Any idea what role Albo had in the closing of Clifton Elementary? I used to respect the guy but it looks like he might have been an active participant with Bradsher since West Springfield is getting renovated now that Clifton is being closed. I'd have zero respect for him if he was part of something underhanded like that.

Clifton is not part of Albo's district, so he was not directly involved.

He likes Bradsher and foolishly thinks she is doing a good job. Maybe he is just blindly supporting a fellow Republican.

I doubt he knows what a snake she is.

All the politicians in Springfield and South County (Albo, Bradsher, Herrity) are amateurs, NJ-style . It's finally catching up with them with Clifton. No one believes a word they say anymore.

I have some respect for Herrity, but not for Albo and Bradsher. I think Herrity actually understands what's going on. Herrity was against closing Clifton ES.

justasking Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Any idea what role Albo had in the closing of
> Clifton Elementary? I used to respect the guy but
> it looks like he might have been an active
> participant with Bradsher since West Springfield
> is getting renovated now that Clifton is being
> closed. I'd have zero respect for him if he was
> part of something underhanded like that.


If Dave was smart, he would put as much distance between him and Liz Bradsher as possible.

Did he have something to do with Clifton closing so WSHS could be bumped up on the renovation queue? Probably.

The sad part about it, WSHS STILL isn't scheduled to be renovated anytime soon. So not only did Liz close one school for no good reason, she's not going to come through for WSHS either.

You all need a hobby other than developing conspiracy theories. I am not on the School Board, the state has no role in deciding if Clifton stays open,even if I wanted to do something, I would have no power to do anything. Thus, I can assure you I had no role whatsoever in it. As a citizen, I think it was probably the right fiscally responsible thing to do. Spending $11 million for less than 300 students is not what a fiscal conservative would do, especially in this horrible Recession. You all need to think outside the box to get this school renovated. If someone can find the money to renovate it using a public/private school construction plan like we did when we built SCSS, then go for it! Would love to see another one built.

2 cents Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have some respect for Herrity,


Herrity is a RINO. His political career is over.

Hey Dave. Answer this one question about the issue. The Clifton community made it very clear that they were willing to go without any renovation. So how does closing the school save $11 million if no renovation needed to occur at this time?
Seems to me the kids were being educated just fine without renovation and the parents were happy with things just as they are. And it was made very clear that we were willing to explore a private partnership but Liz and the SB would have none of it. We even had a resident offer to pay for fixing the well but were told the donation couldn't be accepted!

By your comments, we now know you were part of this.You bought into the "less than 300 kids" aspect, something Liz and the SB used as a reason to close the school. FCPS Staff had a different figure a year ago than they do now because they conveniently left off 2 zip codes from their estimates. If you took the time to research this, you'd aslso find this area is undergoing a baby boom with all the young couples that have moved here.

You got your precious WSHS renovation accelerated at the expense of another area but you'll pay a price. Although this strong Republican district is not in your area, residents here won't have anything good to say about you. Bradsher is poison and your support of her is going to cost you dearly.

Dave, I know you're close to Bradsher, but she's been feeding you bad information. The parents and residents did almost everything they possibly could, including offering to pay for the well remediation themselves and they were rebuffed. There was a renovation plan on the table that the parents said they would have accepted (and they were willing to accept no renovation, too) that would have only cost $7 million. Each excuse given by the Board - cost, the well and declining enrollments - was contradicted by the parents and by FCPS own data. Their class size projections from just the year before had the school overcrowded by 2015. The only other site suggested for building a school down there is Liberty, and there are serious, legitimate asbestos issues there. The Board made this decision without having any other viable options on the table, without determining where the Clifton students are going to go, and there are hundreds of families who have been left hanging.

Bottom line is this was a bad decision, and Bradsher voted against her constituents. She has stated on a number of occasions that she represents the FCPS and that's wrong. She represents the residents of Springfield. Pat Herrity and Tim Hugo have both come out against this vote - I urge you to talk to them.

BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dave, I know you're close to Bradsher, but she's
> been feeding you bad information. The parents and
> residents did almost everything they possibly
> could, including offering to pay for the well
> remediation themselves and they were rebuffed.
> There was a renovation plan on the table that the
> parents said they would have accepted (and they
> were willing to accept no renovation, too) that
> would have only cost $7 million. Each excuse given
> by the Board - cost, the well and declining
> enrollments - was contradicted by the parents and
> by FCPS own data. Their class size projections
> from just the year before had the school
> overcrowded by 2015. The only other site suggested
> for building a school down there is Liberty, and
> there are serious, legitimate asbestos issues
> there. The Board made this decision without having
> any other viable options on the table, without
> determining where the Clifton students are going
> to go, and there are hundreds of families who have
> been left hanging.
>
> Bottom line is this was a bad decision, and
> Bradsher voted against her constituents. She has
> stated on a number of occasions that she
> represents the FCPS and that's wrong. She
> represents the residents of Springfield. Pat
> Herrity and Tim Hugo have both come out against
> this vote - I urge you to talk to them.


Mr. Albo also needs to understand that Mrs. Bradsher's campaign platform was for community schools which is exactly what Clifton Elementary is. There was also a letter to the Editor from Mrs. Bradsher prior to her election regarding commmunity schools. It does not reflect well on Republicans as a whole when they endorse a candidate who then turns on their own campaign promises they made to consituents. Trying to put a spin on what those promises were after the fact does not bode well either.

Furthermore, Clifton did not need the gold plated standard renovations they were putting forth (which added up the dollars) as being required and Clifton made it known they were happy to forego renovations. In addition, while trying to say that closing Clifton Elementary was some type of fiscally conservative move, it is disregarding what is now being brought forth on other sites that she Mrs. Bradsher has voted for spending on all other recent initiatives. It would also be interesting to see whether she voted for spending $130 Million on Gatehouse II Admin building last year or against it? How can any of them vote toward spending $130 Million on an administrative building but then balk at spending $11 Million on a community school for students?

I normally agree with Albo on most issues-except on abortion, but boy, is he drinking the kool aid.

Don't believe for one second this crap about public-private partnerships. It is all smoke and mirrors. NOTHIING IS FREE. YOU ARE AN IDIOT IF YOU THINK COMPANIES (ie the private side of the partnership), GIVES SOMETHING AWAY FOR NOTHING.

The SOCO CREW-including Albo, would love you to believe that their "innovative" thinking "saved" taxpayers all this money to get SOCO HS built.

CRAP, CRAP, and more CRAP. It was a land swap-period. The governement gave the builder land X the builder gave the government Land Y-NO SAVINGS OCCURRED!!!!

What do you think proffer money is? Same deal. You are a builder and you pay a fee to the county to build houses. They charge you. It doesn't matter what the governement does with the money. They can put it toward a school construction costs, a library, a football field (Lee HS).

Money in and money out-it is all the same when you look at the bottom line.

Albo, be honest, at least and please don't sell this public/private crap to us.

What a wasteful situation this is for the taxpayers! It reminds me of "cash for clunkers". I know people who turned in vehicles with only 50K miles on them so they could buy a Prius---and that fit the fed's rules because you only had to prove you could get a certain number of miles per gallon above what you had before. Totally usable cars were destroyed so that the auto companies and loan companies could be "stimulated". And the taxpayers were billed for it. And they said this was all so "green". What's so green about building a new car (takes a lot of energy to transport the parts and build the thing in the first place---not to mention how much it costs to junk the other vehicle).

Now we have the county junking a good building so that they can spend money on busing kids and building a new school elsewhere (and charging us for all of this). It all sounds like such a great savings and so "green" and all----blah, blah, blah. They have no numbers. They don't even know what's going to happen to the kids---this doesn't make sense as an economic argument---and it certainly makes no sense as a quality of life issue.

what a joke Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I normally agree with Albo on most issues-except
> on abortion, but boy, is he drinking the kool
> aid.
>
> Don't believe for one second this crap about
> public-private partnerships. It is all smoke and
> mirrors. NOTHIING IS FREE. YOU ARE AN IDIOT IF
> YOU THINK COMPANIES (ie the private side of the
> partnership), GIVES SOMETHING AWAY FOR NOTHING.
>
> The SOCO CREW-including Albo, would love you to
> believe that their "innovative" thinking "saved"
> taxpayers all this money to get SOCO HS built.
>
> CRAP, CRAP, and more CRAP. It was a land
> swap-period. The governement gave the builder land
> X the builder gave the government Land Y-NO
> SAVINGS OCCURRED!!!!
>
> What do you think proffer money is? Same deal.
> You are a builder and you pay a fee to the county
> to build houses. They charge you. It doesn't
> matter what the governement does with the money.
> They can put it toward a school construction
> costs, a library, a football field (Lee HS).
>
> Money in and money out-it is all the same when you
> look at the bottom line.
>
> Albo, be honest, at least and please don't sell
> this public/private crap to us.


Dave Albo didn't cause all of this mess. Liz Bradsher did. Unfortunately, he is now getting hit with the anger because he is so closely associated with her.
She is nothing but a liability to him now too.

I agree 100% on that public/private partnership crap. The private side is winning bigtime (why else would they do it?).

The South County Government Building (Route 1) was one of these public/private deals. The private sector was smiling big because they got a nice hunk of land in the swap. The county has to lease that thing for something like 99 years (it probably will pay for the building several times over by that point). The building is only a few years old and it already has bathrooms falling apart, etc. Oh, it was such a good deal.

Most of the public is so ignorant about this stuff. They just see that there is a new building there---they have no idea how it got there and what they are paying for it.

agree Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree 100% on that public/private partnership
> crap. The private side is winning bigtime (why
> else would they do it?).
>
> The South County Government Building (Route 1) was
> one of these public/private deals. The private
> sector was smiling big because they got a nice
> hunk of land in the swap. The county has to lease
> that thing for something like 99 years (it
> probably will pay for the building several times
> over by that point). The building is only a few
> years old and it already has bathrooms falling
> apart, etc. Oh, it was such a good deal.
>
> Most of the public is so ignorant about this
> stuff. They just see that there is a new building
> there---they have no idea how it got there and
> what they are paying for it.


You see, because so many people are disgusted with Liz Bradsher this thread started and now it has opened up another can of worms. Run, Dave, Run!!!!!

notAlbo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dave Albo didn't cause all of this mess. Liz
> Bradsher did. Unfortunately, he is now getting
> hit with the anger because he is so closely
> associated with her.
> She is nothing but a liability to him now too.

If you think SoCo Middle and bumping WSHS up the renovation queue (for which Albo and Bradsher take credit) isn't part and parcel of what led to screwing over Clifton, think again.

They are both toxic as far as many of us are concerned. They should stick to building garages and HO associations.

The all time great public-private harebrained scheme also came from these SOCO idiots. Are you ready?

There is a garbage dump out in Lorton-owned privately- that is close to exceeding the legal limit on height. The land is worthless to the company, right? If you can't dump any more garbage on it what good is it?

But wait, the SOCO group , a year or so ago, came up with a brilliant plan to "save" us taxpayers even more money. Geeze, are we lucky to have these folks looking out for us!

The plan?

The county would buy the garbage heap and build soccer and baseball fields on it!!! Wouldn't you love to have your little Johnny or Suzie playing on a trash pile? The company would then get another piece of county owned land to dump more garbage on and then they would somehow get another piece of land to build the middle school.

Fortunately, that deal fell thru-but boy, did that company donate a ton of money to campaigns and to SOCO. EnviroSolutions or something is the name of the firm.

You couldn't make this crap up. I am sure Albo and Bradsher were knee deep in that scheme.

It would probably be difficult for Albo to say anything negative about Liz Bradsher since he was a financial contributor to her campaign. Renovation of West Springfield High School is one of his pet projects. There does appear to be some evidence she may have closed Clifton just to bump West Springfield High School up the renovation queue.

That makes for some very sad coincidences for Republicans in Fairfax County!

All eyes are watching to see what happens next...

The issue isn't that anyone has any basis to claim there was a "conspiracy" to build SoCo, renovate WSHS, and close Clifton as a package deal.

The issue is that Bradsher used all her chits within FCPS to get SoCo Middle built and WSHS bumped. By the time FCPS staff came up with the proposal to close Clifton, it seems she had zero political capital left and meekly went along with the proposal. Either that or she harbors some old grudge against Clifton residents that she's trying to settle. Otherwise, her position on Clifton makes no sense, since the economic case for closing Clifton is really weak and folks in Clifton will do everything in their power to make sure she's never elected again.

StopDefending Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Otherwise, her position on Clifton
> makes no sense, since the economic case for
> closing Clifton is really weak

Actually the fiscal case to close Clifton ES is pretty strong:

The school sits on the crest of a large hill overlooking the Town of Clifton and most of its site cannot be developed. Staff said it would also be difficult to fit a staging area for a construction team on Clifton’s site, and the school’s renovation would necessitate the loss of trees and the leveling of a small hill at the back of the building.

