By Charlotte Matherly, contributor
The Rockingham County School Board passed a $201 million budget on Monday night, but not without some sacrifices.
The spending plan for the 2026-27 school year does include hefty increases for insurance premiums, a new background check system for school visitors, eight replacement school buses, the expansion of an elementary math teacher program, as well as heating, venting and cooling system work on Turner Ashby High School, among other items.
The budget is not yet finalized and remains dependent on approval from the county Board of Supervisors, which is set to contribute $82.8 million, as well as proposed state funding levels of $111.3 million. Lawmakers haven’t agreed on a final version of the state budget and are expected to return to Richmond next month to hash it out.
Not included in the spending plan are funding for elementary school playgrounds, new lights on the baseball field at Turner Ashby High School, and bleacher replacements for J. Frank Hillyard Middle School, among other things that some in the community had wanted.
For instance, closest to two students’ hearts is the continued absence of a theater teacher at Broadway High School. It’s the only high school in the county without one, which students said makes it difficult to coordinate their program.
Ivy Herrick, a junior, said theater at Broadway is “in shambles.” She said the school administration told her that if she got enough people to sign up for a theater class, they could find someone to teach it, but she hasn’t met the threshold yet.
“The theater program at Broadway has been running under several different advisers, coaches and teachers for the past five years, and this has done immense damage to our program as a whole,” Ivy said. “The disconnect between every theater opportunity has led to a disconnect between everyone involved.”
Molly Kate Adkins, a senior and vice president of the drama club, said it’s “hypocritical” that other extracurriculars like FFA (Future Farmers of America) have several teachers to help fundraise while the theater program doesn’t have a specific staff member to turn to.
“The disconnect in our school would never have been allowed to happen if it was any other type of extracurricular” activity, she said.
While board members said the school district could always find the money for that position later in the year, they ultimately didn’t approve it as part of the budget. Shifflett Larry Superintendent said the wishlist items they didn’t fund are “not forgotten,” and he hopes to address them in the future.
“Had we had more funds, we could’ve maybe taken on some of these projects, but we have to make decisions and try to focus on what we have to take care of in the immediate term — right now, this school year — and what things can wait another year or two,” Shifflett said. “They’re on the list, right? So they’re not going away, but they’re not forgotten.”
Several board members said they want to workshop ways to build a stronger pipeline of students to bolster arts enrollment. Ivy told them she’s tried to recruit other students to sign up for a theater class in hopes of getting a teacher, but she hasn’t met the threshold yet.
Board member Ashley Burgoyne said she doesn’t want Broadway students to feel “slighted by the other schools.”
Students make literacy gains
Rockingham County students who struggle with reading are making improvements, according to data from the district’s online literacy learning platform, Lexia PowerUp.
Public schools are required to intervene when middle schoolers fail or don’t take the reading sections of their Standards of Learning tests, as outlined in the Virginia Literacy Act that took effect last school year. Each student receives a reading plan, which entails additional instruction targeted toward improving reading, writing and comprehension.
Across word study skills, grammar and comprehension, students who had previously ranked at a foundational K-2 reading level are moving into intermediate (grades 3-5) and advanced (grades 6-8) ratings.
In word studies, for example, of the 1,057 middle schoolers who participated in the program, 62% started at a K-2 reading level, with 38% marked intermediate and none advanced. As of March 16, 58% are now placed at intermediate with just 18% still at the foundational level while 24% have moved into the advanced category. Those gains were especially pronounced in word studies, but the school division saw consistent growth across all facets of literacy.
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