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Middleburg, Aldie parents fighting for small schools
Faced with the assimilation of their small, community schools into a massive and rapidly suburbanizing school system, parents of children at Aldie and Middleburg elementary schools have declared that resistance is not futile.
The Task Force of Concerned Parents met April 28 at Middleburg Elementary School to plan a campaign to keep their small schools from being devoured by the system. Their School Board member, Priscilla Godfrey (Blue Ridge), talked them through strategies to find the five votes among her colleagues necessary to save the schools.
They've got her vote, and probably that of at-large member Tom Reed, she told the crowd. At least two other members are probably ready to vote against them, Godfrey said. She did not name those members but she distributed memos from Bob Ohneiser (Broad Run) that question the costs of the small schools.
Superintendent of Schools Edgar Hatrick told the School Board last month that, faced with even deeper budget cuts next year, he was putting the closing of smaller western schools on the table.
Since then, as part of system-wide cutbacks in teaching staff to absorb Board of Supervisors-mandated cuts in the school system's budget, Hatrick's administration has cut Aldie's staff by one teacher and Middleburg's by two. If parents cannot figure out a way to get more children enrolled, Aldie next year will have four-and-a-half teaching positions, and a combined first and second grade; Middleburg will have three-and-a-half teaching positions, and combined classes in second through fifth grades.
Both could be be targeted for closing the following year. Full enrollment at Middleburg, first opened in 1911, is 137 students and it currently lists 81 on its roster. Aldie, built in 1928, can hold 137 students and this year has 102.
“Hatrick has targeted us. The small schools are a thorn in his side,” said parent Olen All.
In 2003, the school system took two teachers away from Middleburg and moved its half-day kindergarten to Aldie, said Middleburg parent Dave Quanbeck. He called it a “direct threat” that the school was going to be closed.
Since then, the School Board adopted a policy of open enrollment, All said – any parent anywhere in Loudoun County can enroll a child at any school that has room. Open enrollment is something of a secret, he said, and the Middleburg/Aldie parents need to get the word out even if the school system does not.
Last time the school lost teachers, said Quanbeck, it attracted new students and gained both back within two years.
The school system's Capital Improvement Program – its long-term building plan -- notes that Middleburg expects “no significant student enrollment growth.”
Not so, said Godfrey.
Sheila Johnson's Salamander resort is under construction across Foxcroft Road from the public elementary school. It includes 110 homes, projected to be completed by 2010.
Those houses will have children in them, Godfrey told the assembled parents, and those children will be looking for a seat at the school.
In addition, when the schools' planners predict enrollment, they look only at the students living within the attendance area. They don't count those students gained through open enrollment, All said.
Parents have mobilized to find the votes on the School Board needed to save their schools. Some signed up to speak at School Board meetings – Terri Domanski, Middleburg Parent Teacher Organization officer, will help coordinate talking points so speakers at any given meeting between now and next fall will not repeat each other.
Other parents signed up to collect petition signatures at the Safeway and post office. Public support beyond the parent community will make a difference, Domanski said.
Others will be writing letters to the editors at all local newspapers.
Don Gilberg's twin daughters are in the third grade at Middleburg. He took them out of the private Hill School to have them go to school here, he said.
Closing this school, Gilberg said, would be “a terrible reflection on this county.”
Contact the reporter at ssollinger@timespapers.com
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