Budget cuts painful for many rural school systems

Robbie Wendell is more than just a teacher within the Cumberland County school system.

Part of the day, he works with at-risk high school students in dropout prevention. Another portion is spent with middle school students in a program aimed at encouraging them to pursue an advanced diploma and, ultimately, post-secondary education.

Earlier this month, he guided the Cumberland High wrestling team to a James River District championship.

He does all this knowing that his job won't be there once the school year ends. He is one of 27 current employees -- nearly 13 percent of the school system staff -- whose positions are being eliminated for fiscal 2011 in the wake of at least $1.6 million in state funding reductions, with an additional $800,000 in potential cuts looming.

Wendell is not alone. School employees across the state are learning their fates as school systems grapple with less money to spend on education.

Though Cumberland's numbers may be smaller and not as shocking as Chesterfield County's $42 million deficit, such cuts may hurt more for many of the state's small, rural school systems.

Nottoway County cut 34 employees to close a potential $3 million funding gap. New Kent County may cut 10 percent -- or 42 positions -- on top of the 44 cut last year to absorb a deficit as high as $3.1 million.

"Personally, I have a real problem with the idea that cutting educational funding is going to be the panacea for our economy," said Nottoway Superintendent Daniel J. Grounard. "We're putting our children's education on hold until the economy gets better; we can't afford to do that. It's going to set us back several years, and that's our biggest concern."

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Many small systems, with enrollments of fewer than 3,000 students, already operate on lean budgets. They lack the administrative fat or other supplements to trim to make up for million-dollar deficits.

But the belt-tightening in small localities has been happening for a while.

For example, Cumberland schools administration is near minimum levels based on Standards of Quality, and it shares transportation, maintenance and business services with the county government. New Kent has just five central office employees, including the superintendent.

While school officials in Richmond wrestled with cutting a popular Spanish immersion class at two elementary schools this year and parents rallied in support, many small school systems were counting the number of people they were about to put on the street.

"All I could think of is, I wish we had a Spanish immersion program to lose," New Kent Superintendent Rick Richardson said about reading accounts of a recent Richmond School Board public hearing.

Instead, Richardson is looking at the very real possibility of eliminating more than 80 positions from New Kent schools in two years. The school system is currently the largest employer in the county with about 400 employees.

Grounard equated making cuts to compensate for funding reductions to choosing the lesser of two evils. "You've got two bad choices, and you've got to choose one. That's why it's very frustrating and it's scary."

Still, some do what they can to avoid cutting jobs, looking to non-personnel items for cuts, but the option of layoffs remains on the table. School officials describe the situation as fluid until final figures are handed down from the state.

Charles City County is exploring the option of a four-day workweek. In Colonial Heights, Superintendent Joseph O. Cox Jr. presented a proposed $34.3 million budget last month that did not eliminate positions to fill a $1.1 million shortfall.

No matter what school systems do, it's an unenviable task.

"It's not a good position to be in right now, for the fact that it is going to involve people and it's going to involve, mainly, our children," said King William County Superintendent Mark R. Jones. "Our children are going to be impacted with larger class sizes and programs that will no longer be offered to them."

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School systems may be hit by the double whammy of reductions in funding by the local governments, which are also facing state reductions. School officials have requested level funding from their county governments, but how much money they will receive is uncertain.

Michael L. Edwards, deputy director of the Virginia Association of Counties, said public education is the predominant local expenditure. But localities across the state are dealing with lower revenues from real property assessments and personal property assessments.

Localities are unable to rely on the state to make up for these reductions, he said.

"This leads to very problematic decisions about how best to support public education, public safety, some of the human services and the like, for example, libraries," Edwards said. "It becomes a very difficult balancing act."

Cumberland Superintendent James Thornton requested level funding from the county Board of Supervisors. But, he said, the county will have to raise taxes by up to 26 cents per $100 to provide level funding, which still won't save any of the 31 positions cut because the county also is facing a $2.5 million increase in debt service to pay for its new school complex.

"By them doing nothing [in Richmond], they're raising taxes in Virginia -- under the board of supervisors' name," he said. "I don't think that's fair."

When outgoing Gov. Timothy M. Kaine presented his budget in December, he proposed a 1 percent income-tax increase. New Gov. Bob McDonnell rejected the tax increase.

In Goochland County, the School Board approved its $24.4 million budget, making up part of a $2.5 million shortfall by eliminating 22 positions, nine classroom teachers among them; adding four furlough days; and eliminating behind-the-wheel driver's education and the Virginia Preschool Initiative program, among others.

