Update: Late Monday, the Orange County School Board meeting and budget public hearing were postponed to March 17 at 7 p.m.
Orange County Public Schools require several new positions to meet the needs of students, especially those with special needs and non-native English speakers.
Late last month, OCPS Superintendent Dr. Daniel Hornick presented a proposed budget that “takes care of the educators who take care of [the] students.”
The budget includes several new positions as priorities. These include a first grade teacher and reading specialist at Locust Grove Primary School, with a shared counselor between the primary and Locust Grove Elementary School, as well as a special education teacher and two special education instructional assistants at the latter. A new special education teacher and two special education instructional assistants are also included for Unionville Elementary School with new English Language Learner (ELL) teachers at Prospect Heights and Locust Grove middle schools and Orange County High School. The high school is also in need of a video/media broadcasting teacher and a criminal justice teacher to grow the career and technical education offerings in those areas and a reading specialist. A school psychologist is needed division-wide which would eliminate costs associated with contracting those services.
Hornick said the school division is over the Standards of Quality ratios for the primary and elementary school shared counselor while the special education teachers and instructional assistants are needed for standalone programs. As for ELL, he said the division continues to need assistance in that area and will be behind the metric to meet guidelines for staffing that program.
“Anytime you use a mathematical equation, it doesn’t cut where you need services,” Hornick said. “While we need one more [ELL teacher] to meet the math equation, if you just put one teacher at the high school, that doesn’t help us where we have high-need areas, particularly in the middle schools.”
To increase safety, Hornick’s budget includes school security officers, which unlike School Resource Officers are non-armed personnel not through the local sheriff’s office, at both middle schools and the high school. He said the middle school positions will be contingent upon receiving grant funding.
The budget also includes stipends at both middle schools for volleyball and boys and girls soccer coaches.
“It’s past time that we offer volleyball and soccer at the middle school level,” Hornick said.
Four bus drivers and a bus monitor are also needed. Hornick said three of the drivers are needed to keep up with ever-expanding special education needs, while the fourth is due to growth occurring at the eastern end of the county.
Hornick would also like to absorb the cost of any health insurance increase for employees (estimated at 15%), as well as any dental insurance increase (estimated at 5%). The actual increases will be known later this month after a meeting with the county’s insurance broker.
The biggest “port of call” Hornick said, is increasing salaries. The budget includes an enhancement to the teacher pay scale, totaling $3.7 million, plus adjustments to the pay scales for instructional assistants ($560,000), custodian and head custodians ($165,000) and secretaries along with moving registrars to 12-month contracts ($235,000). A 3% raise is included for all other full-time employees ($540,000).
“This is the money right here,” Hornick said. “This is big in terms of impact. [There are] about 405 teachers and we can’t be so far off at the top of the scale and have it be inexpensive to correct it.
“Other counties will be giving raises as well,” he added. “We get farther and farther away from the median [pay] the further we get up the scale. This is when people start making decisions. If I’m in year 27 or 28, the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) is tied to the highest three years of compensation, it may make sense to go to Fauquier if I can make more. If we can close the gap, we keep more people here and they can live and work in the community.”
He said the division also still has a number of employee groups who start below $15 per hour.
“High school students can work at Walmart returning carts for more than $15 per hour,” Hornick said.
Some other items marked for increased funding in the budget include athletic stipends; costs associated with the student academy program at the University of Mary Washington; professional development; hearing officer support; additional occupational and physical therapy funding; keeping on the renewal cycle for student Chromebooks and teacher laptops; speech pathologist services and custodial supplies.
The budget is factored using 4,814.95 students and based on the calculation tools, as of last week, would be balanced using approximately $41.8 million in state funding, a $971,000 increase; $3.1 million in federal funding, an increase of $147,000; $274,000 in other funds, a decrease of $133,000; and $1.3 million in lease proceeds, an increase of $317,000. The budget requests approximately $30.8 million in local funding, an increase of $6.8 million.
“This is a snapshot in time of where we stand currently with projected revenues,” Hornick said.
School board member Jack Rickett, who represents District 3, acknowledged that $6.8 million in new county funding is a big ask, but said there has been a systemic problem for quite a while.
“This gap in pay, we need to tackle it and become serious about it,” he said. “We’re training everyone else’s teachers. They aren’t leaving because they don’t like Orange County.”
Sandy Harrington, who represents District 5, agreed. She said trying to tackle the salary issue through step increases by percentage and dollar amount is a fair and necessary way to do it.
“The impact is being able to recruit and retain great instructors,” she said.
The Orange County School Board will host a public hearing on Hornick’s proposed budget Monday, March 10 at 7 p.m. at the Taylor Education Administration Complex, 200 Dailey Drive, Orange.
