Monday January 30, 2023

ANALYSIS: Budget Proposal Meeting | GUEST COMMENTARY: Coldest Night | Happening This Week

Jan 30, 2023

When Mark Taylor started as superintendent of Spotsylvania County Public Schools in November, there was an outpouring of concern about his lack of educational experience. During Tuesday night’s budget presentation, that lack of understanding and knowledge of school systems was on full display.

For the first 20 minutes, Taylor spoke not of dollars and cents, but bemoaned all the problems the county schools are facing. As he spoke, it appeared that the problems he bemoaned were a revelation to him.

Teacher Shortages: Taylor called attention to a University of Virginia study (though it wasn’t clear which study} that showed Spotsylvania County ranks 18^th for teacher vacancies. He then goes on to point out that while almost every other district on that list is much smaller than Spotsylvania, two are bigger districts – Norfolk and Newport News. It was an odd point to make.

To anyone who has followed education to any degree since 2000 – and it’s not unreasonable to assume that someone leading Virginia’s 13^th largest school district would have done that – the extent of the teacher shortage problem should hardly be news. It’s been an ongoing issue for decades; COVID and a surging conservative attack against schools and teachers has made the problem much worse.

Pointing to the UVA study, Taylor aimed to sell the idea that what’s happening here is par for the course – “The vacancies are everywhere” he said.

Yes, but that chart also suggests something is spectacularly wrong in this county. Many of the districts on this list are rural – Southamption, Nottoway, King and Queen, Prince Edward, Westmoreland – and we know that rural districts have long faced staffing issues. So their appearance on this list is not surprise.

Nor are inner-city school districts – Portsmouth, Manassas Park – which have also struggled to recruit and retain teachers for decades due to the difficult working conditions.

Taylor does note the large number of rural schools on the list, but then points to two large districts – Norfolk City and Newport News – suggesting the shortage Spotsylvania is struggling with isn’t any different from theirs.

What he doesn’t say is that these two districts have very little in common with Spotsylvania. Norfolks City and Newport News have much higher percentage of schools rated as “Below Average” by GreatSchools.org, their students do considerably worse than Spotsylvania students in keeping abreast of their peers across the state, and these districts have fewer students taking AP courses.

In fact, by most any measure, these districts aren’t remotely competitive with Spotsylvania.

Board member Nicole Cole notes that teacher vacancies for the county are up 114% from the previous year. That number is eye-popping for a county that ranks among the fastest-growing in the commonwealth. That number looks even worse when you compare it to Norfolk City, where the percentage of teacher vacancies is down from the previous year, and Norfolk, where the teacher vacancies are up just 58.5%.

These numbers can’t tell us why Spotsylvania is so much worse than the larger districts on the list Taylor highlight. While it may simply be the result of the pressures facing other schools, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the turmoil that has engulfed this district over the past year also has had a great deal to do with it.

Either way, Taylor’s extended discussion of a problem that educators have known about for years speaks to how little he understood moving into this job.

Size of the district: As with teacher shortages, Taylor went to great lengths to try and explain to people just how large this system is. “I think it noteworthy,” he said, “that our community in the public schools is larger than the entire population of the city of Fredericksburg.”

Well, considering that Fredericksburg is just 10.5 square miles, and Spotsylvania is more than 400; that Spotsylvania has some 136,000 residents; and that Spotsylvania County has done nothing but build houses and sell itself as a bedroom community to Washington, D.C., for the past 20 years, one wonders why anyone would be surprised by this.

Apparently, Taylor is. And he apparently believes that what is revelatory to him isn’t fully understood by anyone else.

“I think one of the fundamental problems,” he said, “for the division is simply the comprehension of the size and the scope of who we are and what we do.”

That he believes this speaks to how little he understands about the job before him.

A Way That I Can Understand It

Perhaps the most confounding statement Taylor made Tuesday night was toward the end of his presentation. Describing the slide that shows a revenue gap of $21.6 million, Taylor praises the work he and the staff did by noting, “Nobody ever explained it [the school budget] to me this way when I worked over at the county.”

That’s a damning statement by someone who formerly served as the county’s administrator. It’s also a statement that simply doesn’t pass the smell test.

