Out of curiosity what do you think is the best location in Henrico from this perspective? Looking at houses currently

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this was an off-the-cuff hot take where you thought it would be cool to trash one school because another is also in need. But I will take a few minutes to reply because this is an important issue to highlight.

The Fox PTA has used every media encounter to highlight needs across the City and the state, that a similarly tragic situation could have happened anywhere, and that we have massive school infrastructure needs that have been habitually underfunded and led to disastrous outcomes such as the fire.

The media has tried to follow the story and report on the underlying issues. Here's a recent story from this weekend where we used the anniversary to draw attention, not to take from Wythe, but to help continue to highlight the needs that are unmet across the city. We have city council members with their experiences and perspectives on how budgets should work, we have school board members with their own perspectives and varied backgrounds, and we have the mayor. Then you add in the General Assembly. There's a lot to navigate between all of these bodies, and I won't get into specifics about personalities and political dynamics but I will say it takes some thought.

https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/fox-rebuild-funding-update-feb-10-2022

We have consistently said the rebuilding of Fox should not come at the expensive of Wythe or Woodville, or any other needs, and we have corrected City Council members who have said RPS "has the money" in its general fund.

Here are the actual talking points the PTA has shared regarding the rebuilding. They are yours for the taking--I encourage everyone to write their elected officials.

Rebuild William Fox School Talking Points

About William Fox Elementary School

 William Fox Elementary School has served the students of Richmond for over 110

Years.

 William Fox Elementary School is a Title I school that serves a diverse student body: 

o 47% White

o 37% Black

o 6% Hispanic

o 3% Asian

o 6% Other/Unspecified

o 44% Economically Disadvantaged.

 Per the VDOE, Covid and Fire Instability have negatively impacted Fox enrollment

numbers:

o Enrollment dropped by 112 students between 2019 (438) and today (326). 

o Enrollment dropped by 32 students since the fire.

​

Current State of the Building

 William Fox Elementary School sat for 5 months (February through June 2022) with

multiple feet of standing water, and heavy, water-logged debris stressing the building’s

instructional integrity while RFD and Insurance inspections prevented RPS from building

access and action. This period added to the structure’s damage, and increased

reconstruction costs.

 Since July 2022, the exterior has been stabilized, and debris has been removed.

 SBCox is currently preparing the site for a permanent roof, but construction teams are

waiting for insurance approval to fund the roof itself.

 Once the roof is installed, the windows will be boarded up, and the building will sit

dormant until there are sufficient funds for a rebuild. 

 Further decay and damage may occur while this building sits in limbo, increasing

construction costs.

Funding Shortfall

 The full cost to rebuild Fox is about $27M (outside party estimate).

 RPS insurance policy covers the full rebuild of any accidental damage. Current offer

 $13M (structure + furnishings, this is what the policy values the property for;

approximately $15M short of the “full rebuild” cost).

 School Board Rep Jonathan Young told the media it will be hard to challenge VACORP

in court because maintenance issues like faulty fire alarms weaken the RPS’s claim. 

 Delegate Jeff Bourne asked the House of Delegates for $15M for Fox reconstruction.

This bill failed. The financial burden now falls to the City.

Next Steps

 The William Fox Community asks the City of Richmond to fund the restoration of this

school in their upcoming FY24 budget. 

​

 This City budget is drafted by the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Lincoln Sanders, in March and presented to City Council by Mayor Levar Stoney.

 Community members should write to the Mayor and CAO with this request, and write all of City Council to support it.

 Possible Funding Source: 

o The City’s $52.7M “unassigned” capital projects fund.

o The City’s $107.8M “unassigned” general funds

 School Construction is the source of infighting between the Richmond School Board and City leadership. Community members should ask these bodies to work cooperatively to meet the needs of William Fox Elementary School.

Is that your whole thought? Wythe is going to be built.

This question is asked a lot—use the search bar in the sub and you should find some leads. Welcome to Richmond!

Let me take a few minutes to list out all of the things that a public school in the City of Richmond needs for its students, teachers, and staff that aren't provided by the city's funding. Just kidding, it's a long list. Ticket sales are going to the PTA's fund like every event they run (Strawberry Street Festival, Christmas Tree sales, etc.). Did you buy tickets and plan to support the school? Happy to discuss all of it in more detail in person if you'll be there, and introduce you to the board volunteers.

