Thanks for reading Fluco Blog. I’m Perrie Johnson, Fork Union’s representative to the Fluvanna County School Board. My goal with Fluco Blog is to let people know what’s going on at School Board meetings beyond the reports available online. Be forewarned, when it comes to discussion, most of the comments I remember turn out to be mine! Here’s the latest…
The Board met on Aug. 30th to talk about money left over from last year’s budget. There’s always some money left, but this year it was more than usual (essentially $1.2 million). You can check out the reasons why in the Aug. 30 packet online, but I’m just going to jump into other discussion.
The Board of Supervisors decides if we get to keep any left over money. So our first discussion was how much to ask for. Mr. Winkler was clear that all staff feedback he received was to ask for the entire $1.2 million. The consensus of the School Board was to ask for half, in recognition of both the educational needs of our students and the financial demands on our citizens.
Next we talked about what we would like to do if we get half the money. About $165,000 would go toward bills incurred in 2017 but paid in 2018. The superintendent also suggested funding cars and trucks, buses, technology, and radio repeaters. He presented a synopsis of recent staff compensation increases, averaging 2% in 2016 and 1.5% last year (I just found out the 1.1% I previously reported was for instructional salaries only, not all across the board). Mr. Winkler referred to questions from the BOS about the $400 staff bonus last year. I suggested putting that $400 in perspective by comparing it to the July 3rd holiday we recently voted in for 12 mo. employees. Several of our administrators make $400 per day, so the bonus could be compared to one day’s work for some employees.
Regarding buses, it’s the superintendent’s goal to reach a 15 year replacement cycle. Some of our working buses are much older. I suggested we may need fewer buses if we change our current practice of separating students by school into three sometimes overlapping bus runs. Looking at the total transportation budget category on a per student basis, in 2013 (when diesel was about $4 per gallon) our cost per pupil was $639. Last year (with diesel only $2.50 per gallon) our costs per pupil were $826, an increase of almost $200 per student. I readily acknowledge that this expense may be worth the investment, or maybe we can get very similar results with only two route repetitions, rather than three. I asked that we consult our bus drivers about this issue before we ask our BOS for bus carryover funds.
I also suggested we use the funds to continue to address disparities between teachers’ salary scales A and B. I provided handouts referencing comments from the state School Efficiency Review (“One of the main components of employee morale and job satisfaction relies on a division having a compensation and pay plan that assures employees they are being treated equally in pay”) along with a comparison of Scale A next to Scale B. The steps on Scale B are always less than Scale A, for the same job at the same level of education and experience, and on seven of the steps the difference is over $5000/year.
When the rubber hit the road, we negotiated a consensus requesting the $165,000 to cover previous bills, $50,000 more for trucks/cars, $300,000 for new buses, $50,000 for 6 chromebook carts, and $75,000 to make adjustments to scale B. Fingers crossed.
One of my final comments was in anticipation of future discussion about the 2019 budget. I’m very hopeful that the process will begin with input from our staff about what we’re currently funding that we can live without, in order to re-prioritize some resources toward changing goals. That’s a lot of words, I know, but I’ll walk around the barn a few times to be as respectful as I possibly can.
Wait, wait. Don’t go. I also had my meeting with administration about student scores on Career and Technical Education (CTE) tests. Here’s my takeaway. Every student must pass a course in personal finance to graduate. It’s reported as a CTE class and obviously, has high pass rates. Likewise, every student must pass at least one CTE credential (test) to graduate. Most satisfy this requirement by passing a broad measure of workplace readiness skills. When it comes to the more specific credentials (tests) I associate with vocational training like carpentry, culinary arts, engineering, cosmetology, nursing, agriculture… often (not always) only a few students take classes long enough (past the beginning levels) to sit for the credentials test and then those few have varying degrees of success at passing the test. You can see those specifics in the July 26, 2017 school board packet.
Just a few more observations on CTE… when we last had auto mechanics, only 1-2 students took most of the credentialing tests each year. When we last offered an EMT course, 6 took the test and all failed, though firefighting was much more successful (5 took the test and almost all passed). Our last pharmacy tech, one took the test and failed. HVAC, one took the test, but passed.
There’s another school board meeting this Wednesday. I’ll get back to work!
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This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. The views expressed in this blog are purely my own and do not represent the Fluvanna County School Board, the school superintendent, or anyone else. Comments added by others are not necessarily my opinions and I am not responsible for their content.
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