“The Superintendent and School Board provided tangible ways to improve student outcomes, urging legislators to provide Stafford County with increased funding necessary to support high expectations for student performance, provide a safe, positive learning environment, and provide better conditions to recruit, retain and develop staff. Additional discussion focused on the need for a reduction in the burden of unfunded mandates and inefficient government practices.”
“Stafford Schools urged legislators to consider Virginia’s K-12 funding formula to provide a more accurate cost of education in the local area, and to provide for additional local sales and use taxes for school construction or renovation. The School Board encouraged elimination of support position caps to allow an increase in Basic Aid funding. To support the advocation of increased funding, school administrators laid out changes to Standards of Quality caps that would provide for an increase in counselors. psychologists, social workers, assistant principals, English Language Learner teachers, and Work Based Learning coordinators.
“The School Board leaned in on supports to ensure meaningful post-secondary outcomes for every student through College Partnership Laboratory Schools, encouraging a shift in management of lab schools to a shared model between local school boards and institutions of higher education and a proposed budget bill amendment that would provide an increase in Virginia Public School Authority Funding. The increase in funding would allow Stafford to purchase 130 computers over a 5-year cycle for a newly approved regional lab school.”
“The School Board requested amendments to the Code of Virginia that address student and staff safety, specifically requesting changes to student records requests for inbound students, a provision to require employment verification to be completed in 10 days, and an amendment that would require juvenile court services or juvenile services intake officers to provide background information on court dispositions provided to school superintendents that would assist in determining appropriate school/programs assignments for students.”