The school is not on a normal sewage or water system, which also drives up construction and ongoing facility maintenance costs. Clifton is the only Fairfax school that uses well water, which not only complicates the installation of sprinklers but has also led to ongoing drinking water quality issues since the 1990s, said staff.

The school system has estimated that the cost closing Clifton, building a new school on the Liberty campus and constructing additions at other schools to be approximately $17.2 million overall. To "fully" renovate Clifton and deal with capacity issues in western Fairfax would cost more, approximately $21.5 million, according to a presentation given to the School Board June 10.

Clifton residents said they would be happy with a scaled-back renovation plan, where not much more than the mechanical system would be replaced and a sprinkler system would be installed.

But if the School Board votes to keep Clifton open, school staff has advised that it proceed with a full-scale renovation, since several features of Clifton’s current building are outdated.

AND EVEN WITH a scaled-back renovation, Clifton’s renovation costs would still be relatively high on a per pupil basis since Clifton is one of the small schools in the county.

The average elementary school in Fairfax houses approximately 675 students and Clifton’s building can only fit 350 students, said Tistadt. Using housing data and local birth rate information, the school system has also projected that Clifton’s student body would decline to fewer than 300 students over the next four to five years.

"The overhead for an elementary school with 300 students is not dissimilar to the overhead of an elementary school with 600 students. You still need to have a principal, an assistant principal, a guidance counselor," said Tistadt.

From 2004 to 2009, Fairfax schools spent an average of $2,000 annually to bring bottled water to Clifton’s campus because it deemed the well water unsafe to drink, according to a report by a citizen advisory committee.

If experimentation with cheaper repairs to a school well fails, the school system could end up spending approximately $300,000 to fix Clifton’s water quality issues. FCPS would then have to spend approximately $65,000 per year on upkeep and monitoring of the well system, according to a citizen advisory report.

Basically, the Board turned their back on big guy and his special interests. Let's refer to what it is, fraud, waste, and abuse.

Just the facts:

Everybody on the school board is thin and good looking and therefore know what they're doing. I get what you're trying to say with the picture. Makes sense to me. Of course they have that "gym" over there at Gatehouse to work out in (when they're not working hard on school closings, etc.).

Also---everything you are saying is "moot" because the people in Clifton don't even want the dang renovation!!!! Why the heck can't people get what they want in a representative government???? Why does the government always have to cram their "fixes" down our throats??? Why do we even have representatives?????!!!!

The fiscal case is not pretty strong because the numbers are pretty weak!! The numbers on future enrollment are VERY weak. Loss of trees and leveling of a hill at the back of the property??? Taking out trees sure hasn't stopped this county before (is this a joke?). There were other monies in the pipeline from outside organizations and individuals for renovation, etc. of Clifton ES, but the SB did not want to hear about those. Liz Bradsher was in a big hurry to close this school.

your supporters started with the degrading photoshop pics.

Whether or not the residents wanted renovations is not relevant to the need for renovations.

The case for the school closure and financial numbers are strong.

Keep spinning. Pics of the kids from the saveclifton website are next up.

From Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity newsletter:


Special Edition: School Board Votes to Close Clifton ES


School Board Votes to Close Clifton ES
My Thoughts and Why This Is Important To You
No Compelling Case to Close Clifton ES
What Really Happened?
Unanswered Questions
Thanks
It's Not's Over
My Testimony from the Public Hearing


School Board Votes to Close Clifton ES



In another demonstration of being out of touch with reality and common sense, the School Board voted last Thursday night to close Clifton Elementary School. I believe that their vote was misguided and wasteful. Judging from the tears on the faces of the children and many of the parents at the hearing and over the last several days, the impact of the decision will be devastating to the children, residents and businesses of Clifton.



The School Board did not have to close Clifton ES. As I describe more fully below, there was no compelling case to close Clifton Elementary School. In fact there was a compelling case to keep it open:

It is one of Fairfax County's best performing elementary schools
There were financial benefits if the school were kept open
The issues with the well water were resolved in the 11th hour (although remaining the primary reason members cited for closing the school)
The school is not in dire need of a renovation and the parents of Clifton ES lobbied to wait years for a renovation.
There was a win-win resolution available that would benefit the entire county by accelerating renovations on other schools (including West Springfield High School) and leave the school open.


My Thoughts and Why it is Important to You



The bottom line is I feel that the Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) system made the decision to close Clifton ES well before they started the community engagement process, which was nothing more than a dog and pony show. Every point FCPS made in favor of closing the school, the Clifton community responded with facts and statistics showing that FCPS was either wrong or at a minimum using incomplete data. As a result, FCPS would simply change their justification for closing the school. But FCPS and the majority of the School Board refused to consider any of it because they were determined to close the school no matter what.



You may be asking yourself, "Why should I care about a school closing in Clifton?" You should care because if this ever happens in your community you need to know this is how FCPS currently operates. The decision is made before they actually study anything, let the facts be damned. I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, just a one time case of bad judgment, but unfortunately it is par for the course with FCPS.



On everything from the school budget, to their attempt to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a fancy new administrative building, to VGLA testing, to school renovations, FCPS staff and the School Board have shown they are unwilling to make sound decisions and engage their citizenry in a constructive, meaningful dialogue. It is absolutely time for the public to hold them to a much higher standard. I hope you will join me in that effort.



No Compelling Case to Close Clifton ES



Before the vote to close Clifton ES, one School Board Member challenged the other Board Members to cite the "compelling case to close Clifton ES". No School Board Member offered the compelling case, not even the maker of the motion to close the school, Springfield District Representative Liz Bradsher. The School Board Chair reminded her fellow Board Members that staff had given them the reasons and that they were on the web site. However, the web site offered no compelling case to close the school:



Problems with the Well Water. Clifton ES is served by well water and some of the wells have had water quality issues in the past. Throughout this entire process FCPS staff cited the well water as the chief reason renovation and ongoing operating expenses at the school were high. Amazingly at the meeting they continued to reference these reasons even though the FCPS Chief Operating Officer (COO) Dean Tistadt released a report minutes before the meeting that said they had fixed the third well and that its flow was adequate and the water safe (pending the outcome of a final test and all indications are that this test will be positive as well). Pardon the pun but this part of the "compelling case" holds no water.


Declining Enrollment. FCPS staff, under the direction of Mr. Tistadt, are projecting the enrollment of Clifton ES to decrease to 298 students by 2015 (it was at 369 this past year) and thus claimed it would not be cost effective to renovate Clifton ES on a per student basis. The problem with basing such an important decision on FCPS enrollment projections is that FCPS has a horrible track record of projecting enrollment. This is one of the main reasons the four School Board Members voted to delay for three years because they know firsthand how bad the staff is with projecting enrollment. One School Board Member actually pulled out some old documents and read off multiple years of projections for Colin Powell ES, noting how wrong FCPS was year after year. Staff had no response.


It was also very odd to see the School Board endorse Mr. Tisdadt's enrollment projections when they know firsthand how incredibly inaccurate staff was at projecting the enrollment of schools like South County Secondary School and Westfields High School. There are numerous other examples throughout the county of faulty school by school projections.



The Clifton community also presented a compelling case, citing actual housing transactions, that enrollment would not be declining. They also presented a compelling case for how the school could be expanded to 550 to help solve the capacity problems in this section of the county. See below for more detail on the irony of closing a school when you have capacity issues and need to build additional facilities.



In addition, national studies indicate that for learning - smaller is better and that the optimal size for elementary schools is between 300 - 500 leaving Clifton within that range. The outstanding performance of Clifton as well as other small schools throughout this country proves this point.



Difficult/Expensive to Renovate. Another reason listed was that site constraints made the renovation of Clifton too expensive and difficult. This argument largely faded into the background as parents and the community argued for no renovation. Instead of just trying to address one or two of the areas where Clifton ES did not meet the education specification, FCPS inflated the cost of a renovation by calling for gold standard educational specs including a geothermal wall. The parents of Clifton did not want anything done to the school, it is ALREADY one of the highest performing schools in the county, but the School Board insisted on telling the parents "we know what's best for your children". The whole educational specs argument became so ridiculous during this process that one School Board Member said during the discussion on the motion to close the school that FCPS needs to take a serious look at what they require and determine if it is something they can afford going forward. Think about it, FCPS just closed one of the highest performing schools in the county because it was too expensive to implement gold standard educational specs that the parents did not want. How does that make any sense?


Closing Clifton "Saves" Money. FCPS will try and tell you that they have saved the $11 million it would cost to renovate Clifton ES and that money will be put into the renovation queue accelerating all other projects. But that is only true because FCPS is using an accountant gimmick. There are still serious capacity issues in the Southwestern portion of the county (made even worse because they just closed a school in this section of the county!) that will have to be dealt with either by building a new school or by adding capacity to multiple existing elementary schools. This means that millions of dollars are still going to be spent on something other than the renovation queue. According to FCPS that money comes out of a "different pot" though. The bottom line is this does not save FCPS any money overall because they are closing one school to build additions or another new school. In fact the only real way to save money was to keep Clifton ES open with no or limited renovations. This would have put money back into the renovation queue and reduced the need for additional capacity to be built.


Unanswered Questions



I must point out that not all School Board Members fell for the ridiculous arguments of staff. Tina Hone argued strenuously on behalf of Clifton ES and made a motion to delay this decision for up to three years so FCPS could get answers to the many unanswered questions and continue to monitor the enrollment numbers. Sandy Evans, Jim Raney and Ilryong Moon all supported her. These four School Board members also did a great job of asking tough questions and poking holes in every one of the staff's reasons for closing the school. It was very refreshing to see these four School Board Members looking for real answers from FCPS staff and to see the staff unable to refute so many of their great points.



Where Will the Children of Clifton ES Go to School? Unbelievably there is no answer. Staff lists 4 or 5 surrounding schools with some capacity but no answers. It appears a possibility the Clifton students and community will be divided up to multiple schools - at no time in the last 20 plus years has that happened in Fairfax County.


Unanswered School Board Questions? In response to the final thirty-two questions about Clifton ES posed by School Board members, eight questions were answered by FCPS staff with "additional information pending" or "response pending". How the School Board could make such an important decision while so many of their own questions went unanswered by staff is unfathomable.


How Will We Solve the Capacity Problems in Southwest County? It seems sheer lunacy to close a school when you have school capacity problems in that section of the county but that is what the School Board decided. To make matters worse they did it without the answer to how they will solve their capacity issues or what it will cost them. The original recommendation by school staff was to build a new school at the Liberty MS site and close Clifton ES. They changed the recommendation to just close Clifton ES because they could not show closing Clifton resulted in cost savings. Now we are left with the capacity issues.


What Will They Do with the Building? Unbelievably again there is no answer. Initially the answer was to give it to the Town of Clifton but they have said they can't afford it. It likely will be returned to the county where it will become another liability for Fairfax County taxpayers.


What Really Happened?



Why did they vote to close the school? I am not 100% sure why FCPS staff was so adamant about closing this school. That is a question only FCPS staff and certain members of the School Board know the real answer to. I can tell you this though; I believe that it had nothing to do with "saving money" or getting to the best answer for the citizens of Clifton or the entire county. The most cost effective option was to defer renovation on Clifton ES indefinitely and put the money back into the renovation queue. But again, from the beginning this wasn't about saving money, it was about closing this particular school no matter what.



In the end a majority of School Board Members (specifically Liz Bradsher, Tessie Wilson, Stu Gibson, Dan Storck, Kathy Smith, Janie Strauss and Brad Center) refused to consider any options and blindly followed staff's lead. In addition, these School Board Members had the audacity to tell the parents of Clifton ES that they knew what was best for their children. They told the parents that it was not right for their children to continue to attend an un-renovated school even though the school is operating just fine today and is one of the highest performing elementary schools in the county.



Thanks



I want to thank the members of the Clifton community who stepped up and challenged FCPS on this horrible decision. I don't want to list names because there were so many dedicated people involved and I fear I might leave somebody out. But you know who you are and I thank you for the hundreds and hundreds of hours you spent fighting on behalf of the children of Clifton and especially for coming up with and advocating for a solution that benefited EVERY child in this county, not just your own. It is a shame you couldn't count on the School Board to do the same.



I also want to thank the School Board members that risked being at odds with school staff (unfortunately an uncomfortable place to be) and asking the intelligent questions that staff should have been asking - most notably - Tina Hone, Sandy Evans and Patty Reed as well as Jim Raney and Ilryong Moon. I hope you continue your search for the best answer and keep asking the tough questions.



It's Not Over



The battle for Clifton ES is not over and I am pleased to inform you that a number of efforts are underway. Community members are working on many fronts with some examples including historic preservation funding/process, the upcoming fall boundary study goals, and yes, a group is researching the basis and results of prior legal actions taken in similar situations around Fairfax County.

