General Assembly Update
Budgets Released
It’s Public Schools Week! One of the ways that we support public schools is by fighting for adequate and fair school funding.

This Sunday, the Virginia House and Senate released their budgets for the 2023-2024 biennium. Both budgets make investments in school construction and critical staffing priorities, but fall short of fully funding long standing recommendations made by the Virginia Board of Education.

Overall, the House budget reduces K-12 direct aid by $638 million while the Senate budget increases it by $278 million compared to the budget initially proposed by Governor Northam. 

Below is a quick overview of differences in the proposed budgets and a call to action for each legislative priority.

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Staffing
School support and administrative staff are essential to academic achievement, student health & safety, and teacher retention. 

Both the House and Senate proposed budgets make positive progress on components of critical staffing shortfalls that have been Virginia PTA priorities for the better part of a decade.

These items would be big wins IF they are funded in the final reconciliation budget.

🟢 Full Time Principals for EVERY school ($20.2M House addition)
🟢 Asst. Principal schools w/ 400+ students ($83.4M House addition)
🟢 Reading Specialist per 550 K-3 students ($63M Introduced, House & Senate)
🟢 English Language Teachers increase from 20 to 22 per 1,000 students ($22M Introduced and Senate. This funding was cut from the House budget)

🟢 Support Cap. Lift the formula capping the state contribution for essential school support staff. Only the Senate includes this item. It's allocated $271M for 20 positions for 1,000 students in fiscal year 2023 and 21 positions to 1,000 students in fiscal year 2024.

#TakeAction4Kids: Our schools are facing critical staffing shortages! The state helps pay for less than 40% of support staff in Virginia’s public schools. This means many local governments must fund the majority of these positions on their own. Not all communities have sufficient resources to make these investments. We urge the Budget Conference Committee to develop a budget that includes proposals from both budgets!
School Construction
The Virginia Department of Education has identified $25 billion in school infrastructure needs, and it’s long-past time to make big investments in our school buildings!

The Governor's Introduced budget and Senate budget provide $500 million in one-time funding to address local school rehabilitation and construction needs. They also use general fund dollars for teacher retirement, making up to $400 million in Literary Fund dollars available for school construction loans or interest rate subsidies over the next two years. The Senate budget also allocates one position for the Department of Education to collect data on the maintenance reserve needs of every public school building in each local school division. (SB238/135 #1s) 

The House budget offers substantially less for school construction and uses a different method to fund construction. It would use $292 million in general funds and $250 million in Literary Fund dollars to establish a Construction Loan Rebate Program (137 #19h). The grant program is in lieu of the school construction cash grants and Literary Fund proposals included in the introduced budget. Under the Loan Rebate Program grants would provide 30% loan rebates for $1 billion in construction projects, and interest buy-down grants would provide zero-interest financing for another $1 billion in construction projects. Grant selection is based on demonstrated poor building conditions, commitment, and need.

#TakeAction4Kids: We urge the Conference Committee to use the remaining federal relief funds to invest in the health and success of our students and communities by providing dedicated funding for school construction and renovation as proposed in the Introduced and Senate budgets.
Funding for High Poverty Divisions
At Risk Add-On is a state funding program developed within the past decade that aims to alleviate funding disparities by allocating additional state funds to school divisions with higher concentrations of students living in poverty. It is determined by the percent of students who receive free or reduced lunch. 

The Introduced and Senate Budget increases the rate from 26% to 49.5% in fiscal year 2023 and 36% in fiscal year 2024 for a total allocation of $268.5M to support low income schools.

The House budget cuts the allocation for At Risk Add-On Funds to $58.3M (31%).

#TakeAction4Kids: Let your legislators know that you support additional funds for our most at risk, high poverty school divisions, many of which had unique challenges during remote learning.
Early Literacy Reform
All three budgets include an increase in Reading Specialists through enhancements to the Staffing Standards of Quality.

Implementing the Literacy Act. The House Budget also includes $13.5M (129#8h) for implementing other aspects of the Literacy Act including development of micro-credentials, parent resources and professional development resources including a train the trainer model, and technical assistance for school school divisions, as well as grants to assist school divisions with the purchase of new curriculum.

PALS +. Budget Amendment 129#5h provides $1.5M to develop of a pilot expansion of the Virginia Kindergarten Readiness Program, Phonological Awareness Literacy Screen Plus (PALS +) assessment for grades 1-3. The assessment is currently designed only to be administered to preschoolers and kindergartners.

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. Included under House budget amendment #136 2h is $1.6M to fund for 50% of the costs associated with providing Dolly Parton's Imagination Library for Kids to eligible Virginia children from birth until they turn five years of age. This established book gifting program mails an age-appropriate book to the home of children each month at no cost to the family.

#TakeAction4Kids: Contact your legislator and remind them that reading is the foundation of student success. Our students need dedicated funding to improve early literacy.

#VAPTAReads: Turn your advocacy for early literacy into programs that connect your families with early reading resources!

Read Across America Day is Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Join Virginia PTA in celebrating early literacy by recording yourself reading and then post your video on social media using the hashtag #VAPTARead to share with classrooms and parents. You may also enjoy PTA's Family Reading Events Toolkit.
Special Education
Restraint and Seclusion Training. Amendment 130 1#h in the House Budget provides $440,000 each year to increase support for statewide training programs for school division staff to implement regulations related to the use of restraint and seclusion of students in public schools. This would increase total support for such training to $932,755 annually.

Resources for Deaf & Hard of Hearing Students. House Bill 649 is funded with House Amendment 130 #2h to provide language development resources for families and educators working with children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Senate Bill SB265 is funded with amendment 130 #1s to establish an advisory committee that will develop a resource that parents of deaf or hard of hearing children, up to age five, may use to monitor the language development of their children.
Early Childhood & Childcare
The Introduced and Senate budgets allots $44.3M to support early childhood education including increasing the number of three-year-old children served by the Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) and mixed delivery public-private partnership programs.

The House budget drastically cuts investments in early childhood education to $6M

#TakeAction4Kids: Contact your legislators and remind them that early childhood education prepares students for success in kindergarten and beyond.

Mental Health
The Senate budget includes $5 million per year (#311 2S) for school divisions seeking guidance on integrating mental health services by offering more flexible clinical capacity for service and programming needs that are beyond the scope of school-based personnel

#TakeAction4Kids: This funding is not included in the House Budget, let your delegates know that most children struggling with mental health challenges initiate support through their school.
Charter Schools & Vouchers
The House budget includes an allocation of $150M for a College Partnership Laboratory School grant program. College partnership laboratory school means a public, nonsectarian, nonreligious school in the Commonwealth established as a new school or through the conversion of all or part of an existing school by a public institution of higher education or nonprofit private institution of higher education.

The House Budget also funds HB1024 Parental Choice Education Savings Accounts with $785K through amendment #135 #1h

Teacher Pay
The introduced budget that was released in December 2021 includes a 5% increase in pay each year for teachers and other school staff who are funded in the Standards of Quality. The Senate retains that investment in high-quality staff AND uses $137 million of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to pay for a $1,000 bonus (no local match required) for teachers and staff this year.

The House Budget approach reduces state funding for teacher and staff compensation by $68.5 million over the biennium by providing a 4% salary increase and 1% bonus.

#TakeAction4Kids: Our schools are experiencing severe teacher shortages that impact student learning. Contact your legislator and remind them that student academic growth requires valuing our educators by compensating them competitively compared to the rest of the country.
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