Anderson: Mason District will need a new school

Schools in Mason District are reaching the limits of their capacity. School expansions and renovations are needed, but one long-term solution proposed by School Board member Ricardy Anderson is building a new school on the site of the Willston Multicultural Center in Seven Corners.

That is just one of the issues Anderson addressed in a lengthy interview with Annandale Today, which also covered budget priorities, restroom safety, and much more.

A new school

With the school-age population in Mason District projected to grow, the district will eventually need a new school. The Willston Center is a logical site. “That’s very long-term, but it is one of the things I want to lay the seed for,” Anderson said.

That building had been a school decades ago and now houses several nonprofits and community groups.

“It would have to be torn down and rebuilt. It cannot just be repainted,” she said. It could potentially be a community school with space for some of the groups already using that space.

Boundary adjustments

The school board had a discussion recently about boundary adjustments across the entire division. “We need to take a look at the capacity across all the schools in Fairfax County, because there are some that are under-enrolled and many that are over-enrolled,” Anderson said. The only schools in Mason District that might be under-enrolled are Poe and Holmes middle schools.

“Having that comprehensive view will be helpful for us to maximize whatever we can do districtwide but I’m still of the feeling that we will need more space, so we should be looking at the Willston Center,” she said.

One of the biggest issues facing Mason District students now is the forthcoming boundary adjustment to relieve overcrowding at Glasgow Middle School.

At the next school board meeting, on Feb. 22, the board is expected to sign off on a scoping document with a set of options to be presented to the community. It will be built on the results of the previous community conversations at Glasgow last August and September.

“It’s not a done deal,” Anderson said. “The whole idea is to present information for people to respond to.” Community meetings on the scoping study will be held March 6 and March 13, 7:30 p.m. in the Glasgow cafeteria.

Related story: FCPS seeks parent feedback on Glasgow boundary study

In a related issue, the school board approved a motion proposed by Anderson to add Parklawn Elementary School to the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for a boundary adjustment.

Parklawn has received over 225 students, including 150 in one year alone, primarily from Afghanistan. That was unexpected, she said. The school already has 29 trailers.

FCPS will host community meetings, probably next fall, to get initial feedback from the community, then will bring a scoping proposal to the school board. Options would then be presented to the community.

Anderson said Belvedere Elementary, Weyanoke Elementary, and Luther Jackson Middle School all need to be renovated, but “staff asked us to pause adding schools to the renovation queue so more objective criteria can be developed.”

Now, schools are added by board members jockeying for position. “If a board member doesn’t raise it, it doesn’t happen. That doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“We should have objective criteria by which all schools are evaluated, and the ones that bubble up to the top should be the ones added to the queue,” she said. “As soon as we begin a queue again, I want those schools to be evaluated.”

Budget priorities

The FY 2025 operating budget for FCPS proposed by Superintendent Michelle Reid calls for a $254 million increase (10.5 percent) in funds transferred from Fairfax County. The school board is scheduled to approve the FY 2025 advertised budget, totaling $3.8 billion, on Feb. 22.

Even though enrollment is projected to grow by just 1 percent in 2025 over the 2024 level, “the students that are coming to us have greater needs,” Anderson said,

The number of students from lower-income households is expected to increase by nearly 7 percent, special education students by 5 percent, and English language learners by nearly 4 percent.

“Special needs students essentially cost twice as much to educate,” Anderson said. “Students requiring language services cost 30 percent more to educate, and we have more students living in poverty which also require lots of additional supports.”

One of Anderson’s top budget priorities is the need to increase staff compensation. “People are leaving the profession because frankly, they can make more money elsewhere,” she said.

The average salary for a teacher with a master’s degree in Fairfax County falls below the average in nearly all of the other school systems in Northern Virginia.

“Teachers can go anywhere,” she said. “We want teachers to choose us instead of Arlington or Alexandria or Loudoun.”  

Compensation also needs to increase for all staff, including custodians and bus drivers, she said. “We need to be able to pay those individuals a living wage so they can live here. So that is a priority.”

“But that’s also a big-ticket item,” she noted. The proposed budget calls for $170 million to increase employee compensation.  

Another priority for Anderson is the need for extra staffing for Title I schools, which have smaller class sizes because they serve larger numbers of students from lower-income households.

She also believes special education teachers and teachers in Title 1 schools should be paid more.

That hasn’t been embedded yet in this year’s budget. Reid suggested using the funds left over at the end of the year as stipends for those hard-to-fill positions, Anderson said, “but we don’t know how much money will be available. Year-end funds should be used for one-time costs, not recurring items.”

