Mills re-elected chairman of School Board
A bit more state aid in preliminary budget projections — albeit with caveats
The Rappahannock County School Board on Tuesday night held its first meeting of 2020 and re-elected Wesley Mills of the Jackson district as its chairman and Larry Grove of Stonewall-Hawthorne as vice-chairman.
A technology consultant with a background in software systems engineering and program management, Mills also holds a Master’s degree in Pastoral Ministry and leads the Gathering Christian Church in Amissville.
Among other volunteer activities, Grove has held leadership positions within the Sperryville Fire Department, Rescue Squad and Lions Club. He spent much of his professional career in public school education, including as a principal. The Washington Post recognized him as a Distinguished Leader in Education.
Board members Rachel Bynum and Pud Maeyer, meanwhile, were elected as representative and alternate respectively for the Headwaters Foundation.
Also during the meeting, the board approved Superintendent Dr. Shannon Grimsley’s recommendation to appoint
Jennifer Wissinger as Rappahannock County Elementary School Assistant Principal, effective Jan. 27.
An experienced educator and reading specialist, Wissinger has nearly two decades of teaching experience ranging from first through fifth grade. Most recently she has served as the reading interventionist specialist for Culpeper County Public Schools at Emerald Hill Elementary School, where she was instrumental in developing the school improvement plan with the administrative team. She also served as a reading specialist in Fairfax County and a school improvement plan chair.
“Jennifer’s instructional leadership and vast teaching experience was exactly what the RCES team was looking for in an ideal candidate, especially her data-driven approach to improving reading instruction,” said Grimsley. “Her experience as an interventionist and reading specialist, will serve the students, families, and staff well.”
Wissinger lives in Amissville with her husband and two sons, who attend Rappahannock County Public
Schools.
Finally, approved Tuesday night to represent the student body as liaison to the school board was RCHS junior Nova Correro.
Meanwhile, Grimsley presented board members with preliminary FY21 budget projections, based on the governor’s
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proposed budget.
Bottom line: RCPS will receive $56,348 more in state revenue than last year, albeit with caveats.
“Most of this is because of the reinstatement of the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) funding for Rapp,” the superintendent said. “While we are thrilled for this reinstatement of VPI funding, the governor's budget after filtering through the LCI formula for Rapp falls far short of covering the costs of meeting all the mandates and the needs of our students.”
LCI refers to the crucial Local Composite Index that determines a school division’s ability to pay education costs fundamental to the commonwealth’s Standards of Quality (SOQ). The LCI is calculated using three indicators of a locality’s ability-to-pay: true value of real property (weighted 50 percent); adjusted gross income (40 percent); and taxable retail sales (10 percent).
Each locality’s index, Grimsley recalled, is adjusted to maintain an overall statewide local share of 45 percent and an overall state share of 55 percent.
Projected 2020-2021 receipts that she broke down on Tuesday night shows “basic aid” under SOQ programs decreasing by $89,599 compared the current fiscal year, spelling an overall loss of $78,965 (when weighing projected receipts of other Standards of Quality programs).
Under state lottery funded programs, at the same time, there is a projected increase of $115,498 for RCPS — from $307,110 this current fiscal year to $422,608.
Federal funds make up their own portion of the school budget, figures that won’t be determined until late spring. Last year, RCPS received $612,596 in federal dollars.
Other variables that will affect budget planning as the current year progresses are health insurance (details not known until March), fall student enrollment, and what eventually comes out of the general assembly finance committees (House and Senate), which just went into session. (➜ See related story on page 18)
Grimsley told the board that teacher/staff raises will be among her budget priorities for FY21. Virginia’s lowest paid teachers are in small and rural divisions that historically struggle with recruitment and retention, Rappahannock among them.
The superintendent announced that there will be a preliminary school budget strategy session with county Administrator Garrey Curry and select members of the Board of Supervisors and the School Board to examine the myriad “challenges on the horizon.”
This first-of-its-kind meeting, which Mills foresees as a “roundtable discussion,” will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 28, from 5-7 p.m. at the School Board Office on Schoolhouse Road. The public is invited to attend and observe the meeting.