Letter to the Editor: The Future of Jefferson-Houston

How harshly do readers have to express their heartfelt distress before getting The Patch’s attention?

In an August 18, 2011 entry “Krupicka Believes Agenda Sets Him Apart, State senate candidate says creating local-state partnerships will be critical to future of Northern Virginia” Del Ray Patch editor Drew Hansen suggests the defeated candidate, now State Delegate former City Councilman Rob Krupicka, “believes it is this agenda, one he says has specific plans to boost education in the state and to create state-local partnerships… that sets him apart.”

If true why did State Delegate formerly City Councilman Krupicka, who in the same article touts former ACPS School Board Chairman Sheryl Gorsuch’s “personal endorsement,” not have a well-working local-state education partnership already in place when the Commonwealth announced its 2014 takeover of Jefferson-Houston School? He bellyaches instead.

The Patch has convinced me, a Democrat, that Alexandria political life is little more than a back-scratching adventure. How is Councilman now Delegate Krupicka’s supervision of the Jefferson-Houston School’s academic debacle; Councilman Krupicka’s alliance with defeated school board member Helen Morris, his support of Sherman, Gorsuch and Morris’ proposed $43 million, new, oversized Jefferson-Houston School building any different than Councilman Krupicka’s participation in the West End’s BRAC debacle?

It’s all about spin. Krupicka “also sees benefits with BRAC, including the securing of funds for road improvement that otherwise would not have been culled from private property owners.”

In the 2011 article, Mr. Hansen states: “The couple also got involved in the PTA at nearby Mount Vernon Community School before they had children.” Before Mount Vernon Elementary School, the pregnant Mrs. Krupicka was deeply involved in and president of the Jefferson-Houston Elementary School PTA.

Instead of omitting critical facts, acknowledge them forthrightly. Admit the Krupicka family bailed on Jefferson-Houston Elementary School; then again started at Mount Vernon Elementary using an opt-out. It is not the family’s opt-out that galls. Rather it is Councilman Krupicka’s later advocacy of ACPS’ proposed Jefferson-Houston opt-out restrictions. The political of: do as I say not as I do.

Neither Delegate Krupicka nor ACPS is concerned with Jefferson-Houston’s academics. Krupicka is running for reelection and he, they are embarrassed. That's all. If the local school board wants to reduce the commonwealth’s forthcoming school involvement they can. They can close the school rather than rebuild, redistrict now or mandatorily when construction is completed. Instead both argue the constitutionality of process while blindly constructing an over-sized building.

Krupicka and the current ACPS school board own the Jefferson-Houston problem, but with no Krupicka negotiated local-state partnership in view. Their solution: include former school board member, the defeated Morris in Richmond’s March School Board discussions. Why? Morris offers listservs, managed messages, and continuity.

Councilman and former State Board of Education member Krupicka; former
ACPS School Board members Gorsuch and Morris; current School Board member and former PTA President Campbell, and former PTA President and JH teacher Beth Coast, the latter a political trade, all have presided over Jefferson-Houston’s academic decline. They may get a new building, a building which Councilman Krupicka helped to shepherd. But in it, they offer nothing new.

Let’s stop construction now and put the focus back where it needs to be. On our children's academic future!

Charles Conway