The Arlington School Board responded to the County Board’s decision not to approve a new elementary school site with a statement expressing the School Board’s renewed commitment to engaging with the community to find a solution.
The site chosen by the School Board was immediately adjacent to Thomas Jefferson Middle School and the County Board expressed concerns that School Board had conducted no studies to determine the school’s impact on the local neighborhood or traffic. Without directly addressing any of those concerns, at their Feb. 5 meeting, the Arlington School Board members took turns reading a “joint message” in response to the County Board’s decision.
“We’ve been talking a lot about capacity,” said Arlington School Board Chairman James Lander. “We had an opportunity to engage with the County Board with regard to discussing options that included the building of a new elementary school at the preferred location of the School Board.”
Lander said the School Board will move forward focusing on the fact that the County Board offered to help find new sites on publicly owned land. On Jan. 28, Lander sent a letter to County Board Chair Mary Hynes to begin immediate discussion on alternative plans.
“We are moving forward and working with the county manager to identify a new set of short-, mid-, and long-term solutions,” said School Board Vice Chair Emma Violand-Sanchez. “The School Board will seek input of its advisory councils, Parent-Teacher Associations, Civic Associations, and community organizations.”
The sense that the School Board had not engaged sufficiently with the local community was one of the primary reasons the County Board had voted against the proposal. However, at the County Board meeting, all members who voted against the plan still emphasized their support for finding a new school location for the additional required seats.
The School Board said that the goal is still to add a minimum of 725 new elementary school seats no later than the beginning of school in September 2018, and said that the funds from last election’s school bond are still committed to this purpose.
The School Board noted that the Thomas Jefferson site the County Board voted against would still remain in consideration as one of the potential sites.