Letter to the Editor

A Democrat and a Republican come together on schools.

I’m a former member of the Fredericksburg Democratic Committee so you would think I have nothing in common with Scott Vezina, chair of the city’s Republican Committee. But he and I agree 100% on his recent article on the poor performance of city public schools and our need for a new school board.

What he failed to cite was that Fredericksburg City Schools ranked dead last in the state in academic achievement not too long ago. That’s right, dead last and our performance hasn’t changed much since then. We are always ranked in the bottom ten out of 132 school districts in Virginia. Why do you think a third of all school age children in the city DO NOT attend public schools?

Yet the School Board does nothing to shake things up and City Council only makes it worse. Instead of spending money on teaching, Council has built a shiny new school that will cost city taxpayers close to $6 million annually in additional capital debt and school operating costs. This is money we won’t be able to spend on academics for our children.

A handful of city residents and one city councilman complained city schools were overcrowded and City Council bought it. This is despite the fact the city’s school population has barely gown in recent years and in some years has even declined. Now we have school buildings we won’t be able to fill for years to come. And remember, before the new middle school was built, our city manager in no uncertain terms said we couldn’t afford it.

Now, City Council is trying to blame its current budget crisis on the potential loss of federal funds. No. This is a problem City Council created itself and now we citizens have to pay the price. Beginning this fall, the average homeowner's real estate taxes will jump around $333 annually to pay for Council’s most recent poor management decisions. This comes after numerous city tax hikes in recent years.

We didn’t have to spend all of this money. All but one of our city schools was built for expansion. If you believe we were overcrowded we simply could have added some classrooms to each school at much less cost than building a magnificent monument to our School Board and City Council members. But Council and the School Board wanted a new shiny object, which Mr. Vezina points out cost us taxpayers nearly 33% more per square foot than what other school districts pay. Do they really believe bricks and mortar will fix the problem, or is this just putting lipstick on a pig?

The problem with city government is a total lack of oversight by our elected officials, yet we continue to reelect them. We need more people to step up, especially as Mr. Vezina notes, to run for School Board. As you can see from my background and that of Mr. Vezina, this is not a partisan issue. It’s about our children and the adults who are miserably failing them.

It’s pretty obvious after looking at the last fifteen years of neglect, neither this City Council nor our School Board can do the job. Citizens need to join together, create a task force, invite expertise from those who have turned inner-city schools around, and look for answers. We especially need our teachers and young parents with children in our schools to step up and get involved.

So, where are you?

Rick Pullen is a magazine columnist and novelist. He first moved to the city in 1980 and has watched city government since then as a newspaper reporter and city resident.

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