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School board workshop focuses on learning loss, discipline, substitute costs and classroom resources
Summary
Members and staff used the budget workshop to stress spending priorities: address learning loss, increase behavioral supports, evaluate substitute contracts, and ensure teacher planning-time compensation. Board members also discussed device use and classroom materials.
Powhatan County School Board members and staff spent a large portion of the workshop outlining budget priorities that the division will emphasize as it prepares a budget request. Board members said the top priorities are addressing student learning loss, strengthening behavioral supports in schools, reassessing substitute staffing costs and contracts, and ensuring compensation for teachers who cover planning periods.
Board member Michelle Ward opened the discussion stressing “stay focused on our learning loss” and asked that a “majority of our funds” be projected to support student education and recovery efforts. Several members, including Missus Hart, said behavioral specialists and alternative/behavioral classrooms are priorities; Hart said she had received constituent calls about problems in high school bathrooms and recommended resources — monitors or other targeted interventions — be considered and reflected in the budget.
Board members also questioned the role and cost of the substitute contract. One board member asked for more data on whether the current subcontracting arrangement with the vendor ESS is the most effective use of roughly "three quarters of a million dollars" referenced in discussion. Members suggested exploring alternative options and asked staff to provide comparative data. The board discussed device use, noting many students take laptops home and that the division is buying instructional resources such as math textbooks. Members urged careful review of where technology purchases were needed versus alternatives like print materials.
Superintendent and staff reiterated the division’s intent to align budget requests to the strategic plan categories — academic excellence, talent, family and community engagement, and student safety — and to present departmental requests that match instructional priorities.
