BY FRANK DELANO
Colonial Beach Mayor-elect Frederick C. Rummage plans to pursue combining the school superintendencies of the town and Westmoreland County when he takes office July 1.
"Spending more than $600,000 for the Colonial Beach school superintendent's office is not justified for a school system this size. It's asinine for this little town to have a superintendent with less than 600 students," Rummage said at a Town Council meeting Thursday.
Rummage estimated that a superintendent's office shared by the county and the town could save the town $200,000-$300,000 a year in "top-hierarchy" expenses. He said he was not proposing to merge the two school systems.
"We should keep the Colonial Beach School Board and let them agree on the selection of the superintendent," he said.
"I don't know if that dog will hunt," said Westmoreland County School Board Chairman Daniel Wallace. "It's almost an untenable suggestion that one person could do two jobs while trying to maintain two separate school systems.
"On the other hand, if the two systems truly consolidated, there could be huge economic benefits to both the county and the town," he said. "But the Colonial Beach school is such a very strong part of the Colonial Beach identity that [consolidation] would be a very difficult decision."
Maintaining a separate school division has long been a tenet of Colonial Beach political life.
But, like Colonial Beach politics in general, the town's five-member school board is often engulfed in controversy. Alice H. Howard's seven-year tenure as superintendent has seen several.
Howard declined to comment on Rummage's proposal.
In May, voters replaced three long-term allies of Howard with new board members highly critical of her and the board's financial and educational policies. The new members will take their seats July 1.
One of them, Timothy J. Trivett, said Thursday that he has requested a special School Board meeting on that date so that the new board can select its chairman and set a meeting schedule.
As a first step, Trivett said he would recommend moving the location of School Board meetings to Town Center, the usual place for public meetings in town. School Board meetings have traditionally been held in a cramped room at the board office and at Colonial Beach High School.
Colonial Beach, Westmoreland County and Richmond County shared school superintendents for more than 50 years. Blake T. Newton was superintendent of the three school systems from 1913-54. He was followed by Robert T. Ryland, who served the three school boards until 1966.
State law requires school divisions to have superintendents, but the law allows "any two or more school divisions [to] appoint the same person to be division superintendent."
According to a list on the Web site of the Virginia Department of Education, only one pair of school divisions in the state now share a superintendent. James G. Blevins is superintendent of both the Bedford County and Bedford City public schools.
Frank Delano: 804/333-3834
Email: fpdelano@gmail.com