GUEST OPINION: Striving for Excellence Despite Challenges
Mark Taylor outlines the challenges and opportunities before Spotsylvania Public Schools and reminds us that 'in-person connections support and nurture the accomplishments of our students.'
by Mark B. Taylor, J.D.
SUPERINTENDENT OF SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
As Superintendent of Spotsylvania County Public Schools, I am honored to share a few words about our school division.
SCPS is having a very successful 2023-2024 school year. The student experience in our schools continues to improve, thanks to the hard work of our tireless principals, instructional teams and support staff. Our 4-E’s Instructional Pathways initiative is getting students focused on their future. Our innovative “Your Growth, Your Way” professional development program is enabling our teachers to grow professionally while they are pouring their talents and energy into teaching our students. Our school buildings are looking and operating better than they have in years thanks to our reorganized Maintenance Department. SCPS’ Department of Safety is making communications and technology upgrades in our schools to maximize both the safety of our buildings and the efficiency of any necessary response to a safety challenge.
Despite the tiny size of our Central Office staff (ranked 127th of 131 VA school divisions in central staffing last year), our Central Office continues to lead effectively. Our Central Office Instructional Leadership supports excellence in each of our schools. SCPS Human Resources continues to score “wins” at recruiting teachers and school leaders. Our Finance team works tirelessly to ensure that all of our staff and our bills get paid, track revenues and expenditures, and budget for next year.
SCPS Operations and Transportation leadership are working to get the “Here Comes the Bus” App fixed and make it available to all student households, including those with special needs. While other divisions dropped “Here Comes the Bus” because of these issues, SCPS kept driving for a solution to provide this popular App for all.
SCPS appreciates the notable increase in local funding we received last year - it was more new local funding than our school division had received in many years. Nevertheless, Spotsylvania County’s funding still fell short of meeting our real needs. This month, SCPS had to shift more than $3 million away from instruction to pay for heating, bus fuel and building maintenance.
Meanwhile, we face more challenges as our learning community changes: our special education population continues to grow steadily, adding 88 students (a 2.4% increase) this year; our English language learners (ELL) increased this year by 455 students (a 14% increase); more than half of our current students (52%) are from homes identified as economically disadvantaged; and the proportion of SCPS students from economically disadvantaged households has gradually trended upward for the past decade. Each of these needs — special education, English language learners, and economic needs — must be addressed with additional resources.
Public education is a people business. In-person connections support and nurture the accomplishments of our students. The effectiveness of our efforts depends upon the quality and quantity of positive interactions between staff and students. Extraordinary student needs - whether grounded in language, economics, or special needs - are most effectively met with extra in-person attention. This is a big part of what drives SCPS to seek funding for additional staff.
Both state and local education funding need improvement. Virginia’s state public education funding has been below the national average for many years. The state also calculates annually the local funding needed to support public education (“Minimum Local Effort”). In just the past 4 years, Spotsylvania County’s investment in SCPS has fallen far off pace with that state minimum. We need to do better.
SCPS’ physical space needs also require attention. Spotsylvania County's growth is catching up with our schools, as illustrated by changes in SCPS elementary school class sizes between 2015 and 2023. In 2015, of the six grade levels (K-5) taught in our 17 elementary schools (102 data points total), only one grade level at one school (less than 1%) had class sizes exceeding state standards. The current school year paints a very different picture. 47 elementary school grade levels exceed state class size standards (46.1% of all elementary school grade levels).
SCPS instructional space is being squeezed from both ends by the county and state. County population growth sends more students to our schools while changes in Virginia Department of Education standards require us to have fewer students per class — with some classes limited to as few as eight students. SCPS is approaching or exceeding the full program (functional) capacity of a number of our schools. Our need for additional school capacity at all three levels (elementary, middle, and high) is growing. We need to begin having conversations about building schools for Spotsylvania’s future.
Despite all challenges, SCPS continues to strive for excellence.
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Was curious to see how those who live in the area would respond. Also interesting that Superintendent Taylor felt no inclination to appear on this forum until just before the Spotsy School Board meets on a personnel matter....surely there's no relation, right?
Right....
BTW - I notice the question I found most interesting was the one not addressed. The one that put's me in mind of a 1980's fast food commercial:
"Where's the books?"
Still waiting for the answer to that one.
When Mr. Taylor talks about VDOE standards requiring class sizes as small as 8, he's talking about special education self-contained classrooms. The language of "squeezed from both sides" gives the impression that Mr. Taylor believes those standards are inappropriate or an unrealistic expectation for school divisions. Mr. Taylor should have a conversation with our self-contained teachers to find out if they believe 8 is too few students.