City needs to come up with millions for school reconfiguration

of African Americans, these scholarships would rectify the ways in which the bodies of enslaved people were defiled and abused in the name of scholarship, she explains.

“People were robbing graves and taking cold bodies to use for research in medical schools, and to study anatomy,” French says.

For founding co-chair DeTeasa Gathers, the fight for descendant scholarships is personal. In 1963, her late mother graduated from UVA hospital’s segregated licensed practical nurse program—but was not allowed to attend the university.

“As she was passing, she told me not to forget her,” says Gathers. “Not forgetting her is also part of my push for this process.”

Per the proposed law, the five colleges will be required to work with the State Council for Higher Education to identify as many of the enslaved people who worked on their campuses as possible, which will determine how many scholarships or grants each institution awards. For UVA, that number will range between 4,000 and 5,000.

One of the challenges of establishing programs like these is locating the descendants of enslaved people, which often must be done using incomplete or nonexistent historical records. Genealogist Shelley Murphy has already built over 100 family trees, and identified more than 45 descendants of people enslaved at UVA.

In 2019, “I began with doing presentations about the research and who I am looking for: descendants of the enslaved laborers, descendants of the slave owners, other genealogists, and family historians [who] have central Virginia ancestry connections,” she says. “I also use social media... The more that know about it, the chances increase in finding more descendants.”

Now that the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers has been open for almost a year, Murphy says she’s had a lot more people contact her directly about being a descendant. If their intake form shows a possible connection to the area, she meets with them over Zoom, and begins to dig into their family history.

Across the commonwealth, other colleges and universities have taken their own steps toward addressing their troubled pasts.

Since 2009, the Lemon Project—named after an enslaved man—has worked to uncover William & Mary’s deep ties to slavery, offering courses, symposiums, and other educational events. The college has also commissioned a $2 million memorial to enslaved laborers, which is set to be completed next year.

Other institutions are not as far along in the process. After facing scathing accusations of “relentless racism” by Black students and alumni, VMI removed its statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson last year. While the school’s policies and culture remain under third-party investigation, it has begun to research and identify the people it enslaved.

If the legislation is approved, Reid ultimately hopes it can be expanded upon to include even more colleges in the state.

“Virginia wouldn’t exist without the labor of enslaved people,” he says. “All of our higher ed institutions have benefited from this history.”

STAFF PHOTO

If city school reconfiguration moves forward, Walker Upper Elementary would be converted to a preschool, with the building also housing a health clinic and counseling services.

Face lift

City schools reconfiguration remains in limbo

By Brielle Entzminger

reporter@c-ville.com

In the best of times, it’s difficult to balance the big-ticket projects in Charlottesville’s Capital Improvement Plan, the city’s five-year budget schedule for large infrastructure projects. That’s only become more challenging during the pandemic, when municipal coffers have taken a hit. Last week the Planning Commission debated the merits of a variety of upcoming projects, including a controversial $10 million parking garage downtown. Whatever City Council ultimately decides to do about the parking garage, another other major expenditure looms in the near future: school reconfiguration.

The proposed school reconfiguration project is designed to decrease the number of transitions students go through from elementary to middle school. The district would move fifth grade from Walker Upper Elementary, which houses fifth and sixth grades, back down to elementary schools, and sixth grade up to Buford Middle School.

“That’s just a tough time,” explains Charlottesville School Board chair Lisa LarsonTores. “You get into a building and then you get settled and start to make relationships— then you’re leaving again.”

“Fifth graders really are developmentally more aligned with elementary school,” she adds.

Walker would then be revamped into a centralized preschool with wraparound services, including a health clinic and counseling.

The 54-year-old middle school would also get a badly needed makeover, which doesn’t come cheap.

“A lot of these school buildings are the same buildings, maybe the same auditorium seats that some of our city councilors sat in when they were going to school,” says Larson-Torres. “We will be upgrading to the physical spaces that these kids deserve.”

The school board first began discussing reconfiguration in 2008, but had to put it on hold when the recession hit. Though the project was mentioned on and off over the years, it was not officially revived until around 2017, following a school growth and capacity study suggesting that reconfiguration would help to address achievement gaps and equity issues.

“We had [an] architect come in to lead public forums, meet with us to provide different options, and provide some of the framework that the board used to then make our decision as far as which direction we wanted to go,” says Larson-Torres.

While the city’s negotiations with an architecture firm were halted at the start of the pandemic, they resumed last fall, putting the school board in “wait mode,” explains Larson-Torres.

“We are waiting to hear whether or not the contract has been finalized with the architect that was chosen,” she says. “Right now there’s lots of transition going on, [with] the new city manager coming in and the city attorney. All of those people are a part of this.”

In the Capital Improvement Plan draft, the city has set aside $50 million as a placeholder for reconfiguration, but the architect contract will give a more realistic price estimate and timeline.

During a February 3 budget work session, councilors largely agreed that the West Main Streetscape could be paused in order to allocate more funding to school reconfiguration. However, it remains unclear if any other adjustments, like a tax increase, will be needed.

If council ultimately decides not to move forward with reconfiguration, the school district will have to find another way to update its aging infrastructure, which could cost just as much as reconfiguration.

“It’s my sincere hope that we get to the next step, and that everyone is willing to take a deep breath and understand this is an investment this community and our kids deserve,” says Larson-Torres.

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