Virginia Lawyers Weekly

In light of the dismal economic forecast, the Virginia Board of Education has decided against asking for more funding for the Standards of Quality, state-mandated minimum goals for public schools.

In its recommendations to the governor and legislature, the board is stressing that public education is the top priority of the state’s budget, but its members acknowledge the current economic challenges and the funding constraints.

“I think this is the best we can do in the situation we’re involved in,” board President Mark E. Emblidge said at the board’s business meeting last month.

Earlier in the fall, the board wanted to press the General Assembly to fully fund the Standards of Quality. But it voted instead to ask the General Assembly to give local school divisions the explicit ability to use other existing sources of state money – including programs specifically paid for by the state Lottery Fund – to pay for new reading and math specialists, data coordinators, and teachers to help the growing population of English-language learners.

The board wants the General Assembly to “give each school division the flexibility to respond to their special needs,” Department of Education spokesman Charles Pyle said. For example, if approved, school divisions that have a high number of English learners would be able to shift funds from the state Prevention, Intervention and Remediation program, which has an estimated $69.5 million for the 2010 fiscal year, to help those students.

The board has long recommended several other measures that remain unfunded, including staffing requirements that call for one full-time principal in every elementary school, middle school and high school; one assistant principal for every 400 students in elementary school, middle school and high school; and certain staff-to-student ratios to help children who are blind or vision-impaired. The estimated state cost of those proposed measures is $185.2 million for the 2009-10 fiscal year, plus $148.5 million in local costs.

The Standards of Quality drive nearly 90 percent of state funding for public K-12 education and are up for revision every two years. They set minimum objectives mandated by the state constitution and include school staffing, teacher salaries, accreditation and testing requirements.

The panel said it intends to seek approval and full funding of the standards starting in the two-year budget cycle that starts in 2010.

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