Chris Yakabouski, who is in his fourth term as a Spotsylvania Board of Supervisor, told F2S that he’s always found the school budgets to be “informative and in depth.” He recalls one by Erin Gampp that ran to 65 pages and covered in-depth all the expenses the school required.

And not everyone was tracking the budget with all the clarity Taylor wanted.

Taylor spent considerable time talking about 25.5 FTEs that his team had discovered that had been “banked” since 2019. He said they weren’t able to determine if those FTEs and the accompanying funds had been “hidden” or “simply lost.” The former suggests something nefarious, the latter suggests recklessness on the part of Dr. Baker, the former superintendent, and his team.

But there are potential explanations for these FTEs that are neither. Cole notes that it’s not uncommon to build buffers into budgets, in case there are more students than anticipated and more teachers need to be hired.

Unfortunately, we can’t know who’s right on this one because “we’ve lost so much institutional knowledge [in the central office], there’s no one to ask about it,” Cole tells F2S. And that loss of institutional knowledge is directly attributable to this board, which has created an environment that has motivated high-level administrators with deep knowledge of how to run this school district to flee to better-paying, more stable districts.

Blinded by Ideology

For years, the Tea Party movement and Republicans in Spotsylvania have complained about the costs of education. Costs have risen, substantially. But many of these costs are directly tied to the needs of the student population.

As Taylor’s own presentation showed, the number of students who are English Language Learners is way up. As are the number of homeless students. And students in special education. This all requires money to address.

When on the outside of education looking in, ideology can blind you to the complexities of educational costs. As a long-time county administrator, Taylor should have paid closer attention to the budgets that Dr. Baker, the School Board, and school staff were putting together during those years.

Unfortunately, it would seem that Taylor, rather than taking the time to really hear what the schools were saying when he was running the county, chose instead to play the role of ideologue and complain about spending with no real understanding of what’s driving it. Nor, apparently, did he have the curiosity to find out. He certainly had access to all the documents. And more than ample opportunity to ask questions about what he didn’t understand.

If there’s anything good that came out of Tuesday night’s meeting, it’s that Taylor may have finally figured out things aren’t as simple in education as he thought.

Kirk Twigg, who chaired the board last year, still hasn’t figured this out. In praising Taylor’s presentation, he celebrated the detail in the report. Detail that he said “I do not remember seeing in past budget seasons.”

That’s a disturbing statement from a former board chair, and board member who’s served since 2016.

Like Twigg, Taylor has too long been blinded by ideology. Neither he, nor the county, can afford for him and this school board to continue making that mistake.

The conservatives wanted to control this district. They’re in control.

Leading, they’re learning, is a whole lot harder than complaining.

See the budget presentation on Regional Web TV

GUEST COLUMN: The Coldest Night

by Meghann Cotter

I am not quite old enough to say this.

But it occurs to me, as I crest the royal hill of 40, that the work I am doing now may not be actualized until I'm too old to do it anymore or long after I'm gone.

Outside of what happened in the pandemic, I may never again get to experience Fredericksburg as a community where no one has to sleep outside. But if my own story is any testament, it is the dreams passed down from one generation to another that drives the response of those who follow.

That's one reason I'm so inspired by the young people who have rallied in support of "The Coldest Night of the Year" Walk, a 5K (with a one-mile option) that Micah will host on February 25.

On this night, across the U.S. and Canada, communities will walk to raise funds and awareness about hunger, hurt and homelessness. Participation can include walking, donating, volunteering or sponsoring the event.

Micah's goal is to raise $59,000, a symbolic number that represents the approximate cost of a house in the planned Jeremiah Community - a supportive neighborhood of small homes that will eventually house the community's street and chronic homeless. Jeremiah Community, we believe, is a dream that will set our community's course toward the eventual day that no one has to sleep outside.

With 30 days to go, Micah has engaged almost 200 walkers across 38 teams and raised nearly 75% of our goal. Leading the charge is nine-year-old Jane Murray, whose father Clay is on the Board for Micah and mom Jillian works at Fredericksburg United Methodist Church. By knocking on doors, asking for support from the church community that has watched her grow up, reaching out to friends and family and writing a letter to the family's favorite basketball team, the Boston Celtics, Jane has raised almost $6,000 for Micah. Currently, she has raised more money than any other walker in the nation.

