Squeezed By Space And Cash Concerns

New Superintendent Faces Challenges in Changing Boundaries

During his first several weeks as leader of Arlington County public schools, Superintendent Patrick K. Murphy is hearing plenty about an old conundrum.

"How is Arlington going to cope with school boundaries?" asked Robbie Ellis last week at the second in a series of informal chats with Murphy.

For now, Murphy, who started a four-year contract July 1, isn't answering that question; he's listening to what others have to say. After spending two months preparing for his new position and visiting every school in the system, he's reaching out to parents and community leaders.

"It's really assessing and evaluating and getting the community to do that along with me," said Murphy, who began his career as a physical education teacher 21 years ago and most recently served as an assistant superintendent in Fairfax County.

Arlington has spent countless hours assessing and evaluating how to deal with its overcapacity schools, concentrated in the northern part of the county. Last year, then-Superintendent Robert G. Smith proposed a redistricting plan that would have moved more than 650 students and affected 19 of the system's 22 elementary schools. That plan met with fierce resistance from parents, and ultimately the School Board agreed to a stopgap measure that moved 53 students. The problem still looms as increasingly crowded schools spill into trailers and convert computer labs to classrooms.

At the chats, scheduled through Aug. 4, people are speaking out about issues from mathematics to Montessori programs, but it's clear that the 19,500-student system's rising enrollment is a chief concern.

"Our lab is going away this year," Kate Van Slyck, whose son is a rising fifth-grader at Francis Scott Key Elementary, told Murphy at the first chat, this month. And more classrooms are being squeezed out of the same space, she said, as officials install walls.

Franco Muñoz, father of two Barrett Elementary students, also expressed concern about shifting that school's computer lab to classroom space. "I don't think denying them computers and giving them an abacus is the way to go," he said.

With next school year's projected enrollment up 3 percent to 20,130, one of Murphy's first tasks as superintendent will be to design a comprehensive, long-term plan to deal with crowding.

"We're going to continue to see growth," Murphy said at the first chat. Parents should expect difficult choices as the rise in enrollment continues to outpace budget increases, he said, underlining the need to distinguish educational luxuries from essentials.

Per-pupil spending for the coming school year will drop 5 percent to $18,569.

Cecelia Espenoza, mother of a rising Wakefield freshman and the past year's president of the County Council of PTAs, said that when Murphy introduced himself to the council in April, he seemed open and eager to listen to concerns. And his role in resolving a fiery Fairfax debate over grading policy bodes well, she said, for his leadership on school crowding.

But ultimately, she said, it will be up to the School Board to settle on a solution. "All he can do is act as the administrator," Espenoza said. "It's the School Board that has to make the decision."

Schools spokeswoman Linda Erdos said Murphy will submit recommendations to the School Board in December.