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April 1, 2010 The Honorable Paul D. Fraim The Honorable Anthony L. Burfoot The Honorable Daun S. Hester The Honorable Paul R. Riddick The Honorable Theresa W. Whibley The Honorable Donald L. Williams The Honorable Barclay C. Winn The Honorable W. Randy Wright 810 Union Street Norfolk, VA 23510-8035 Dear Mayor Fraim and Norfolk City Council Members: On behalf of the School Board of the City of Norfolk, I submit the operating budget for Norfolk Public Schools for 2010-2011. Our goal in developing this budget was to address the core mission of the school division, with special focus on continued growth in student achievement, safe and secure schools, and community engagement. As you know, the school division has made great strides in improving student achievement. We can take pride in Norfolk Public Schools for: . Academic success: Norfolk Public Schools has been on more than a decade-long upward trajectory for student achievement. Ninety-six percent of our schools scored in the 90-100 percent range in at least one SOL test area last year. Sense of purpose: Norfolk Public Schools’ mission is to educate each student to be a successful, productive contributor to society by providing powerful teaching and learning opportunities for all. Strong values: Norfolk Public Schools is committed to equity and excellence, personal accountability and diversity. Award-winning schools: Norfolk has had national Blue Ribbon elementary schools three years in a row, plus we have a national Title I Distinguished School and numerous schools with state awards for excellence. Award-winning leaders: Norfolk boasts exceptional national honors, such as two Terrel H. Bell outstanding principals, a Milken award-winning principal, and two national middle school principals of the year. Award-winning students: A Norfolk student, Maury’s Matthew Ambler, was a state and national AP Scholar for taking and passing 16 AP exams. The graduating class of 2009 won more than $18 million in scholarships. International acclaim: Two Granby High students won international competitions, one for a full scholarship to a university in Abu Dhabi, and another for a NASA aeronautics award. Office of the City of Norfolk School Board 800 E. City Hall Avenue • Norfolk, Virginia 23510 (757) 628‐3830 phone • (757) 628‐3820 fax Rigorous curriculum: Norfolk Public Schools has expanded opportunities for middle school students to take high school-level courses, and for high school students to take college-level courses. Enrollment in AP courses has increased by 80 percent over six years. Options and opportunities for all: Every Norfolk high school and middle school as well as a growing number of elementary schools offer specialty programs to interest and to challenge students. Strong community engagement: Our community stands firmly behind Norfolk Public Schools. The Norfolk Education Foundation, along with other community partners and 1,900 adult mentors, contribute tens of thousands of dollars and thousands of volunteer hours each year. This has been an extremely difficult budget process as we have been faced with tremendous funding reductions from the state. The funding cuts have resulted in our having to decide which services for students and staff would be discontinued or reduced. To be clear, we no longer will be able to provide the same level of services that we have in the past. All Norfolk Public Schools employees will be asked to do more with less. In this budget, we looked at efficiencies first. We slashed contracted services, equipment, travel, and supplies. However, it was impossible to manage such deep funding cuts solely with those types of reductions. Although we have asked the city for $5.7 million more than this year’s allocation, our budget reflects an overall decrease of $29 million, or 9 percent. Economic realities forced us to eliminate positions and to cut popular, successful programs—programs that helped our students to achieve. It was important to the School Board to submit an operating budget that spread the reductions across the division, so that if the fiscal crisis abates at the state and local levels in the future, we will be in a position to rebuild our school programs without having to pour a new foundation. In the coming years, if we want to continue to attract and to retain the best and brightest staff to serve the needs of Norfolk's children, and to continue making gains in student achievement, we must be prepared, as a city, to invest even more in the school division. We, as a city, must not only address the operating budget, we also must address our aging buildings and the maintenance of equipment. The School Board and employees remain committed to the belief that ALL children can learn. Money invested in our public schools pays remarkable dividends. We can continue to boost achievement and close gaps between ethnic and socioeconomic groups while all children experience success at high levels. However, we must have full funding or we risk losing ground, not only for our