Following her parents' lead, Jane has been loving neighbors through both Micah and her church community since she was four. "People have seen her and her little self, volunteering in numerous ways, at community dinners, the church food pantry, meals to hotels during Covid, and this is the first time that we've been able to actually give folks some way to support her," said Jane's father, Clay. "And they've come out in droves."

Other teams have also used their involvement in the Coldest Night Walk to engage young people. Real Estate Agent Chip Taylor, leader of the Ray of Light team, has asked his clients to get their children to draw pictures of "What home means to them." More than 15 kids have submitted drawings, featuring houses, families and words like safe, secure, love, happiness and family. He has shared their pictures on Facebook to encourage others to support him in the Coldest Night walk, which supports Micah in its efforts to make home possible for the unhoused.

In addition, many other local churches, businesses and community groups have formed teams to walk in solidarity with Micah on "the Coldest Night of the Year." Many churches are leveraging their congregational circles to collect walkers and supporters. Italian Station's Pay it Forward team is inviting customers to make a donation using a QR code in their store.

On any given night in the Fredericksburg region, there are about 200-250 people who sleep in shelters, tents, abandoned buildings or cars. Roughly, 60 unhoused neighbors consistently live outdoors. The complexity of their needs (i.e. mental health, chronic illness, intellectual disability and/or addiction), combined with the limited options for affordable housing and support services leave many in that situation for a year or more.

While the average American lives well into their 70s, a person who has spent time on the street is likely to live only until their mid-50s. Cold, harsh nights sleeping outside are often the biggest culprit in removing literal years from people's lives. For two years in a row, Micah has buried more than 30 people who spent time living outdoors. The National Health Care for the Homeless Council reports that up to 700 unsheltered individuals across the country die each year from cold-related illnesses.

And so, we walk!

We walk because no neighbor should have to sleep outside in the cold.

We walk because Fredericksburg has the capacity to love our neighbors better. We are not a Los Angeles, a New York or a Richmond, which can count thousands outside on a given night. With one meaningful project, everyone we know who sleeps outside can be offered a home and the support that is needed.

We walk because the compassion of a community is measured in how we care for our least. For 18 years now, the downtown churches have quietly come alongside our neighbors in places where many in our community had given up. Our work is not just a meal, a bed or a roof over someone's head, it is care for the whole person. The more people who join us in that that work, the better we can be the community that our neighbors desperately need.

There is an African proverb that says, "If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, then go together." Our walk through the city on February 25 means more than money for the work Micah is doing every day. It is an expression of our solidarity, an embrace of a dream that began a long time ago and continues on in the hearts of those inspired by our love for one another.

We walk because we are ALL neighbors.

We walk because it's cold outside.

And we walk together toward the dream of a community where no one sleeps outside.

The Coldest Night of the Year is a winterrific family-friendly walk to raise money for local charities serving people experiencing hurt, hunger, and homelessness. Join us on February 25, 2023 - team up, fundraise, walk, and gather for good... because it’s cold out there. The walk will begin at Hurkamp Park and end at the same location with a "soup kitchen" meal provided by Foode + Mercantile. Check in is at 4pm. Walk starts at 5pm.

Learn more by visiting the Coldest Night of the Year website.

Happening This Week In:

Fredericksburg

Planning Commission Meeting: Wednesday, January 25th at 6:30 PM in Council Chambers at City Hall. You can find the agenda here.

Spotsylvania

Planning Commission Meeting: Wednesday, February 1 at 6:00 PM.

Stafford

Wetlands Board, Coastal Primary Sand Dunes Board, and Chesapeake Bay Board: Monday, January 30 beginning at 6:00 PM.
Electoral Board Meeting: Wednesday, February 1 starting at 9:00 AM.
Board of Supervisors Legislative Committee, Thursday, February 2 starting at 12:30 PM.
Historical Commission, Thursday February 2 starting at 3:00 PM.
Board of Supervisors Annual Planning Meeting: Friday, February 3 starting at 12:00 PM
Celebrate Virginia North Community Development Authority: Friday, February 3 starting at 1:00 PM.

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