Closing Governor’s School would be a mistake, say parents, teachers

It wasn’t on the agenda, but the issue of whether or not to close a location of the Commonwealth Governor’s School in Stafford was the central topic during the citizen comments period of the county school board meeting April 14.

Stafford County Public Schools hired a firm to conduct an efficiency study of district operations in November 2014. That report, which the Stafford County School Board recently received, recommends the closing of one of the three sites for the Commonwealth Governor’s School within the county. There are a total of six Commonwealth Governor’s School sites in the region, but the study focused only on Stafford’s sites, which are at Colonial Forge High School, North Stafford High School and Stafford High School.

The speakers at the school board meeting contend that the report is flawed and contains multiple inaccuracies. 

The efficiency study was done by Evergreen Solutions LLC, of Tallahassee, Florida. Stafford County budgeted approximately $100,000 to conduct the study. 

“Stafford County Public Schools understands that, in order to succeed in this mission, in the face of continuing economic constraints impacting operations and management, the school division will have to be even more effective and efficient than ever before,” stated the report on why the study was conducted.

The report also stated that approximately 27,000 students are currently enrolled in the county’s public schools, which consists of 30 schools and has approximately 3,750 members on staff. It also listed operating expenditures of over $272.9 million.

The report claims that eliminating one CGS site will save more than $680,000 a year.

But all those who spoke on the topic at the school board meeting said that’s not accurate. Some examples of the study’s alleged flaws can be found on page 3-32 (the 99th page), where it says: “Without knowing the number of other classes that teachers teaching at the Governor’s Schools in SCPS, it is impossible to estimate the total costs of eliminating Governor’s School staff.”  

Then, after acknowledging that an accurate amount of money saved would be unknown, the study goes on to calculate such savings: “Using a conservative estimate of 10 teachers working 10 months with a BA per site at an average salary of $48,127, benefits of $12,032 plus $8,000 (total $68,159), total annual savings for eliminating 10 teaching positions would be $681,590.” 

However, there are not 10 full-time teachers at any one of the three Stafford CGS sites. According to a group of parents and teachers who addressed the school board on this issue, one would have to count all the full-time teachers at all three of the CGS sites to get to 10. At the three CGS sites in total, there are reportedly 10 full-time teachers and 10 part-time teachers. The part-time teachers teach 24 classes at governor’s school and 31 classes in their base school. Taking these numbers into account, if a single CGS site is eliminated, the alleged annual savings would be nowhere near $681,590.

Diane Briggs, a teacher at Colonial Forge, which is also one of the governor’s school sites, holds a master’s degree in statistics. She addressed the school board and gave them some numbers to consider. 

“At Colonial Forge High School, the six — not 10, but six — CGS teachers teach 19 sections of classes within Governor’s School, advise the students on their culminating research and teach college-level writing skills,” said Briggs. “In addition to this, we also teach seven Colonial Forge classes outside of CGS, advise National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta (the National Math Honor Society), run the nationally-known and award-winning CGS Robotics Team, act as the team leader for Colonial Forge AP Statistics… and have additional duties as assigned by our principal and department chairs, not to mention the individual mentoring we do for our students.”

“Additionally, the money that comes from the state each year — $1,522 per student in governor’s school — will not be replaced, nor will the federal funds given for gifted programs. The field experiences, interdisciplinary activities, STEM activities, et cetera that the state and federal money funds will simply be lost.”

The Evergreen study states that per pupil expenditures for the 2014-15 school year were $9,968. This number is attributed to the Virginia Department of Education and Stafford public schools. The study does not appear to take into account that Stafford County receives $1,522 per student at the governor’s school, as well as additional federal funds for gifted programs. If a CGS site is closed, the money for those students that comes from the the state will be lost, said Briggs.

“If Evergreen cannot gets these simple facts right, how can we trust the rest of their proposal and recommendations?” asked Vanessa Chapin, a parent of the CGS student.

The efficiency study of Stafford County Public Schools included a review of technology, transportation, food service, financial management, facilities, human resources, instructional services and management. For each operation, Evergreen was tasked with identifying areas to be improved in efficiency and effectiveness through review of available data, benchmarking, interviews, and survey feedback.

Additionally, the report suggests creating a position of chief operations officer and paying that person $195,000 a year. One speaker questioned whether the school superintendent’s duties were basically the same as the COO position that was recommended and why such an additional expense was being recommended while the report puts forward cuts that could have a negative impact on students and teachers. 

Stafford County Superintendent Dr. Bruce Benson said in an email, “The report contains 98 recommendations. The recommendations will be prioritized. Each recommendation will be evaluated. It is likely that additional information will be needed for a number of the recommendations, including the recommendation regarding CGS. While citizen comments at [the April 14] meeting seemed to indicate potential immediate action in this area, that is not the case.”

Multiple attempts to reach Evergreen Solutions for comment were unsuccessful.