Saturday, March 28, 2009
HeraldTrib Today: March 28, 2009
This story was updated Sunday evening, March 29. --ST
You may have already seen the email from Melanie Wilhelm, the K.W. Barrett Elementary School PTA president.
She wrote:
“Specifically, the plan calls for changing a long-established rule that once an elementary school’s enrollment exceeds 500, five key positions are upgraded from part-time to full time positions. The proposed budget raises the threshold for this upgrade from 500 to 550. This change means that Barrett, along with seven other schools, will not get the increased staffing despite exceeding 500 students next year. The five positions are:
1. Assistant Principal
2. Principals’ Assistant
3. Gifted and Talented Specialist
4. Reading Specialist
5. Library Assistant”
Principal Terry Bratt brought this to my attention. She said she has been talking with the public schools, and told the superintendent how much she dislikes this change, given that she knew the school would reach 500 students and would get the additional staff.
Part of her worry is that Barrett is close to the 550 mark, but is projected to stay under that. In the past, programming has not been adjusted after the fact, she said. That is, if the school is projected to be 544, it does not get the additional staffing even if the real number is 550 in September. It is unclear if this would continue to be the case. One major argument of the Elementary Crowding and Capacity Committee last school year was that the APS estimates were notoriously inaccurate. (The ECCC was a countywide parents group looking at relieving overcrowding in some north Arlington elementary schools). APS has underestimated Barrett’s enrollment over the last three years. I did make one phone call to APS yesterday, but it was not returned. I'll get back to them next week. CHANGE TO THE ORIGINAL STORY (Updated Sunday March 29, evening): At some point on Friday, the superintendent's office posted changes to the proposed budget (find them here). The memo states that state, federal and local decisions have given APS another $6.8 million to work with, allowing the superintendent to reinstate some programs that had been cut or reduced. This includes the 500-student enrollment level that triggers additional staff. That and other changes are here:
Initiative. This will not require any additional local funding in the Operating Fund.
The county tried earlier this decade to make cuts to the Lubber Run Amphitheatre summer programming, and the county manager’s current proposed budget puts it back on the block, saving the county about $16,000, the budget says.
Last time, people rallied to get the programming back, but I’ll admit I’ve heard and seen very little about this in the ‘hood. Other similar proposed cuts have generated facebook pages and everything. I have not seen that here, but maybe I’ve missed it.
I don’t know if this is because people see a need to cut somewhere, or if people just don’t know about it. I doubt that people don’t care, but I’m just not sure. Tell me what you think.
Proposed reductions also affecting the parks countywide: restroom cleaning, trash collection, grass mowing and “general upkeep of park facilities." The county also is looking at relying on in-house staff and volunteers to manage invasive plant removal.
I am really happy to announce the start of a new partnership with Buckinghamster Vic Socotra. He has a Web site with daily updates that cover history and a fun, quirky look at his life.
He has agreed to start supplying the HeraldTrib with a pieces called Arlington Annex on a regular basis, though we haven't figured out exactly what "regular basis" means.
What I like about him is that he's a Buckinghamster through-and-through with his writing. He knows the neighborhood, and its history, and is no stranger to the Virginia Room at Central Library when he's looking for something more. I can't wait to see what else he'll be writing about, but his piece on Columbia Gardens' spooky residents is a great first entry.
Scroll down to check it out below, or click here to read his Arlington Annex column.
Saturday April 4, 5:30p.m. 4347 Arlington Blvd (Northeast corner of Arlington Blvd. and George Mason Drive. ) Limited parking at the Red Cross on N. Trenton Street at Arlington Blvd. All are welcome.
I am inviting anyone with community announcements to send them to me. I will do my best to post them. --ST
The Week’s Headlines…
As always, you can scroll down to see all the recent stories, or simply click the links below (if the link doesn't work, scroll down to find the story, and email to tell me what's busted: heraldtrib@gmail.com --Steve Thurston).
Headlines from Earlier in the Week:
Labels: aps, Barrett, budget, schools, Socotra
Monday, March 09, 2009
Letter: Conduct Cost/Benefit on Nature Center
It seems to me that the decision whether to preserve Gulf Branch Nature Center should be based on a cost-benefit analysis of the number of countywide visitors relative to the overall costs, including salaries, maintenance, utilities, supplies, etc., of the facility.
