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Gold Star Teachers Noted
Three Rockbridge County High School teachers were recognized at this month’s meeting. Jennifer Balkey, Amanda Grimm and Mike LeNoir won the W!SE Gold Star Teacher award for the 2022-2023 school year.
W!SE (Working in Support of Education) is a New Yorkbased organization with a goal of improving financial literacy and readiness for students. It distributes these awards annually.
“To earn this Gold Star Award, a teacher must have achieved a 93% passing rate on the Wise financial literacy certification test in at least one of their classes during the 20222023 school year,” Paige Owens, director of career and technical education and technology, told the Board.
Rockbridge County High School was also recognized.
“We were also recognized as a school, with the Blue Star School Award, which our three teachers made happen as well. To earn this coveted award, a school must have achieved at least an 80% pass rate on the Wise financial literacy test on their first attempt. We drastically exceeded that with an 87% pass rate,” Owens said.
“These are both outstanding achievements, and we are extremely proud of the work that these two fine ladies and Mr. Mike LeNoir do with our kids, day in and day out. They do a wonderful job,” said Owens
Composite Index
Rises For County
As Rockbridge school officials continue to plan for next year’s budget, they have learned that the county’s Local Composite Index has increased, which will mean less state funding for local schools.
“The composite index determines a school division’s ability to pay education costs,” according to the Virginia Department of Education’s website, “Each locality’s index is adjusted to maintain an overall statewide local share of 45% and an overall state share of 55%.”
“Our updated LCI increased from .4530 to .4847,” Jason Kirby, chief business officer, explained to the Board. “Unfortunately that means we can expect to receive a smaller percentage from the state in basic aid than we’ve received in the past.
“It was a little bit shocking to me, because this latest LCI increase was the 14th highest increase in the state, among the 135 localities,” he said. “Now Rockbridge County has the 30th highest LCI out of the 135 state localities.”
While the reasons behind the increase are not yet clear, Rockbridge school officials are taking this change into account as they continue planning their budget.
“We are working to dig into this a little bit more and try to find out the details behind the number, and we can talk about that in future conversations,” Kirby said.
“At this point, we’ll continue to work through our internal budget analysis and request, as well as the priorities that the School Board has put together — working to maintain competitive employee salaries, as well as providing for health insurance, and trying to maintain with the rising cost of inflation,” he said.
