'I’m begging you:' Henrico board chairman urges superintendent to address low academic performance in Eastern Henrico schools

Henrico Board of Supervisors Chairman Tyrone Nelson asked Henrico Schools leaders March 21 to put an end to the “same old story” of achievement gaps between schools in the West End and those in Eastern Henrico during a meeting about the division’s proposed Fiscal Year 2025 budget.

Nelson, who has represented the Varina District since 2012, emphasized the stark difference between last year’s state Standards of Learning assessment pass rates in Varina and Fairfield District schools, which often hovered around 30-50%, and those in West End schools, which were often around 70-90% or higher.

“When I look at SOL pass rates 2022-2023, I mean I don’t even want to read them, they’re embarrassing,” Nelson said. “This is 12 years of me saying the same thing…I’m begging you all, focus your attention on getting our East End schools up.”

Eastern Henrico schools often saw fewer than half of their students pass their SOLs – with Fair Oaks Elementary reporting pass rates of 42% in reading, 32% in science, and 24% in math – while many West End schools had pass rates close to 100%, with David A. Kaechele Elementary reporting pass rates of 91% in reading, 86% in science, and 90% in math.

Similar gaps continued into high school, with Highland Springs High in the Varina District reporting pass rates of 74% in reading, 76% in math, and only 40% in science, while Three Chopt District school Deep Run High reported rates of 96% in reading, 89% in math, and 88% in science.

Nelson urged HCPS Superintendent Amy Cashwell and her team to “come up with a solution” using the funds provided by the board of supervisors in the upcoming budget.

“You come up with the solutions, if they make sense, we support it. It’s just that simple. We already said five minutes ago: take care of it,” he said. “Please, put your whole weight behind making Varina and Fairfield schools as successful as the rest of the county.”

Henrico Schools’ proposed budget for 2024-2025, which will be formally adopted by the Henrico School Board April 18, after the board of supervisors approves it April 9, would increase funding by 4.2% from the current budget to make permanent several support staff positions funded by a federal COVID relief grant set to expire later this year.

The $881 million recommended school budget, part of the Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas’ proposed $1.25 billion operating budget for the county, also would provide two separate raises for HCPS employees – a 4.8% raise for all eligible staff and an additional one-step pay increase for teachers and bus drivers.

HCPS Chief Financial Officer John Wack said that these raises would boost bonuses for eligible staff at “Opportunity Schools” – schools with the highest teacher vacancy rates and highest teacher turnover – up to $3,300 each year, incentivizing more staff to work at these schools, all 10 of which are in Eastern Henrico.

However, Nelson said that he would support the school division doing even more to boost Eastern Henrico schools, such as adding more staff or programs, especially with many families continuing to move out of the Varina and Fairfield districts to live and send their children to school in the West End.

“One of the biggest gripes I hear is that people don’t want to live in Varina because our schools are not doing well. So they move to the West End, or they buy a house in Varina and then when their kids get to high school, they send them to other schools,” Nelson said. “Businesses don’t even want to locate in that part of town because the employees want their kids to go to school where they deem successful.”

Cashwell said that while she is “not satisfied” with the low test results at certain schools, she believes that the division is successfully “moving the needle” by funding more wrap-around supports for students, such as placing attendance officers in certain schools with high truancy rates and more substitute teachers in schools with higher vacancies.

“Many of our schools have pervasive challenges,” Cashwell said. “We’re seeing the most chronic attendance issues in those schools and we need our families to be a part of the solution, getting their kids to school. We’ve got some community issues around youth crime and violence that impact some of that achievement data.”

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Teacher and staff vacancies are also a continuing struggle for HCPS, Cashwell said. The division currently has 358 teacher vacancies according to Vithoulkas, which Cashwell said “runs similar” to other vacancy rates in nearby school divisions.

“The teacher shortage you hear about in Henrico, this is not a Henrico issue,” she said. “This is a state issue, a local issue, a national issue that we’ve seen coming our way kind of like a freight train for the past decade pre-pandemic.”

However, targeted staff raises in the upcoming budget, which would increase teachers’ salaries by 7.2%, will make Henrico Schools more competitive in recruiting needed teachers, Cashwell said.

Vithoulkas also said that bus drivers will receive a $25-per-hour starting salary with the recommended budget, a significant increase from the $19.05-per-hour pay bus drivers received earlier this year. The school system is still trying to fill bus driver vacancies.

These raises, along with the fact that the county has invested an additional $300 million into the education budget over the past decade, should be more than enough to please HCPS staff, Brookland District Supervisor Dan Schmitt said.

“We’re doing all those things that we’re supposed to be doing, and we will continue and can continue to do them,” he said. “There’s [a suggestion] to the contrary that education folks are not being taken care of. I’m sorry, but they are.”

Cashwell also assured the board of supervisors that with the division’s recent teacher recruitment and retention efforts, Henrico has not lost a significant amount of educators to other nearby localities.

“We’re doubling down on efforts to reward the folks we have who are working each and every day making a difference for our kids and often taking on extra, as well as recruiting,” Cashwell said. “Also by making sure we’re taking care of compensation and really being competitive in the market. And I think we’ve done a great job of that in Henrico.”

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Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s Report for America Corps member and education reporter. Her position is dependent upon reader support; make a tax-deductible contribution to the Citizen through RFA here.