The pending retirement of Waynesboro Public Schools Superintendent Jeffrey Cassell is a golden opportunity for a needed reset for our city school system.
And when I say needed reset, I mean, starting over, from scratch.
I’m basing my conclusion here on a review of metrics from the Virginia Department of Education, which evaluates K-12 schools in the Commonwealth using a four-tier system that assesses student mastery, academic growth, readiness and graduation rates.
VDOE uses this four-tier system to assign schools one of the following ratings:
- Distinguished: Exceeds expectations
- On Track: Meets expectations
- Off Track: Does not meet expectations
- Needs Intensive Support: Significantly below expectations
The bad news for Waynesboro:
- Westwood Hills Elementary and Kate Collins Middle School rate as Needs Intensive Support.
- Our other schools – Berkeley Glenn Elementary, Wenonah Elementary, William Perry Elementary, and then Waynesboro High School, are all Off Track.
Relative to our neighbors:
- Augusta County: Four of the county’s five high schools are Distinguished, the other is On Track; three of the five middle schools are On Track, the other two are Off Track; one of the nine elementary schools is On Track, with five Off Track and three Needs Intensive Support.
- Staunton: The high school and McSwain Elementary are Distinguished; Bessie Weller Elementary is On Track; Ware Elementary is Off Track; the middle school Needs Intensive Support.
Waynesboro Schools are, clearly, bringing up the rear.
I’ve written in the past that a key issue is the lack of solid funding support from our City Council, which, turns out, not entirely accurate, from looking at the budgets for our school system vis-à-vis our neighbors.
Each of our three localities here gets in the vicinity of 35 percent of its annual budget from local tax dollars.
Staunton commits a little bit more in local tax dollars per student – about 3.9 percent more than Waynesboro in the 2025-2026 school year, per my quick math.
But then, Waynesboro commits 15.6 percent more in local tax dollars per student than Augusta County does.
We’re not getting the bang for our bucks here in Waynesboro, and that gets us to the one other thing we can fix: how we run our schools.
It’s time to be blunt here: we’re 0-for-6 in terms of the VDOE scorecard, not even one school On Track, much less Distinguished, and it’s not because of what we spend on our schools, and it’s not because our kids are any different than the kids in Augusta County and Staunton.
Staunton actually has a 20 percent higher rate of its K-12 students being eligible for free and reduced-price school lunches, so, no, it’s not that.
The top job of the top guy or gal in the school system is to set the tone for how we get our kids ready for the real world, and job #2, then, is to hire administrators who, then, #3, hire teachers who can get our schools, and our kids, where they need to be.
I’m going to posit here, and I don’t think this is a revolutionary idea, that our School Board needs to disabuse itself, here at the outset of its search for a new superintendent, of any notion that we just promote from within.
To use a football analogy, the coach that we’re moving on from has a losing record; his assistants are a big part of the reason why he had a losing record.
We need to go outside and hire a new coach – in our case, an administrator with a winning record where he or she is now as the #1 in his or her organization, or somebody who is a top assistant in a winning organization.
I lay out this case as we head toward November elections for two of the five seats on the School Board.
I think Issue #1 for the candidates for those open seats needs to be, where do you stand on how we approach this opening in the job of superintendent?
I’ve already made the public call for the current School Board to pump the brakes on doing a rush job to have a new full-time superintendent in place before Cassell’s last day, which he set as being Dec. 31 – the day before the new School Board members take the oath of office.
ICYMI
If the current School Board does go ahead and signal its intent to make a rush hire, we would need to be prepared to trigger the admittedly difficult recall process that we have here in Virginia.
If nothing else, the threat of going that route might give pause to possible candidates, who would have to wonder if it would be worth it to take a job that might come with a short tenure.
It’s past time for a change in direction with our school system here in Waynesboro, and that starts with cleaning house in the central office.
Nothing personal here toward anybody working in key roles there now.
Thanks for your efforts; good luck in your future endeavors.
Bottom line: the job isn’t getting done; we need to get people in those positions who can move us to where we need to be.
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Chris Graham