Dave Albo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You all need a hobby other than developing
> conspiracy theories. I am not on the School
> Board, the state has no role in deciding if
> Clifton stays open,even if I wanted to do
> something, I would have no power to do anything.
> Thus, I can assure you I had no role whatsoever in
> it. As a citizen, I think it was probably the
> right fiscally responsible thing to do. Spending
> $11 million for less than 300 students is not what
> a fiscal conservative would do, especially in this
> horrible Recession. You all need to think outside
> the box to get this school renovated. If someone
> can find the money to renovate it using a
> public/private school construction plan like we
> did when we built SCSS, then go for it! Would
> love to see another one built.


If that really is Albo, he is accidentally drinking the kool aid. By his statement above, he seems to think there are "less than 300 students" at Clifton Elementary????????? Dave is being mislead. Don't blame Dave.

FCPS has lost all credibility when it comes to how big or small schools need to be.

First, Westfield was too big, but then FCPS redistricted students to Lake Braddock (another big school) and it turned out Westfield wasn't really as big as FCPS thought, anyway.

Then, South Lakes was so small that it needed more students, but apparently Marshall (another small school) didn't, perhaps because test scores there were good and improving, and it wasn't in Stu Gibson's district

To be sure, Vienna ES and Sherman ES were small school, but worth the money to renovate recently, and Lemon Road ES is smaller than Clifton (but that's OK, at least for now).

Wake me up when Staff figures it all out. The overall impression is that the Staff does a million studies, none of which are actually compelling or correct, and then lands where it wants to, proud that there's been a "robust" and "thorough" process. The test shouldn't be whether a decision could survive a due process challenge, but instead whether the best decision has been made. By that standard, at least, the decision to close Clifton fails.

Graham Road Elem was voted on to be closed last year and relocated a mile down the road to a former administrative office-Devonshire. Big bucks to renovate it-ka ching.

Community opposed it-it is a high poverty school and was actually both a school and community center so proximity to the community was crucial.

Another, FCPS playing the "fiscally responsible good guy". Save money, blah, blah, blah, better school, blah, blah, blah.

Now, what are we going to do with Graham Road? Anyone? Are there plans? None that I know of. So, we will soon have an empty building.

How does that save us money? How will an empty Clifton save us money?

I am all for fiscal prudence-but let's have an endgame in place before we make these decisions.

Pat Herrity is a very reasonable voice on this issue. I can only surmise that the people who are posting against keeping Clifton ES open are West Springfield HS residents who believe that this closing will make renovation of their HS happen faster. There is no other thing that I can figure out here.

It's either that or Liz Bradsher has a personal reason for disliking Clifton. This whole thing just makes absolutely no sense.

I think the proposal by Tina Hone to wait 3 years was a very prudent one---what's the rush?

I am beginning to wonder if the School Board didn't do this as a payback to Herrity who has been highly critical of this dysfunctional SB.

This is his district, he opposed the closing of the school. Would the SB have done this to another friendly (aka Democrat) BOS member?

I don't think so.

I think war has been declared.

Aha! They are going to move the Clifton kids to the empty Graham Road Elementary building in a massive new busing program. It's a new idea proposed by consultants at the "Alpine Institute" in Colorado and will put Dr. Dale on the map as an innovative superintendent. The idea is that the Clifton kids can provide after school tutoring for the Devonshire kids (who will be dismissed earlier and bused back to Graham Road Elem) and it will be right across from their apartments! This will make the Graham Road parents happy since they can still walk over and pick up their kids at the "old school" AND the school will be a "useful" building. And who cares about the Clifton kids anyhow---it will build character for them to ride the bus (oh, yes, they get community service credits too).

But, seriously, decisions are made with no community input (and Graham Road was another good example of that).

Also---it's not just parents that like small community schools---teachers do too! Teachers are better able to get to know the families, parents, and other staff when the building is smaller. The community support system functions much better. How much is that worth? That's exactly what the SB is supposed to be there to do---to weigh those considerations. Didn't happen.

Was Herrity doing anything on behalf of Clifton before the School Board voted? It's not really so hard for him to lend his name now to a piece obviously written by someone else, particularly when it trashes a political rival.

Who'd have thought a few years ago, though, that Tina Hone, a die-hard Democrat, would become such a heroine to so many Republicans!

Name another school that FCPS closed that was opposed by a sitting BOS member.

It has never happened.

This was a petty act by a School Board that had a score to settle with Herrity.

I hope he hits back hard-they deserve it.

Was Herrity doing anything on behalf of Clifton before the School Board voted? It's not really so hard for him to lend his name now to a piece obviously written by someone else, particularly when it trashes a political rival.

From what I was told, Herrity was the one who first alerted the public last year(via then-mayor Peterson) that the school board was considering closing clifton. He got some nasty calls from Liz from what I understand since she had originally told him about it in confidence...

Examiner Quote from June 5th.
Herrity was on the record before the vote.



Fairfax staff recommends axing Clifton Elementary
By: Markham Heid
Examiner Staff Writer
06/05/10 7:04 AM EDT


A Fairfax County Public Schools staff report has recommended the School Board close Clifton Elementary, an option school officials have considered for weeks.

The Board has considered building a new larger school roughly three miles away, which would house the former Clifton students and alleviate some of the crowding at other county schools.

But many Clifton parents and residents say the school is the focal point of the community, and plan to protest the proposal to shut down Clifton at Thursday’s scheduled School Board meeting.

Supervisor Pat Herrity, R-Springfield, called the staff’s recommendation “shocking and disappointing.”

“This school is a top performing school and too important to the community it serves and I will do everything I can to keep it open,” Herrity said.

I have been reading Herrity's online newsletters since he was elected. I am not a Republican by any means, but he impresses me. He seems to really seek out the facts and try to understand an issue in its entirety. I don't agree with him on everything, but he has his own mind and I respect that. I see him less as a partisan type and more as someone who tries to do his best as a citizen. He is head and shoulders above Albo and Bradsher (no comparison really).

He recently lost the Republican primary for our US Congressional District. While I would have thought of voting for Herrity for Congress, I certainly do not want the Republican who beat him to take the seat (he is way too far to the right of Herrity) and I will definitely support the Democrat now (even though I'm not real excited about him either---Conolly!). I am (selfishly) glad that Herrity will remain on the Board of Supervisors. It is not good to have all one party or all one viewpoint in any governing body and Herrity is doing a good job there.

Yes, there are many who don't like him because he is asking the right questions and trying to get some real facts in order to do a good job governing.

But maybe there is something with "Payback to Herrity's" comment. Maybe the SB is setting up for next year's budget battle with the "give us the money or you'll see more elementary schools closing" threat. You have to close one to make the threat real.

This isn't a Democrat vs. Republican issue on the Board. This is a Reformer vs. Staff issue. The BOS has no control over what the School Board does, other than their budgets, but as we've seen, the FCPS can hold the BOS hostage by threatening to cut popular programs until they get their way on funding.

This wasn't a slap in the face to Herrity, nor was this, in my opinion, a conspiracy involving Dave Albo. This isn't Dave's district, so there's no reason for him to get involved or to get any blame. The blame here rests solely on Liz Bradsher. She had at least two votes on the Board who would have gone whichever way she told them to as it was a school in her neighborhood and she choose to shut the school down? Why? Because she seems to think she represents the school system, not the students, parents and voters of Springfield who sent her there. She's said as much to anyone who will listen.

The blame for this entire debacle rests solely at the feet of the FCPS Staff and their enabler, Liz Bradsher.

Well, here's some of what Herrity touted when he was seeking the nomination to oppose Connolly:


"I was a leader in the effort to build a South County Middle School. While some pushed for a new “wing” rather than a full school, this was the wrong approach. The current facility in South County was not designed as a secondary school. With the recent BRAC decisions, this new school is an absolute necessity.

I helped found the effort to renovate West Springfield High School. This led to the study to look at renovation of all of the county’s schools, many of which are in dire need of physical improvements. See more from my March, April, and May newsletters.

I was the first Supervisor in recent memory to testify at an FCPS Capital Improvement Program hearing on behalf of school renovations in our aging schools including West Springfield High School.

I have led the effort to accelerate renovation of our aging schools. I devised a plan that will allow us to renovate our aging schools quicker and cheaper by taking advantage of historically low construction costs and interest rates."

Not surprising that it's payback time now; Staff didn't want to build a new South County middle school; it didn't want its renovation queue rejiggered; and it doesn't believe politicians who claim one day money has to be spent on renovations of schools in their district, and then turn around and say it won't cost a dime because people are prepared to "make do" with a crumbling old facility.

BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This isn't a Democrat vs. Republican issue on the
> Board. This is a Reformer vs. Staff issue. The BOS
> has no control over what the School Board does,
> other than their budgets, but as we've seen, the
> FCPS can hold the BOS hostage by threatening to
> cut popular programs until they get their way on
> funding.
>
> This wasn't a slap in the face to Herrity, nor was
> this, in my opinion, a conspiracy involving Dave
> Albo. This isn't Dave's district, so there's no
> reason for him to get involved or to get any
> blame. The blame here rests solely on Liz
> Bradsher. She had at least two votes on the Board
> who would have gone whichever way she told them to
> as it was a school in her neighborhood and she
> choose to shut the school down? Why? Because she
> seems to think she represents the school system,
> not the students, parents and voters of
> Springfield who sent her there. She's said as much
> to anyone who will listen.
>
> The blame for this entire debacle rests solely at
> the feet of the FCPS Staff and their enabler, Liz
> Bradsher.

With all due respect, this is nonsense. It sounds as if you're just trying to protect as many local Republican politicians as you can. If Bradsher really sees her role as serving the school system as a whole, and doing the Staff's bidding, she would have opposed South County Middle School, not championed its construction.

Here's a win win solution for (almost) all sides.

Albo shows some leadership (he is a Delegate to the House of Representatives for God's sake)by getting HIS DISTRICT'S School Board Rep Ms.Bradsher to agree to revisit the Clifton issue.Bradsher realizes the errors of her way (takes a bit of pride swallowing) and convinces the rest of the Board to revisit and vote to
delay a decision for 3 years.

Clifton is happy as they have their school. Albo looks like a savior as he's done what no one else could do. Bradsher is happy as her name won't be posted all over the place anymore.

Dean Tistadt might be unhappy but who cares about that stiff.

As a non-SOCO resident, I think building that school now is incredibly selfish. They should have waited their turn-like every other school has.

Herrity does not have a choice in the matter. It is his district-of course he thinks they deserve a school.

Tistadt did recommend that SOCO go with an addition-Bradsher demanded the whole SHEBANG. Only Gibson opposed-everyone else fell into line. I guess they will call in favors later-oh wait, many of them got theirs already. Gibson got South Lakes redistrict, Janie got to keep the Langley kids at Langley even though they live in Herndon! and who knows who will call in favors in the future.

Herrity can't be blamed.

Staff sucks. They screw up constantly and blow in the direction of the wind-Dale's agenda?

The BOS will not like the SB playing games with school closings and being vindictive. FCPS will pay dearly during the next budget round.

Be ready for ugliness.

FCPS seems to make reckless, poorly thought through decisions at an alarmingly frequent rate. It almost seems better to have one term only positions. That way these people don't get too cozy with their power.

Pat Herrity seems to be the only person in politics around here with a fundamental decency about him. He is also not afraid to address the nature of a particular challenge/issue and explore the necessary solutions, even if it is not politically popular to do so. If closing Clifton was, among other things, making a stab at him, then it was extremely repugnant of FCPS school board to do this to a school community.

Hoffa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > This isn't a Democrat vs. Republican issue on
> the
> > Board. This is a Reformer vs. Staff issue. The
> BOS
> > has no control over what the School Board does,
> > other than their budgets, but as we've seen,
> the
> > FCPS can hold the BOS hostage by threatening to
> > cut popular programs until they get their way
> on
> > funding.
> >
> > This wasn't a slap in the face to Herrity, nor
> was
> > this, in my opinion, a conspiracy involving
> Dave
> > Albo. This isn't Dave's district, so there's no
> > reason for him to get involved or to get any
> > blame. The blame here rests solely on Liz
> > Bradsher. She had at least two votes on the
> Board
> > who would have gone whichever way she told them
> to
> > as it was a school in her neighborhood and she
> > choose to shut the school down? Why? Because
> she
> > seems to think she represents the school
> system,
> > not the students, parents and voters of
> > Springfield who sent her there. She's said as
> much
> > to anyone who will listen.
> >
> > The blame for this entire debacle rests solely
> at
> > the feet of the FCPS Staff and their enabler,
> Liz
> > Bradsher.


> With all due respect, this is nonsense. It sounds
> as if you're just trying to protect as many local
> Republican politicians as you can. If Bradsher
> really sees her role as serving the school system
> as a whole, and doing the Staff's bidding, she
> would have opposed South County Middle School, not
> championed its construction.


Seriously, are you kidding that this is nonsense?? Over the past year, I have attended more School Board meetings than I care to admit, and have personally been told by Ms. Bradsher, "I work for the School Board, and have to consider what's best for the entire county as a whole, not just one section of the county."
Excuse me?? Is Ms. Bradsher now an at-large Board member? I seem to recall that she was elected to REPRESENT the Springfield District. She is supposed to "work" for her constituents, not the School Board.

