The Arlington school-building program proposed by the schools superintendent includes funding for the renovation of Yorktown High beginning this year, but pushes the renovation of Wakefield High to 2012 and does not fund the badly needed overhaul of Thomas Jefferson Middle School.
School and county officials have been struggling to determine how to finance large capital projects with a deteriorating economy and escalating debt racked up from past construction projects.
Arlington recently finished the $105 million, bond-financed overhaul of Washington-Lee High school — the most expensive high school construction project in Virginia history.
Yorktown High was scheduled to begin a $75 million overhaul in the summer, but schools officials announced this month the project would be delayed until they could be certain of receiving funding in the November bond referendum after County Manager Ron Carlee indicated he would cap the county’s bond debt.
The fate of the estimated $150 million renovation of Wakefield High, which has the largest percentage of low-income students of all three high schools, was even more uncertain.
Community residents have said that renovating the other two schools but neglecting to renovate the old Wakefield building would put already disadvantaged students on even more unequal footing.
In a memo dated April 11, Smith said he has worked with Carlee to develop a plan to finance the Yorktown project this year without exploding the county’s debt.
“The second highest priority is Wakefield High School,” Smith wrote. “Because of the large amount of funding to complete this project, the new limit on debt service, and more important, the impact of increasing debt service on the operating budget, funds to complete the design of Wakefield are in the 2010 bond referendum with construction in the 2012 referendum.”
Construction of the school would stretch into 2017.
Thomas Jefferson Middle School and the county’s Career Center — also high on the schools’ construction priority list — would not receive any funding in the next three bond cycles.
In the interim, Smith’s plan includes $16 million to address the major mechanical, electrical and plumbing issues at those two buildings, as well as at Wakefield.
“I’m disappointed that Arlington is not meeting the commitment to the schools that they should be,” said Sue Super, whose son graduated from Wakefield. “The county has shown a very strong commitment to education over the past two decades, and this is a big backing off.”
Smith said the schools’ debt situation is the result of minimal investment in school infrastructure until 15 years ago, and that debt has skyrocketed as the schools have tried to catch up.
