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Kent County board frames FY27 budget around restoring instructional staff, special-education and multilingual supports
Summary
At a budget work session the Kent County Board of Education reviewed priorities for FY27 that would restore previously cut positions, expand special-education and multilingual supports, and fund curriculum updates and building maintenance; the superintendent said staffing choices will be phased against limited dollars.
Dr. McComas told the Board of Education that the meeting's purpose was to give members a chance to review school and department staffing requests as he builds the FY27 operating budget.
"Tonight is our annual board of education budget work session," Dr. McComas said, framing the presentation around staff (ongoing) versus one-time purchases. He said the district aims to use tax dollars "wisely to advance achievement," and that staffing is the primary ongoing cost.
The superintendent highlighted several recurring themes in school requests: preserving instructional assistants and custodial positions that had been on the reduction list last year; restoring grant-funded lead teachers; and investing in instructional coaching and teacher-specialist roles meant to build a pipeline to school administration.
At the elementary level, Galena requested the district preserve an instructional assistant and add a "teacher specialist" ' a certified teacher paid on the teacher salary schedule who supports a principal and instruction. Dr. McComas described the teacher-specialist role as "a principal's right hand" for running the building and supporting instruction.
At Garnett and other schools the board heard requests to preserve two instructional assistants and add general-education teachers to respond to rising kindergarten and first-grade enrollment. Rock Hall requested an additional special-education teacher and a general-education teacher tied to enrollment growth.
Special education staff told the board the district has seen a notable increase in students receiving services this year. "We had an increase in students who moved to Kent County after a lot of talk with community agencies," a district special-education official said, attributing some of the growth to families who used recently opened Section 8 housing vouchers. The district is seeking two additional special-education teachers at the high school and additional in-house psychologists and speech-language pathologists to replace contracted services where possible.
District staff said contracting has been a stopgap because of hiring challenges: some speech-language roles are part time and virtual, and the district currently serves roughly 102 students receiving speech-language services. The staff said interviews are underway for candidates they hope to convert to in-house hires if budgeted positions are approved.
The board also reviewed district-level requests: a central coordinator for multilingual learners to manage reporting and professional development (SIOP/sheltered instruction), additional instructional-coaching capacity, and one-time curriculum updates for biology and chemistry materials that officials said are roughly 15 years old.
Facilities and transportation requests included restoring custodial/maintenance positions, adding a driver trainer to help retain bus drivers, and replacing two aging temperature-control systems. Staff estimated the two control-system replacements at approximately $250,000 total and explained the district's building-control computers are aging and sometimes require manual resets after power outages.
Board members pressed for cost detail and for prioritization options the superintendent could take back to staff. Several members urged that the board focus on middle-school supports and instructional coaching as top priorities; others emphasized that therapeutic supports (school social workers, psychologists) are equally essential because they address barriers to learning.
Dr. McComas said the district will bring a dollarized proposed budget to the board in April, including recommended priorities and trade-offs for FY27, and then hold the required public hearing before seeking board approval in May and transmitting the budget to the county commissioners.
The board approved several procedural votes during the meeting; no binding budget decisions were adopted at this work session.
Looking ahead, Dr. McComas said he will provide detailed slides at the April meeting breaking down middle-school funding scenarios and the state cost-share calculations that board members asked to see.