And if you don't think that Clifton was closed so that WSHS could be bumped up on the renovation queue, think again. Stu Gibson said "it's no secret, we're talking about WSHS here", when discussing why they need the $$$ from Clifton in order to put it back into the system for other schools.

Liz Bradsher is toxic, and anyone near her is going to be guilty by association. Like it or not.

I loved the school board meeting where Tina Hone was discussing some information she had gleaned by talking to a school principal somewhere. Anyway, she said that the principal had said that she felt "intimidated" by Central Office staff. Jack Dale got very angry at that point and practically yelled, "WE do not INTIMIDATE principals or teachers!"

I was sitting on the couch with my 15 year old son and we both started laughing. It kinda said it all.

Yeah, it's time to take back our schools.

Question for anyone who knows: Did anyone in the Clifton Elem group look at a land swap like what the South County people did to get SCSS built?

Problem solved Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's a win win solution for (almost) all sides.
>
> Albo shows some leadership (he is a Delegate to
> the House of Representatives for God's sake)by
> getting HIS DISTRICT'S School Board Rep
> Ms.Bradsher to agree to revisit the Clifton
> issue.Bradsher realizes the errors of her way
> (takes a bit of pride swallowing) and convinces
> the rest of the Board to revisit and vote to
> delay a decision for 3 years.
>
> Clifton is happy as they have their school. Albo
> looks like a savior as he's done what no one else
> could do. Bradsher is happy as her name won't be
> posted all over the place anymore.
>
> Dean Tistadt might be unhappy but who cares about
> that stiff.


Albo doesn't care right now, but he is probably going to very shortly. Because a decision was made to close Clifton was done before figuring out how to address the overcrowding first, some of the schools in HIS District are going to be impacted with increased class sizes when the Clifton ES kids shifted into HIS district. So now some of the schools in HIS district can become part of the sacrificial lamb solution in order to support WSHS renovations. Let's see how appreciative his constituents that get redistricted are then about his support of Liz Bradsher.

Hoffa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> With all due respect, this is nonsense. It sounds
> as if you're just trying to protect as many local
> Republican politicians as you can. If Bradsher
> really sees her role as serving the school system
> as a whole, and doing the Staff's bidding, she
> would have opposed South County Middle School, not
> championed its construction.

Why would she oppose the Middle School she spent years trying to get built? That was a personal fight for her - part of her "community schools" rhetoric that she has since turned her back on. She has radically changed her tune since being elected.

Bradsher was Republican endorsed. I've been vocal in my criticism of her, as have other Republicans. I'm defending Dave Albo here primarily because I don't think it's fair to link him to Bradsher on this decision. As he noted, he doesn't represent this area and he's a state elected official, not a County one.

RUkidding? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Seriously, are you kidding that this is nonsense??
> Over the past year, I have attended more School
> Board meetings than I care to admit, and have
> personally been told by Ms. Bradsher, "I work for
> the School Board, and have to consider what's best
> for the entire county as a whole, not just one
> section of the county."
> Excuse me?? Is Ms. Bradsher now an at-large Board
> member? I seem to recall that she was elected to
> REPRESENT the Springfield District. She is
> supposed to "work" for her constituents, not the
> School Board.
>
> And if you don't think that Clifton was closed so
> that WSHS could be bumped up on the renovation
> queue, think again. Stu Gibson said "it's no
> secret, we're talking about WSHS here", when
> discussing why they need the $$$ from Clifton in
> order to put it back into the system for other
> schools.
>
> Liz Bradsher is toxic, and anyone near her is
> going to be guilty by association. Like it or
> not.

Not sure we disagree; to the extent actions speak louder than words, Liz Bradsher's actions indicate that she's followed a personal agenda that is hard to decipher, but leaves a trail of destruction. Any school board member can, at any time, say they are there to serve all the county's students when it suits their purposes, but those words ring pretty hollow in her case.

Although Clifton is not in Albo's district, it does not excuse him from being ignorant on the issue and then pretending that he is informed.

He is being spoon fed false data from Lizzie Bordon and he has an ethical responsibility to get the facts straight before he mouths off.

Either that or don't offer an opinion.

Better to remain silent and thought a fool...........

This is now a problem for him-becasue he has now pissed off voters in Clifton who will now speak ill of him to others.

Hoffa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RUkidding? Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Seriously, are you kidding that this is
> nonsense??
> > Over the past year, I have attended more
> School
> > Board meetings than I care to admit, and have
> > personally been told by Ms. Bradsher, "I work
> for
> > the School Board, and have to consider what's
> best
> > for the entire county as a whole, not just one
> > section of the county."
> > Excuse me?? Is Ms. Bradsher now an at-large
> Board
> > member? I seem to recall that she was elected
> to
> > REPRESENT the Springfield District. She is
> > supposed to "work" for her constituents, not
> the
> > School Board.
> >
> > And if you don't think that Clifton was closed
> so
> > that WSHS could be bumped up on the renovation
> > queue, think again. Stu Gibson said "it's no
> > secret, we're talking about WSHS here", when
> > discussing why they need the $$$ from Clifton
> in
> > order to put it back into the system for other
> > schools.
> >
> > Liz Bradsher is toxic, and anyone near her is
> > going to be guilty by association. Like it or
> > not.
>
> Not sure we disagree; to the extent actions speak
> louder than words, Liz Bradsher's actions indicate
> that she's followed a personal agenda that is hard
> to decipher, but leaves a trail of destruction.
> Any school board member can, at any time, say they
> are there to serve all the county's students when
> it suits their purposes, but those words ring
> pretty hollow in her case.

You are both so right. Hopefully Dave will start distancing himself from her very quickly.

I predict that it will take at least 3 years to really close Clifton ES---if it does indeed happen. These Clifton people are going to show up at every meeting that has anything to do with redistricting---because that will also be a very big issue for them---and they're going to have demands (justifiably) in that process. The SB won't really be too thrilled about dealing with them next year (right before elections)---so they'll put it off another year---and who knows by then (their enrollment projections might have changed). The SB won't take another vote on the closing (egos), but will just delay closing until we get new school board members who can make another decision (but meanwhile Clifton residents have to live with indecision regarding their school). Sucks.

Albo has some problems Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Although Clifton is not in Albo's district, it
> does not excuse him from being ignorant on the
> issue and then pretending that he is informed.
>
> He is being spoon fed false data from Lizzie
> Bordon and he has an ethical responsibility to get
> the facts straight before he mouths off.
>
> Either that or don't offer an opinion.
>
> Better to remain silent and thought a
> fool...........
>
> This is now a problem for him-becasue he has now
> pissed off voters in Clifton who will now speak
> ill of him to others.


And after the school redistricting you will be spending plenty of time WITH his voters so you can do just that! Nothing worse than a (soccer) Mom scorned!

Another thing is that the teachers there will be looking for transfer options (if they aren't already) so that they get a choice in where their next assignment will be. If the closing doesn't happen for a couple of years, the school is going to see teacher turnover---pity the principal who has to hire new teachers right before a closing.

Maybe that's why the principal left at the end of this year---the job is about to get a lot harder.

If the SB had made some future plans for these students, it would have been so much better all the way around.

BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> The blame for this entire debacle rests solely at
> the feet of the FCPS Staff and their enabler, Liz
> Bradsher.

Pardon me Brian, but you're full of crap. The taxpayers of this county are getting extremely tired of the tax and spend Republicans in office. I hope Herrity becomes even more supportive of this fiscal boondoggle. Notice how effective he was in his last bid for office...more is coming.

Herrity still has a very bright future. He actually won Fairfax-but lost Prince William. Had he jumped on the anti-immigration band wagon in PWC, he would have crushed Fimian. His campaign underestimated the folks in Prince William.

Herrity had a better chance of taking on Connolly than that idiot Fimian.

Pat is smart and is usually on the right side of issues.

Bulova has been notably silent on this issue. She should make a statement about this matter sooner or later. She should at least either state that she supports the process or not.

This whole matter was handled so unprofessionally.

Not sure it makes a lot of sense for Bulova to get involved now. It's a toxic situation that is still in flux, and most of the radioactive dust is falling on Bradsher, Herrity and other Republicans.

Dem Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Albo has some problems Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Although Clifton is not in Albo's district, it
> > does not excuse him from being ignorant on the
> > issue and then pretending that he is informed.
> >
> > He is being spoon fed false data from Lizzie
> > Bordon and he has an ethical responsibility to
> get
> > the facts straight before he mouths off.
> >
> > Either that or don't offer an opinion.
> >
> > Better to remain silent and thought a
> > fool...........
> >
> > This is now a problem for him-becasue he has
> now
> > pissed off voters in Clifton who will now speak
> > ill of him to others.
>
>
> And after the school redistricting you will be
> spending plenty of time WITH his voters so you can
> do just that! Nothing worse than a (soccer) Mom
> scorned!

400 soccer Moms whining bitching and complaining every day. Run Dave RUN!!!!!!!!

Time for tea Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> The taxpayers of this county are getting extremely
> tired of the tax and spend Republicans in office.

In Fairfax County? What are you smoking? the Republican minority on the BoS has gotten a lot of press about their efforts to cut both spending and taxes. A tax-and-spend Republican will be killed by Republicans.. we don't need to do a thing as they eat their own.

On the other hand, the school board, and FCPS staff led by Tisdadt, have managed to piss off most of the county over the last few years. Look for a voter revolt in 2011.

predict Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I predict that it will take at least 3 years to
> really close Clifton ES---if it does indeed
> happen. These Clifton people are going to show up
> at every meeting that has anything to do with
> redistricting---because that will also be a very
> big issue for them---and they're going to have
> demands (justifiably) in that process. The SB
> won't really be too thrilled about dealing with
> them next year (right before elections)---so
> they'll put it off another year---and who knows by
> then (their enrollment projections might have
> changed). The SB won't take another vote on the
> closing (egos), but will just delay closing until
> we get new school board members who can make
> another decision (but meanwhile Clifton residents
> have to live with indecision regarding their
> school). Sucks.

There was a redistrictng thread on FU a while back. Lots of posts. Lots of meetings. Lots of people speaking out with facts. And in the end, the School board approved the original staff recommendation.

If anyone thinks the next redistricting process will be any different, then I have a school with fresh mineral water in Clifton to sell you.

Little History
Letter to the Editor

Thursday, November 03, 2005


To the Editor:
I am responding to the letter from Deedee Collins ["Credit to Albo," Connection, Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2005], for whom I have great respect. It's one thing for a politician to embellish or tell a half-truth, but quite another to promote an untruth.
When this newspaper recently asked Del. Dave Albo (R-42) "What is your top public service accomplishment?" he answered "Helping the South County parents build their new South County Secondary School. Their land swap idea together with my Albo-Rust Public-Private School Construction Plan‚ built the fantastic new school." In the same questionnaire, he later wrote "In fact, the Public-Private Education Act, which was based upon my Albo-Rust Public-Private School Construction Plan‚ built the South County Secondary School." Additionally, his Web site reads "I developed the mechanism to build the new South County Secondary School!"
The truth is the long-standing Virginia Public Procurement Act was used to build the South County Secondary School (SCSS), not the Public-Private Education Act. Furthermore, the Public-Private Education Act was modeled on the Public-Private Transportation Act, and its chief patrons were Sen. Walter Stosch (R-12) and Del. L. Preston Bryant Jr. (R-23). In short, the Albo-Rust Plan was not used to build SCSS. Ms. Collins is misinformed, his plan never was "legislation"; even Albo fails to make this claim.
Moreover, Ms. Collins is mistaken when she writes "four years ago, Dave Albo was the only person who thought we could have a new high school before 2010." There were many others who held this belief, although admittedly, there were some who needed to be persuaded. It should be noted these partnerships are not new to Fairfax County, in January 2000, the Board of Supervisors approved the public-private partnership which was used to build the South County Government Center. And while I don't know who was the first elected representative to suggest SCSS be built in this fashion, I do know, for example, Supervisor Gerry Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) was one of its earliest proponents. The well-founded disbelief in the ill-conceived Albo-Rust Plan should not be confused with the juxtaposed belief in, and acceptance of, SCSS‚ public-private partnership.
There are many reasons why I'm voting for Greg Werkheiser (D), some of which are enumerated in my earlier letter; this SCSS situation is just one. The unedited version of my original letter can be found online.

Elaine Auby O'Hora
Fairfax Station

Herrity's future Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Pat is smart and is usually on the right side of
> issues.
>

Okay, that begs to question as to why in the hell is he siding with Cliftonites in this NIMBY self entitled fiscal boondoggle?