In short, the PTA is a registered non-profit whose board votes on allocating funds to programs that have been prioritized by the teachers, the parents, and the students. All financial reporting by law is public, as are the meetings where allocation decisions are voted on by the board. PTAs take a lot of time and energy to effectively run, and Fox has managed to keep its PTA efforts going despite the pandemic and a year of virtual school, and then the fire. It's pretty remarkable that the people volunteering for the board this year have the energy. They, like the PTA of any public school, need more support and more funding and more volunteers, and less critics that assume there must be something amiss. There's never enough money to fund everything that's requested, never enough volunteers for the events, and the board has to work hard to get parents engaged and raise funds creatively every year. It's a full-time job, in addition to the full-time job that most parents already have.

It’s possible to do both though? Henrico voters just overwhelmingly passed a massive bond measure to improve schools, emergency services, and other community services. The expenses for these projects are already paid for by existing taxes, so there’s no need to keep the extra tax revenue from juiced property values.

Looks like fundraising for the PTA fund.

We’re gonna ignore the massive amounts of money Dominion pours into local campaigns eh?

fuck george wythe

​

edit; they will build the elementary school that burned down years after they started rebuilding wythe and it will be done before wythe. it will not conform to the codes and standard that will be thrust on wythe. they will start construnction asap and let the costs balloon out of control and say "oopsie who couldve known rebuliding a historic building that was burned to pieces and left rotting would be hard".

Came here to say this. Kiddo started puking today. Pediatrician says there’s a lot of this in the office right now.

Tough question to answer as different providers will be in network for different insurance plans. I would start by searching your insurance provider's directory and go from there.

what are these "donations" going to? it doesn't mention that on the fundraising page.

Richmond should transfer ownership of Bryan Park to Henrico to free up some money to invest in their other parks. City park bathrooms are falling into disrepair around Fountain Lake, Forest Hill park, and I don't know if Gillie Creek Park has any facilities..

I'd put it on Facebook Marketplace for free as scrap. Someone will take it

Yep. It's a suburb though. Suburbs are always more car dependent and boring than a city.

This is the big thing holding us back.

Different states have different levels of competition. Virginia is one of the least-competitive states, while Texas is one of the most competitive (and we see how well that has worked out for them).

Dominion doesn’t get to decide what their generation mix will be - that gets decided by the State Corporation Commission.

Dominion always wants to build new low-carbon energy plants, because their profit is based primarily on the size of their capital base. The more new plants they get to build, the higher their allowable profit.

The SCC’s job is to provide approval/denial to the things that Dominion wants to build, by balancing concerns such as reliability, affordability, and GHG emissions.

At the end of the day, the costs of RGGI do indeed provide and incentive to transition to low-carbon energy, because it makes green generation “cheaper” in the SCC’s decision-making calculus.

Its more the fact they can run things effectively with the money they get vs City of Richmond who is always looking to raise taxes and we get 2nd world country services.

We also have a 41% higher tax rate as it is to Henrico County so yeah this individual refund ain't much but that plus lower taxes plus better services. That adds up big time

And if you missed the stories over the weekend recognizing the anniversary of the fire, a community gathering to draw support and advocacy, and the current financial limbo regarding rebuilding, here's a quick overview. We need advocates pushing our elected officials from the local to the state level to work together and find the funds to rebuild in this year's budget: https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/richmond/one-year-after-tragic-fire-community-gathers-to-discuss-future-of-fox-elementary/

It's like getting a very small tax cut that you barely notice.

$73 or $173, neither is enough to make a significant difference to a household. But the aggregate for the county would make a big difference.

It's not the amount of money. It's the whole attitude of "hey, guys who voted us in. We're managing your county so well that we don't need the extra funds brought in by crazy house prices so we're giving it back to you."

Unlikely to happen but it is called "reverse annexation".

I believe this would be a radical but proper solution to this issues of the City. Return land to Henrico and Chesterfield, then give the remaining part of the city to Henrico.

Alternatively, the City could start to annex the County which was the normal progression till the 70's (I believe) when they took part of Chesterfield with a dubious purposes. They were blocked from taking more land in the future.

This system can't be frozen, it needs to expand or be disbanded. The worst case is what we have now.

The whole city is pretty run-able. Monument, Grove, the museum district, trails on the James. It's one of the nicest features of rva.