Chair Wes Mills: ‘It’s going to take money to get this money’
Crack down on cellphone use
The Rappahannock County School Board voted unanimously Tuesday to commit $10,000 of a $20,000 fee to hire a lobbyist to advocate for the school district in the upcoming state legislative session. The board is hoping the Board of Supervisors sees this “as an investment” and will commit to the other half at its special session Monday.
The hiring of a lobbyist was recommended by a new School Innovation Finance Taskforce (SIFT) team that was created in May in an effort to strategize on how to effectively advocate for increases in state funding.
Among members of the SIFT team are County Administrator Garrey Curry and Board Chair Wes Mills, who said the team has been “very busy” coming up with strategies like the hiring of a lobbyist, creating an informational video and compiling statistics about the school system’s funding to present to politicians.
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The biggest challenge facing the district, according to Superintendent Shannon Grimsley, is a cap on state aid that was put into place in 2007. Board member Rachel Bynum said the cap is a “relic” of the financial crisis of the 2000s, and is one of the only state aid “caps or freezes” that have not been removed. The school was initially granted additional state aid in this year’s governor’s budget, but it was ultimately removed before the budget passed.
“It’s getting more and more inequitable the more Richmond tries to do under this old formula,” Grimsley said.
Mills said the Rappahannock school district is the least funded in the state “by a large margin” based on per pupil funding, receiving around $1,000 less than districts of comparable size and demographic. If the cap were to be removed, Mills said that would put the district more in line with its peers like Giles or Bath County.
The SIFT team interviewed lobbyist candidates and chose Elizabeth Parker, a Troutman Pepper Strategies lobbyist based in Richmond. Grimsley said Parker is “outstanding” and eager to get started.
To hire the lobbyist, an initial $20,000 fee is required, which secures her services from Sept. 1 to Dec. 1 of this year, according to a resolution passed by the board, formalizing its support for the lobbyist. If the “political landscape prove[s] favorable,” the resolution says an additional $30,000 would be required to fund the lobbyist’s work during the 2025 State General Assembly. The Headwaters Foundation has agreed to launch a fundraising campaign to finance.
“It’s going to take money to get this money,” Mills said. “We’re not saying we want reparations for … the last 18 funding cycles … we’re just saying make it fair now.”
Watch the School Board meeting:
Rappahannock County School Board Meeting, Aug. 13, 2024
During public comment, Headwaters Foundation Board Chair Stephanie Ridder spoke, thanking the board for “putting some money into the lobbyist,” and said from her personal experience traveling to Richmond to advocate for the school district, that the process is “hard to keep repeating.”
Grimsley said she hopes pledging half of the needed fee will be a “show of unification” to the supervisors, who will consider paying the rest of the fee at Monday’s meeting.
Cellphone policies updated
During the superintendent’s report at Monday’s meeting, Grimsley reviewed updated consequences for cellphone use in the classroom that were added to student handbooks this year to comply with Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s recent executive order requiring schools to implement “cellphone free policies and procedures.”
Grimsley said the schools’ existing cellphone policy, which prohibits students from using cellphones during instructional time unless allowed by a teacher, complies with the “essence” of the order. The handbook was updated to outline “clear consequences” for cellphone use, which escalate from a warning for a first offense to a suspension and required parent conference by the fourth one.
High school students are allowed to use their phones before school starts and during lunch, but are no longer allowed to use them during class changes or breaks.
Bynum asked if the policy would allow for instructional use of cellphones like band students using tuner apps or Duolingo exercises in Spanish. Grimsley said if the use of a cellphone is important and has a predetermined instructional use, then that is allowed.
“Your cellphone should be turned off and put away,” Grimsley said. “It’s an expectation. But really, it’s not that much of a change from what we’ve done [in the past.]”
Ireland Hayes is a reporter for Foothills Forum, a nonprofit organization that supports local news in Rappahannock County.
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