When Gladys West Elementary School opens next fall in Fredericksburg, the city’s students in kindergarten through fifth grade will fall into one of three proposed zones.
At Monday’s school board meeting, city schools Deputy Superintendent Matt Eberhardt unveiled a map divided geographically into western (Lafayette Elementary), central (Hugh Mercer) and eastern (Gladys West) zones.
The western zone contains much of Central Park as well as the Idlewild subdivision; the central zone runs from east of Fall Hill Avenue and roughly bisects downtown Fredericksburg before reaching the eastern zone along Washington Avenue, Canal Street and William Street at various points.
According to Eberhardt, the rezoning process began last spring with staff scrutinizing paper maps of the city. Eberhardt, Superintendent Marci Catlett and Chief Academic Officer Lori Bridi then downloaded geomap data to determine demographic information attached to each student’s address.
In developing zones, staff followed five “overarching principles,” Eberhardt said. The principles included keeping zones contiguous, logically associating the zone with the school and keeping together neighborhoods as much as possible.
Demographically, staff considered the four largest demographic groups: Black, Hispanic, white and Asian and well as three student groups: English Language Learners (ELLs), Special Education students (SPED) and Supplemental Education Services (SES), a classification that correlates to poverty.
“Some possibilities looked really good when we tried to balance the numbers and demographics,” Eberhardt said. “And others, most of them, not so much.”
According to a slide Eberhardt presented Monday, Hugh Mercer is projected to have 572 students compared to 556 at Gladys West and 495 at Lafayette. At 131,295 square feet, Gladys West will be the city’s largest elementary school, followed by Hugh Mercer (111,710) and Lafayette (98,000).
Catlett asked if the zones as proposed would lead to smaller class sizes in addition to alleviating overcrowding.
“My initial reaction is that it does not mean smaller class sizes unless we add additional personnel,” Eberhardt said. “The existing personnel would be spread across three schools.”
The school division will also need to hire “specials” teachers at the new school, Eberhardt added.
Few early hang-ups with cell phone policy
According to Eberhardt, social media “blew up” the night the school division announced its cell phone-free policy earlier this summer, and one student comment in particular resonated ominously with staff.
“They said, ‘It’s war,'” Eberhardt recalled. “That had kind of been in our thoughts that the students were going to be very resistant to this process. Absolutely we were completely wrong.”
Fewer than 10 phones were confiscated in the first week at middle and high school levels, and there were no suspensions given for defiance of authority, Eberhardt told school board members during an update on the new policy.
“We believe that the new policy has changed the culture at both Walker-Grant and JM in a positive way,” Eberhardt said.
In a five-minute video played at the meeting, student and teacher sentiment seemed to back up that statement.
“I think it’s been the best thing ever,” said Thomas Conway, who teaches English at James Monroe. “Right now, they’re all actually looking at what’s happening up here. That never happened in the past five years.”
