessary to have a superintendent who does nothing but concentrate on the merger for a period of two years. For instance 50-60 job classifications and their salary scales will have to be merged. Hundreds of bus routes and attendance zones will have to be analyzed and reconfigured in the most efficient manner. Hundreds of pages of policy will have to be merged. (Most of these policies are based on the Code of Virginia.)
4. Thousands of pre-merger operational details will impact staff as they attempt to address current responsibilities and mission, as well as consolidation details. Staff would have to perform everyday duties while helping with the consolidation and this would make for a couple of stressful years.
5. School rezoning will not solve racial, ethnic and economic disparities. There is no way to re-boundary the eight-block area in Winchester that provides most of the city’s diversity so that it is assigned to several different schools.

Possible Financial Benefit
• During the Sept. 26, 2006, meeting with consolidation experts Richard Cranwell and Carter Glass it was mentioned that the Composite Index, the formula by which the state funds local schools, would be adjusted to the more favorable rate between Winchester and Frederick County if the jurisdictions merged.
• A preliminary analysis by the Winchester and Frederick County school systems has found that $4.7 million to $4.9 million in additional state funding would have come back to Winchester and Frederick County this year if the more favorable composite index rate were applied.

Physical Plant Considerations
Winchester
Winchester Superintendent of Schools Dennis Kellison said the renovation of Handley High School and the renovation and expansion of Daniel Morgan Middle School were the last two major items on Winchester’s capital improvements program with the exception of the renovation/expansion of John Kerr Elementary School.
If Winchester stays in its current grade alignment, Kellison anticipated no further capital needs past the renovation/expansion of John Kerr. If Winchester were to revert to a traditional elementary school configuration, it would need additional elementary space.
Winchester Public Schools has no centralized maintenance or warehouse facilities.
Winchester Public School currently has 800,000 square feet of school space.

Frederick County
These schools include a new high school (2011 opening), a new middle school (2010) and three elementary schools (2008, 2010 and 2011).
Frederick County has between 9,000 and 10,000 potential single-dwelling lots. This density could increase with rezoning. The school system is currently estimating .5 students for each single-dwelling unit.
Frederick County’s future planned school facilities (four elementary schools, a middle school and a high school) are all located in the Urban Development Area (UDA) east of Winchester. Assistant Superintendent Al Orndorff noted that the UDA could be expanded and this pattern could change. He also noted that 40 percent of the county’s growth is occurring outside the UDA.
Frederick County currently has one proffered school site. This site, in Stephenson Village for a 13th elementary school, must be used within 10 years.
Frederick County Public Schools currently has 2.1 million square feet of space.

Capital Needs for a Consolidated School System
Both superintendents said that the administration needed for a consolidated school system could not be housed in either of the current administration facilities.

Both school systems are seeking to upgrade their transportation maintenance facilities. (Winchester’s facilities are currently in the City Yards off Cork Street and Frederick County’s on U.S. 522 North.) Frederick County currently has a fleet of 161 buses and Winchester 27.

Both school systems could face a need for space should state and federal initiatives for pre-kindergarten education reach fruition. The current Frederick County facilities would need space at the elementary level should consolidation lead to a leveling up to full-day kindergarten take place.

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Process for Merger

After the form of government is decided, the Board of Supervisors and City Council would appoint an interim school board as stipulated by the Code of Virginia.
Working with school staff, the subcommittee established the following timeline for school consolidation.

October 2005-July 2007
• Decision on form of merged government by City Council and Board of Supervisors
• Determine school board district zones and selection of “initial” school board

July 2007-January 2008
• Select superintendent and adopt organizational chart
• Begin policy analysis and merger of policies

January 2008-July 2009
• Attendance zones, central office, building level staffing patterns
• Budget adopted for Fiscal Year 2010 (perhaps Fiscal Year 2011

August 2009 (Perhaps 2010)
• Open consolidated school system

Things the new superintendent and interim school board would have to consider:
• Redistricting
• Bus routes
• Merging salary scales
• Vendor contracts
• Merging Information Technology Hardware & Software
• CIP merger
• Merging of policy manuals
• Standardization of curriculum, textbooks and programs
• Medical benefits
• High school block schedules
• Implementation of full-day kindergarten (as is the case in the city).
• Student instructional days and schedules
• Size and location of administration building
• Dowell J. Howard programs

Organizational Chart for Transition Period

“Initial” School Board
• Superintendent
• Community Relations - State/Federal Program

Instruction
• High School Program
• Middle School Program
• Elementary Program
• Alternate Ed Program
• Special Education
• Career & Technical Ed Program
• Information Technology
• Staff Development
• Gifted Program
• Reporting/Assessment
• ESL

Operations
• Information Technology
• Transportation
• Food Services
• Maintenance
• Planning
• Construction

Administration
• Finance
• Human Resources
• Reporting Assessment

Student Service
• Guidance
• Health
• Discipline
• Attendance
• Home Schooling

Handley High School
• The subcommittee saw no reason to change the current operating agreement between Handley High School, Winchester Public Schools and the Handley Trust.
• The Handley Trust has not been in a fund-raising mode although it is now attempting coordinate fund-raising efforts for groups such as the Judges Athletic Association, Winchester Education Foundation and the Handley Museum and Archives.

