By Charlotte Matherly, contributor
Rockingham County School Board will delay voting on its comprehensive plan for 2024-29 until the new year.
That’s not a reflection of uncertainty or something that needs to change, vice chair Sara Horst said at Monday’s meeting, but a way to dot all their I’s and cross all their T’s.
Horst said she wants another set of eyes on the plan, which will outline the board’s guiding principles for the next five years. She suggested contracting someone who isn’t an RCPS or Rockingham County community member to get an outside perspective.
“Maybe we’re so in our shell, in our own box, that we’re not seeing something else, or we should be looking at a different perspective,” Horst said.
Board members Jackie Lohr and Hollie Cave agreed, saying they’d also like a consultant to take a look. Board chair Matt Cross and member Ashley Burgoyne weren’t at the meeting.
After sending out a survey that garnered more than 2,300 responses, Superintendent Larry Shifflett and board members narrowed it down to six main goals: school safety, academic excellence, employee recruitment and retention, student behavioral health and wellness, stewardship and community engagement. The plan outlines priorities such as adding a bigger police presence in schools and exploring artificial intelligence as a learning tool.
This comes after school board members attended a conference, where Lohr said presenters began to stress the need to prioritize student achievement in a comprehensive plan.
“I got excited and … pulled up our comprehensive plan, and I’m like, ‘I just don’t know that we’ve got all our boxes checked,” Lohr said.
Cave said the board didn’t start the planning process with a consultant because members didn’t want an external firm to write it all. But now that it’s done, Cave said, she’s fine with sending it out for review.
“We didn’t really have a firm or an organization that we felt like we really trusted or really held the same values as we do here in Rockingham County,” Cave said. “Most of us, we didn’t really want to do that because we wanted our vision to be really put forward in the plan.”
The board has not yet contracted a consultant yet, and Horst didn’t disclose which one she hopes to work with. But, she said, she’s interested in one she found through the School Board Member Alliance, a nonprofit profit professional development organization in Virginia that the board voted to join earlier this year and that emphasizes traditionally conservative values.
The board is now scheduled to vote on the comprehensive plan at its next regular meeting on Jan. 13, 2025.
$16.5M approved for school renovations
The board also approved a $16.5 million contract to Broadway-based Lantz Construction Co. for renovations to Elkton Elementary School.
Shifflett said in October that parts of the school were built in 1939 and 1972 and are operating on long-outdated heating, venting and cooling systems.
This bid could lower the cost of construction. In October, Shifflett expected the project to cost $22.6 million. At Monday’s meeting, Steve Reid, RCPS’s director or maintenance, said the contract would bring the total budget to around $19.4 million. Renovations are expected to wrap up by August 2026.
It’s one of about half a dozen construction and renovation projects Shifflett hopes to complete by 2030, which he discussed in detail at a previous meeting.
New school calendar
Board members appeared favorable to adopting a draft of a 2025-26 school calendar presented to them on Monday.
“This is the calendar I’ve been looking for all this time,” Lohr said.
Donna Abernathy, the assistant superintendent of innovation and learning, said school would run from Aug. 21, 2025, to June 3, 2026. Students would get three days for Thanksgiving, 10 days for winter break and a week for spring break.
The calendar also includes 21.5 professional development and “flex days” for teachers, when they can get non-instructional work done.
The school board will vote to finalize the calendar at its next meeting.
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