School Board Meeting 11/23/2021
On Tuesday, the school board discussed legislative priorities, next year’s school calendar, enrollment projections, budget priorities, and the monthly budget monitoring report. Highlights include the board signaling support for the continued inclusion of the additional religious holidays that are part of this year’s calendar and a discussion of how to prioritize a projected increase of $2 million in outlays from the city for next year. Timestamps are at the end.
The legislative priorities being put forward focus mostly on funding issues, particularly emphasizing support for using part of the state budget surplus to fund the Virginia Retirement System Trust Fund, which would lead to a long term reduction in what school districts would have to contribute in the future. Other items emphasized restoring state funding for support staff (see here for a more detailed discussion from last month) and reducing the burden of the local composited index (which affects the amount of money districts get from the state).
The board also discussed options for the school calendar for next year. You can view the presentation and discussion from November 9 to get a sense of how the 3 options put forward were developed (additionally, you can see what issues were discussed in the September 28 meeting here). The first two options put forward by the calendar committee did not meet the guidance from the board on starting no more than 1 week prior to labor, so the schools included the third option for the board to consider. The board seems to support continuing to include the additional religious holidays that were added in this year. Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Veterans’ Day are not included as holidays in the favored calendar nor were there any non-synchronous lessons planned for any of the days out of school. The end date of the option that seems most favored is June 16.
My thoughts: I would personally rather see a calendar that has as few days in June as possible, as those days do seem to be of low marginal value, especially at the high school level. Regarding the additional religious holidays: including these is consistent with the priority of valuing diversity, and they are certainly meaningful to the families and students who observe those holidays (this is something I heard several times during the school board campaign). I do wish there had been more discussion of the economic burden on families that days off of school entail (which applies to any day off such as the 2 teacher workdays around election day and the length of winter break). Even for those who are not considered “economically disadvantaged” (FCCPS has 195 students (~8% of students) in this category), paying for and working around extra childcare can be a burden. Participation in additional childcare programs can also be difficult for families and students whose first language is not English and for students with special needs. I think having Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Veterans’ Day as instruction days does alleviate some of the difficulty that families had with this year’s calendar in particular. Due to my own particular quirks and curiosity, I’d also be interested in seeing a presentation of the attendance data from which the days off were chosen (preferably presented as a line graph with percent of students and teachers in attendance for each day of the school year, with different lines for, say, 4 years of data).
You can watch the enrollment projections presentation (timestamped below) and read the presentation here. The presentation included historical enrollment by grade, historical projections and their accuracy, number of students receiving and exiting ESOL services, and number of students in the economically disadvantaged, ESOL, students with disabilities, and homeschooled categories. Over the next 15 years, enrollment is projected to decrease to ~2340 in 2029 and then rise to ~2440 by 2036.
My thoughts: K-12 enrollment for fiscal years 2017-2020 (which was relatively stable) averaged around 2600 students. The enrollment in FY 2021 was 2462, and for FY 2022 (the current year), it is 2447. That enrollment decrease from the average is about the size of this year’s kindergarten class. Overall the projections show stable enrollment over the next 15 years (though demographic trend projections (as can be seen in the slide deck) can be relatively inaccurate as the timespan of the projection increases), but in terms of planning, I would want to know where the missing students went. Some of that comes from a decrease in the ESOL population (which might be more permanent moves), but some most likely comes from people choosing to enroll their children in private schools. This latter category might represent a more temporary unenrollment, and depending on the ages of the students, we might see them re-enroll.
Dr. Noonan announced a potential increase in funding for next year of ~$2 million. There was a general discussion of whether those funds should be used for growing our education program (i.e. adding positions, buying materials, etc.) or to provide increases in compensation for current employees. Dr. Noonan proposed (based on reported feedback from staff) to give everyone a step increase (~$1 million), provide an extra-step increase for those who did not receive one in 2020 due to the pandemic (~$600,000), and a 1% cost of living adjustment (~$400,000). The board members who commented on the proposal seemed supportive.
My thoughts: School staff have certainly had a tough go of it over the past couple of years, and we need to competitively compensate our staff. We also should not forget that students have also had a tough time over the past couple of years. Finding the right balance of increasing staff and increasing compensation is hard. Adding positions strategically could take pressure off of those staff who are feeling it the most.
Timestamps:
Legislative priorities presentation and discussion
Discussion on the potential impact of the governor-elect’s proposal to repeal the grocery tax (which would affect the amount of sales tax funding flowing to schools)