Comments on Consolidation Offered by Guests

• One has not seen a case where the consolidation and realignment of schools hasn’t been beneficial.
• The No. 1 factor in economic development is schools. The tax rate is not a great factor in business relocation.
• Companies that make long-term commitments to communities are companies that see the wisdom of investing in education and improving their potential work force.
• An increase in a school system’s population (average daily membership or ADM) is good. Businesses seeking to relocate want to know that they are going to a community that is growing and not a community that is aging.
• Industry is looking for educated communities where there are two or three acceptable applicants for every job..
• After three years, people generally seem to forget that there were two systems and begin treating the schools as a single entity.
• The state interest in consolidation is economic viability. The state wants to see no economic harm done to either side.
• The court that will look at the final consolidation agreement will look at hard numbers.
• The biggest problem with any consolidation agreement is people. If they have to vote, you have to educate them.
• People within the separate systems often see consolidation as a threat to their jobs. While they may see the overall merits of a consolidation plan, they become advocates against it because of self-interest.
• Winchester and Frederick County are trying to do is unique in that they are seeking to form a partnership. Consolidations are usually undertaken only when one entity is failing financially.
• If you can prove that a consolidation will be financially beneficial, it will remove a major obstacle to consolidation.
• The Commission on Local Government and the three-judge panel will look at the benefit you are offering students.
• When thinking about what will benefit students, we have to remember that we are training them for the world that they will enter, not ours. They will compete in a global society with workers from China and India.

On April 21, 2006, the subcommittee heard a presentation by attorney Douglas L. Guynn of the firm Timberlake, Smith, Thomas & Moses. He also is the city attorney for Staunton. Mr. Guynn presented a legal overview of consolidation in Virginia and the ways in which the various forms of consolidation affect schools.
After this meeting, it became the strong recommendation of the subcommittee that the Frederick County Board of Supervisors and Winchester City Council decide on a form of consolidated government before the subcommittee completed this work. This decision should be made, the subcommittee thought, to avoid the possibility of legal action challenging consolidation and minimize the amount of time staff spent examining various forms of consolidated government.
Mr. Guynn said the general powers of counties in Virginia are less expansive than cities. Counties face many more procedural requirements. Cities and towns have “uniform charter powers,” plus powers contained in their own charters. They have more flexibility when it comes to borrowing.

Options for a consolidated form of government include:
• County and city joining to form a consolidated county or city
• County and city joining to form a county with a tier city
• County and all towns within it to form a consolidated county

Merging into a Consolidated City requires seven steps:
1. Initiation of process-agreement
2. Plan submitted to the Commission on Local Government
3. Notice
4. Petition to convene a special court
5. Proceedings and decision of special court
6. Referendum on consolidation
7. Referendum results and follow-up, including special election

Merging into a Consolidated County requires three steps:
1. Publication of agreement
2. Petition for court order for referendum
3. Referendum results and follow-up, including special elections

As far as incorporated towns are concerned: if they are not a party to a consolidated city, they continue as townships. If they are not a party to a consolidated county, they continue as towns.
Mr. Guynn put forth the following issues that should be considered when undertaking consolidation.

• Judges order election for offices to be held 30 to 185 days after a referendum is held and at least 30 days before the effective date of consolidation.
• The effect of consolidation on employees is that their rights and powers end; their duties end; and their compensation ends. All employees of the former jurisdictions must be re-hired.
• Under some forms of consolidation an effective date of school consolidation may be set before the effective date of general consolidation. Members of the initial school board may assume office before consolidation for the purpose of limited organization, including forming an initial budget, setting job descriptions, setting pay ranges and qualifications, etc. The composition of the interim school board is set by the governing bodies. Sitting school board members from the unifying districts may sit on the interim school board.
• There are some forms of consolidation that require both affected superintendents to remain until the end of their contracts with one becoming superintendent and the other an assistant.
• Streets of a former city become part of the state highway system.
• Some forms of consolidation involve the changing of the status of towns. It would be advisable to have representatives of the incorporated towns within Frederick County on committees considering the various facets of consolidation.
• There is a moratorium of annexation by cities, but no moratorium on annexations by towns.
• The electorate can be asked if they want a specific form of consolidation.
• Consolidated school efforts can only be undertaken with the permission of the Virginia Board of Education. (New regulations have just been issued by the Board of Education.)
• Localities can operate joint schools in areas where the two jurisdictions have dense populations on each side of their boundary line.
• If it is wished to return to an appointed school board, a referendum must be taken.
• The General Assembly can always trump the actions of a locality.

Mr. Guynn said there has to be an overwhelming reason as to why jurisdictions should merge. He said this reason usually involves economics.
How would a unified government make our area more economically competitive?
Mr. Guynn said the schools committee must answer how the schools would be better under unification.

Money is not saved in the short term by consolidation.
A realistic timeline for consolidation is four to five years. It is a very deliberative process.
Economic considerations are not usually at the forefront of this debate; politics are. There is a great pride factor involved.
We need to define what we are trying to correct and improve. What is being done for the greater good?
A skilled facilitator may be needed for the meeting of the governmental bodies.

Submit your comments, questions, or suggestions

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