Is it because Clifton is predominantly white conservatives and Herrity is kissing ass to win their votes?

predict Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I predict that it will take at least 3 years to
> really close Clifton ES---if it does indeed
> happen. These Clifton people are going to show up
> at every meeting that has anything to do with
> redistricting---because that will also be a very
> big issue for them---and they're going to have
> demands (justifiably) in that process. The SB
> won't really be too thrilled about dealing with
> them next year (right before elections)---so
> they'll put it off another year---and who knows by
> then (their enrollment projections might have
> changed). The SB won't take another vote on the
> closing (egos), but will just delay closing until
> we get new school board members who can make
> another decision (but meanwhile Clifton residents
> have to live with indecision regarding their
> school). Sucks.

I hope you're right - I think the Clifton residents will win this fight if they can keep the doors open for the 2011-2012 school year. Bradsher's got a snowball's chance in hell of getting reelected, and a new board with a Springfield member that actually represents Springfield, they can always reverse this decision. I think that's a probable outcome, but that's assuming the Board doesn't push this through quickly and shut the school down after this school year.

Time for Tea - as was noted above, we Republicans have three seats on the BOS and three endorsed candidates on the school board. We're not even close to being in charge. You want to blame anyone for tax and spend, blame the Democrats on the BOS and the staff lackeys on the school board.

Dane Bramage Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Herrity's future Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Pat is smart and is usually on the right side
> of
> > issues.
> >
>
> Okay, that begs to question as to why in the hell
> is he siding with Cliftonites in this NIMBY self
> entitled fiscal boondoggle?
>
> Is it because Clifton is predominantly white
> conservatives and Herrity is kissing ass to win
> their votes?

He's siding with them because they're his constituents and they're right.

He doesn't have to pander on this issue to win their votes - they already vote for him. He beat Fimian in Clifton in the primary, and he beat the hell of Sharon Bulova by 32 points there in 2009.

To Dane Bramage. I've read your posts for some time now and think you're a real asshole. Where do you get the part of Cliftonites feeling self entitled? The people here are willing to stick with the school exactly as it is at no extra cost to taxpayers as we just want to keep our only neighborhood school. How about those greedy, self entitled, rich white people willing to make do with a 50 year old school (in great shape, by the way)!

Pat Herrity is a great guy and he's never kissed anyone's ass here. We are fortunate to have 3 elected officials (Herrity (R), Hugo (R), Barker (D)) who are all outstanding men. Not one of them would sacrifice their values for a single vote. Maybe Liz Bradsher should talk to them and discover that listening to your constituants is the most important part of your duty.

Would love to see a response from Dave Albo. He piped in yesterday so he must be visiting this thread and seeing what people are saying. Don't need to hear he'd a state official and this doesn't concern him. This particular issue should concern all Virginians.

Enough BS from Dane Bramage Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> To Dane Bramage. I've read your posts for some
> time now and think you're a real asshole.

Fuck you, anonymous troll. You don't like my posts since I speak the truth that you do not agree with.

Now go away.

Enough BS from Dane Bramage Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The people here are willing to stick
> with the school exactly as it is at no extra cost
> to taxpayers as we just want to keep our only
> neighborhood school. How about those greedy, self
> entitled, rich white people willing to make do
> with a 50 year old school (in great shape, by the
> way)!


Sure, after $10K spent on bottled water over several years, and may I remind you that just because the residents of Clifton now state they are willing to pass on renovations, that does not mean costly renovations are not necessary.

Now quit your crying.

They didn't need to spend $10K on the water because they had the fix for it the whole time. Didn't you listen to Tisdadt -- the water is fixed!

Sorry but the folks from Clifton aren't going away either. They are just getting warmed up!

Dem Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Problem solved Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Here's a win win solution for (almost) all
> sides.
> >
> > Albo shows some leadership (he is a Delegate to
> > the House of Representatives for God's sake)by
> > getting HIS DISTRICT'S School Board Rep
> > Ms.Bradsher to agree to revisit the Clifton
> > issue.Bradsher realizes the errors of her way
> > (takes a bit of pride swallowing) and convinces
> > the rest of the Board to revisit and vote to
> > delay a decision for 3 years.
> >
> > Clifton is happy as they have their school.
> Albo
> > looks like a savior as he's done what no one
> else
> > could do. Bradsher is happy as her name won't
> be
> > posted all over the place anymore.
> >
> > Dean Tistadt might be unhappy but who cares
> about
> > that stiff.
>
>
> Albo doesn't care right now, but he is probably
> going to very shortly. Because a decision was
> made to close Clifton was done before figuring out
> how to address the overcrowding first, some of the
> schools in HIS District are going to be impacted
> with increased class sizes when the Clifton ES
> kids shifted into HIS district. So now some of the
> schools in HIS district can become part of the
> sacrificial lamb solution in order to support WSHS
> renovations. Let's see how appreciative his
> constituents that get redistricted are then about
> his support of Liz Bradsher.

What is this about? WHICH schools in his district are going to be redistricted?! I thought they did a long study last year to determine how to address the overcrowding.

SangsterRes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dem Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Problem solved Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Here's a win win solution for (almost) all
> > sides.
> > >
> > > Albo shows some leadership (he is a Delegate
> to
> > > the House of Representatives for God's
> sake)by
> > > getting HIS DISTRICT'S School Board Rep
> > > Ms.Bradsher to agree to revisit the Clifton
> > > issue.Bradsher realizes the errors of her way
> > > (takes a bit of pride swallowing) and
> convinces
> > > the rest of the Board to revisit and vote to
> > > delay a decision for 3 years.
> > >
> > > Clifton is happy as they have their school.
> > Albo
> > > looks like a savior as he's done what no one
> > else
> > > could do. Bradsher is happy as her name won't
> > be
> > > posted all over the place anymore.
> > >
> > > Dean Tistadt might be unhappy but who cares
> > about
> > > that stiff.
> >
> >
> > Albo doesn't care right now, but he is probably
> > going to very shortly. Because a decision was
> > made to close Clifton was done before figuring
> out
> > how to address the overcrowding first, some of
> the
> > schools in HIS District are going to be
> impacted
> > with increased class sizes when the Clifton ES
> > kids shifted into HIS district. So now some of
> the
> > schools in HIS district can become part of the
> > sacrificial lamb solution in order to support
> WSHS
> > renovations. Let's see how appreciative his
> > constituents that get redistricted are then
> about
> > his support of Liz Bradsher.
>
> What is this about? WHICH schools in his
> district are going to be redistricted?! I
> thought they did a long study last year to
> determine how to address the overcrowding.


Silverbrook Elementary was in that study and enrollments were very low there so they have quite a bit of surplus space at Silverbrook which is in Albo's district. Tricky situation too considering a large number of Albo's votes came from Silverbrook and people can get rather angry over redistricting. Yet, if Silverbrook suddenly gets off the hook than the other communities are going to see right through this too which isn't good either. Closing Clifton was a bad decision that is just going to lead to a domino effect of other bad decisions.

Coffee Drinker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> On the other hand, the school board, and FCPS
> staff led by Tisdadt, have managed to piss off
> most of the county over the last few years. Look
> for a voter revolt in 2011.


There may be a voter revolt in 2011, but it will not result in getting someone else elected. Remember that only about 20% of the county's residents have children in FCPS. Now state and county elections usually have very low voter turnout, but it is still unlikely that the few will be able to change any high-ups.
Now they may have a chance to vote out Bradsher, but again, even if all 500 Clifton residents go and vote against Bradsher, if any substantial amount of people in the district go to the polls she will win, because this county always reelects incumbents

xp Wrote:

> Silverbrook Elementary was in that study and
> enrollments were very low there so they have quite
> a bit of surplus space at Silverbrook which is in
> Albo's district. Tricky situation too considering
> a large number of Albo's votes came from
> Silverbrook and people can get rather angry over
> redistricting. Yet, if Silverbrook suddenly gets
> off the hook than the other communities are going
> to see right through this too which isn't good
> either. Closing Clifton was a bad decision that
> is just going to lead to a domino effect of other
> bad decisions.


Is Silverbrook a feeder into South County Secondary/soon to be Middle School? Based on FCPS data, Silverbrook shows declining enrollment into 2015. If it is a feeder, how did they justify building a new middle school when there are declining enrollments in the elementary schools that will feed into it? Is that why Silverbrook was included in the Southwestern Region Study?

Dave Albo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You all need a hobby other than developing
> conspiracy theories. I am not on the School
> Board, the state has no role in deciding if
> Clifton stays open,even if I wanted to do
> something, I would have no power to do anything.
> Thus, I can assure you I had no role whatsoever in
> it. As a citizen, I think it was probably the
> right fiscally responsible thing to do. Spending
> $11 million for less than 300 students is not what
> a fiscal conservative would do, especially in this
> horrible Recession. You all need to think outside
> the box to get this school renovated. If someone
> can find the money to renovate it using a
> public/private school construction plan like we
> did when we built SCSS, then go for it! Would
> love to see another one built.

Spending $11 million for less than 300 students AS COMPARED TO:

In the 2007 Bond Referendum that listed the Clifton Renovation Planning money, there was also an item for a $50 million bus facility renovation. It was noted that this money was not counted against the CIP budget, but it is appalling to think that Fairfax County values the space in which we repair buses more than the space in which we educate our children. This bus facility has had 3 additions made to it since it was built in 1964. How can FCPS and Fairfax County find the money to fund this kind of project, but is absolutely unwilling to consider renovating a top rated, proven success story like Clifton ES?

The renovations include adding a whopping 4 bus bays and enlarging the size of existing bays to make the space "more efficient for the mechanics". This project really deserves $50 million??!?!

Another example of where the children of Fairfax County really rank in the list of priorities when it comes to spending money.

Poster "What?" raises an excellent question: If Silverbrook Elementary has declining enrollment now and over the next few years, why (WHY??) does South County need a BRAND NEW middle school?

FCPS and the school board make no sense.

Declining enrollment Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Poster "What?" raises an excellent question: If
> Silverbrook Elementary has declining enrollment
> now and over the next few years, why (WHY??) does
> South County need a BRAND NEW middle school?
>
> FCPS and the school board make no sense.



South County NEEDS a brand new middle school because I WANT a brand new middle school. WSHS and others can just sit in the queue forever for all I care, as long as I get MY NEW MIDDLE SCHOOL. Which by the way, is for MY community! Everyone knows SOCO is the only community that matters anyway. What's the big deal??

Thread Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The renovations include adding a whopping 4 bus
> bays and enlarging the size of existing bays to
> make the space "more efficient for the mechanics".
> This project really deserves $50 million??!?!
>
> Another example of where the children of Fairfax
> County really rank in the list of priorities when
> it comes to spending money.


Riding a school bus is the safest means of transportation. The buses must be kept in good repair and inspected frequently in order to continue this safety. You wouldnt want you kids to ride school buses that crashed/broke down as frequently as Metro

Gosh, this county seems to be "uber safety" minded. All this money spent on "safety". You kind of wonder how other countries can even operate without $50 million bus centers, (but they do and they're even moving ahead of us). I guess they spend the money on schools instead?? Other school districts have much less money than we do---are they having bus accidents left and right or buses crashing and breaking down all over?

need to prioritize here Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gosh, this county seems to be "uber safety"
> minded. All this money spent on "safety". You
> kind of wonder how other countries can even
> operate without $50 million bus centers, (but they
> do and they're even moving ahead of us). I guess
> they spend the money on schools instead?? Other
> school districts have much less money than we
> do---are they having bus accidents left and right
> or buses crashing and breaking down all over?


The buses are just extra special. That is why we had to shutdown Pimmit Hills Alternative because it was too expensive to operate for students but we can use it for bus driver training instead.

Liz Bradsher Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Declining enrollment Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Poster "What?" raises an excellent question:
> If
> > Silverbrook Elementary has declining enrollment
> > now and over the next few years, why (WHY??)
> does
> > South County need a BRAND NEW middle school?
> >
> > FCPS and the school board make no sense.
>
>
>
> South County NEEDS a brand new middle school
> because I WANT a brand new middle school. WSHS
> and others can just sit in the queue forever for
> all I care, as long as I get MY NEW MIDDLE SCHOOL.
> Which by the way, is for MY community! Everyone
> knows SOCO is the only community that matters
> anyway. What's the big deal??

The south county bitch is alive an kicking like a mule.

BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
>
> He's siding with them because they're his
> constituents and they're right.
>

Actually, they're wrong. Sorry, but facts are facts.

The debate about Clifton came down to whether to renovate the aging school for $11.9 million or to build a new, larger school for $18.7 million. Part of the decision to close the school was based on the predicted decline in enrollment at Clifton, the school system's smallest school.

An elementary school cannot be maintained without money. This was one of the lessons that came out of a recent Fairfax County School Board meeting, where members voted 9-2-1 to close Clifton Elementary School.

Ten days after the July 8 vote to shutter the 57-year-old school, School Board members and parents reflected on what brought them to this point.

"I don't know that the School Board learned any [new] lessons, but I would suggest that the public learned a little about our [Capital Improvement Program]; that we are woefully underfunded," said School Board member James Raney (At-large). "And when you are underfunded, you have to make really difficult decisions like closing Clifton."