students, but also for the entire city. There is no greater single investment that a city can make than to support the public schools. We hope that the City Council will recognize this and join us by fully funding our budget request as submitted. Sincerely, Dr. Stephen W. Tonelson Chair, City of Norfolk School Board A Message from the Superintendent Norfolk Public Schools faces a financial challenge of historic proportions for 2010‐11, primarily due to a sharp decline in state support for public education. Like other school systems across Virginia, our division will receive millions of dollars less than we need to preserve all of our nationally recognized instructional programs, and to maintain the staffing levels that support those programs. It falls to localities such as Norfolk, struggling with myriad economic difficulties, to bridge the enormous gap. Our planning for the past two fiscal years took into account the likelihood that we would face financial trials. We instituted a soft hiring freeze last year and continued it this year; we tightened expenses last year and placed a moratorium on certain types of discretionary expenditures this year; and we decided not to offer employees raises for two years in a row. Those measures brought us a savings of $6 million in 2008‐09, and we carried that money forward to the current fiscal year. The carry‐forward, combined with federal stimulus dollars, allowed us to protect programs and jobs for this school year. Now the stimulus money is gone, and no additional relief is expected from the federal government. State revenue shortfalls in the current fiscal year are likely to prevent us from having a significant amount of money left at the end of June. Meanwhile, the state’s revenue crisis has deepened beyond what anyone could have predicted. Right now, the governor and the General Assembly are still negotiating many of the details that will drive Norfolk Public Schools’ final revenues for 2010‐ 11. This budget plan calls for a $40 million, or 13 percent, reduction in overall expenses. That ultimately may not be enough, however, and we may have to cut spending even more. Collaboration was essential, given the pain we knew would be inflicted by these deep cuts. Over the past two months, we have met with many stakeholder groups to discuss the challenges and to gather ideas. The groups included the teacher and administrator associations, the PTA, the Professional Senate (teachers of the year). The Superintendent’s Student Cabinet and local business and community leaders provided input. The Council for Leadership and Strategic Planning looked carefully at every program in our school division, conducted detailed cost‐benefit analyses and contributed most of the ideas represented in this plan. Reductions were spread across all areas. This budget calls for eliminating 410 staff positions, encompassing staff throughout the organization. Decisions about which positions to eliminate were driven in large part by the state’s plan to reduce the support dedicated to various functions in the minimum Standards of Quality. A Message from the Superintendent Page 2 We hope that a significant number of these staff reductions will be accomplished through attrition and retirements, as well as by leaving vacancies unfilled. Some layoffs will be unavoidable. I am proposing a significant number of other cost‐saving measures as well, such as: • Reducing central office and non‐instructional support staff. • Increasing class sizes at the elementary and secondary levels. • Expanding bus routes, which will allow for operating fewer buses on school days. • Proceeding with the plan to move The School of International Studies at Meadowbrook to the Rosemont Middle School building, and closing the old Meadowbrook facility. • Eliminating and combining several specialized programs. • Reducing the athletics budget subsidy while continuing to provide activities for students. • Passing along healthcare premium cost increases to employees, and asking employees to contribute to the Virginia Retirement System for the first time. Our top priorities are protecting core instruction, and preserving as much as possible the critical supports for teachers and classrooms. It is impossible to deny, however, that these deep reductions will have an effect on the Norfolk Public Schools experience for our students. A full copy of this budget plan will be available to the public on our Web site, www.npsk12.com, beginning March 4. I hope that all interested parties will review this plan thoroughly, and give feedback at the School Board’s budget public hearing on Wednesday, March 10 at 7 p.m. at Norview Middle School. Sincerely, Stephen C. Jones Superintendent of Schools TABLE OF CONTENTS Section Page School Board’s Message to City Council Superintendent’s Message to the School Board INTRODUCTION Mission .………………………………………………………………….………………………………….……..… 1 Operating Statement ……………………………………………………………………………………….…. 1 Our Schools …………………………………………………………………………………………………….….

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