Legislative Priorities List Presented to School Board

Keith Imon, Associate Superintendent for Communications and Technology Services in Prince William County Schools, presented to the Prince William County School Board, the initial list of legislative priorities for 2014 at the Sept. 4 School Board meeting.

Legislative priorities include a list of timely education policy issues that the Prince William County School Board either supports or opposes. It is intended to offer guidance to legislative officials in both the General Assembly and the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.

In its current form, the list is unofficial, has been presented to the board for the purpose of reviewing and will not be adopted until the Oct. 2 meeting. In the meantime, Chairman at-Large  Milt Johns asked board members to review the document and send all questions to Imon and/or Superintendent Steven Walts.

According to the draft form of the priorities list, the Prince William County School Board is asking the state to provide additional funding to the school divisions, especially to fund those programs required by the state. The board would like to use state funding to provide educators with their step salary increases as the Commonwealth used to provide extra funds to Northern Virginia school districts to account for the higher cost of living in the area.

However, while Prince William County Schools is asking the Commonwealth for additional funding, it also requests the majority of decision-making power remains with the local school divisions, rather than the state government. This includes decisions over issues such as the length of the school day, the addition of classes and the starting date for the school year.

Lastly, they would like school funds to remain within the district rather than following the student to other districts or educational institutions outside of the district. Should charter schools come into the district, the school board would like some oversight of them. Perhaps, most controversially, they are considering the exclusion of Prince William County students not enrolled within the public schools from participating in school division extra-curricular activities.

Residents of Prince William County can take this opportunity to familiarize themselves with the proposed legislative priorities list in order to provide their elected school board members with their insight before the document is officially approved.

Here are the legislative priorities the Prince William School Board is currently taking into consideration for including as part of their official “2014 Legislative Priorities.”

Proposed 2014 Legislative Priorities:

Updated Carryover items

1. “That the state provide increased funding to offset past reductions and for re-benchmarking and implementing the Standards of Quality and/or suspension of the SOL mandate.”
2. “That the state reinstate full-funding for the Cost-Of-Competing Allocation (COCA)- including teachers and support staff- for Region 4 school divisions to offset past reductions, and provide increased funding for annual teacher salary increase to raise them at or above the national average.”
3. “That the state provide continued annual funding to PWCS to coordinate the statewide implementation of Virginia STAR [Student Training and Refurbishment Program].” According to the presentation, the school division received $225,000 in one time funding for STAR in accordance with 2013 legislation.

New Items:

1. “That the state eliminate the “A-F Grading” of Virginia Schools”
2. “That the state adopt and provide funds to PWCS to coordinate the “Partners for Safe Teen Driving” program statewide. According to the presentation, “This training is already required in Region 8 and could be funded in a similar manner as STAR.”

Updated Carryover Statement of Support:

1. “Support and advocate for bills which would give local school divisions more flexibility to implement policies to improve K-12 effectiveness and efficiency, such as repel of the law that prevents school divisions from opening before Labor Day.”

Updated Carryover Statements of Opposition

1. “Oppose any bills that too narrowly define 65% of expenditures be spent on instruction or make the percentage requirement mandatory.”
2. “Oppose any bills that would require additional time per week for physical education, due to the financial impact and the effect it would have on the length of the school day.”
3. “Oppose any bills which would divest or limit local school boards or their authority over the formation and operation of charter schools within their division."
4. “Oppose any bills which would mandate additional statewide disciplinary procedures that would inhibit school administrators in circumstances where immediate disciplinary intervention is required.”
5. “Oppose any bills which would require funding to “follow the student” in situations in which the home school division offers a virtual school program but the student elects to enroll in one offered by another school division.”

New Statements of Support

1. “Support and advocate for bills that eliminate unnecessary mandates (such as HB 1295 and SB 679 from the 2013 Legislative Session) and fully fund any new mandates placed upon school divisions.”
2. “Support and advocate for bills that prevent lottery funds from being used to supplant general funding for schools.”

New Statement of Opposition

1. “Oppose any bills that mandate participation of “non-public school students” in VHSL and local extra-curricular activities.”

The school board will discuss the items on the legislative agenda during their Sept. 18 work session, upon which they should reach a consensus. After which, they will post their priorities and modifications online on PWCS’s electronic school board.

Adopting of legislative priorities is scheduled for the Oct. 2 school board meeting. After that time, the document will be shared with the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.

The official document will be shared with local elected delegates some time in November, after elections season, during an annual joint breakfast meeting between the school board and their delegates elected to the General Assembly.

After the initial meeting, Imon said that the school board members are invited to meet with their delegates one-on-one to follow up on the legislative issues in question.