The school sits on the crest of a large hill overlooking the Town of Clifton and most of its site cannot be developed. Staff said it would also be difficult to fit a staging area for a construction team on Clifton’s site, and the school’s renovation would necessitate the loss of trees and the leveling of a small hill at the back of the building.

The school is not on a normal sewage or water system, which also drives up construction and ongoing facility maintenance costs. Clifton is the only Fairfax school that uses well water, which not only complicates the installation of sprinklers but has also led to ongoing drinking water quality issues since the 1990s, said staff.

The school system has estimated that the cost closing Clifton, building a new school on the Liberty campus and constructing additions at other schools to be approximately $17.2 million overall. To "fully" renovate Clifton and deal with capacity issues in western Fairfax would cost more, approximately $21.5 million, according to a presentation given to the School Board June 10.

Clifton residents said they would be happy with a scaled-back renovation plan, where not much more than the mechanical system would be replaced and a sprinkler system would be installed.

But if the School Board votes to keep Clifton open, school staff has advised that it proceed with a full-scale renovation, since several features of Clifton’s current building are outdated.

AND EVEN WITH a scaled-back renovation, Clifton’s renovation costs would still be relatively high on a per pupil basis since Clifton is one of the small schools in the county.

The average elementary school in Fairfax houses approximately 675 students and Clifton’s building can only fit 350 students, said Tistadt. Using housing data and local birth rate information, the school system has also projected that Clifton’s student body would decline to fewer than 300 students over the next four to five years.

"The overhead for an elementary school with 300 students is not dissimilar to the overhead of an elementary school with 600 students. You still need to have a principal, an assistant principal, a guidance counselor," said Tistadt.

From 2004 to 2009, Fairfax schools spent an average of $2,000 annually to bring bottled water to Clifton’s campus because it deemed the well water unsafe to drink, according to a report by a citizen advisory committee.

If experimentation with cheaper repairs to a school well fails, the school system could end up spending approximately $300,000 to fix Clifton’s water quality issues. FCPS would then have to spend approximately $65,000 per year on upkeep and monitoring of the well system, according to a citizen advisory report.

"It comes down to the fact that change is hard," said School Board Chairwoman Kathy Smith (Sully District). "The bottom line is it doesn't matter how much information you have out there, how much you engage the community -- people don't like change. I don't know what more we could have done."

In studying regional issues facing schools in southwestern Fairfax County, the School Board created a panel of mostly PTA parents from affected schools. The panel submitted its findings to the School Board in April.

Future planning for about 30 other existing elementary schools was paused to see how the board would vote on Clifton Elementary. Now the school system moves forward with the southwestern boundary study, which will begin this coming fall and, when completed, should hold a closure date for Clifton.

Fiscal responsibility isn't easy and often makes affected folks unhappy; however, it still needs to be done.

KeepOnTruckin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Riding a school bus is the safest means of
> transportation. The buses must be kept in good
> repair and inspected frequently in order to
> continue this safety.

I brought this up at the last school board meeting, and Liz Bradsher sat there and gave me a really dirty look.

Barbara Hollingsworth: School closing was neither fair, nor transparent
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor

July 20, 2010 Community wishes, due process, fair and transparent government were all trampled by the Fairfax County School Board when it hastily voted 9-2 on July 8 to close a beloved school that has bonded generations together in the historic town of Clifton.

The board's June 29 work session agenda stated that its decision to close or renovate Clifton Elementary would be based on three issues: "The reliability of the water supply, declining enrollment and renovation costs. ..." Fair enough. But when community members contradicted FCPS staff on each of these three criteria, they were ignored.

The school district's chief operating officer, Dean Tistadt -- who once had a citizen forcibly removed from a public redistricting hearing for videotaping the proceedings -- again demonstrated his scorn for democracy by withholding the results of a study clearing the school's well water until 12 minutes after the start of the July 8 meeting -- in violation of the board's own strategic governance guidelines.

And FCPS used just one ZIP code (20124) to predict declining enrollment even though two others in Clifton's enrollment area (22032 and 22039) contained higher student densities. Board member Martina Hone, at large, said that her "discomfort with staff data" was one reason she voted against closure. In more than two years on the board, she added, "I have not seen it right yet."

Also not published was a revision made at the board's regular June 10 meeting to "close Clifton Elementary School upon completion of the new elementary school" at the Liberty Middle School site. That idea was dropped like a hot potato when community members pointed out that, contrary to Tistadt's testimony, the area was contaminated with naturally occurring asbestos.

That left renovation costs. FCPS claimed that renovating Clifton Elementary would cost "50 percent more" than average. Last year, this same school system was willing to spend $130 million on an administration building, but balked at spending $11 million to refurbish a school that has been in the renovation queue for two decades.

Clifton parents told me that when they took out the unneeded repairs to the school's water system and scaled back from a "gold" to a "silver" standard, renovation costs were reduced to below average. And that didn't take into account possible grants from state and federal historic preservation groups that have expressed interest in preserving the school.

To make matters worse, board members voted to close this top-performing historic school without making provision for its 374 students, telling anxious parents that they would figure that out later. No wonder angry community members screamed, "You lie! You do not represent us!" at board member Liz Bradsher, Springfield, whose district includes Clifton Elementary.

Fairfax Education Coalition communications director Catherine Lorenze said that Bradsher called her up early one morning after the vote, vowing to "cripple you and FEC at the knees."

Bradsher denies making any such threats, claiming that she merely "urged her to get her facts straight. ... We spent over a year on this issue, and we had the facts. ... I was one of nine [who voted to close the school]. I stand firmly by my vote."

But Clifton parent Elizabeth Schultz, infuriated by the board's "whack-a-mole" strategy, points out that "all the evidence the community provided was summarily ignored. Liz sold out one community to appease another."

So as a lesson in accountability, FEC -- an umbrella group representing 40,000 parents and teachers -- has made Bradsher's defeat its top priority.



Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/School-closing-was-neither-fair_-nor-transparent-1001700-98768509.html#ixzz0uWvVquPW

No to Liz posted:

The debate about Clifton came down to whether to renovate the aging school for $11.9 million or to build a new, larger school for $18.7 million. Part of the decision to close the school was based on the predicted decline in enrollment at Clifton, the school system's smallest school.


I'm not a genius, but doesn't this mean that it would cost $6.8 million less to renovate Clifton than to build a new school? Wouldn't that pay for the assistant principal and counselor for quite a few years. At 5% interest, the $6.8 million difference on the bond loan (based on building a new school as versus renovating) would mean paying out over $350K a year more in interest. The savings from not borrowing that extra $6.8 million would pay for way more than a counselor and assistant principal---not to mention saving the principle loan difference of $6.8 million. The infrastructure argument is pretty weak if they can only come up with the assistant principal and counselor as the inefficient spending items. Even if you throw in that huge 2K spending for the bottled water (which isn't a problem anymore), this vote is hardly responsible spending on the part of the SB.

Oh, I forgot---they are going to do a "public private" deal and cost us even more money by having us "rent" the new building for 99 years at a ridiculous rate (while they give the "private" end of it a nice piece of land as the swap and the private part owns the new building also). That means we can preserve money in the CIP in order to renovate WSHS---even though we are robbing other parts of the government for years to come to pay the private folks (putting these problems on our children's backs). When this all hits the fan, we will have socialism---there won't be any other way out---unless we stop worrying about spending money on $50 million bus garages.

Glad we're leaving. The people running this area are psychotic.

Yeah. The problem is that those people are going to be joining you.

> Actually, they're wrong. Sorry, but facts are
> facts.
>
> The debate about Clifton came down to whether to
> renovate the aging school for $11.9 million or to
> build a new, larger school for $18.7 million. Part
> of the decision to close the school was based on
> the predicted decline in enrollment at Clifton,
> the school system's smallest school.

This doesn't make any sense, considering there were more options on the table than simply renovating the aging school at the $11.9 million level or building another school. There were three different renovation levels available, the lowest being in the $7 million range.

The predicted decline in enrollment at Clifton is a distinct turn around from last years predicted increase in enrollment at Clifton that had the school being overenrolled by 22 students in 2013. Why did this change so abruptly in one year?

> An elementary school cannot be maintained without
> money. This was one of the lessons that came out
> of a recent Fairfax County School Board meeting,
> where members voted 9-2-1 to close Clifton
> Elementary School.

Money does not seem to be the issue here. If it is, then, as I and many, many others have noted, there were ways to reduce the cost of the renovation that were ignored by the Board in this latest vote.

> Ten days after the July 8 vote to shutter the
> 57-year-old school, School Board members and
> parents reflected on what brought them to this
> point.
>
> "I don't know that the School Board learned any
> lessons, but I would suggest that the public
> learned a little about our ; that we are woefully
> underfunded," said School Board member James Raney
> (At-large). "And when you are underfunded, you
> have to make really difficult decisions like
> closing Clifton."

This is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever seen, and it plays directly into the on-going perception that the School Board is woefully out of touch with reality. The School System has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on new administration buildings, widening the mechanic's bay for bus maintenance, and other non-student related costs but cannot scrape together a few million dollars for a school renovation? Really?

The school system represents the bulk of the Fairfax County Budget - $2.2 billion dollars worth. That's more than the entire operating budgets from most of the counties in Virginia.

We're in a recession. If the money isn't there for the renovation, don't do the renovation. But there's no good reason to close the school down unless it is unsafe, and that argument has not been made.

> The school sits on the crest of a large hill
> overlooking the Town of Clifton and most of its
> site cannot be developed. Staff said it would also
> be difficult to fit a staging area for a
> construction team on Clifton’s site, and the
> school’s renovation would necessitate the loss of
> trees and the leveling of a small hill at the back
> of the building.

Then how was it renovated in 1984? Trees can be replaced. I have never yet seen a general contractor claim that a job was impossible because they couldn't get equipment onto the site. That's not the FCPS's staff job to determine - that's an issue for the contractors who are doing the work to determine. You pay them to solve those kinds of problems for you.

> The school is not on a normal sewage or water
> system, which also drives up construction and
> ongoing facility maintenance costs. Clifton is the
> only Fairfax school that uses well water, which
> not only complicates the installation of
> sprinklers but has also led to ongoing drinking
> water quality issues since the 1990s, said staff.

Are these the same water quality issues that were resolved at the 11th hour during the meeting? I have not seen the argument made that the school was exorbitantly more difficult to maintain than other schools in the area. I'm sure it does cost more, but then any historic building is going to cost more to maintain. But the value to the community of maintaining the historic building tends to outweigh simple maintenance cost measurements.

> The school system has estimated that the cost
> closing Clifton, building a new school on the
> Liberty campus and constructing additions at other
> schools to be approximately $17.2 million overall.
> To "fully" renovate Clifton and deal with capacity
> issues in western Fairfax would cost more,
> approximately $21.5 million, according to a
> presentation given to the School Board June 10.

The Liberty campus has significant asbestos issues that are well documented. Building a new school on the site would necessitate the closing of Liberty Middle School or else the school system will be inundated with asbestos related lawsuits. Have those potential liabilities been included in the that $17.2 million figure? I doubt it.

And, again, there were other options at lower prices than a "full" renovation - which the parents and students did not feel was necessary.

> Clifton residents said they would be happy with a
> scaled-back renovation plan, where not much more
> than the mechanical system would be replaced and a
> sprinkler system would be installed.
>
> But if the School Board votes to keep Clifton
> open, school staff has advised that it proceed
> with a full-scale renovation, since several
> features of Clifton’s current building are
> outdated.

So what? This is one of the top performing schools in the County and in the Commonwealth. Why is the school staff's opinion more important than the opinion of the people who they are serving?

If this whole issue turns on teachers wanting a more comfortable building to work in, that's just nonsense. We're in a recession. Sacrifices have to be made. And they should start with the comfort of staff, not a major interference in the lives of the parents and students and the disruption of an entire community.

> AND EVEN WITH a scaled-back renovation, Clifton’s
> renovation costs would still be relatively high on
> a per pupil basis since Clifton is one of the
> small schools in the county.

> The average elementary school in Fairfax houses
> approximately 675 students and Clifton’s building
> can only fit 350 students, said Tistadt. Using
> housing data and local birth rate information, the
> school system has also projected that Clifton’s
> student body would decline to fewer than 300
> students over the next four to five years.

Why be concerned with the small size of the building if the claim is that the school is facing decreasing enrollment?

Clifton is a community school. It serves a unique and specific community. That the community is small is not the community's fault - it was zoned that way. Ignoring the entire point of Clifton and it's place in the overall fabric of Fairfax County is a convenient way of justifying a decision that has already been made.

And, again, these enrollment projections are extremely inaccurate. I wouldn't base any major policy decision off of them.

> "The overhead for an elementary school with 300
> students is not dissimilar to the overhead of an
> elementary school with 600 students. You still
> need to have a principal, an assistant principal,
> a guidance counselor," said Tistadt.
>
> From 2004 to 2009, Fairfax schools spent an
> average of $2,000 annually to bring bottled water
> to Clifton’s campus because it deemed the well
> water unsafe to drink, according to a report by a
> citizen advisory committee.

