Lower School Enrollments May Hurt Budgets
As if the school systems, particularly the City’s, don’t have enough to worry about, NBC12 released an article about the lower-than-anticipated student numbers throughout the region. This could mean budget cuts for the various school systems due to lower state support.
Henrico predicted 1,000 and only got 600. Hanover thought 158 and got less than 100. Richmond ended up losing more than 400 students. Chesterfield predicted 1,100 new students but only ended up with around 500.
The East End school at which I work is down enough students that we will soon end up having to cut loose a few teachers.
So, where are all the kids going? Private schools? Home schooling?
Ironically enough, one of the corporate level individuals for the entity that “owns” the private school where I work has two sons who are home schooled. His family lives way out in the “boonies” on a farm so I’m not sure if that’s one of the reasons (can’t even get a bus route where they live) or what.
I feel like this is a result of the all the bad PR our schools have had recently. We really need to market the positives of the system while working on the challenges.
It seems to me that this all-negative image been put out there and remained unquestioned so long that no one has any hope!
I think Richmond, in general, is a victim of negative perception and this tends to over-power the real positives. We are cut down by the counties, cut down by the current administration, and even cut down by our own residents. I am not saying that we should not speak up about issues, but a more balanced approach would really help our image.
No location is perfect. We need to pat ourselves on the back sometimes because, really, Richmond is a great place to live. And to those who insist on slandering our community, we need to call them on it and correct any false impressions they may have.
My school got so many new students due to school closings that my classroom is now in the old teachers lounge. Let’s just say that it’s ridiculously small.