Teachers and community leaders urge Roanoke council to restore rainy‑day funds to schools
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Summary
Public commenters at the Feb. 17 Roanoke council meeting called for a resolution to an impasse over school funding after speakers said roughly $20.5 million was removed from the schools’ rainy day fund; teachers warned cuts to testing, transportation and extracurriculars will disproportionately affect economically disadvantaged students.
Several public speakers at Roanoke City Council’s Feb. 17 meeting urged the council to resolve an ongoing funding impasse with Roanoke City Public Schools and to address what they described as the removal of rainy‑day funds from the school division.
Anita James Price, representing the Harrison Museum of African American Culture and a former council member and longtime Roanoke educator, asked city leaders and the school system to restore collaborative relations and prioritize students. Price said she understands both sides of the dispute and urged a return to productive negotiations.
Reiner Nash, a teacher at James Madison since 2018, told council he was “dissatisfied with the proposed budget,” said the district is facing a roughly $16 million deficit and asserted the city is proposing a 6% decrease in revenue to schools. Nash described instructional cuts — including the removal of NWEA MAP testing — as damaging to efforts to address literacy, and said 44% of his 93 students are not reading on grade level.
John Turnbull, a seventh‑grade math teacher and wrestling coach at James Madison, said the city had taken $20.5 million from the schools’ rainy‑day fund and warned that program reductions would affect transportation and extracurricular participation. He said 61.7% of Roanoke City students are classified as economically disadvantaged and 41.9% of students at James Madison are, and he described the activity bus program (22 of 39 wrestlers relied on it this year) as one of the services at risk.
Council provided the standard public‑comment referral: all matters raised by speakers will be referred to the city manager for response, recommendation or report as appropriate. No formal action or vote on school funding occurred during the Feb. 17 meeting; councilmembers and staff acknowledged receipt of the concerns and said staff would follow up as appropriate.
Quotes from speakers are drawn from the Feb. 17 public‑comment period. The specific amounts and characterizations of the rainy‑day transfer and of proposed percentage changes to school revenue were asserted by public commenters during the meeting and were not adjudicated or contradicted during the session.