I'm not going to get into a discussion of overhead. Needless to say, those issues are debatable, regardless of Tistadt's opinion. That's the School Board's job.

And, oddly enough, there were offers from the community to cover the water costs which were rebuffed.

> If experimentation with cheaper repairs to a
> school well fails, the school system could end up
> spending approximately $300,000 to fix Clifton’s
> water quality issues. FCPS would then have to
> spend approximately $65,000 per year on upkeep and
> monitoring of the well system, according to a
> citizen advisory report.

If. Could. Would. These are all speculative.

> "It comes down to the fact that change is hard,"
> said School Board Chairwoman Kathy Smith (Sully
> District). "The bottom line is it doesn't matter
> how much information you have out there, how much
> you engage the community -- people don't like
> change. I don't know what more we could have
> done."

You could have started by waiting until the Southwest Boundary study was completed. Then you could have worked with the community to come up with a compromise solution that would have rectified the staff's concerns but kept the school open. Change is hard, and unnecessary change is the hardest.

> In studying regional issues facing schools in
> southwestern Fairfax County, the School Board
> created a panel of mostly PTA parents from
> affected schools. The panel submitted its findings
> to the School Board in April.
>
> Future planning for about 30 other existing
> elementary schools was paused to see how the board
> would vote on Clifton Elementary. Now the school
> system moves forward with the southwestern
> boundary study, which will begin this coming fall
> and, when completed, should hold a closure date
> for Clifton.
>
> Fiscal responsibility isn't easy and often makes
> affected folks unhappy; however, it still needs to
> be done.

It's hypocritical for a school system that spends so many millions on unnecessary things to start lecturing anyone on Fiscal Responsibility. When the Superintendent starts proposing cutting popular programs and dumping massive fee increases on families to extort more money from the BOS for the school budget, no one is talking about fiscal responsibility.

What's not responsible is making a decision in private and then trying to feed it to the taxpayers who make possible the school system in the first place. What is not responsible is a School Board that places the needs of the staff before the needs of the student. What is not responsible are School Board members who sell out their constituents because they don't remember who they work for.

Those facts are going to be pretty important next November.

If the Superintendent and SB had put forward the most responsible budget cuts, it would make them look really bad. It would be crystal clear just how irresponsible they have been over the past 5-8 years.

Until we get an honest SB, we're stuck with this dark hole of stink. During the next election we need to get lots of articles into newpapers, flyers out---whatever it takes to get this made public. People have their eyes closed.

BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Actually, they're wrong. Sorry, but facts are
> > facts.
> >
> > The debate about Clifton came down to whether
> to
> > renovate the aging school for $11.9 million or
> to
> > build a new, larger school for $18.7 million.
> Part
> > of the decision to close the school was based
> on
> > the predicted decline in enrollment at Clifton,
> > the school system's smallest school.
>
> This doesn't make any sense, considering there
> were more options on the table than simply
> renovating the aging school at the $11.9 million
> level or building another school. There were three
> different renovation levels available, the lowest
> being in the $7 million range.
>
> The predicted decline in enrollment at Clifton is
> a distinct turn around from last years predicted
> increase in enrollment at Clifton that had the
> school being overenrolled by 22 students in 2013.
> Why did this change so abruptly in one year?
>
> > An elementary school cannot be maintained
> without
> > money. This was one of the lessons that came
> out
> > of a recent Fairfax County School Board
> meeting,
> > where members voted 9-2-1 to close Clifton
> > Elementary School.
>
> Money does not seem to be the issue here. If it
> is, then, as I and many, many others have noted,
> there were ways to reduce the cost of the
> renovation that were ignored by the Board in this
> latest vote.
>
> > Ten days after the July 8 vote to shutter the
> > 57-year-old school, School Board members and
> > parents reflected on what brought them to this
> > point.
> >
> > "I don't know that the School Board learned any
> > lessons, but I would suggest that the public
> > learned a little about our ; that we are
> woefully
> > underfunded," said School Board member James
> Raney
> > (At-large). "And when you are underfunded, you
> > have to make really difficult decisions like
> > closing Clifton."
>
> This is one of the most ridiculous statements I
> have ever seen, and it plays directly into the
> on-going perception that the School Board is
> woefully out of touch with reality. The School
> System has hundreds of millions of dollars to
> spend on new administration buildings, widening
> the mechanic's bay for bus maintenance, and other
> non-student related costs but cannot scrape
> together a few million dollars for a school
> renovation? Really?
>
> The school system represents the bulk of the
> Fairfax County Budget - $2.2 billion dollars
> worth. That's more than the entire operating
> budgets from most of the counties in Virginia.
>
> We're in a recession. If the money isn't there for
> the renovation, don't do the renovation. But
> there's no good reason to close the school down
> unless it is unsafe, and that argument has not
> been made.
>
> > The school sits on the crest of a large hill
> > overlooking the Town of Clifton and most of its
> > site cannot be developed. Staff said it would
> also
> > be difficult to fit a staging area for a
> > construction team on Clifton’s site, and the
> > school’s renovation would necessitate the loss
> of
> > trees and the leveling of a small hill at the
> back
> > of the building.
>
> Then how was it renovated in 1984? Trees can be
> replaced. I have never yet seen a general
> contractor claim that a job was impossible because
> they couldn't get equipment onto the site. That's
> not the FCPS's staff job to determine - that's an
> issue for the contractors who are doing the work
> to determine. You pay them to solve those kinds of
> problems for you.
>
> > The school is not on a normal sewage or water
> > system, which also drives up construction and
> > ongoing facility maintenance costs. Clifton is
> the
> > only Fairfax school that uses well water, which
> > not only complicates the installation of
> > sprinklers but has also led to ongoing drinking
> > water quality issues since the 1990s, said
> staff.
>
> Are these the same water quality issues that were
> resolved at the 11th hour during the meeting? I
> have not seen the argument made that the school
> was exorbitantly more difficult to maintain than
> other schools in the area. I'm sure it does cost
> more, but then any historic building is going to
> cost more to maintain. But the value to the
> community of maintaining the historic building
> tends to outweigh simple maintenance cost
> measurements.
>
> > The school system has estimated that the cost
> > closing Clifton, building a new school on the
> > Liberty campus and constructing additions at
> other
> > schools to be approximately $17.2 million
> overall.
> > To "fully" renovate Clifton and deal with
> capacity
> > issues in western Fairfax would cost more,
> > approximately $21.5 million, according to a
> > presentation given to the School Board June 10.
>
> The Liberty campus has significant asbestos issues
> that are well documented. Building a new school on
> the site would necessitate the closing of Liberty
> Middle School or else the school system will be
> inundated with asbestos related lawsuits. Have
> those potential liabilities been included in the
> that $17.2 million figure? I doubt it.
>
> And, again, there were other options at lower
> prices than a "full" renovation - which the
> parents and students did not feel was necessary.
>
> > Clifton residents said they would be happy with
> a
> > scaled-back renovation plan, where not much
> more
> > than the mechanical system would be replaced and
> a
> > sprinkler system would be installed.
> >
> > But if the School Board votes to keep Clifton
> > open, school staff has advised that it proceed
> > with a full-scale renovation, since several
> > features of Clifton’s current building are
> > outdated.
>
> So what? This is one of the top performing schools
> in the County and in the Commonwealth. Why is the
> school staff's opinion more important than the
> opinion of the people who they are serving?
>
> If this whole issue turns on teachers wanting a
> more comfortable building to work in, that's just
> nonsense. We're in a recession. Sacrifices have to
> be made. And they should start with the comfort of
> staff, not a major interference in the lives of
> the parents and students and the disruption of an
> entire community.
>
> > AND EVEN WITH a scaled-back renovation,
> Clifton’s
> > renovation costs would still be relatively high
> on
> > a per pupil basis since Clifton is one of the
> > small schools in the county.
>
> > The average elementary school in Fairfax houses
> > approximately 675 students and Clifton’s
> building
> > can only fit 350 students, said Tistadt. Using
> > housing data and local birth rate information,
> the
> > school system has also projected that Clifton’s
> > student body would decline to fewer than 300
> > students over the next four to five years.
>
> Why be concerned with the small size of the
> building if the claim is that the school is facing
> decreasing enrollment?
>
> Clifton is a community school. It serves a unique
> and specific community. That the community is
> small is not the community's fault - it was zoned
> that way. Ignoring the entire point of Clifton and
> it's place in the overall fabric of Fairfax County
> is a convenient way of justifying a decision that
> has already been made.
>
> And, again, these enrollment projections are
> extremely inaccurate. I wouldn't base any major
> policy decision off of them.
>
> > "The overhead for an elementary school with 300
> > students is not dissimilar to the overhead of
> an
> > elementary school with 600 students. You still
> > need to have a principal, an assistant
> principal,
> > a guidance counselor," said Tistadt.
> >
> > From 2004 to 2009, Fairfax schools spent an
> > average of $2,000 annually to bring bottled
> water
> > to Clifton’s campus because it deemed the well
> > water unsafe to drink, according to a report by
> a
> > citizen advisory committee.
>
> I'm not going to get into a discussion of
> overhead. Needless to say, those issues are
> debatable, regardless of Tistadt's opinion. That's
> the School Board's job.
>
> And, oddly enough, there were offers from the
> community to cover the water costs which were
> rebuffed.
>
> > If experimentation with cheaper repairs to a
> > school well fails, the school system could end
> up
> > spending approximately $300,000 to fix
> Clifton’s
> > water quality issues. FCPS would then have to
> > spend approximately $65,000 per year on upkeep
> and
> > monitoring of the well system, according to a
> > citizen advisory report.
>
> If. Could. Would. These are all speculative.
>
> > "It comes down to the fact that change is
> hard,"
> > said School Board Chairwoman Kathy Smith (Sully
> > District). "The bottom line is it doesn't
> matter
> > how much information you have out there, how
> much
> > you engage the community -- people don't like
> > change. I don't know what more we could have
> > done."
>
> You could have started by waiting until the
> Southwest Boundary study was completed. Then you
> could have worked with the community to come up
> with a compromise solution that would have
> rectified the staff's concerns but kept the school
> open. Change is hard, and unnecessary change is
> the hardest.
>
> > In studying regional issues facing schools in
> > southwestern Fairfax County, the School Board
> > created a panel of mostly PTA parents from
> > affected schools. The panel submitted its
> findings
> > to the School Board in April.
> >
> > Future planning for about 30 other existing
> > elementary schools was paused to see how the
> board
> > would vote on Clifton Elementary. Now the
> school
> > system moves forward with the southwestern
> > boundary study, which will begin this coming
> fall
> > and, when completed, should hold a closure date
> > for Clifton.
> >
> > Fiscal responsibility isn't easy and often
> makes
> > affected folks unhappy; however, it still needs
> to
> > be done.
>
> It's hypocritical for a school system that spends
> so many millions on unnecessary things to start
> lecturing anyone on Fiscal Responsibility. When
> the Superintendent starts proposing cutting
> popular programs and dumping massive fee increases
> on families to extort more money from the BOS for
> the school budget, no one is talking about fiscal
> responsibility.
>
> What's not responsible is making a decision in
> private and then trying to feed it to the
> taxpayers who make possible the school system in
> the first place. What is not responsible is a
> School Board that places the needs of the staff
> before the needs of the student. What is not
> responsible are School Board members who sell out
> their constituents because they don't remember who
> they work for.
>
> Those facts are going to be pretty important next
> November.


Excellent. Very well said!

Cry-baby Board Chair Kathy Smith has written a letter to the Connection newspaper, in response to an article noting how angry people are about closing Clifton, stating that she and the other school board members are there to serve the interests of everyone in the county, not the "special interests.

So that's what it's come down to: if you're a parent who doesn't agree with an idiotic decision that directly affects your own children, you're apparently part of a "special interest group." Did she really think we wouldn't understand who she had in mind?

Let's hope Smith and her high-minded colleagues get their come-uppance in 2011 and are sent packing.

Especially Interested Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Cry-baby Board Chair Kathy Smith has written a
> letter to the Connection newspaper, in response to
> an article noting how angry people are about
> closing Clifton, stating that she and the other
> school board members are there to serve the
> interests of everyone in the county, not the
> "special interests.
>
> So that's what it's come down to: if you're a
> parent who doesn't agree with an idiotic decision
> that directly affects your own children, you're
> apparently part of a "special interest group."
> Did she really think we wouldn't understand who
> she had in mind?
>
> Let's hope Smith and her high-minded colleagues
> get their come-uppance in 2011 and are sent
> packing.


