The Roanoke City School Board is likely to explore building a new school to alleviate crowding at the high school level, following a review of potential solutions that knocked the Jefferson Center out of contention and put adding onto the current schools on the back burner.
It’s a project that could cost up to about $180 million. But before the school division can make plans to expand, it must get through this year’s budget talks with the city.
In a joint meeting between the city council and the school board Monday, school officials recapped accomplishments since Verletta White joined as superintendent in 2020 and provided highlights from a presentation on school expansion that originally took place at a school board meeting last week.
But a recent request from City Manager Valmarie Turner that the school division submit a level budget cast some uncertainty onto the city’s ability to increase funding for the school system among its other priorities, let alone support a project such as the construction of a new high school.
Funding that’s level to last year’s would mean the school division would get nearly $7 million less than it expected, which could lead to some tough decisions about how to cut costs.
High school expansion priority for city schools
The need to increase high school capacity was raised in a review of the school division’s nearly 30 facilities that was completed in summer 2024.
Both high schools in Roanoke opened less than 20 years ago, and each one is about 20% over capacity.
Patrick Henry and William Fleming high schools were designed to hold about 1,650 students each, but each one has between 1,950 and 2,050 students enrolled, according to data presented at a school board meeting on Feb. 25.
Operating the schools has been a significant logistical challenge, Chief Operating Officer Chris Perkins told the city council on Monday. The high schools require about a half-dozen lunch periods to accommodate enrollment, with some students eating as early as 10 a.m.
Anticipated enrollment growth over the next 25 years could mean an additional 125 students in each of the schools. Enrollment is expected to decline slightly in the immediate future, but current enrollment for children in pre-K and early elementary school levels indicates that high school enrollment will continue to grow beyond its current levels.
“There will be a little bit of a dip with our current middle schoolers going to high school, but then you’ll see that expansion again as our elementary students are then matriculating into high school,” White said during an interview Feb. 27.
“We want to be forward-thinking and making sure that we’re not being short-sighted in our approach to this,” she added.
Spectrum Design, which conducted the review of facilities, identified options for high school expansion, including putting additions on the existing schools or opening a third high school that would house about 900 students. That third school, the report suggested, could include specialized programming such as a focus on the arts.
Roanoke City Schools presented those options to the city council at a joint meeting in September, when an idea to turn the Jefferson Center into a magnet school in particular received a positive response from council members.
The idea was attractive because it used an existing space that would draw students from both existing high schools. The center, which houses performing arts venues and a number of nonprofits, was also seen as an ideal location for a performing arts magnet program.
The school division also looked at options for building onto the existing high schools and the possibility of building a new high school.
Plans shift to constructing new high school
In the fall, RRMM Architects and Foresight Design Services studied the three options for expansion. The results of that study, presented to the school board on Feb. 25, recommended removing the Jefferson Center from the expansion options.
The space would alleviate only a portion of current overcrowding and would not accommodate additional enrollment growth. And the center’s location in a dense area near downtown Roanoke posted significant infrastructure challenges, including bus lanes and parking concerns.
Ultimately, renovating the Jefferson Center to be used as an arts-focused high school could cost just as much as a new building, but with features that are inferior to what’s already available at the city’s existing high schools, said Ben Motley, an architect at RRMM.
Adding onto the two existing schools would also introduce challenges. There’s little space around each school for expansion and concerns that a larger school may diminish the quality of instruction for students. Plus, expanding Patrick Henry or William Fleming would likely push the schools into higher athletic divisions, which would increase travel time and competition costs.
“Bigger is not always better,” Jesse Mazur, executive director of alternative programs, student accountability and special projects at the division, said during the school board meeting. The option of expanding the schools brought up concerns about academic achievement in a larger school setting.
Plus, both schools’ neighborhoods are already congested in the mornings and again in the afternoons.
Ultimately, RRMM and Foresight recommended exploring the option of constructing a new high school to accommodate up to 1,450 students.
The school board is anticipated to vote March 11 on how to move forward and is likely to authorize another study phase focusing solely on building a new high school.
