February 13, 2020
Today the Coalition of Small and Rural School Divisions held
a press conference to highlight the needs of the small divisions in Virginia.
As I have been telling our members, small and rural school divisions aren’t
limited to the far Southwest. In fact, 76 of the 132 school divisions in
Virginia belong to the coalition. We have small and rural school divisions up and
down the Shenandoah Valley, in Southside VA, in Tidewater, and on the Northern
Neck. Virginia must look at funding methodologies that support the unique needs
of these divisions and address the issues these divisions face (as they have
declining student population) while still working to offer a system of high-quality
public education.
We all know that state funding for our public schools still lags
the 2008 levels when adjusted for inflation. Local governments have picked up
more and more of the costs to run our schools. Divisions that can do more, do
just that. The small and rural divisions are far less able to fill these
funding gaps, and their students pay the price. Every single local government
in the Commonwealth is funding above what is required. They are doing more than
their fair share, but the state continues to fund less, on a per-pupil basis,
in our high-poverty districts. Today coalition representatives were here to
highlight some very specific funding they would like to see the General
Assembly include in the budget. Along with fully funding the Board of
Education’s Equity Fund, as issued in their revised Standards of Quality, they
would like to see two finding streams restored.
Since the great recession, both the enrollment loss funding
and the school construction funding through the Literary Fund have been cut.
Both funding streams are vital to our small and rural school divisions. We must
work harder to restore this funding. The enrollment loss funding, which had provided
$10 million a year prior to the recession, is vital to these small divisions as
they work to maintain programs for their students. When state funding is
allocated on a per-pupil basis, a loss of 50-60 students can have a significant
impact on divisions. Today, the superintendent of Cumberland County Public
Schools talked about her struggle to cut her budget after 40 students left the
division. She had to look at cutting positions and increasing class sizes. If
she did that, she would lose her K-3 class size reduction money the state
provides, to she is in a lose-lose position. The General Assembly must include
enrollment loss funding in the biennial budget.
Our small and rural school divisions also struggle to
modernize and update their infrastructure and buildings. Just as with the
enrollment loss funding, the General Assembly backed off supporting school
construction costs during the recession. Virginia has a mechanism for
supporting school construction, but the General Assembly has hijacked those
dollars for other items. The Literary Fund was established in the VA
Constitution to leverage very low-cost bonds for new schools across the
Commonwealth. However, instead of building schools, the money is used to pay
for school equipment and for deposit into the Virginia Retirement System for
teacher retirement. School divisions no longer view the Literary Fund as a
construction funding source. We need to restore the Literary Fund to its
original purpose--to provide low-cost loans to school divisions to repair,
modernize, and build new schools. Today the superintendent of Bristol City Public
Schools talked about his schools not being accessible for students with
physical disabilities. When students in Bristol break a leg, the school
division must sometimes transfer the student to a different school so that they
can actually go to school. It is 2020. We can do better.
This Sunday, the House and Senate money committees will
announce their budgets for the 2020-2022 biennial. We must see significant
funding for our most in-need divisions and students, no matter where they live.
Our kids are counting on them.
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