Covington School Board Convenes

The Covington City School Board had an opportunity to discuss any and all issues that are currently laying on the table Monday evening.

The members of the school board were able to get this done as they combined two meetings into one, a called meeting regarding the 2015-2016 budget and the regular scheduled meeting that was to be held next Monday.

Before jumping into the discussion of the budget, there were concerns about Covington High School students not taking advantage of the option to going to Jackson River Technical Center.

Eddy Clemons expressed his concerns by telling the board, “I’d like to see some push if we could, to maybe make more students aware, or look harder into going there.”

Covington City Schools Superintendent Tom Long mentioned that counselors do stress that option to the students and Jackson River Technical Center Director Glenn Spangler speaks to students.

Covington High School Principal Dr. Shannon Fuhrman also said that freshmen do take trips to get a look at Jackson River Technical Center.

Another issue is travel time for Covington students, where Fuhrman estimates that students lose 40 minutes of learning a day, due to the back and forth travel.

A final issue was that the students of Alleghany High School are closer and they utilize block scheduling, which allows them more time in the classroom.

The fact that Covington students have several periods a day and less time in the classroom, that would seem to put a damper on them attending Jackson River Technical Center.

“Our kids don’t want to go take Welding I for one semester and then take child care the next,” said Dizzy Garten, while he expressed concerns the disadvantages the cirriculum could present to Covington students.

Garten also mentioned that the recent national award winning welding team from Jackson River Technical Center did not have one Covington student on it.

“We need to find a way to get our kids into Welding II and Welding III,” Garten said.

Garten concluded his time on the floor during the Jackson River Technical discussion by asking the school board to have a discussion with The Alleghany Foundation.

“Our welding team was the national champion last year, at JRTC, The Alleghany Foundation skipped our grant, and wrote a $75,000 grant to Botetourt County Schools to get that up and going because theirs has failed the last five years,” Garten said while wondering why a local organization would fund a non-local school system before a local school program.

After a closed session to discuss personnel appointments, reassignments, and resignations, the 2015-2016 budget was discussed.

“We don’t know anymore than we did last time,” Long said as to how much the budget should be set for, as he is still waiting on the recommendations from Governor McAuliffe.

Ron Morrissette presented a packet that he has worked on that shows expenses that would fall under “flexible spending,” spanning from 2009-2013.

Morrissette did emphasize that this packet was only for informational purposes, not to provide any input for any potential budget cuts.

The figures he came up with were based on a five year average.

A final point emphasized by Morrissette was to consider saving future money by cutting from various categories instead of making one big cut from one major category.

After Morrissette’s presentation, Vice-Chairwoman Cindy Bennett said, “We have to look to grow the budget.”

One suggestion Bennett had was to follow the path of several smaller schools across the state, that path is to look at cutting extra eighth grade sports and have those athletes go out for junior varsity sports.

She stated that would minimize on expenditures, with traveling being a main one.

She also said that she would hate to see cutting those sports for those students and wouldn’t want them to lose out on opportunity, but it was about doing everything possible to have the best educators and education that can be provided.

“If you go out there and you show someone our salary scale and say you’re not going to be at this level and you will be several steps back, it’s hard to recruit,” Bennett said about the concerns of getting quality educators to come and teach.

While still discussing educators, the idea of giving raises based on performance instead of being based on tenure was proposed.

School Board Chairwoman Tammy Scruggs-Duncan stated that the school system currently had two sources of funding, from the city of Covington and the state of Virginia.

“Do we need to go lobby?” Scruggs-Duncan asked as she wondered if a contingent should go to lobby state representatives for a higher allotment of money per student.

She also discussed increased enrollment, which would result in more money.

“We get these kids, we give them to the teachers, and we expect them to pass the SOL’s, and we’re expecting them to do this and do that, and they don’t get any raises, we should not take anybody that walks through the door,” Morrissette said with immediate resistence to the increased enrollment suggestion.

“Why?” Bennett asked.

“Because there are some kids that really don’t need to be in our system that belong back at Alleghany for discipline problems,” Morrissette answered.

Morrissette’s fellow board members informed him that when each student comes in, their transcripts and discipline records are checked, among other things.

Morrissette later said that the enrollment issue was something that he’d want to discuss at a later work session.

In the final discussion of the budget portion of the meeting, secondary income was considered as an option to bring in money for helping the school.

A couple of things that were considered was the money that goes to the CHS Quarterback Club and the consideration of a pay to play system.

Scruggs-Duncan then suggested a sub-committee be formed, with various Covington athletic coaches, board members Garten and Bennett, Fuhrman, and Covington Athletic Director Todd Burton.