Education officials seek rules for staff levels

The Virginia Board of Education wants the state to set staffing levels for full-time teachers of special, gifted, and career and technical education.

Each school division would be required to hire at least 58 licensed, full-time-equivalent instructors per 1,000 students, under proposed changes to Virginia's Standards of Quality, state-mandated goals for public schools.

The standards, for example, would set maximum caseloads based on students' disabilities; for gifted students, it would be one teacher per 1,000 students.

The board also voiced its support yesterday for establishing ratios for support staff -- which include social workers, school nurses and clerical workers -- but said further study is needed to determine the best way to come up with appropriate ratios.

Such measures are among the board's proposed Standards of Quality revisions, which will be forwarded to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and the General Assembly.

The General Assembly had incorporated a funding cap into the 2010-12 budget that set a ratio of one support staffer for roughly every four teachers to save an estimated $754 million. The legislature had asked the board to recommend whether to make such an arrangement permanent.

Virginia school superintendents, teachers and education advocates oppose the support-staff cap, saying that local school divisions can't afford to cover their salaries and benefits.