Fairfax School's Move Is Debated
Location Is Cited As Key to Success

By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 22, 2008

The smallest public school campus in Fairfax County sits on four acres between a strip mall and a laundromat at the busy corner of Graham Road and Route 50. Chain link rings the tiny playground, and traffic often obscures the front door.

But it's hard to overlook Graham Road Elementary School's performance. The school, which serves a high concentration of immigrants and families in poverty, has among the best test scores in the county. Fairfax officials cite it as a school that beats the odds, and they are eager for it to have a campus more worthy of its achievements.

"There is magic that goes on at that terrible site," School Board member Martina A. Hone (At Large) said this month.

Voters passed a $15 million bond measure in 2005 to renovate the crumbling 1950s-era campus in the Falls Church area, but nearly three years later, not one rusting window has been replaced. The makeover was put on hold as the school system considered whether to move the school to a site twice as large and nearly a mile to the north, in an area surrounded by single-family houses and tall trees. A School Board vote on the move is expected tonight.

The hitch: The school community is divided. Some parents favor the move. Many don't.

The debate centers on whether a school in an immigrant-rich inner suburb should relocate to a more spacious campus in an attractive suburban setting, or whether it should stay as close as possible to its base of mostly immigrant families, many without reliable cars or driver's licenses, to avoid damaging its chemistry.

Another key question is the best way to lure middle-income families that live within Graham Road Elementary's boundaries to enroll their children there. Many of those families have abandoned the school despite its recent success. Maintaining racial, ethnic and economic balance in schools is a perpetual struggle for the 165,700-student system, which is increasingly urban and diverse.

Near the school are 500 townhouses that have long been a port of entry for Fairfax County, providing low-cost housing to immigrants, said John Freeman, who in the mid-1980s bought and renovated most of the neighborhood now known in part as Kingsley Commons.

Freeman said he has sought to create a community responsive to the needs of immigrants and young families, investing in a computer center, a soccer league and a family resource center that offers classes for children and parents. The neighborhood, within walking distance of the school, supplies more than 70 percent of Graham Road Elementary's 356 students.

Ana Cristina Silva, who was born in Nicaragua, joined several mothers one afternoon last week on the five-minute stroll to pick up her three daughters from school, along with two girls she babysits. She prefers to drive, but her car is not always working, Silva said, and she worries about the proposed move.

At this hour, the neighborhood is buzzing with children dribbling soccer balls and riding bikes. After-school activities at the housing development and at school keep them busy.

Parents come and go easily from the school. Although many schools struggle to bring immigrant families through the doors, it's common for Graham Road Elementary parents to sit with their children while they have breakfast in the cafeteria, and to crowd into the office with questions.

Principal Molly Bensinger-Lacy said that when she came to the school four years ago, strong relationships with the community meant children's basic needs were met. "No one needed winter coats," she said.

So she focused on academics, emphasizing teacher collaboration and training. Test scores climbed. A chart in her office shows that Graham Road Elementary, where nearly four out of five children qualify for free or reduced-price meals, is an academic outlier. It outperforms other high-poverty schools and is on par with those in the county's most affluent areas. Ninety-five percent of its students passed state English tests in 2007, the state reported, and 90 percent passed state math tests.

The school's success fuels Freeman's point that there is no compelling reason to move it, put students on buses and risk disrupting the tight-knit community. He also says that economic diversity should not be a driving goal.

"It's a narrow, simplistic idea that for schools to be successful, they need more white middle-class kids," he said.

In the past school year, about 60 percent of the students were Hispanic, 16 percent Asian American, 14 percent black and 6 percent white. Nearly half of students were learning English.

Phillip Troutman, who lives in a nearby single-family neighborhood, said he supports the proposed move but is happy with the education his second-grade daughter has received.

"We were told when we moved here that it's basically Kingsley Commons Elementary," Troutman said. "That they deal with the [English for speakers of other languages] kids but not other kids. We try to fight that perception."

But Troutman has found that the school's reputation is deeply ingrained. From his leafy front yard, he maps the educational diaspora of his neighborhood as he points to various houses: Catholic school, Catholic school, upscale private school, magnet school.

Troutman participated in a community task force that was formed in 2005 to consider the school's future. The panel recommended last winter that the school expand at its current location.

School officials tried unsuccessfully to acquire the neighboring strip mall and other properties. They considered building a playing field atop a parking garage, but the cost was too high. They gave up on expansion.

Since then, tensions have escalated. A recent School Board meeting drew almost 200 people, most from Kingsley Commons, their white T-shirts emblazoned with "Save Our School." State Sen. J. Chapman "Chap" Petersen (D), who represents Kingsley Commons, urged the board to keep the school in place.

Freeman offered to build 2,500 square feet of classroom space on the Kingsley Commons property and to share parking to stretch available space on campus.

Still, School Board member Phillip A. Niedzielski-Eichner, whose Providence District includes the school, said he will recommend that Graham Road Elementary be moved to the eight-acre, school system-owned site on Graham Road near Lee Highway and that the current campus be used as a hub for community services if funding can be secured.

Niedzielski-Eichner said that he wants students to have a better facility and that he wants to send message of welcome to middle-class families.

The principal agreed. "Call me crazy," Bensinger-Lacy said, "but I really want our children to have grass and trees and to be able to run around."

She said a broader mix of students could help the school. "It's a little island here," she said. "For the children to learn about the wider world, they need to have a wider population to deal with."