So the School Board trying to spend $130M on an Admin building for themselves and $50 million for a bus garage doesn't reflect a special interest? Let's get real. They would rather spend the money ON THEMSELVES than spend nothing at all or $7 million on students (Clifton Elementary). Even just putting Clifton aside, they have established a pattern of showing where there special interests are. They decided to close Pimmit Hills which was serving needy students (who were also able to go to work across the street at Tysons Corner) and use it for bus driver training! Where is the special interest again? As fas as special interest goes, Kathy Smith had everything to gain by closing Clifton (not in her district) and nothing to lose. Now she will try and justify putting additions on schools that ARE in her district which, by their own admission, is going to cost taxpayers MORE than it would have cost regarding Clifton. Now who again has got a special interest? She can take her special interest argument and shove it where the sun doesn't shine! The numbers and track record of the Board speak for themselves.

CP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Those facts are going to be pretty important
> next
> > November.
>
>
> Excellent. Very well said!

Exactly what I would expect from a Republican lobbyist, spin.

The bus and admin bldg are nothing more than Red Herring fallacies, and the cost per pupil for adequate facilities is lower by shuttering Clifton and consolidating overcrowded schools into larger school.

All the spin in the county won't change that.

I'm a bit surprised that the so called conservatives are arguing against the closure, and even so, it won't change my vote for Rep Wolf. It is a shame I don't live down there where I can vote against Gerry.

What do US congressional representatives have to do with closing local schools??? Wolf? What does he have to do with it? Which side of your brain was damaged?

If you are threatening any of these people, so help me, I will have your IP address obtained through a court order and press charges myself.

Now get over it, Clifton ES is a piece of junk that's falling apart. There is no need for the school at all, as the kids will all go to neighboring schools and the numbers work fine. If your too bigot to send your kids to another school, pay for private schoolit's not like you don't have the money in Clifton.

Enough is Enough Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you are threatening any of these people, so
> help me, I will have your IP address obtained
> through a court order and press charges myself.
>
> Now get over it, Clifton ES is a piece of junk
> that's falling apart. There is no need for the
> school at all, as the kids will all go to
> neighboring schools and the numbers work fine. If
> your too bigot to send your kids to another
> school, pay for private schoolit's not like you
> don't have the money in Clifton.

First of all, I sincerely doubt anyone who calls the Clifton parents bigoted and then plays the money card is going to be either willing or able to "obtain your IP through a court order and press charges" (as if that's how it works anyway - it isn't). Quit prancing about.

Dane Bramage, this isn't a conservative/liberal or a Republican/Democrat fight. It's a fight between those who defer to the FCPS staff and those who want the school board to represent the people who elected them, not the staff. In terms of regular partisanship, this is a bipartisan issue. Both Democratic and Republican elected officials are for saving the school, and the School Board member who fought hardest was one of the most liberal Democrats on the board, Tina Hone.

I'm glad to hear you'll still be voting for Wolf.

Enough is Enough Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you are threatening any of these people, so
> help me, I will have your IP address obtained
> through a court order and press charges myself.
>
> Now get over it, Clifton ES is a piece of junk
> that's falling apart. There is no need for the
> school at all, as the kids will all go to
> neighboring schools and the numbers work fine. If
> your too bigot to send your kids to another
> school, pay for private schoolit's not like you
> don't have the money in Clifton.

I agree, enough is enough. Liz Bradsher is the one who has THREATEN children and taxpayers. If you do not bow to her she will break your knees.

I THINK FCPS PARENTS NEED TO PRESS CHARGES AGAINST HER AND TAKE HER TO COURT.

BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dane Bramage, this isn't a conservative/liberal or
> a Republican/Democrat fight. It's a fight between
> those who defer to the FCPS staff and those who
> want the school board to represent the people who
> elected them, not the staff. In terms of regular
> partisanship, this is a bipartisan issue. Both
> Democratic and Republican elected officials are
> for saving the school, and the School Board member
> who fought hardest was one of the most liberal
> Democrats on the board, Tina Hone.
>
> I'm glad to hear you'll still be voting for Wolf.

Just basing this on yours and Herrity's support for keeping the school open, editorials in the conservative Examiner also - while the leftist Fairfax Times is pretty much in support of the closing, and the folks voting are Dems, correct?

Plus, Clifton itself is one of the most Red areas of the county.

Based on the numbers, I couldn't support keeping it open. Just pure business, while emotions here amongst the parents are pretty much (understandably) running wild.

no comprendo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What do US congressional representatives have to
> do with closing local schools??? Wolf? What does
> he have to do with it? Which side of your brain
> was damaged?

Here, this is for you:

http://www.rif.org/

Now go back and read the thread. A little slower this time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/24/2010 10:30PM by Dane Bramage.

Dane Bramage Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CP Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > >
> > > Those facts are going to be pretty important
> > next
> > > November.
> >
> >
> > Excellent. Very well said!
>
>> The bus and admin bldg are nothing more than Red
> Herring fallacies, and the cost per pupil for
> adequate facilities is lower by shuttering Clifton
> and consolidating overcrowded schools into larger
> school.
>

Hate to burst your bubble, but there is no larger school. It doesn't exist. The imaginary larger school they were talking about building didn't include the cost of remediation of the asbestos or the legal costs of the parents from Liberty Middle suing them for endangering their children's safety. Keep drinking the Kool Aid, though, if it makes you happy.

Dane Bramage Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Dane Bramage, this isn't a conservative/liberal
> or
> > a Republican/Democrat fight. It's a fight
> between
> > those who defer to the FCPS staff and those who
> > want the school board to represent the people
> who
> > elected them, not the staff. In terms of
> regular
> > partisanship, this is a bipartisan issue. Both
> > Democratic and Republican elected officials are
> > for saving the school, and the School Board
> member
> > who fought hardest was one of the most liberal
> > Democrats on the board, Tina Hone.
> >
> > I'm glad to hear you'll still be voting for
> Wolf.
>
> Just basing this on yours and Herrity's support
> for keeping the school open, editorials in the
> conservative Examiner also - while the leftist
> Fairfax Times is pretty much in support of the
> closing, and the folks voting are Dems, correct?
>
> Plus, Clifton itself is one of the most Red areas
> of the county.
>
> Based on the numbers, I couldn't support keeping
> it open. Just pure business, while emotions here
> amongst the parents are pretty much
> (understandably) running wild.

It's not just me and Pat. George Barker, the Democratic State Senator who represents the area also supports keeping the school open. As I noted, Democratic endorsed board members voted to keep the school open, including the one who led the fight. Bradsher is a Republican endorsed candidate and she voted against it.

So you've got multiple Republicans, including me, criticizing a fellow Republican for making a bad choice. You don't see that very often.

The problem here is that we're not getting accurate numbers. The school board has three separate numbers for renovation costs based on varying levels of renovation. And, of course, not renovating the school at all wouldn't cost a dime.

Closing the school and building a new one will cost money. Closing the school and shipping the kids to other schools will also cost money, and you've got a building sitting useless that the Board has already claimed can't be renovated easily. So what are they going to do with it? Let it sit there?

There are a lot of unanswered questions that should have been answered before this decision was made.

What?? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dane Bramage Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > CP Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
> > >
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> > > -----
> > > >
> > > > Those facts are going to be pretty
> important
> > > next
> > > > November.
> > >
> > >
> > > Excellent. Very well said!
> >
> >> The bus and admin bldg are nothing more than
> Red
> > Herring fallacies, and the cost per pupil for
> > adequate facilities is lower by shuttering
> Clifton
> > and consolidating overcrowded schools into
> larger
> > school.
> >
>
> Hate to burst your bubble, but there is no larger
> school. It doesn't exist. The imaginary larger
> school they were talking about building didn't
> include the cost of remediation of the asbestos or
> the legal costs of the parents from Liberty Middle
> suing them for endangering their children's
> safety. Keep drinking the Kool Aid, though, if
> it makes you happy.

Also, unless the kids are going to sit in empty classrooms, the cost of the new school that FCPS was providing to the public, didn't include what it would cost to FURNISH a new school. All that classroom furniture, cafeteria furniture, playground equipment, sports field equipment, new computers for the staff, new computer lab, etc. wouldn't be cheap. Thing is, FCPS limited the scope of the discussion of costs to just the building cost. Clifton was already a functioning school. Clifton isn't the only one getting screwed - Fairfax County taxpayers are getting screwed.

Oh, yeah---that money comes from a "different pot". The "magic pot" of set aside retirement money most likely. You know they can't keep their hands off that.

Hopefully more board members will retire when they realize what a tough year is coming for them.

Letter to Editor, October 2005

I am writing to express my disappointment with Virginia State Delegate Dave Albo’s platform for reelection, particularly regarding education. At first glance, his proposals sound good – cap the real-estate tax at no more than 5% per year, lower class sizes by requiring schools to spend at least 65% of their budget on classroom teaching, and helped build the new South County Secondary School. However, you need to delve deeper for the complete story.

Richmond strictly controls our taxing authority through Dillon’s Rule. The only meaningful revenue-raising tool allowed localities is the real-estate tax, from which well over half of Fairfax County’s entire budget is derived, and virtually all is spent to fund education. Mandating a 5% annual cap would impose yet another limitation on local government’s funding ability. Heaping restrictions is not the answer to our budget quandary. We need to diversify better our tax base and thereby reduce our reliance on property owners, who currently shoulder an inordinate burden. Give us flexibility by granting more options. Delegate Albo’s time would be better spent with constructive endeavors – for example, allowing counties the same taxing authority as cities, and compelling Richmond to fulfill its legal obligation to fund fully existing state-issued mandates, like the educational standards of quality.

It seems Delegate Albo is an advocate of the so-called “65 percent solution”, which is a national goal recently being pursued by the organization First Class Education, headed by Patrick Byrne, Chairman of Overstock.com. Specifically, it would mandate “each school district in a state to spend at least 65% of its operating budget on classroom instruction as defined by the National Center for Educational Statistics.” Currently only two states meet this benchmark. Most states fall near the national average of 61.3%; Virginia is at 61.5%. As Delegate Albo admits, frustrating comparisons is the difference in accounting practices among school districts, and figures don’t necessarily comport with NCES categories. A NCES-published report acknowledges this difficulty.

Delegate Albo characterizes a 3.5% shifting of the budget as “modest”, but if you use Fairfax County as an example, it translates to about $66.5 million annually, more than enough to build today the new south-county middle school. School districts large, small, urban or rural, it’s one size fits all, which raises many questions. Why 65%, is it an arbitrary number, why not 70% or 75%? And what would be sacrificed to meet this benchmark? Counselors and librarians do not satisfy the NCES “instructional” definition and therefore could be cut. The shifted funds then could be spent, for example, toward A/V equipment or the football team. Contrary to Delegate Albo’s assertion “This would lower class sizes to an average of 21:1”, there’s no requirement the targeted money be spent on additional teachers, or to increase their salaries. In fact, there are no spending requirements other than the expenditures must meet the NCES definition.

What is this 65% proposal trying to fix? Fairfax County has one of the highest rated school districts in the nation. Of course, we’re certainly not perfect, so why not focus on those areas that need improvement, instead of applying an across-the-board mandate. And who better to determine those areas than our local school board. With this proposal, the state attempts to get credit for ostensibly improving education by purportedly moving more money into the classroom, but none of the blame for the resulting budget cuts. There’s an underlying theme here, which is the erosion of local government’s decisionmaking powers.

At best, Delegate Albo’s portrayal of how SCSS was built is misleading. The South County Secondary School (SCSS) was built using a public-private partnership which, as Delegate Albo readily acknowledges, was the idea of two south-county parents. While there was an “Albo-Rust Public/Private School Construction Plan” unveiled in 2001, Senate Bill 681, the “Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act of 2002” (PPEA), was modeled on the Public-Private Transportation Act of 1995 (PPTA). PPEA’s enactment was the result of ongoing legislative efforts to extend the availability of financing mechanisms authorized under PPTA to schools and a large array of other non-transportation infrastructure. The chief patrons of PPEA were Senator Stosch and Delegate Bryant. Delegate Albo was only one of 60 House co-patrons to the bill, in addition to 24 in the Senate.

Ironically, PPEA was not used for financing SCSS. The public-private partnership for SCSS was developed using the longstanding Virginia Public Procurement Act (VPPA). Public-private partnerships now can be implemented using either mechanism; the PPEA merely offers an alternative. Although, VPPA is limited to solicited bids like the one for SCSS, whereas PPEA also encompasses unsolicited ones. David Hallock, then Deputy Counselor to the Governor, warned “Remember at all times that the PPEA, while a very useful tool in specific circumstances, is still just another procurement method”.

Along with committed community leaders, it was local and federal officials -- the Fairfax County School Board, Board of Supervisors, and Planning Commission, and Congressmen Davis and Moran -- that made the SCSS public-private financing scheme possible. No state official played a substantive role.

Too many of our elected representatives in Richmond fail to give sincere and thoughtful consideration to what truly would help improve Fairfax County – and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Delegate Albo has spent twelve years in Richmond, and I believe it’s time for a change. That’s why I’m voting for Greg Werkheiser.

Elaine Auby O’Hora
Fairfax Station