COMMENTARY: City Council's Silence on School Contract Speaks Volumes
Williamsburg leadership has met in closed session 7 times since mid-2024 to discuss the joint school system contract, with few public updates in between
Members of the Williamsburg City Council, along with select senior City staff, have a tendency to work on hot button issues while failing to adequately inform the public, or ask for their input — Spotswood and Sports Town are a couple examples that come to mind. Unfortunately, they’ve also allowed these habits of secrecy and unilateral action to leak into management of the public school system.
City Council needs to discuss things in private, of course. They frequently invoke Code of Virginia Sec. 2.2-3711 to conduct business behind closed doors. But they also need to discuss things in public, in order to make sure as many voices as possible are heard. Yet, when it comes to the status of contract negotiations involving the Williamsburg-James City County joint public school system, the lack of communication from City leadership is almost deafening.
Background on school split issue
In June of 2023, the Williamsburg City Council voted to study the feasibility of leaving the joint school system run with James City County. Keep in mind that just the year before in May, they agreed to a new 5-year agreement with JCC regarding the jointly operated school system. Yet, without giving anyone in the schools or the County a heads-up, the Council publicly voted to study creating an independent school system. One of their grandiose Goals, Initiatives and Outcomes documents served as justification (that one has now been replaced by this one).
The way Council went about the issue certainly didn’t make their local partners look very good. In a move that induced a bit of schadenfreude, James City County Board of Supervisors quickly turned the table, voting to let the current agreement expire without renewal — effectively forcing Williamsburg to put up or shut up. Whoops. This clumsy display of gamesmanship by Williamsburg leadership definitely made it harder to demand what’s needed from the partnership with James City County going forward.
Even the analysis put forth by the City indicate that JCC can operate a decent school system without Williamsburg, and maybe even save money in the long run. The same can’t be said for Williamsburg’s ability to operate an independent system. If I were the JCC Board of Supervisors, I’d agree with everything Williamsburg’s consultant said about needing to help City students who are falling behind. And I’d insist that Williamsburg pay for every cent of it.
Lofty language, little disclosure
The City often uses flattering language when describing its own actions. For example, City Manager Andrew Trivette tagged the school separation issue with “Related Goal: Courageously Leading” in a memo to Council back in September 2023. At the time, he waxed that “City Council voted to fulfill its obligation to periodically evaluate the best possible educational opportunities and outcomes for our students in the most fiscally responsible manner for our taxpayers while satisfying the Courageously Leading GIO.”
If so, it seems strange that Council stirred all this up almost immediately AFTER signing a five year agreement. And anyone who’s been involved in negotiations recognizes that the City’s bargaining position is now diminished, since they played their best card and still lost the hand (though, you might not know by listening to them). Some might call that arrogance. Perhaps it’s indicative of the reason Council showed so little concern for how their actions would affect other partners in the school system, or how those partners might respond in turn.
Frequent closed sessions regarding public schools
Unfortunately, the lack of communication the City leadership exhibited with its partners in the school system is also how it treats residents. I wonder how the City leadership actually defines “courageously leading.” Based on their actions, it must have something to do with acting however you want without seeking much public input, without having too much concern.
Admittedly, the City solicited a small amount of feedback about the school contract early on, but it hasn’t done so again in quite some time. And the amount of input solicited is shockingly insufficient. In fact, including the vote in June 2023 to study the split, Williamsburg City Council has:
Met twelve times in private to discuss public schools, while conducting just 6 public meetings on the issue.
Most of the public meetings were actually focused on the hiring of consultants and the presentation of their findings. Only a couple were focused on public feedback.
The first and only public input session conducted by the city was March of 2024. An online survey was available for only one month on the City’s website. The results of both were discussed in a public session in May 2024.
Since then, the Council has met 7 times in closed sessions to discuss the public school contract without offering any significant public updates.
The last Council update on October 2024 finally acknowledged a desire to preserve the joint school system, but provided little detail otherwise.
There have been no subsequent public hearings concerning the school contract since Council’s announcement in October. Of course, they have already met twice in closed session since then to discuss the issue.
Insufficient public input and feedback
Despite the City’s assertions to the contrary, the overall level of their outreach doesn’t measure up in the face of so much obvious public interest and concern for the wide-ranging impacts of the school-split decision. There should have been more input. There still needs to be more input.
Focus groups: The City made a big deal (after-the-fact) of the public input session it conducted in March, 2024 concerning the feasibility study. It’s worth noting that the City didn’t officially announce the event on its website until just a few days before the scheduled date. So, turnout was small and it’s debatable whether a representative sample of City residents was actually collected. For example, the City claims that thirty-five Williamsburg residents attended along with seventeen residents of James City County, yet only twenty-two surveys were ultimately collected at the event. As mentioned, organizers never bothered to host any more sessions in order to solicit additional feedback.
Online surveys: Williamsburg also hosted an online survey concerning the school split on its website. But according to the City’s aggregated summary of the data, only twenty-six residents from Williamsburg participated (and twenty-two from James City County). Even if that’s somehow statistically valid, this wasn’t some academic exercise. Big changes need big public input. Clearly the Council didn’t get it from their first online survey. Yet, instead of continuing to push for more feedback, the survey was cut-off after just one month.
Future Festival & other surveys: Survey results collected at multiple City-sponsored events called Future Festivals have frequently been used by leadership to justify everything from potentially splitting the school system to redeveloping entire sections of town. (Interesting there were so many ‘Future Festivals’ yet only one school feedback session). Despite repeated efforts by members of the community to see the details of the survey data, none has been made public. The City’s attitude seems to be that we should just trust the results are what they say. Nope. The City needs to release the data or quit justifying immense changes using vague references to survey results that no one else has seen.
Next steps
The 7 months since the last public meeting and 3 months since the last public announcement have been long enough for the public to wait for additional information about the school system contract. Something as important as public education can’t be handled exclusively in closed-door meetings. It’s past time for the City Council to schedule new public hearings so that residents and other stakeholders can hear where the situation currently stands, as well as provide necessary feedback and direction.
(Update 1-25-25: An addition error was corrected in the graphic.)
George Arbogust is Founder and Editor of the Williamsburg Independent. You can contribute too! Email tips and story ideas: contact@williamsburgindependent.com