The Berkeley County school system is preparing for a lawsuit over state school funding because, local leaders contend, West Virginia’s school funding system provides inadequate resources to meet the district’s constitutional responsibilities.
The board of education in Berkeley County unanimously approved proceeding with litigation in June, and the required 30-day notice for a lawsuit against the state was sent last week.
The pending lawsuit’s focus is pay levels in the particularly competitive Berkeley County area, plus special education funding and other funding concerns.
“And so, at the heart of this issue is that fundamental question: Does West Virginia school funding system adequately support the school district’s responsibility to provide a thorough and efficient system for their students?” Berkeley County Schools Superintendent Ryan Saxe said on MetroNews Talkline.
“I think that’s what we’re asking. We’re asking that question to be examined.”
Article XII, Section 1 of the West Virginia Constitution states, “The Legislature shall provide, by general law, for a thorough and efficient system of free schools.”
“When you get down to it, it’s about making sure that the resources that we are expected to provide, we have funding for. So it’s ensuring that the resources provided reflect the responsibilities that we’re expected to fulfill under the Constitution,” Saxe said.
“And you know, this is not something that I think our board made a decision with overnight, and it’s definitely not something that we take lightly.”
However, he continued, “Berkeley County Schools has faced significant challenges with the adequacy of of state funding, particularly when it comes to meeting the needs of our special education students and recruiting and and retaining qualified educators here in the Eastern Panhandle.”
The district’s special education costs exceeded state funding by $38 million last year. Individual placements can cost $100,000 to $600,000 annually, Saxe said, while specialized transportation can cost up to $100,000 a student.
Saxe said these services are required to meet students’ needs, not optional expenses.
“It’s when an student’s educational program requires those specialized services, we have a responsibility to provide them. So, not every student requires the same level of support, and our funding system, we believe, needs to recognize that reality,” he said.
Berkeley County Schools also faces longstanding challenges in recruiting and retaining certified teachers because the system competes directly with neighboring districts in Virginia and Maryland that can offer substantially higher salaries.
Berkeley County reported 200 permanent substitute teachers in classrooms and significant difficulty staffing autism classrooms with certified teachers.
“We have people that live in our area that are certified, but they’re going across state lines because they can make substantially more in the school systems in our neighboring states,” Saxe said.
“And that’s one of the reasons we believe that part of the constitutional obligation of the State of West Virginia is to make sure that there are that we’re able to staff our schools appropriately, especially in regionalized labor markets like what we’re what we’re faced with here in the Eastern Panhandle. And if we can’t, then we’re not able to meet that constitutional obligation.”