Stafford County Public Schools won’t get the $180,000 in funding requested of the Economic Development Authority.
The schools asked for financial assistance planning a convocation event on August 5, 2022, at Virginia Credit Union Stadium. The event was designed to unify and motivate teachers and staff for the 2022-23 school year.
Summertime temperatures in the mid-90s afflicted at least 80 with heat exhaustion and sent eight to a hospital suffering heat stroke. The school division asked for the cash, unused federal coronavirus relief funds after the EDA endorsed giving it to the schools, said Stafford schools spokeswoman Sandra Osborn.
Four days before the convocation event, Stafford County Economic Development Director John Holden told the schools the cash was not coming after the Stafford Board of County Supervisors failed to support the request.
The EDA lends money to businesses in Stafford County, encouraging economic development.
“As the school system is the county’s largest economic engine and largest employer, there is a special and direct relationship between the functions of the school system and regional economic development,” Osborn told Potomac Local News.
Before the ambulances arrived, the school’s convocation was the largest private event to be hosted at the Fredericksburg Nationals’ stadium since opening in 2021, with more than 4,300 in attendance.
The school division paid $2,300 to use the stadium and playing field, where the keynote speaker, former Prince William County Schools principal Hamish Brewer, addressed the crowd. Brewer, who traded public education for a public speaking career this past spring, netted $20,000 for his services.
Several private organizations chipped in to support the school division and cover the costs for the first-of-its-kind event. AIG Retirement Services gave $2,000, and the Rappahannock YMCA gave $1,000, as did the Stafford Education Foundation Association.
The Rotary Clubs of Stafford donated $500, and Sylvan Learning Centers gave $200, said Osborn.
The denial of funds comes at a tense time between the Stafford County Board of Supervisors and its separate, elected School Board, which claims the former refuses to discuss the school’s half-billion in capital needs.
The School Board is pushing to replace an elementary and middle school, two new elementary schools, a new high school, and addition at North Stafford High School.
Supervisors say they were blindsided when the school division presented its needs during a meeting in February, which amounted to an additional $500 million in new capital projects.
Stafford Board of Supervisors Chair Crystal Vanuch said the wishlist is too rich to consider under current budget restraints and that the schools’ capital improvement plan will be considered when leaders begin deliberating the Fiscal Year 2024 budget in December 2022.
School leaders say they need the cash sooner than later because the county’s population is growing faster than anticipated, resulting in the schools adding trailer classrooms, similar to what neighboring Prince William County did in the 1990s and 2000s.