However, a gap of more than $1 million remains. The county could choose to cover it through a combination of combining various county and school services, raising the tax rate and using prior-year savings.

"It's a pretty depressing year for all of us," said Goochland Superintendent Linda Underwood.

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School personnel say that, in the end, student achievement is what will suffer the most from the cutbacks. In particular, the cuts will hit at-risk youths.

"For every classroom teacher and every paraprofessional or instructional assistant that comes out of the classroom, the students who are going to be most directly affected by that are the students at greatest risk," Richardson said. "The ones that will fall through the cracks are the ones that need the additional support."

Class sizes will increase, not by just one or two students but likely by five or six students per class.

At Cumberland High School, the three-member New Beginnings staff is being trimmed to just one. In a program focused on dropout prevention, relationships between students and teachers are essential to the success of the class, said Wendell, who is one of the New Beginnings teachers being let go. He said the students have shown improvements on their report cards and in Standards of Learning assessments.

"I see them like they're my kids; they call me if they have problems, they talk to me in the hallways if they need anything, they stop by in the morning and say hi. It's a routine that's going to be hard not to have that," Wendell said. "Eliminating so many teaching positions eliminates that support that they have every day."

Cumberland's participation in the national program Advancement Via Individual Determination has led to a nearly 30 percent increase in the number of students pursuing an advanced diploma. But that program is being eliminated because of the budget cuts.

Nottoway County is eliminating its New Beginnings program and Cortez Math labs, computerized math courses combining best practices to help students move at their own pace.

Jessie Drechsel, a first-year science teacher in Cumberland whose position is being eliminated, said the students are acutely aware of the situation going on in their locality. She said some students tried to start a fundraiser to help the school system.

"My students are . . . really concerned. It's a little heartbreaking," she said. "I think they're trying to do the best they can with a really poor situation."

Becky Ricker summed up the dilemma for parents in Cumberland who face the choice between a tax increase of more than 40 percent -- on top of a 12-percent increase in property assessments -- and further cuts in a school system the county has worked hard to improve.

"I don't want a tax increase like this," Ricker said at a Town Hall meeting Thursday night in Cartersville. "Do I want my two children to get a good education? Do I want my special-education daughter to get special-education services? Ask that, I say yes.

"Where do we get the money if we do not increase taxes?" she asked. "Where is it going to come from?"

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As school systems face cuts, standards for student achievement remain the same, and Adequate Yearly Progress benchmarks under the federal No Child Left Behind Act continue to increase.

"We are being told that we have to do far more with far, far less," Richardson said. "What it will do, and this is projecting because you can only estimate . . . it becomes almost an impossibility to continue to achieve at the level we have achieved when we reduce our teacher work force.

"It's not just a matter of having one or two more students in a classroom; there are some programs that will cease to exist."

Cumberland is one of only 21 school systems in the state that made AYP as a system and at every school. Additionally, all three schools are fully accredited by the Virginia Department of Education. But funding reductions will take the school system back to levels in 2005-06, a time when the elementary school was not accredited and none of the three made AYP.

Thornton said the increased funding has allowed the school system to add programs, support staff and teachers to turn around student achievement in a county that is 65 percent economically disadvantaged students.

"I find it very ironic that the governor has suggested an increase of $14 million for the sheriff's departments," Thornton said. "We will need all the deputies to help with the dropout and crime problem he will be creating by devastating public education."

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Thornton and Grounard said they informed their employees they were being let go early in the process so they could start looking for new jobs.

Whether they stay in teaching remains to be seen. Wendell said he has not had time to look too far ahead. He learned during the middle of the wrestling season that his position was being eliminated. He said his focus stayed with his student-athletes and that he didn't let the fact that he would soon be unemployed affect him.

Drechsel said she may look into the private sector and search for a job in marine science. But some teachers are concerned about trying to find a new job in another school system.

"It especially makes me sad, and worried, that due to lack of funding, I may not find a job for the next school year -- anywhere," said Stacey Rublee, a kindergarten teacher at Cumberland Elementary. "All throughout my high school career, I was encouraged to get a college degree if I wanted to get a good job, and I did it. I earned my bachelor's and then went on to earn my master's degree, and now I have a great job.

"But now there is no money in order for me to keep it."

Contact Jeremy Slayton at

Staff writers Wesley P. Hester and Michael Martz contributed to this report.