State Legislators Talk Budget With WJCC School Board

By Amber Lester Kennedy Wednesday, November 10, 2010

 

Stretching across one side of a classroom in D.J. Montague Elementary School is a display of colored cards. The cards, color-coded for grade, fall under the labels “well below,” “below,” “at grade level,” “above” and “well above.” Each card bears the name of a student in the school.

The wall attracted the attention of state Sen. Tommy Norment, (R-3rd), during a visit of state legislators to the school on Tuesday morning. Norment was joined by state Del. Brenda Pogge, (R-96th) and Del. Bill Barlow, (D-64) as part of “Take Your Legislators To School” month.

The Williamsburg-James City County School Board chose to host the legislators at D.J. Montague to show the progress being made at the school, which is in its third year of “school improvement” status.

After Norment inquired about the wall of cards, Principal Lynn Turner explained it was a technique she used in her tenure as principal at James River Elementary. Reading Recovery specialists gave students reading diagnostic tests at the beginning of the year, and have been tracking their progress ever since.

In the 2009-2010 school year, D.J. Montague failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress benchmarks for a fourth time in seven years. For the school to move out of “school improvement” status, the school must meet goals for two consecutive years in reading. The school was also required to make changes, and has new leaders in Turner and Assistant Principal Kim Pickles. In addition, the school offers reading recovery services, after-school tutoring and advice for parents.

But legislators weren’t just there to talk about D.J. Montague. Tuesday’s breakfast discussion focused on the upcoming budget season. Early in the conversation, Acting Superintendent Scott Burckbuchler asked Norment, who sits on the state senate’s finance committee, if there was any truth to rumors that the General Assembly would give divisions less funding because they would be receiving money from the Education Jobs Fund. The Education Jobs Fund is a new federal program geared toward saving or creating education jobs this school year; many school divisions, including York County, plan to use the funds to give employees bonuses.

Norment didn’t confirm or deny the rumors, but did say Gov. Bob McDonnell has asked all agencies to give projections reflecting 2 percent, 3 percent and 4 percent cuts. He said McDonnell’s administration believes opportunities exist for efficiencies whether the economy improves incrementally or not, and said any gains the state has seen have been “incredibly modest.”

“It’s like a water balloon,” he said of the state budget. “If you squeeze it over here to do Medicaid funding, it bulges somewhere else.” He said the state senate is pretty firm in its conviction not to cut public education any further.

School Board member Denise Koch asked the legislators what decision the General Assembly will make about the Virginia Retirement System rates. Last year, the state government borrowed from the VRS fund by effectively taking a payment holiday, and creating a separate retirement system for new employees that required them to pay into their own retirement funds. The measure was meant to be a one-time-only solution, and the General Assembly promised to pay back the funds over 10 years with interest, starting in 2013. Now, legislators will have to set the rate at which state agencies pay into the VRS fund.

Barlow said the Assembly’s intentions were good, and “we want to be sure we do what we said we would do.” Norment said the danger in the action was that “once you make a policy decision, it makes it easier to make it a second time,” adding that the VRS decision was a gimmick to meet a constitutional amendment requiring the state to balance the budget. Pogge said the GA has to understand it cannot continue to borrow from the retirement system.

 

As it stands right now, the state is facing an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million shortfall in the budget, Pogge said. She said the GA wants localities to find those savings. Norment shared that he faced a change when he moved from Northampton County on the Eastern Shore, which has “no tax base,” to James City County, which was comparably affluent.

“My friends on the Board of Supervisors won’t like to hear me say this, but this area has the capacity to fund [education], it just takes the willpower,” he said. “We have to encourage local government to understand things are changing.”

Burckbuchler, who served as Assistant Superintendent of Finance during last year’s budget development, said the division has struggled with making necessary structural changes because more funding keeps coming through at the last minute. “We would rather have a stable VRS rate,” he said. “It’s this motion that really impacts us.”

After the discussion, the board and Pogge took a tour of the school, hosted by its new Student Council Association President Madison Meredith. Meredith, a fifth-grader, shared her own remarks with the leaders, saying one of her goals was to take the topic of bullying “out of the guidance office” and possibly produce a play about a bullying conflict that gets solved. During the tour, the board members and Pogge saw a performance from the fifth grade, watched teachers use the sound amplification systems implemented this year and met with the reading specialists charged with helping the school improve.

“I’m impressed that they’re identifying and being able to monitor the troubled students,” Pogge said at the end of her visit.