The interested pleading of the Center's immediate neighbours cannot be a valid criterion, since validating them would mean that everyone in Arlington would also deserve a nature center in their neighborhood. (This holds for those who also wish to maintain the services of Westover and other branch libraries.) These considerations are especially important during the current budget crisis.
Ken Moskowitz
Ashton Heights
Labels: budget, gbnc, gulf branch nature center, nature
Friday, March 06, 2009
HeraldTrib Today, March 6 2009
Plans for Buckingham Village 3 slid as easily as expected through the recessed county board meeting on Tuesday Feb. 24. (For the most recent story on this, click here).
At that meeting, the board voted to commit about $36 million to the purchase of the ground and buildings that make up Village 3, and they committed money from the Affordable Housing Investment Fund to help preserve the apartments as affordable. On March 19, the county will buy the building and grounds from Paradigm Development and its partners, the current owners.
In the plan, the county OKed a long-term lease, 75 years, with Telesis Corp. of Washington. Telesis will own any improvements made to the property. Arlington must enter into these sorts of deals as the county is legally barred from owning housing.
“There was an area in southeast D.C., it was a very, very old place; they [Telesis] turned that place around,” said Patricia “Pate” McCollough, at the Feb. 24 meeting. McCullough, formerly of Buckingham, but late of Fairfax County, said the apartments in southeast changed from “the wild west” to a nice place to live. She was part of the working group that chose Telesis for this project. Lois Athey, an activist with BU-GATA, the tenants association echoed the sentiment. “We asked for participation, well we got it,” Ms. Athey said of the experience working with Telesis as that company plans the takeover. Village 3 covers about six acres of land north of N. Pershing Drive between N. George Mason Drive and N. Thomas St. The 16 buildings that make up the village fell under the protection of the county’s Historical Affairs and Landmark Review in 2006 when the county entered a memorandum of understanding with Paradigm Development Corp. and its partners, the current owners. Under that MOU, Paradigm began to renovate Village 1, which sits next to Culpepper Garden assisted living facility of N. Pershing Drive. Village 2, at the corner of N. George Mason Drive and N. Henderson Road is being redeveloped “by right” and has about a dozen upscale townhomes on it now. All 140 units on the property will remain affordable, starting as affordable rentals. A plan to sell the units at affordable rates is being considered. SunTrust bank will hold the first deed of trust on the property.
It looks like Lubber Run Center will lose some hours of operation under the county manager’s proposed budget.
Programming might not be cut, but the potential is that it would move to other locations in Buckingham or Arlington. “During the day, it’s pretty darn busy [at Lubber Run Community Center]….I don’t believe there’s a lot of programming in the evening,” said Susan Kalish, the director of marketing and communications for the county’s Department of Parks Recreation and Community Resources. It might be, too, that the building, at the corner of N. George Mason and N. Park drives stays open on some odd hours, maybe late on one day of the week but not on others, Ms. Kalish said. The county will be looking at what is offered in the evenings, how the people who attend the events get there, and whether those people would be able to get to another location.
Could have been worse for the Lubber Run Center—at least the county is not threatening to close it as they are the Gulf Branch Nature Center in far-north Arlington. The county manager’s budget aims to close the building and move indoor programming to Potomac Overlook Regional Park and elsewhere in the county. Read the full story here.
Ms. Kalish said in an email after the story ran that letting the park itself run down is not in the plan, though it was a concern for Suzy Wagner, a neighbor interviewed for the story. “Funding to maintain the park environments is alive and well,” Ms. Kalish wrote. She admitted in a later email that she supposed the park could be sold, but building on the property is really hard. “It’s a Resource Protected Area…by the Chesapeake Bay Local Assistance Department. Demolishing on the site won’t be too hard, as long as you provide extra care. But building—oh my—you can’t build bigger than the current footprint, as well as not impacting the stream and nature,” she wrote. It was exactly that fear that drove Ms. Wagner to take up action to keep the building open she said. At the same time, in the interview she said how tough it is to do anything in a Resource Protected Area, something she learned while renovating her house.