Such a school would cost at least $150 million in today’s dollars and could end up closer to $180 million, Perkins said. That’s on top of land acquisition costs and staffing.
“Time is a challenge,” Perkins said at the school board meeting last week. He predicted it could take two years to identify potential sites, acquire land and complete designs for a new school.
A new school would require about 80 acres of land, he said. “If we can’t find a site, this ends quickly,” he said. Each of the current high schools sits on about 60 acres, he said
White would not speculate last week on where a third high school could be built. “It would be irresponsible for me to just try to identify land,” she said. “Instead, we’re going to let the experts go out, take a look and then let us know what they found.”
At Monday’s joint meeting with the city council, council member Phazhon Nash asked where a large plot of land could be found. Perkins said there were “some properties” available, and some park spaces that could potentially be used. He also said a location on the east side of the city is a priority, since the two existing high schools are on the west side.
If the division can’t find a site, “expansion becomes a top choice,” Perkins said Monday.
What happened to the magnet school idea?
Roanoke once had more than a dozen magnet schools that provided instruction focused on a particular theme, such as science, technology and the arts. The programs allowed students to attend schools across the city, rather than defaulting to a location close to home, an effort aimed at diversifying enrollment at each school.
But the magnet programs were mostly dropped in 2006, primarily because grant funding ended and diversity goals weren’t met. In addition, nearly half of the magnet schools were not meeting education standards that were implemented in the late 1990s and would have needed significant curriculum realignment.
In 2009, the school board redrew attendance zones for younger grade levels in order to send children to school closer to home.
White had been excited about the possibility of using the Jefferson Center as a school with an arts focus.
“We don’t have a performing arts magnet that’s anywhere close to our region,” she said in a recent interview. “I thought this could be another career pathway for our students, if we could have this win-win, where we could celebrate and honor the Jefferson Center as the performing arts venue and as a city that values the arts, and we could have another career pathway for our students by connecting the two.
“Unfortunately, it’s not going to suit our needs,” she said.
That doesn’t mean a magnet program is out of the question. A new school could potentially house a specialty arts program, White said.
Budget negotiations with city may set tone for expansion discussion
Before the city and school division can collaborate on funding options for a new school, they must work through this year’s budget talks.
During the joint meeting Monday, White touted the school division’s fiscal responsibility during her tenure. Recent projects — including renovating a middle school to become a second career and technical education center, moving the central office downtown and opening a community center — were funded in part by one-time COVID-19 relief funds.
But costs continue to increase for the division to educate its nearly 14,000 students, she said.
Before the city manager asked for a level budget, the division was expecting to have a $6.7 million budget increase to work with. Annual funding for city schools is based on 40% of anticipated local tax revenue, a change made last year that the school board and division opposed. Under the previous policy, which was in effect between 2011 and 2024, the school system received 40% of most local tax revenue, including any additional revenue over what had been projected.
Without that increased funding, White said Monday that the division might have to eliminate vacant positions both in schools and at the central office, cut back on the health benefits the division covers, delay routine maintenance, and eliminate some student support positions.
“If we had level needs, we would consider proposing a level budget,” White said. “Every bit of that 40% is essential.”
During Monday’s meeting, Turner cited a backlog of city projects and said that more than 200 city employees don’t earn what she described as a liveable wage. Those needs, she said, must be addressed alongside school funding.
Turner said the request for level funding was “not meant to be punitive,” but reflects city needs in “a very difficult budget year.”
“Education is a priority, but we have an entire city we need to fund,” Turner said.
Both Turner and White have said that preliminary budget conversations between city officials and the school system have gone well. “We’re excited about where we can go as a unit,” Turner said Monday during her remarks.
The school board is expected to vote on a budget plan for White to present to council on March 11.
Mayor Joe Cobb asked that monthly meetings take place between representatives of the city council and school board “through this process and longer term.”
Does someone in your family attend a Roanoke high school? What’s your experience with crowding and class sizes? Email Lisa: lisa@cardinalnews.org