Another example of a need not included in the superintendent’s budget is a longer day for special education teachers. FCPS used some of its federal ESSER pandemic relief funds to add 30 minutes a day to the contract for special ed teachers. That gives them more time for all the paperwork and meetings they’re responsible for in addition to teaching.

Anderson would like to see that carried forward now that the ESSER funds have run out, which would cost $24 million.

Teacher vacancies

Nearly all the schools in Mason District are Title I, yet, teacher vacancies are hampering instructional resources.

For example, Anderson pointed out that Weyanoke Elementary School, a Title I school, recently had seven teacher vacancies, including special education, fourth-grade, and reading teachers. In the fourth grade, there are three long-term substitutes or resident teachers. That makes it hard for the one regular teacher to carry the load.

“That’s not a good way to instruct those students,” she said. “I’m not sure why it’s happening. I just know we need to address it.”

While some teachers might be leaving for higher-paying jobs elsewhere, teacher attrition is a nationwide problem. In the past few years, that’s been exacerbated significantly, as there have been more attempts by states to control the curriculum and reading materials.

“It’s gotten really hard to be in the schools,” said Anderson, herself a former teacher. “The demands have increased, and the respect has decreased. I don’t think people view our teachers as the professionals that they are.”

People give full deference to lawyers and doctors, she noted. “Teachers don’t command the same respect, even though they are skilled individuals with master’s degrees and are experts in their field.”

Graduation rates

The three high schools serving Mason District students – Annandale, Justice, and Falls Church – have the lowest graduation rates and highest dropout rates in Fairfax County.

“That is not acceptable,” Anderson said. “We have to hold the superintendent accountable. I expect her and her team to develop some plans and to allocate the right resources to close that gap.”

More counselors and more teachers are helpful; we’re already doing some of that, she said. FCPS also needs on-time graduation coordinators to help students complete their credits.

“At some point, we’re going to have to dig a little deeper to get to the root causes to see what else can be done,” she said.

Many high school students in Mason District need to work, so an expansion of the twilight pilot could be a step in the right direction. That program was launched last spring in six schools, including Justice High School. It provides a flexible schedule to help seniors stay on track and graduate with their peers.

Justice parking

With the Justice High School addition a year away from completion, the lack of adequate parking has yet to be resolved.

A workgroup made up of parents, teachers, and community members, was formed last May. Anderson met with the group in the fall to review draft recommendations. The group plans to put out a survey this spring asking students and teachers how they get to school and what they think about various options.

A companion survey on Justice parking will be distributed to community residents through Mason Supervisor Andres Jimenez’ office

One option under consideration would be to increase parking on Peace Valley Lane by building a retaining wall on the side of the road next to the school property. The group also talked about alternative transportation and the need for future school projects to include structured parking.  

Restroom monitoring

In response to the fentanyl crisis, Anderson said more needs to be done to educate parents about the signs of an overdose.

“We need to be mindful and diligent,” she said. “Every effort needs to be put forward to combat this.”

At a town hall Anderson hosted with student board member Rida Karim and students from half a dozen high schools, there was widespread concern about drug use going on in school restrooms.

“We need to give our kids a sense of safety when they visit the bathroom,” Anderson said. “We don’t want them to avoid going to the bathroom and holding it until they get home, which many kids do at this point. That’s not reasonable.”

Related story: Town hall at Justice High School addresses fentanyl overdoses

Some schools have increased supervision in bathrooms, she noted but high schools have 10 or 15 sets of bathrooms. “We don’t have 10 or 15 people dedicated to monitoring them.”

FCPS conducted a vape detector pilot early this year but the results were inconclusive, so it won’t be continued.

When Anderson was a principal of a K-8 school in California in the early 2000s, they brought in drug detection dogs once a month. “It was just part of what the district did. That could be a question we raise here.”

Meals tax

As the needs and costs in Fairfax County continue to increase, Anderson would like to see the Board of Supervisors explore more revenue streams without increasing the tax burden on residents. Currently, the majority of school (and county) funding comes from property taxes.

In particular, she recommends the BoS reconsider a meals tax and increase the hotel occupancy rate.

In 2016, Fairfax County voters rejected a referendum to add a 4 percent tax on restaurant meals, which would have generated about $100 million for the schools. Since then, the state law has changed, and the BoS could impose a meals tax without the need for a referendum.

Arlington, Fairfax City, the City of Falls Church, the Town of Vienna, the Town of Herndon, the City of Alexandria, and Prince William County all have a meals tax.

That doesn’t stop Fairfax County residents from dining out in those locations, Anderson said. “We’re leaving money on the table that could be captured from people who are not even Fairfax County residents.”