Aging schools grapple with crumbling infrastructure, shrinking enrollment

HAYSI, Va. – After five decades of wear, cracks form little ripples around each corner of the floor tiles. In some classrooms, parts of the floor are worn so thin, there’s no tile left.

Many of the windows are bolted shut, because replacement latches are no longer made. Heavy-duty paper is taped around crumbling asbestos insulation that wraps the pipes running through classrooms – to keep the children from touching it. And overloaded electrical outlets present a challenge to getting fire marshal approval.

In the winter, 56-year-old boilers struggle along, operating only under the constant tending of two maintenance men. No one makes replacement parts for the boilers anymore. So to keep them running, one of those two men must be on duty every day of the week, weekends included.

“They do a great job of trying to make us as modern as we can be,” said Larry Compton, the principal at Haysi High School who graduated from the same building in 1969 – when the hot water still worked.

“What I think is our Achilles heel is our internal parts: our plumbing, our electric, our heating system,” Compton said. “You can’t come in and renovate that.”

School systems across the region are facing the same issues, as almost all still hold classes in aging, post World War II-era buildings. Complicating the problem in Virginia’s coalfield counties is a drastic population loss – driven by improved technology and fewer jobs in the mining industry – that has resulted in decreased funding.

Some counties, such as Russell and Washington, have sunk substantial dollars into upkeep and renovation, and administrators swear by maintenance strategies they say leave their schools as sound today as when they were built.

Dickenson County, which has lost 19 percent of its population and 38 percent of its student enrollment since 1980, has seen such deep funding cuts that it is struggling just to keep the schools operating.

Neighboring Buchanan County lost 40 percent of its population and 58 percent of its enrollment in the same time frame.

Across the region, Southwest Virginia counties lost 27,423 residents over the past 30 years.

But population trends, while important, aren’t the only factor. Russell County, for example, has lost more population than Smyth, but has kept its buildings in far better shape. The other factor that has heavily influenced the condition of schools is the conscious decision by school and county officials to make maintenance a priority.

Renovation vs. consolidation

As age crept up on Southwest Virginia’s school buildings, it delivered a dilemma to every county: Adopt a strategy to renovate or consolidate.

For those that have renovated consistently, the choice is a no-brainer. Their buildings are in fairly good shape, so the work needed is exponentially less expensive than building new.

While a few elementary schools have closed or opened over the years to reflect population shifts in Russell and Washington counties, the school buildings have, for the most part, been renovated and kept in use.

Washington County is currently building additions on several schools, and also does routine maintenance upgrades on a rotating basis, covering such items as roofs, windows, lighting and bathroom improvements.

Russell County also opted for renovation, completing whole-school upgrades on a rotating basis, a policy that’s been in place for years.

In Dickenson County, school officials say consolidation is an obvious choice, where enrollment has dropped drastically and the numbers are still declining.

“The smaller you get, the more classes you can’t teach,” said Compton, the Haysi High principal.

Haysi has lost nearly half its students since the mid-1980s, he said. With just 271 kids now enrolled in grades nine-12, the school is still losing students.

“There’s no jobs, no new families moving in, no homes, no industry to employ young parents who have small children,” Compton said.

Lee County came to the same conclusion more than 20 years ago, and by 1989 had consolidated five of its six high schools into one.

“I think that probably the No. 1 thing was loss of enrollment,” said Fred Marion, superintendent of schools in Lee County. “It was mostly, I think, people moving for economic reasons, looking for work.”

Since 1980, Lee County’s enrollment has dropped by 31 percent.

Marion said the consolidation process took three or four years of discussion and public input, but it went smoothly.

Because Lee County stretches over such a long distance, the county kept a second high school, Thomas Walker High, which has about half the enrollment of the consolidated Lee High School.

Many in Dickenson County point to Lee County as an example of the benefits of consolidation: particularly newer buildings and more opportunities for students.

And now – with the unique promise of federal dollars to relocate schools out of flood-prone areas – members of the Dickenson County School Board are considering plans to rebuild consolidated schools on a single site.

Some counties, such as Buchanan and Tazewell, have opted for a strategy that involves a mix of consolidation and renovation.

Buchanan County consolidated in the late 1990s, by closing eight of its 10 schools, renovating those that remained and building one new one.

Tazewell County renovated elementary schools and consolidated high schools into existing buildings.

“I think one of the deciding factors for us for renovating vs. building new is … we would’ve had to raise taxes [to build new],” said Charlie Simpson, director of maintenance for Tazewell County schools. “It was more economically feasible for us to renovate.”

The money factor

As officials in each county realized their facilities needs, cost came to dominate the discussions.

In Wise and Smyth counties, which have yet to decide which route to take, estimates have reached as high as $100 million to bring the schools up to date.

So much of the focus, not just in Wise and Smyth but across the region, has been on how to bring those costs down to more manageable levels.

Even in Washington County, which has invested in a philosophy of spending little by little over the years to avoid huge costs in the future, the Board of Supervisors voted to give the school system just $8 million for the second phase of its renovation plan this year, rather than the $10 million requested.

The reason, board members said, is a need to limit the taxpayers’ burden to what is absolutely necessary.

In Dickenson County, where a shrinking tax base is blamed for the poor condition of schools and other county facilities, money has been more than a debate. It’s been an impossibility, said Superintendent Haydee Robinson.

“The money just wasn’t there with the county’s tax base,” she said.

The smallest and most cash-strapped of Southwest Virginia’s mountain counties, Dickenson officials couldn’t imagine how they’d come up with the tens of millions it would take for a new high school, which is projected to cost much more than the school system’s $28 million annual budget.

But hope came for Dickenson County as suddenly in 2010 as the devastating flood did in 1977.

First came the promise that as much as $25 million in flood-proofing money will flow from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Then, there was the announcement that Dickenson County would receive a $42 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Agency.

The timing is none too soon, said Ron Boyd, an English teacher at Haysi High.

“The building that we have right now is pretty austere, and we make the best of what we have, but you can only polish an old school so many times,” Boyd said. “I’m afraid we’ve been making do about as long as we can.”

dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701