I’ve set up and gotten used to the whole Twitter idea. I need a different phone to really make it work, as I can’t stand the press-the-two-key-three-times thing to type a “c” only to have typed a lower case “c” when I wanted upper case! I tried twitting from the National Mall for the inauguration, but had to stop as the press-the-two-key-three-times thing to type a “c” thing really was too much while walking through masses of people.
Surf to www.twitter.com/heraldtrib to follow my little updates. Only business-related items; I won’t tell you “My shorts are bunching. Thoughts?” as Roland Hedley on Doonesbury did the other morning! Go ahead and follow my twits!
For those of you unfamiliar: twitter is a web site much like a blog. The trick, though, is that someone posting a twit only has 140 characters. It was started by a guy who thought it would be fun to tell people stuff like “I’m drinking coffee” from work. In the last couple of months, it has grown. Twits can still only be 140 characters, but many news types have them in this info-overload world.
The Week’s Headlines…
As always, you can scroll down to see all the recent stories, or simply click the links below (if the link doesn't work, scroll down to find the story, and email to tell me what's busted: heraldtrib@gmail.com --Steve Thurston).
Today's Headlines:
Headlines from Earlier in the Week--the race for the 47th:
Headlines from Earlier in the Week--the county budget:
Labels: blues, buckingham villages, budget, BV3, cephas, gbnc, lubber run center
Monday, March 02, 2009
Political Storm Coming to Gulf Branch
On fence posts and the sides of log buildings hung more signs of another kind of storm.
“Shame!” one read, and “Save Gulf Branch Nature Center!” read another. One listed a March 14 rally at the park.
In the proposed budget released Feb. 21, County Manager Ron Carlee has asked to close and demolish the “obsolete” Gulf Branch Nature Center building, moving all the animals and indoor programming to the Potomac Overlook Regional Park, not quite two miles away, or to other locations in Arlington. Outdoor programming at the forge and log cabin in the Gulf Branch park would continue, the county has said.
Email listservs buzzed over it. Lillian Prins started a facebook page which now has over 1,900 friends. Gulf Branch Neighborhood resident Suzy Wagner started a web site and petition. Over 2,000 electronic signatures have been collected.
Ms. Wagner does not believe the claims that the building is obsolete and that the programs could be absorbed into other places in Arlington.
“It’s not accurate. It’s not true,” she said.
She believes that other places like Potomac Overlook and Long Branch Nature Center (just off S. Carlin Springs Road) do not have room either for all of the indoor activities or for all of the animals—Gulf Branch has a beehive, lizards, turtles and fish.
She wondered what would happen to the Native American exhibit in the lower level of the building. The display of weapons, pottery shards and a reproduction of an Indian canoe are part of the 25-site Native American historical trail in Virginia.
The rest rooms will be gone when the building is demolished, so the programming outside will be limited, she said.
Ms. Wagner lives on the trail that leads to the park, and she said she still hears her late father calling it “the gem in the woods behind you.”
If the center is cut from the budget as a step toward more efficiency, it would not close until the end of the summer to preserve summer camps, said Susan Kalish, the director of marketing and communication for the Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources. The cut would save about $132,000 in this year’s operational budget and would cut the position of the nature center director.
She has not been let go yet since the budget has not been adopted. Given the uncertainty of her position, however, she is elligible for other jobs in the county.
“Hopefully she’ll [Director Denise Chauvette will] apply for something else,” Ms. Kalish said, adding that the staffing cut had nothing to do with performance as all the staff and naturalists are good people. Some positions in the county government have been made available for people who wish to, and are qualified to, move. Larger severance packages than normal are being awarded for those who leave, Ms. Kalish said.
If the building were gone, the county would not need to spend the money on projected repairs and maintenance.
“A recent report said that we had to spend about $236,800 in maintenance to keep it running by [the end of] 2010,” Ms. Kalish said. By the end of 2024, that number is about $910,000, about $56,000 per year.
