Charlottesville City Schools needs an extra $9 million from the city, says school board

Charlottesville City Schools is finalizing its budget but have hit a block: they need an extra $9 million to fund the positions and costs they expect in the 2025 fiscal year.

The extra millions of dollars would go toward funding key positions, such as reading and math specialists, care and safety assistants, special education instructional assistants and stipends, attendance specialists, and more. It would bring the investment from the city up from $67 million in 2024 to $76 million in 2025.

But until the City approves giving the school division the extra funds, City Schools might have to scramble to fill in the gaps.

“We’re in uncharted territory,” said Renee Hoover, director of finance for City Schools.

City Schools lost $2.9 million following the increase of the city’s local composite index (LCI). The score is calculated every two years by the state to determine how much the city is able to pay for public education, said Beth Cheuk, spokesperson for City Schools. The higher Charlottesville’s score, the less the state contributes to the city and subsequently its school division.

City Schools have gone back and forth on how much funding they would seek from the city. In January, City Schools said they would request for $12 million, but brought it down to $6 million, which they proposed to the city on Feb. 7.

But after considering the needs of City Schools, the school board asked Superintendent Royal Gurley and the school division’s finance department to increase its request. City Schools presented a budget with a $9 million request at yesterday’s school board meeting.

The final $9 million ask would help fund 21 positions and seven expenses including:

• One care and safety assistant;
• One special education instructional assistant at Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC);
• Six reading and math specialists and interventionists;
• Six site based substitute teachers;
• Seven teachers;
• Funding for the Knight School;
• And money for other expenditures such as collective bargaining relations, software and increased tuition reimbursements.

The $9 million also includes $2.5 million for teacher, administrative and staff salary increases, and another $1.3 million toward other recurring contractual items, like security software. It would also allow City Schools to rely on more stable funding for things like hiring, instead of dipping into one-time or special funding meant for things like one-time technology upgrades.

“We’re being transparent in what we need and want for our students,” said Lisa Larson-Torres, chair of the City School Board, at a Feb. 15 budget work session. “I don’t feel like anything that was presented to City Council was excessive or something that we don’t need.”

The city allocates 40% of its new personal and real property tax to City Schools. City Schools’ requests for funds above that allocation have ranged from $1.6 million to $4.2 million since 2015.

City Schools’ overall budget, which was more than $106 million in 2024, is funded by state and federal investments, and special revenue — such as tuition from CATEC —  but the majority of its budget comes from the city.

The increased funding would go toward new positions City Schools direly needs, say board members.

Notably, the school system is looking to hire more reading and math specialists. In 2022, the General Assembly passed laws focused on improving students’ performance on standards of learning exams, and closing the gaps that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated. The Virginia Literacy Act, part of the larger ALL in VA initiative, requires all school divisions in the state to ramp up literacy instruction efforts for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and granted them extra funding to do so.

Most of the students in the additional tutoring funded by this legislation are at Clark Elementary School, Walker Upper Elementary School and Buford Middle School. The three schools are currently accredited with conditions, meaning that one or more student demographic groups performed below state standards. 

City Schools has allocated $946,637 to hire the tutors, according to Katina Otey, Chief Academic Officer for the school division. The school system has enough specialists to satisfy the minimum requirements set by the state — one specialist per 550 students — but still needs funding to hire more specialists for the 180 students who need extra help.

Site based substitute teachers, who work regularly out of one school, are high on the list of positions City Schools wants to add as well. This request comes from teachers at Charlottesville High School, Buford Middle and Walker Upper Elementary who are struggling to maintain their workload plus the load of subbing for others’ classes, according to Larson-Torres. In its January draft budget, the school division asked for funding for 12 substitute teachers for the three schools, but in the end lowered the request to six positions.

“We worked really hard in the last year to hire site based subs. But listening to teachers’ feedback, especially in the last year, [showed] that we need to be able to bring, minimally, this amount of teachers into our division so they can do the work that they’re supposed to be doing,” said Larson-Torres at the Feb. 7 budget work session with the city.

There are some items on the list that Gurley said will continue, regardless of what the city decides to fund. Knight School, a new evening program for Charlottesville High School students, will cost the school division $213,688 in 2025. The school system could tap into other buckets — such as their prevention and intervention fund — to fill in any gaps, said Cheuk.

As the school division awaits final approval, some community members worry about what could happen if City Schools is unable to get the additional funding.

“As we all know, the needs continue to grow and we cannot afford for the city to limit the financial support we give our children,” said Stacey Gearhart, who has a neurodivergent kindergartener in City Schools and was one of the few parents to speak at the Feb. 15 work session. “If Charlottesville City Schools doesn’t receive the funding they request, I worry about many things, I worry about our most vulnerable children.”