Ask City Council to Keep Investing in Charlottesville Public Schools
March 3, 2024 — This Tuesday, March 5, Charlottesville City Schools (CCS) Superintendent Dr. Gurley will present the School Board-approved 2024-2025 budget including a $9M additional ask, bringing the investment from the City from $67M in 2024 to $76M in 2025.
Charlottesville Tomorrow has a helpful breakdown of the budget request and process.
Charlottesville United for Public Education supports this request for additional funds and encourages community members to contact City Council and tell them you’re in favor of stepping up the City’s commitment to our public schools at a critical moment.
To send comments to City Council, email council@charlottesville.gov
City Schools will present the 2025 fiscal year budget to the City Council on Tuesday, March 5. The meeting begins at 4 p.m. at Charlottesville City Hall, 605 E. Main St. on the Downtown Mall. Public comment takes place during the general business portion of the meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m. If you’d like to sign up to comment, fill out an online form, email or call the Clerk of Council up until 9 a.m. on March 5. (courtesy Charlottesville Tomorrow)
The $9M asks would fund student-facing supports such as:
Care and safety assistants
Reading and math specialists and interventionists
Site-based substitute teachers
Additional teachers and salary increases for recruitment and retention
Here are some messaging points to consider:
A welcoming community needs well-funded schools. In Charlottesville we pride ourselves on being a welcoming community, and that is certainly reflected in the diversity of our CCS student population. Our schools serve more than 700 multilingual learners from 41 countries who speak English as a second, third, or even fourth language. The top languages? Spanish, Swahili, Dari, Pashto, Arabic. That number is projected to grow to about 900 students by next spring. We must fund a robust English Language Learners (ELL) program to accommodate these students and increase overall funding in line with our growing school enrollment.
Affordable housing brings more students to our schools. Affordable housing is a top priority in Charlottesville. It also impacts our schools. As we create more places for people to live in the City, we need to factor in the families and future families that – we hope – will enroll their children in our public schools.
Let's fund a "school system of choice." Dr. Gurley referenced striving to be the "school system of choice" and we couldn’t agree more. When people move to Charlottesville or current residents decide to start a family here, we want the default to be enrolling their kids in Charlottesville public schools – not surrounding counties or private options. That takes proactive, intentional and increasing investment - especially as we work to overcome pandemic learning setbacks and address heightened mental health concerns.
Move from default subs to site-based substitutes. A top need identified by CCS – and echoed in teacher comments at recent School Board meetings – is funding for site-based substitute teacher positions at each school. If your student has dealt with a series of rotating substitutes or you’ve heard of other teachers, specialists and staff being pulled from their intended (and contracted) jobs to be classroom subs, speak up in favor of funding site-based subs. This will provide consistency for our students and help with teacher retention.
Don't deplete our reserves. CCS indicated they should have a fund balance of approximately $12M. They currently have $4M in reserves and, without additional City funding, would tap into that to cover key items in the budget.
Let's step it up Charlottesville. CCS shared findings from the Auditor of Public Accounts (APA) 2022 Comparative Cost Report illustrating that cities across the state of Virginia spend about 12% more on education than we do in Charlottesville.
Please consider pairing any of these messages with your own experiences as a parent, teacher, student or concerned community member. A short but authentic note will carry much more weight than a form letter!
To send comments to City Council, email council@charlottesville.gov