Of the $236,000, $153,000 is to fix the fire panel, Ms. Kalish said. But the old stone house nestled on a tree-covered hillside needs a lot of other work, too. The county needs to repair shingles, overlay asphalt, repair the retaining wall, and provide safe access to the attic, among other repairs.
“Of everything I just said, $71,000 has already been done,” Ms. Kalish said.
If it is so close to unusable, Ms. Wagner wondered, “then why did they invest $70,000 in it last year?” She said she feels as though north Arlingtonians pay much of the county’s taxes, but that their services get taken.
“I don’t think they’re trying to punish us who provide all the revenue to the county,” she said, but with the fights over Gulf Branch and, in the past, the Cherrydale branch library, the county does not see their needs.
The age of the building is not the only issue.
“The other bigger issue, I think, is that it’s not ADA accessible,” Ms. Kalish said. The building, an old home with access to the main floor only via a stairway, was never meant to be a nature center and is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. A certain level of major renovation eventually would force the county to make the center compliant, she said. She said that the federal government considers the Potomac Overlook center to be ADA compliant.
Ms. Wagner countered that Potomac Overlook Park with its long hill from the parking lot to the center is still not wheelchair friendly.
Closing the Gulf Branch center will not have to start until end of summer after camps and other planned programming have finished. The pond (the spring peepers are already coming out), the creek, the spring house, forge, and other outdoor programming can stay, Ms. Kalish said. Pretty much all the staffing for programming will stay, but they will not need the director.
David Turvene, of Lyon Park, walked the woods with his children on Saturday. He said he comes rather often since it’s a great place for the kids to see a little nature.
“I think it’s a shame” that the center might close, he said, adding, “I understand the budget issue, though.”
He said he is involved with people fighting for funding the Thomas Jefferson Center and school and knows that county will have to make tough decisions. “It’s all priorities,” he said.
On the wooded hill above the nature center Saturday, Jeff Dolan piled invasive plants that he pulled up from around the trees. He is a volunteer who has a section of the woods to care for; his section, like those of other volunteers, is marked with a little, black sign on the side of the trail. He plucked enough English ivy and other plants to fill a large garbage bag.
Mr. Dolan has worked in the woods a couple times and said he will miss the center’s staff if they have to work from the Potomac Overlook Regional Park.
“We won’t have them to go to,” he said. It is a big deal for the environment of the park, he said. “They do a lot of good stuff.”
Ms. Wagner said that she fears the county is not saying all that is really going on. She fears that if the center is gone, the park itself will fall into disrepair.
$150,000 a year to run the center is not all that much money, and some of that could be made up by charging more for summer camps and other uses, such as birthday parties at the center. She said the county could rely on more volunteers and a full-time director that is shared with Potomac Overlook park. There are ways to close the budget gap without closing the park, she said. If the park falls into disrepair, however, the county might just look to sell it to a developer.
Closing the center “just doesn’t add up,” she said.
Related sites…
Labels: budget, environment, gbnc, gulf branch nature center
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Guest Column: Keep CCCA Open for Kids, Their Families
In the shadow of the Virginia Tech tragedy, in a time when the state had vowed to reform a mental-health care system that allowed troubled young shooter Cho Seung Hui to "slip through its cracks," Virginia's Governor is now planning to dynamite that "crack" into a veritable chasm, by closing the state's only state-run, public mental-health facility for children within the entire state. The Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents, a modern 48-bed hospital in Staunton, has long served as the "safety net" for children and adolescents from all over the state who desperately need inpatient mental-health evaluation and treatment, but who are unable to be accepted by - or to remain at - private facilities or community-based programs.
These children are typically from families - often underprivileged - who either have no private insurance, yet are not eligible for Medicaid; or who have seen their benefits run out, resulting in discharge or transfer from such facilities. A frequent common-denominator is that many are children who other facilities have been completely unable to manage and care for effectively, unpredictably aggressive children, with violent behaviors. Additionally, Virginia's juvenile courts often refer teens who have charges pending against them, for mental-health evaluation.
This is not a long-term care facility. The average length of stay at the center is typically less than a month.
Without this facility, many very troubled children will have no where else to turn for help.
The consequences of this plan are troubling: a possible increase in teen suicides; a rise in the juvenile incarceration rate; and the downward spiralling of precious young lives.
