Alexandria School Board approves $282 million capital plan in 5-4 vote
Plan defers Cora Kelly modernization to 2036, converts Jefferson-Houston and Patrick Henry to address middle school overcrowding
The Alexandria City School Board voted 5-4 on Thursday to approve a 10-year capital plan that delays the Cora Kelly School modernization from 2028 to 2036 and converts two K-8 schools to address overcrowding in middle schools.
Chair Michelle Rief and board members Tim Beaty, Donna Kenley, Alexander Crider Scioscia, and Ashley Simpson Baird voted for the $282.3 million plan. Vice Chair Christopher Harris and board members Abdulahi Abdalla, Kelly Carmichael Booz, and Ryan Reyna voted against it.
Failed motions
Before the final vote, the board rejected two attempts to delay or modify the plan.
Vice Chair Harris moved to postpone the vote until Jan. 8. Abdalla, Booz, Harris and Reyna supported the motion, but it failed 5-4, falling short of the required two-thirds majority.
“We are impacting three of the most underserved communities in the city, period,” Harris said Thursday. “And the fact that we’re rushing through and say we’re not rushed or whatever, those are the communities that’s going to be impacted.”
Booz then moved to amend the Jefferson-Houston project language to “JH Conversion or Alternative Middle School Capacity Solution,” but the motion also failed 5-4. Abdalla, Booz, Kenley, and Reyna supported the motion, but it failed 5-4, falling short of the required two-thirds majority.
Plan details
The plan converts Jefferson-Houston to a middle school and Patrick Henry to an elementary school, with both opening in their new configurations in 2030. The Jefferson-Houston conversion is budgeted at $30.2 million and the Patrick Henry conversion at $9.5 million, for a combined cost of $39.7 million.
The conversions address overcrowding at George Washington Middle School, which operates at 126 percent capacity, and Francis C. Hammond Middle School at 113 percent capacity. Together, the two middle schools house roughly 400 more students than they were designed to serve.
“This was a creative solution that we had,” Chief Financial Officer Dominic Turner said at Tuesday’s work session. “We had the constraint of dollars. We don’t have the dollars, so to be creative, this was an option that was a third of the cost of a brand new middle school.”
The plan comes in under City Manager James Parajon’s $285.8 million spending guidance, a significant reduction from Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt’s original $340.4 million proposal in November, which included $105 million for the Cora Kelly modernization beginning in 2028.
The conversions implement a December 2024 board decision to phase out the K-8 educational model. That vote passed 7-2.
Cora Kelly deferred
The plan defers the Cora Kelly modernization by eight years, from fiscal year 2028 to 2036. The project, originally estimated at nearly $100 million, would cost approximately $8 million annually in debt service payments over 20 years.
The board allocated funding for maintenance and non-capacity improvements to the building while the modernization waits.
“If we are going to build a new building for Cora Kelly in 36 and 37, we don’t want to put tens of millions of dollars in there because then you’re throwing good money after bad,” Turner said Tuesday.
Cora Kelly is one of four ACPS elementary schools designated as needing intensive support under Virginia’s new school accountability framework.
Process concerns
Several board members raised concerns about the decision-making process, even some who voted for the plan.
Booz said the redistricting process taught her lessons about community engagement that were not applied to the Jefferson-Houston decision.
“While there was a conversation about K-8 in general leading up to our decision in December, we never had the community engagement that we had with redistricting about converting Jefferson-Houston to a middle school,” Booz said Thursday. “And so that’s the piece that I regret.”
Kay-Wyatt interjected during Thursday’s debate to note that discussion had focused heavily on Jefferson-Houston while Patrick Henry’s conversion received less attention.
“I just want to be clear where Patrick Henry comes in,” Kay-Wyatt said. “If we’re talking about not having a voice for other schools, I have not heard a voice for Patrick Henry this evening.”
Supporters defend plan
Supporters argued the plan represented the best available option given budget constraints.
“We have made hard choices that there was no easy choice in this CIP,” Scioscia said Thursday. “We are in a very, very rough time budgetarily, societally. City council wants us to come in under the guidance or under. We said, okay, how are we going to do that? And we did it.”
Rief cited enrollment data showing a net loss of 700 elementary students on the east side of the city since 2016, while the west side has grown by 325 students.
“The population has also been shifting,” Rief said. “There’s been more growth in one part of the city and there’s been more of a reduction in another part of the city.”
In a statement Friday, Rief said the board is “committed to partnering with the City to advance planning efforts that address middle school capacity needs for our growing community.”
Turner emphasized at Tuesday’s work session that every $1 million financed costs roughly $80,000 annually in debt service for 20 years.
“By making tough choices here on the capital improvement program, hopefully we can have some easier options for us on the operating side,” Turner said.
Looking ahead
Harris said Thursday he would continue working with City Council to explore alternatives while respecting the board’s decision.
“As this moves forward and this plan starts to take form, it is my commitment to continue to work forward with council and my colleagues to see if there are additional options,” Harris said. “If not, I will respect the process, respect the vote, and I will do everything possible to make sure that our decision is respected.”
Abdalla raised concerns Thursday about middle school capacity distribution across the city.
“If we remove the K-8 program from Patrick Henry, the middle school seats are going to move all to the east,” Abdalla said. “We’re going to have two middle schools on the east end of the school, one middle school on the west end.”
Community reaction
Save JH, an advocacy group that has opposed converting Jefferson-Houston from a K-8 school to a standalone middle school, released a statement Friday supporting the four board members who voted against the plan.
“Last night’s School Board vote made one thing unmistakably clear: the Board is deeply divided on the Superintendent’s Capital Improvement Plan,” the group said.
The statement criticized advancing the plan “without full analysis, and without meaningful community engagement,” and said the board had conflated two separate decisions: whether to continue the K-8 model and how to address middle school capacity.
“Eliminating the elementary program at a moment of momentum, without fully understanding the academic, equity, transportation, and neighborhood impacts, risks undoing hard-won gains,” the group said, citing recent improvements in reading and math scores for Black students and economically disadvantaged students at Jefferson-Houston.
Save JH urged City Council, which rejected funding for the Jefferson-Houston conversion last year, to maintain that position “until a transparent, comprehensive analysis is completed.”
Other projects
The plan includes $30 million for modernizing the district’s transportation facility, which has water damage and needs upgrades to accommodate an expanding electric bus fleet.
It also allocates $2 million for relocating the Chance for Change alternative education program to district-owned space at 1703 North Beauregard Street, down from $5 million originally proposed for leasing external space.
How the board voted
The nine-member board is divided into three districts, each represented by three members.
District A: Tim Beaty (yes), Ryan Reyna (no), Michelle Rief (yes)
District B: Kelly Carmichael Booz (no), Alexander Crider Scioscia (yes), Ashley Simpson Baird (yes)
District C: Abdulahi Abdalla (no), Christopher Harris (no), Donna Kenley (yes)
This story was updated at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, December 19, with a statement from Chair Rief.
This story was updated at 10:20 a.m. on Friday, December 19, with a comment from Save JH.