More than a year after Williamsburg said it would study splitting from the joint school district it runs with James City County, the city now says it wants to stay.
Williamsburg wants to work things out with the county and keep the joint school district together, the city says in a statement released Friday.
The decision came in response to a request from James City Board of Supervisors, which said in September the county needed an answer.
Williamsburg first announced it would look at the possibility of ending the joint district in June 2023. James City County preemptively killedc the joint operating agreement, though tones have softened significantly since then and the two localities have been talking to one another, officials have said.
The two localities have run the shared school district together since 1955.
A report released earlier this summer from the county saida separation would take at least four years.
The city says the studies it had done while exploring the break-away revealed problems with the way the joint district operates. It wants to address those issues in a new contract.
“A modernized, joint operating contract should allow for the City to address these issues while also allowing both localities to maintain the benefits of a joint school division,” the city wrote in its statement.
In May, Williamsburg’s City Council pushed the district to close the performance gap between students from the city and county.
A feasibility study study of the split laid bare the divide: Williamsburg students are less likely to graduate than their county counterparts and lag behind in every testing category, often by double-digits percentages.