A "town-hall" style meeting was held on Wednesday, Jan. 7 at the CCCA, in which employees of the center, mental-health professionals in the community, parents of children treated at the center(past & present), and other members of the community voiced their empassioned concerns about the closing of this vital facility. VA Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner Jim Reinhard, and Secretary of Health and Human Resources Marilyn Tavenner had traveled from Richmond to discuss the plans to close the CCCA with employees and the general public.
A common theme of the comments, questions and criticisms was directed at the state's apparent lack of any real concrete contingency plan; i.e. what the state can or will do, once the facility has been closed, to ensure that high-risk children and teens who are in need of such services, are not turned away by private hospitals and/or community-based agencies, as they always have been up to now. Many believe that high-risk, combative children and adolescents will simply wind up in juvenile detention, where some may attempt suicide, and all will not be receiving the mental-health care that they so desperately need.
On a separate note, questions were raised regarding the 2009 VA State Budget assigning a value of $12 million to (for the sale of) the 28-acre CCCA property; and the "co-incidental" plan of the city of Staunton to see this land developed commercially, as part of a huge new retail shopping, restaurant and lodging "multi-use" complex, alongside Interstate 81's Staunton exit 222. Both matters were announced the same day, within hours of each other. Some wonder if this could represent the true motive behind the planned closing of this facility: a thinly-disguised case of "eminent domain".
- Rick Gibson
The writer is a former employee of the CCCA. Versions of this piece have appeared in other publications.
Related stories…
Labels: budget, ccca, health, kaine, virginia
Monday, April 21, 2008
Barrett Will Miss NASA Conferences
Half the students in Todd Easley’s fourth-grade class hold flashlights a foot above their desks. The bulbs make small circles of light on the graph paper beneath. The rest of the children, partners to the first half, trace the outlines of each light spill, trying not to block the light with their hands as they draw.
Then the light-wielders angle the flashlights, still a foot from the desks, and the spill is an oval that their partners trace. They count the number of graph squares contained within the shapes.
Mr. Easley is teaching the seasons.
“Has the flashlight changed?” Mr. Easley asks the class, which he calls “Fourth Grade” when he wants their attention. The light has not changed. And he asks them if the flashlight’s distance from the paper has changed. Again, it has not. But the angle has changed. The light that shines perpendicularly is more concentrated than the light that hits at an angle, Mr. Easley explains to his class on the second floor of K.W. Barrett Elementary School. When light is concentrated, when it is hitting perpendicular to the surface, as the sun’s light does at the equator, it produces more heat in that area. The idea to use the flashlights and graph paper came from a conference Mr. Easley attended at Yellowstone National Park this winter. NASA paid for Mr. Easley’s trip, as part of the NASA Explorer School program, aimed to help schools teach math and science. This school year, Barrett finishes its three-year stint in the program. As part of the program, NASA grants schools $17,500 over three years to purchase technology. That money is appreciated, but what educators said they will really miss are the conferences. Five teachers each year to go to conferences, paid in full by NASA. Barrett’s only cost for those conferences over three years has been the cost per day, about $100, they have had to pay for the substitute teachers, said Principal Terry Bratt.
“I think what’s been great is the faculty development,” said Laurie Sullivan, a teaching specialist with Project Discovery, a special county-funded program that supports science instruction at the school. Under the budget rules for Arlington Public Schools, elementary schools are awarded $9.15 per projected student to be used for faculty professional development. The projected number is determined in March of the previous school year, according to APS. The number is not adjusted once the system tallies the actual student count. “Our projections are typically within 1.5 percent of total so it does not result in a significant change for schools in terms of budgeted amounts,” wrote Frank Bellavia in an email. He is a public relations specialist with APS. Barrett was projected to have 405 students in March 2007. At the $9.15 level, the professional development funding is $3705.75. However, this school year Barrett has 445 students, nearly a 10 percent, or $366, difference for Barrett’s professional development budget. In an email, the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction Mark Johnston gave a number of reasons any school might have a large difference between the projected and actual number of students, including an unexpected influx of families, or a change in neighborhood housing. As well, schools such as Barrett that are below 95 percent capacity can receive a high number of transfer students, Mr. Johnston wrote. Mrs. Bratt said, “That [the $366] could be two registrations at a conference, for example.” “When you get down to it, $3,000 is hardly any money at all," she said. With the cost of conference fees, airfare and hotel, one teacher might use $1,000 for a single conference. That would mean only three of Barrett’s 60 teachers would be able to take advantage of that money in a given year. For fall 2008, Barrett is projected at 471 students, according to the 2009 budget approved by the school board last week. "This generates approximately $4,300,” Mr. Johnston wrote. “In addition, Barrett receives a little over $3800 in exemplary project funds." Money for exemplary projects, such as Barrett's "Project Interaction” (part of the communications arts curriculum), can be put toward faculty development, according to APS materials. So Barrett teachers look to local conferences, and “We buy books,” professional books, to supplement professional development, Mrs. Bratt said. That is where some of the exemplary project money goes, she said.
