• $95.1 million in the first year and $194.5 million in the second year to fund the state share of 2% salary increases each year for SOQ funded positions, effective July 1 of each year of the biennium.
• $6.7 million in the first year and $14.3 million in the second year decrease the ELL student to teacher ratios from 17:1000 (current) to 18.5:1000 in the first year and 20:1000 in the second year.
• $21.2 million in the first year and $24.9 million in the second year to provide the state share of the costs to fund one school counselor for every 325 students in grades K-12.
• $8.7 million in the second year to increase the upper range of the at-risk add-on from 25% to 26%
• $263 million in the first year and $266.2 million in the second year to establish the Infrastructure and Operations Per Pupil Fund from lottery proceeds. (This replaced the Supplemental Per Pupil Lottery Allocation.) These funds cannot be used to offset local funding. At least 30% of the funds in the first year and 40% in the second year must be used for non-recurring expenditures.
• $2.5 million in the first year and $2.1 million in the second year to provide relief to school divisions experiencing enrollment loss between school years. Qualifying school divisions must have fewer than 10,000 students and lose more than 2% of students from the prior year based on September 30 fall membership counts.
• $5 million in each year to fund mixed-delivery pre-kindergarten pilot programs for at least 500 at-risk children. There is no local match required for these slots.
• $9.6 million in the first year and $10 million in the second year to increase the COCA for support positions for eligible school divisions.
• $250,000 in each year of the biennium to fund a Recovery High School to be established by the Chesterfield County School Board.
• Restores staffing flexibility that has been in place since 2010 for pupil teacher ratios in K-7, and English classes in grades 6-12 to be increased by one additional student and to waive the ratio for Elementary Resources teachers, Prevention, Intervention and Remediation, Gifted and Talented, Career and Technical funded programs. This budget language also requires school divisions to report to VDOE hos these flexibility provisions are utilized.
• A requirement that VDOE conduct a one-time data collection regarding prevailing practice for planning time for elementary school teachers. (Bills to increase planning time for elementary school teachers failed because they were not funded in the budget.)
• A requirement that VDOE develop a mechanism to reallocate regional alternative education program slots.
For more information, you can access the full proposed budget here.
