OPINION: City Schools' 15-year Report Card Points to Issues
The key to turning around the school system is changing the culture, and that starts at the top by changing the school board.
By Scott Vezina
GUEST OPINION
In a January interview with Fredericksburg Parent, Fredericksburg City Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent, Dr. Marci Catlett, stated, “We’re going to continue our teamwork in terms of doing what’s best for the children and moving forward in our work to make this the best school division.”
Considering that FCPS is often considered one of the worst school districts in the state, this statement piqued my interest to look into the progression of the schools over the last 15 years since my family and I moved to Fredericksburg. What does that report card look like for FCPS?
Rita Mae Brown’s 1983 novel, Sudden Death, features the character Jane Fulton speaking the adage, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The insanity of FCPS is continuing with the same declining course of the last 15 years and expecting it to give us the best schools in Virginia.
The only two categories which Fredericksburg Public Schools have consistently stayed above the state average are the low student to teacher ratios, and the amount of funding we spend per pupil. However, in order to solve the apparent issues of projected overcrowding that has yet to be realized, the FCPS School Board prioritized building a brand-new middle school for just over 1,000 students costing Fredericksburg residents a total of $67 million ($415/sq. ft. and over $63,000 per pupil). In comparison, Chesterfield’s new middle school contract, which was awarded three months after FCPS, will host over 1,800 students and cost only $317/sq. ft and $44,000 per pupil.
Meanwhile, as we can see from the Report Card, FCPS has been consistently well below average for decades in every other category measured, such as accreditation, graduation rates, dropout rates, chronic absenteeism, test scores, college readiness, teacher salaries, and retention rates; none of which will be solved by the building of a new school. Academically, Fredericksburg City Schools perform better than only 3.8% of all Virginia School Systems. According to the Virginia Department of Education, City students perform 25 points below average in Third Grade Reading, 20 points below average in Sixth Grade Reading, and 16 points below average across all grade levels. Minority students are the most heavily impacted, scoring as low as 37 points below the state average.
Math scores are even worse with City students performing 21 points below the state average across all grades. By Third Grade, students are already 26 points behind their peers in the rest of the state, and 32 points behind by the time they finish Sixth Grade. Current School Board members and School Administration will state that only using test scores does a disservice and is a poor measurement of success. So, to appease that point, which other failing statistics should we use?
Several Fredericksburg residents have raised these concerns in the past with no change. Our current School Board and Leadership is emphasizing that the strategic solution is a new magic pill known as the Comprehensive Instruction Plan (CIP), as well as offering students the ability to attend the Virtual A. Linwood Holton Governor's School. Before CIP and Governors School, the solution was the International Baccalaureate (IB) Program, which became an expensive failure for the School Division. Before IB, there was an emphasis on more Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment Courses, but that has since waned because Fredericksburg is unable to attract teachers with the right level of qualifications to offer these rigorous courses. The strategy of thinking a magic pill will fix all ills without a change in culture is misguided.
Renowned business strategist and author Peter Drucker states, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If our school board doesn’t change the culture, then any new strategy will start off with failure. The tough nature of changing a culture is that it must start at the top.
FCPS has had very little change in top leadership over the last 15 years. Two out of Six School Board members, Malvina Rollins Kay and Jarvis Bailey, have been on school board over 13 years. Before recently running for City Council, Jannan Holmes was also on the Board since 2010. Only in politics can someone keep their job for over 10 years with no objective metric to claim success. Only on the Board for one term, Chair Matt Rowe has announced he is running for City Council, showing that school board was just a political steppingstone for another office. Lastly, Dr. Marci Catlett has been part of the current FCPS culture for 40 years. She was the Deputy Superintendent in 2012 and was promoted to Superintendent in 2020.
We need new voices on School Board to challenge the norm and ask the hard questions. We need new perspectives because the current ones aren’t working. Now is not the time for unanimous votes and singing kumbaya. Now is the time for change.
An example of the chaotic culture can be seen among the leadership in our actual schools. From 2014-2020, FCPS had a total of five Principals leading our four schools with only a single Principal change in 2018 at Walker Grant Middle School. After Dr. Catlett was promoted to Superintendent in 2020, those same four schools were led by 13 different Principals from 2020-2025. The turnover of Assistant Principals (AP) is even more grim. Since 2020, FCPS has seen 19 separate APs across the 4 schools. (Data collected from information provided by the school system via a FOIA request.)
How can we expect our students to find stability and a sense of commitment when our senior leadership is unable to do the same? This constant change strains teachers and provides a lack of in-class support to help with the high-needs students (FCPS proportionately has a high number of ELL and SPED students).
Without strong leadership, positive culture, professional support and mentorship, teachers are basically left to struggle and fail. This revolving door constantly leaves teachers with a lack of supportive and stable leadership and without steady mentor support. It creates multiple changes in tasks/initiatives and more meetings to implement desired changes. All this combined with little support in the classroom, plus salaries that are significantly less than School Districts five miles in any direction, and teachers are finding more options in leaving than staying.
The FCPS School Board just released their proposed budget for 2025-2026. The budget is not earth-shattering, in fact it’s rather boring, and proposes continuation of much of the same as the past 15 years, but it adds another school that needs to be staffed and maintained to the mix. This budget continues to accept low academic standards and underpaid teachers.
The budget will do nothing to change the culture that has become the norm in City Schools. The budget will not provide stability in administration at each of our schools. The budget will not address the high dropout rates and decreasing academic performance. The budget will not address the fact that our teachers constantly miss their planning periods to attend meetings or substitute for another class. The budget will not take any steps to accelerate teachers’ compensation and prevent them from going to surrounding locales, especially Stafford County.
Culture Change will only occur when we can challenge the status quo. Just because we have always done it one way doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly absurd. It’s time to act. It’s time for a change. Considering every metric and the regression over the last 15 years, is what we are “continuing to do” truly the “best for our children …. to make this the best school division”? Is this really the best that we have to offer our children, teachers, and community? “The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one.”
Fredericksburg, we have a problem. We have the power to change this culture. It starts by changing the School Board.
Scott Vezina lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and is chair of the Fredericksburg Republican Committee.
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One would hope that council and school board members would write a commentary on this report. If true, they should resign.
I value and support our public schools. Fredericksburg residents, VOLUNTEER! Run for the School Board and work to make corrections.