As well, Barrett Elementary has teamed with other schools to bring in a speaker to conduct an in-house conference. One cooperative effort brought three schools and about 50 or 60 teachers together in 2001, she said. Although she called it a “worthwhile experience,” cooperation like that is difficult because the needs at each school can be a little different. In the past Barrett has brought in noted authors Ralph Fletcher and Margaret McKeown. Fees for top-flight speakers, if they even have room in their schedules, can run $3,000 a day, Mrs. Bratt said. “They all cost bucks,” she said. “Nobody’s cheap.” For all those reasons, the money that NASA provided for conferences was significant. And it was not easy to get. Ms. Sullivan and Mrs. Bratt were part of the team that wrote the proposal to become a NASA school. “I wrote that on my own time, at home,” Ms. Sullivan said. And there is no real system in place to help the teachers write the grants, both she and Mrs. Bratt said. The money is not easy to keep, either. NASA requires quite a bit of paper work such as receipts, surveys, and efolios from conference participants. “They’re like one of our model schools. They’ve taken advantage of all we’ve had to offer,” said Rudo Kashiri. She is NASA’s Explorer School coordinator for the Langley region which includes Virginia.
Ms. Kashiri said that staff at Barrett has turned paperwork and surveys in on time, and that they have been actively searching for other money now that the NASA grant is ending. Barrett still has thousands of dollars left to spend from the NASA Explorer School grant, but that money goes toward technological equipment, not professional development. They received $10,000 in the first year, $5,000 the second and are expecting another $2,500. Of that, the fiscal 2009 budget shows that they spent $6,581 during the 2006-07 school year. Neither Mrs. Bratt nor Ms. Sullivan was sure what if any more money has been spent. “We’re going to have a chunk of change to decide where we want to go,” Ms. Sullivan said. They are looking to purchase a smartboard and three document cameras. Smartboards are an interactive projection screens that can operate a connected computer by touching the screen. Document cameras are high-tech, overhead projectors that can project anything on the desktop onto a screen at the front of the class. The style being considered look a little bit like clip-on lights. Still, it is the money for conferences that they say they will miss. In an interview, Mr. Easley admitted that he would not have applied for the conference at Yellowstone, limited to 24 teachers in fourth- to ninth-grades, if it had not been for Ms. Sullivan’s insistence. In only his second year at the school (he used to teach in Colorado), Mr. Easley said he saw why Ms. Sullivan was Virginia state teacher of the year in 2004. “She’s motivated,” he said. None of the Barrett teachers who applied for last year’s openings made it in, Ms. Sullivan said. In the past two years, Ms. Sullivan, who was county teacher of the year in 2003, has won two grants from Toyota, one for the student-produced podcasting program “Discovery Through a Scientific Lens,” and another to study whooping cranes. The Virginia Science Museum visited Barrett in February thanks to a $1,300 grant they awarded to the school. The remaining $200 was spent from Project Discovery’s budget, Ms. Sullivan said. She views her job as that of helping the teachers get what they need to teach science, and admitted that she has only a little flexible time to pursue various grants. She said other teachers do not have the time, either. “We all have ideas, but it takes time to write them.”
Related sites…
Labels: aps, Barrett, budget, schools
