To the editor: At its Dec. 14 meeting, the Arlington School Board on a 3-to-2 vote adopted an amendment to the superintendent’s proposed 2024 Arlington Public Schools’ (APS) Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) direction that unnecessarily limits school-system staff to only explore and present scenarios at a low, medium and high cost (not to exceed $45 million) to relocate the Montessori Public School of Arlington into the legacy Arlington Career Center.
The adopted amendment, which was not made public before the vote, prevents APS staff from exploring alternative options for the reuse of the legacy Career Center building or for the relocation of the Montessori Public School of Arlington that might offer cost savings or might create scenarios where tax dollars and existing spaces are used more efficiently.
Both APS and the county government will be facing tight fiscal constraints during this CIP and budget cycle due to revenue shortfalls resulting from the high commercial-vacancy rate. New information will also become available in the coming months on enrollment projections, which already show a division-wide surplus of seats with a notable (roughly 1,600-seat) surplus at the elementary level.
There may well be other needs for other school communities or for reusing the legacy Career Center that may become apparent with new information from the planned feasibility studies for schools determined to need major renovation projects in the recently completed Facilities Condition Assessment Report. At the very least, the feasibility studies will show that capital dollars will be needed to complete any renovation or rebuild.
Will there be enough money after spending even within the range of the low-, medium- or high-cost options? Is there a more affordable and perhaps optimal location for the Montessori program to be relocated or a more affordable and sensible reuse of the legacy Career Center building? We may not ever know the answers to those questions or we may not know them until it is too late to change course.
With such a tight fiscal budget, the School Board will no doubt be faced with trade-offs; schools such as Thomas Jefferson Middle and Barrett Elementary that the facilities-condition report has deemed to have substantial educational-space deficiencies will have to wait for perhaps a decade or more for solutions.
If a majority of the School Board has a preference for reusing the legacy Career Center building for Montessori Public School of Arlington, then they have every right to vote for that option in the spring when adopting the final CIP. However, the current CIP direction unduly limits staff to present one option to the public, and prevents the exploration of other options and a process where trade-offs are transparently considered.
A capital-improvement process and the direction that staff follows should be a process where solutions for all APS priorities are explored and then balanced within fiscal constraints. It should not be a process where money is committed to “get one project right” and then give all other priorities what’s left over.
That’s the very definition of planning in a silo, and directs a process that will lead to less than ideal and likely less fiscally responsible solutions.
Stacy Snyder, Arlington
[Snyder serves as chair of the Arlington government’s Joint Facilities Advisory Commission, but is writing in her personal capacity.]
