The Spotsylvania County School Board’s fiscal year 2027-31 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) includes a long list of projects — but no clear source of funding.
The category of facility maintenance alone totals $299.2 million, and the school division holds an existing bond authority of just $154.5 million, Chief Operations Officer Kenny Forrest told the board during a work session Monday night.
“Obviously, we’re going to have to find the additional funding through another bond or working with the county to help us reach these goals,” Forrest said. “But this is what the county wanted to see from us. They wanted to see projected needs, so they can plan for that as well.”
The CIP includes another $31.2 million in technology upgrades in addition to several long-term facility needs.
Those long-term needs include a new high school along the State Route 2 and U.S. Route 17 corridor, a new elementary school on the U.S. Route 1 corridor, renovating Spotsylvania Elementary School, relocating the Spotsylvania Career and Technical Center to expand its classroom capacity and repurposing the current Career and Technical Center.
School officials said the new high school location is ideal because the New Post area along routes 2 and 17 is one of the fastest-growing locations in the county. The elementary school location was chosen to lessen the student population at Parkside, Riverview, Cedar Forest, Spotswood, and Spotsylvania elementary schools.
Spotsylvania Elementary (formerly Robert E. Lee) was built in 1965 and requires upgrades. If repurposed, the current Career and Technical Center could become another middle school or be used to expand nearby Courtland High School, officials said.
“All of these projects will require additional bond authority, of course, and proffer support in excess of $350 million — chump change,” Forrest said in jest.
The board also discussed five legislative priorities to send to the county’s state delegation for the upcoming fiscal year.
The first goal is to “secure sufficient, equitable funding for Spotsylvania County Public Schools.”
The division wants state legislators to update the state funding formula to align with the 2023 Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) study, addressing per-pupil spending disparities and “accurately reflecting locality costs.”
School officials also want the state board of education and the General Assembly to consider updating the Standards of Learning system by replacing the “off-track” category with “needs support.” They would like to see increased funding and professional learning support for those schools identified as “off-track” or “needs intensive support.”
“We support the accountability system,” Chief Academic Officer Deborah Frazier said. “But the way the schools are designated and some of the verbiage that’s used, maybe there could be a better way to say it.”
The division is also requesting that legislators assist the county in recruiting and retaining teachers by increasing salaries, benefits and incentives. The board is asking for increased funding from the Virginia Department of Education to expand the “Grow Our Own” program, which encourages local high school and college students to pursue teaching careers in Spotsylvania.
The fourth goal is enhancing school security and student wellness by providing funds for trained personnel, safety technology and accessible mental health resources. The final request is for the state to fund new technology to “close the digital divide” and expand reliable internet access to all students.
In other business, Courtland District school board representative Carol Medawar said the time has come for the board of supervisors to end categorical funding of the school division and provide the funds in a lump sum again, so that the board can disburse funds as it sees fit. The supervisors decided to categorically fund the schools — allocating the division’s funds for specific purposes — in 2023, at a point when the school board was widely viewed as dysfunctional.
SCPS Chief Financial Officer Phillip Trayer said there’s now a “high level” of trust between the two boards, so he doesn’t envision the supervisors having a problem ending categorical funding. Medawar said the school board is operating more functionally nowadays.
“Hopefully they also feel similarly that things are better than they were a few years ago when they put that in place,” Medawar said.
