School Board Newsletter, March 22, 1998

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Subj: School Board Newsletter
Date: 98-03-22 15:08:51 EST
From: James.C.Klagge@bev.net (James C. Klagge)
To: "School Issues List"@vt.edu

Dear Friends,

A gentle reminder to come to the Board of Supervisors hearing Tuesday at 7pm at BMS on the county budget and the tax rate. I know some people feel it is hopeless, but it remains the only way we have to influence financial decisions in the county. Though Perkins and Biggs seem favorable to a tax increase of several cents (it can't be more than 8), and Stewart, Long and Rush seem quite opposed to more than a couple of cents, it remains quite unclear to me how Gorman and Politis will vote.

Much is at stake for the school budget. Despite assurances that tax relief at the state level would not impact local services, this simply is not true. The amount of additional money we anticipate getting for schools from the state, while still somewhat up in the air--especially concerning building money, is clearly much less than we have gotten in previous years--especially in the first year of the biennium. Things have been gutted to clear the way for tax relief. E.g., there has been a Technology Initiative at the state level for the last two years that was supposedly on-going. Each of the last 2 years we have received nearly half a million dollars for that from the state. This year there will be no money for that! The SoL's that are to increase what students learn in each grade were originally supported in Allen's budget with some $300,000 for additional teachers training. This has been cut by about 2/3's, yet the standards that money was to help meet remain in place. Items like these either must be funded by local money, or else they drop out. In addition to all these direct actions from the state, our local index indicating how much of education expenses the state expects our locality to shoulder was adjusted this year--so we will now be getting some $400,000 less in new state money than if it hadn't been adjusted. So you can see that a lot now depends on what the local government can provide.

Many thought the county administrator, Jeff Johnson, was going out on a limb by proposing an 8 cent tax increase (per $100 assessed value)--but even that amount will leave the schools in difficult straits. IF it is adopted, it would allow us to give employees a 3% raise--AND THAT'S ABOUT IT!! If the 8 cents is cut significantly, which is quite likely, we wouldn't even be able to do that. But there are many other things that need doing as well:

Class Size: This is the part of the budget that is most visible to parents and children. We always hear from parents whose kids are in classes near or over 25. Our original budget called for 18 new teachers to keep on the track of reducing all class sizes to 20. A small tax increase will likely lead us to lose ground on this front.

Field Trip Miles: 2 years ago we cut money for field trips by 40% to hire some new teachers, feeling that that was more important and educationally beneficial. I think we are now learning that we cut that too close to the bone. Sports teams are now having to leave some members behind, and sit 3 to a seat, to avoid taking extra buses. Schools in the poorer areas of the county simply do not take the kind of field trips schools in the more affluent areas take, because parents can't cover the costs there. I had us include in our budget a restoration of this money.

Supplies for art, music, vocational, science, and math: You can only go for so long shorting these categories. We have gone too long. E.g., our music program does not have CD players, we cannot do all the experiements in science that we need to be doing to keep up. These are things that slip bit by bit each year--but after several years they become shameful. Our original budget request asked for $110,000 in these areas. Even that would only be a first step.

At-Risk students: The State will soon be requiring each school to maintain a 70% pass rate on the new SoL tests. No waivers will be granted for schools with high percentages of at-risk populations. Some 70% of students at Elliston-Lafayette Elementary are classified as at-risk. Some 50% at Shawsville Elementary. We need to be making serious plans NOW for how to be sure that students in all of our schools can do well--and that means we need to be actively planning new approaches for these schools. Last year we added $40,000 specifically for new programs aimed at at-risk students at the elementary level. This year we propose to add $60,000 more for programs aimed at at-risk students at all grade levels. We cannot continue to treat all schools around the county equally and risk have some of them lose accreditation. We either redistribute resources AWAY FROM schools in the county that do not have such pressing concerns, or we find new resources to reinforce the resources already going to high at-risk schools. The latter is obviously vastly preferable.

New HS in Elliston/Shawsville: The supervisors can't approve new schools and then act surprised when those schools cost money. We are not willing to take money away from on-going education to pay for new facilities--yet that is what is forced on us if debt service increases while budget increases do not keep pace.

I hope this gives you a sense of what kinds of things we deal with. In my view, tax relief at the state level has to be made up for at the local level. But it remains to be seen whether the supervisors can be convinced of that as well.

(You may remember that in past years I have taken out ads in the "Current" explaining the school budget and encouraging citizens to contact their supervisors with their opinions. I have not taken that "public" approach this year--my role as board chair has led me to reconceive my position in certain ways. I think it may be best for the chair not to appear publicly combative. Perhaps I will go back to that next year if I am no longer chair.)

Thanks for your interest,

Jim Klagge,
School Board Chair.

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