Roanoke County School Board approves budget, redistricting

Next fiscal year, staff at Roanoke County Public Schools will see a one-step increase in their pay, but members of the county School Board hope to be able to give more substantial raises once the state budget is finalized.

The board approved its fiscal year 2025-26 budget with a 4-0 vote during a meeting on Thursday. Board member David Linden was absent from the meeting.

Roanoke County Public Schools added a third health insurance plan into the budget for employees. The new option is a high-deductible plan that is designed to be paired with a health savings account and features a lower premium, according to documents from the meeting's agenda packet. A one-year cash infusion of at least $2,195,329 into the health insurance reserves account is included in the budget as well, but the final amount could be more depending on the state budget.

The school board has to present its approved annual budget to the county Board of Supervisors by April 1, as is required by Virginia law. However, the state budget is often not finalized by then – as is the case this year. The school system developed a "conservative" interim budget to present to the supervisors, but it will likely change once the state budget is completed, RCPS spokesperson Chuck Lionberger said.

Additionally, 19 currently vacant positions were cut from the budget, meaning that those positions won't be filled this year. Three positions were added: one speech language pathologist for private day students, one nurse and one middle school math specialist, a grant-funded position.

Employee pay scales stayed the same for the fiscal year 2025-26 budget; however, all RCPS employees will move up one step on the pay scale, Lionberger said.

Board member Tim Greenway said he wanted staff to know that this is not the final version of the budget, and that, if possible, they want to make further salary adjustments for staff.

Vice Chairman Brent Hudson agreed, stating that, compared to other similarly-sized districts in Virginia, Roanoke County is not first in starting pay, mid-cap pay or the top of the pay scale.

"We've gotta do better," he said. "We've gotta try to find the money to properly compensate our staff."

Hudson said the board is going to continue working to get pay raises for staff.

"We truly have the best interest of our staff at heart, because without you, we would not be one of the top districts in the state," he said.

The school budget is scheduled to be presented to the supervisors during a Tuesday meeting.

In another matter Thursday, Sullivan Manley, a junior at Northside High School and co-president of the Roanoke Young Democrats group, organized a small rally before the meeting, but people were primarily there to address the board during public comment regarding its policies about LGBTQ+ students, he said.

To support LGBTQ+ students within Roanoke County Public Schools, he said the school board could reverse some of the policies it has adopted, such as the ones impacting transgender students. Manley did not speak during the meeting, but said in an interview beforehand that he hopes to see the school board "take a strong stance to support all of our students."

In years past, the topic of support for LGBTQ+ students and staff in Roanoke County Public Schools has been a contentious one; a number of meetings in the spring and summer of 2023 became heated.

Two people spoke during the meeting on Thursday: Jamey Umberger, a junior at Glenvar High School, and Remi Poindexter, a 2018 graduate of William Byrd High School.

"We need to think about how these policies affect everyone, especially those who already feel like they don't fit in," Umberger said. "I'm asking the school board to really think about what kind of message these policies send. Do we want to be the school district that protects and values all students, or the one that makes students feel like they don't belong?"

Poindexter shared a story of her time at William Byrd High School, during which school staff supported one of her friends, a transgender student, during a crisis. Her friend was admitted to the hospital for "life-saving treatment that never would have come without intervention," she said.

"We've become accustomed to a very casual hatred, and we cannot allow it to become our normal," she said. "Someone must advocate for these children when their biggest bullies live in the home."

Also Thursday, the school board voted 4-0 to approve a request to redistrict Burlington Elementary and Mountain View Elementary. Burlington has been either close to or at maximum capacity throughout the school year, Assistant Superintendent for Administration Tammy Newcomb said at the school board meeting on Feb. 10.

The two schools are less than 10 minutes apart and both feed into the same middle and high school. Around 50 kids will be impacted by the redistricting, which Newcomb said was received well by the impacted families.