Supporting our Public Schools

One of the most important issues to me is appropriate support for Roanoke City Public Schools. My daughter attended Raleigh Court Elementary School, Ruffner Middle School and Patrick Henry High School. She had many great teachers, caring principals and diverse and wonderful classmates. She was able to take part in the PLATO program at Raleigh Court, the modern dance and International Baccalaureate Program at Ruffner and the Center for Humanities and Governor’s School at Patrick Henry. Each of these programs cost the school budget added funds but the School Board, Superintendent and City Council understood the value of giving all students the opportunity to flourish and explore different interests. Her love of learning was nurtured, and her exposure to diverse socio-economic levels, varied nationalities and cultures enriched her understanding of humanity. Her overall experience at RCPS was an important building block to succeeding in her future education. Today she is a quintuple board-certified adult and pediatric pulmonologist with a specialty in pulmonary hypertension.

Strong public schools create strong future leaders. Investing in our schools also helps our children, their families, and our city to shine now. I believe that children, along with community safety, must always be the top two priorities of our city. I will discuss community safety in a different blog entry. Here are the financial facts (the numbers are hyperlinks to the research where these numbers come from).

“Every dollar invested in public education generates an average return of $2 in future earnings for the student. When accounting for broader societal benefits—such as increased tax revenue, higher GDP growth, and reduced criminal justice and welfare costs—the return on investment (ROI) can jump to $7 to $15 for every dollar spent. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The financial payoff of public education breaks down significantly depending on the age group and specific societal benefits measured:

Early Childhood Education (Pre-K)

• The Return: Returns range from $3 to $17 for every dollar spent.

• The Benefit: High-quality early education drastically reduces later societal costs, including lowered crime rates, less reliance on public welfare, and decreased healthcare expenditures. [1, 2, 3]

K-12 Education

• The Return: Approximately $2 in future taxable earnings for the student for every $1 invested.

• The Benefit: Increased per-pupil spending directly correlates with higher adult wages, higher high school graduation rates, and a measurable decrease in adult poverty. [1, 2]”. (Google AI generated)

At the very least, cutting 14 million dollars from the school budget will cost us 28 million dollars in the coming years. Supporting public schools is an excellent return on investment.

Yet, there are other incredibly important reasons why we must remain laser focused on our public schools. The most important reason is that we are the village responsible for raising the children of the city. Well-staffed, academically strong, and emotionally and physically safe schools allow all of our children to flourish and reach towards their potential. Though no school system is perfect, RCPS has seen great rates of graduation, increased full accreditation and rising test scores. This is not accidental; it reflects the past funding formula of City Council that allowed for smaller class sizes and greater individual attention. Failing to appropriate needed funding to the schools fails our children. When a family is facing financial stress, they will do all that they can to minimize the effect of that stress on their children. In my view, Roanoke is one large family. By not appropriating needed school funding, this budget crisis has placed our children in jeopardy.

Our city and therefore our schools stand on a precipice. They are linked in many ways beyond a funding formula. As we strive for economic growth, to be business friendly, and to attract young professionals, lower school funding will cause the city to be unattractive. Larger class sizes and less personal attention will cause families who can afford private school to flee our public schools. The socio-economic diversity and the richness that this brings will be lost. For many of our youngsters, school provides them tools for socio-emotional health and helps them to deal with stress and difficult situations in a positive way. After school programs and sports are essential for all but very importantly, they allow at risk students to be engaged in constructive activities.  If we move down the path of not giving our schools what they need to flourish, we fail to meet the needs of our most vulnerable residents – our children. Our city cannot be strong if our schools are weakened.

Of course, the more difficult question is where do these funds come from? Initially, I have three possible avenues where our schools can remain fully or close to fully funded without raising taxes. In the current budget significant amounts of money (32-33 million dollars) are being used for park amenities. These are not maintenance funds – these are funds for capital improvements. For me, this is a true question of priorities. I love our parks, but in this type of budget cycle, I would prefer to maintain our parks and fully fund our schools. (Even with full funding of our schools there would be 14-15 million dollars left in this area. ) My second thought on decreasing expenses in the city to allow for more money for the schools, comes from looking at the budget in a different light. I inquired as to how many buildings Roanoke City owns. I could not get a specific number (that is a red flag for me – a citizen should be able to ask a question like this and get a response even if it takes a day or two to find the person who can answer that question). I then asked about utility bills and suggested that if each building owned by the city was kept two degrees warmer in summer and two degrees cooler in winter, the savings would likely add up to multi millions. Since I received no response to my questions or suggestion, I cannot know the exact figure, but I am sure it would be significant. Finally, the city reclaimed the school’s rainy day fund under the premise that it was legally obligated to do so. My research shows this is true but an important addition to this statement was not revealed. All City Council needs to do is vote at the end of each school year to return those funds to the school. This is what Salem City does. This fund was flush with millions of dollars that the schools saved and now need. These are three ways that I would initially look for funds for our schools without raising taxes. I feel certain that there are other ways this could be accomplished, if we believe that funding our schools is truly a top priority.

We do have more needs in the city than we have funds to fulfill. This is almost always the case for non-profit and government budgets. The real question is what are the priorities? If in a given year the city must say to the schools that there are some serious emergent one time capital replacements that must happen and therefore the schools need to understand that less is available, I understand this. This is reality. On the other hand, to downgrade the school’s funding formula for the future is not a statement about city needs, it is a statement about priorities. There will always be competing priorities, but I believe that public education should be at or very close to the top of the list. If I am elected to Council, I will work to return as much funding as possible to our schools.