RPS has designed a new Woodville Elementary, but there’s still not enough money to start the project

Richmond School Board member Cheryl Burke foreshadowed it four years ago. 

At a March 2022 Richmond School Board meeting, Superintendent Jason Kamras presented discussion items to potentially include in a request for proposals to build a new Woodville Elementary School. 

The School Board had agreed a year before to prioritize building the new East End school after constructing Richmond High School for the Arts and a career and technical education high school on the city’s Southside. But Board members at the meeting felt blindsided by Kamras’ presentation and were concerned about where the money would come from for the project.

“Financially, where are we gonna get the funds? Where are the funds?” asked Burke, whose 7th District includes Woodville. “I don’t want to have people for two or three years moving forward talking about it.”

Former Board member Nicole Jones, who currently serves the 9th District on City Council, followed: “So we’re putting out [a request for proposals] for a school that we don’t know where we’re getting the money from. Is that what we’re saying?” 

Kamras responded at the time that he was following “the will of the Board,” which had directed the administration to move forward with the RFP, while acknowledging there was no identified funding source. 

The funding shortfall has loomed over the project for years, casting doubt among school officials about whether it will ever happen.

Now, after receiving $12.4 million in state assistance for the project, Richmond Public Schools could be forced to return that money if the division cannot begin construction in time, as the project faces a multimillion-dollar shortfall.

The division received the money last year through the Virginia Department of Education’s School Construction Assistance Program, which provides grants to school districts that display poor building conditions. In Burke’s words, “this money has been sitting there,” while administrators have been scurrying to find $41 million to pay the rest of the project’s $53 million price tag. 

“With the current capital dollars that we have, we do not have enough money to be able to complete that project in full,” said Chief Operating Officer Patrick Herrel during a Nov. 2025 meeting. “So we’re at a bit of a holding pattern not having sufficient money to move forward.”

Herrel said the state program requires school divisions to encumber funds to a project within a set timeframe and does not allow the money to be repurposed for something else. Superintendent Jason Kamras has since asked the state for flexibility on its timeline, and spokesperson Alyssa Schwenk said that the state provided a extension – predicated on the passage of a 1% sales tax proposal in the General Assembly.

The proposal, which would allow local voters to approve a sales tax for school construction, is currently in budget negotiations. If ultimately approved by voters, it could generate roughly $50 million annually for Richmond schools. 

“Once the state budget is finalized, we'll be able to align on timing and a timeline,” she said in an email. 

According to a request for proposals from building designers sent out in 2024, RPS planned to complete construction by May 2027 and open the school to students in the 2027-2028 school year. When asked if RPS still plans to have the building ready by then, Schwenk said the division will have more to share closer to the fall. 

“We can't make any decisions on the overall timeline until we have an understanding of the funding picture,” she said. 

Woodville's history

There are multiple reasons why the division has decided to prioritize rebuilding the school.

The Woodville Elementary School building, predominantly serving children living in Creighton Court, is 72 years old. It has been listed in reports for infrastructure “in poor condition,” like walls, windows, roofing and HVAC systems. Inspectors have also noted the previous existence of mold in the school.

Teachers have shared stories about the poor conditions of the school to Board members previously during public comment periods. 

“I’m the teacher whose windowless classroom was regularly over 80 degrees from the beginning of this school year to Sept. 13,” said Woodville music teacher Dana Cooper in an April 2024 Board meeting. “Light headedness and exhaustion followed me on many of those days.”

The East End school is also underenrolled, partly due to the division’s 2019 rezoning – which moved students to other schools in the area – and the redevelopment of Creighton Court, which Kamras previously said has decreased the student-age population.

At the start of this school year, 215 students were enrolled. The building's capacity has been listed at 552 students.

The new 65,000 square foot building for Woodville would be built for about 500 students, including preschoolers. That gives the division an opportunity to move students from the neighboring Fairfield Elementary School into the building, Kamras has also said. Fairfield’s enrollment for the current school year is 207. 

'We are going to be at a funding deficit'

The division has explored multiple avenues to close the funding gap, but none have yet materialized.

RPS receives funding for school construction through a plan established under former Mayor Levar Stoney, which allocates roughly $800 million over 20 years. The division is currently working through a $200 million tranche it received in 2024, but most of those funds have already been committed to other projects, including a new Southside career and technical center and Richmond High School for the Arts.

About $5 million from that tranche has already been spent on Woodville’s design by VMDO Architects. Additional funds have also been allocated to capital improvement projects for fiscal year 2024 and a recently approved $2 million turf field at RHSA.

Throughout 2024, administrators also sought outside funding and grants for Woodville’s new building, and held committee meetings with community partners, including members of the school’s PTA. 

The division first applied for the state’s SCAP grant for 2024, as well as a grant from the U.S. Environment Protection Agency. RPS was not selected for the SCAP grant, and the federal government’s grant was paused and ultimately discontinued. 

Despite all efforts, it always seemed destined that a new building for Woodville would be difficult to begin, as former COO Dana Fox advised the Board that the administration would need more money. 

“Even with the grant funding, we are going to be at a funding deficit for the project,” Fox said at a Nov. 2024 meeting. 

She said the same thing a few months later in March 2025. 

“No matter how you slice it, we are at a funding deficit based on our $200 million ... and whether or not we win the grant,” she said. “We cannot put this on the streets to bid until this is a fully funded project.”

Kamras is now looking to the city to potentially fill in the gap to receive extra funding, outside of the scheduled $212 million tranche the division is expected to receive in 2029. At the November 2025 meeting, he told Board members that the division could surplus some of its property to the city and ask for the money immediately before a sale occurs.

He added that the division would also have success in making such a case “if we reconsider the potential merging of Woodville and Fairfield.”

“I know there’s a lot of strong feelings about that – pro and con – but the reality is, if we were to only build the Woodville site, the Fairfield site would not realistically be developed, probably for another 15 or 20 years just given the scarce resources,” he said.

In the meantime, the project remains in limbo. Burke called on the Board to further advocate for additional funding to make Woodville happen. 

“We have to get that school built,” she said at a Feb. 2026 meeting.

Contact Reporter Victoria A. Ifatusin at vifatusin@richmonder.org