ROANOKE, Va. – The Roanoke City Public School board will be meeting Tuesday to discuss both an update to their Strategic Plan and the 2025-2026 school budget.
According to the RCPS agenda, the Strategic Plan discussion will involve:
- Addressing and Assessing Student Needs
- Expanding Access to CTE and AP Courses
- Preventing and Responding to Bullying
- Fostering Strong Student-Staff Relationships
- Ensuring Competitive Salaries & Staff Recognition
- Improving Communication Between Staff and Administration
The themes were derived from community input, which the school board gathered from parents, students and community meetings.
“How to make our schools welcoming and how to serve our students and their needs, also how to offer access to advanced coursework,” Chief Academic and Accountability Officer Dr. Cyndi Williams said. “We also want to compensate our employees, so we want to look at how to make our school community stronger and how to make our families stronger.”
As for the 2025-2026 budget, two different expenditure options will be discussed in pursuit of finalizing the 2025 budget.
The expenditures will be going over new costs, alongside costs that are reduced or not included.
RCPS Chief Financial Officer Kathleen Jackson provided two options to the board.
Option A would see more things get cut.
“We’re looking at potentially increasing our deductible on one of our health insurance plans,” Jackson said. “We’re looking at reducing our budget for some ongoing maintenance efforts, things of that nature that would come out of the budget.”
The second option, Option B, would hold onto more of the options that would be cut.
“We discussed benefits for our employees, we’re hoping to not have to increase the deductible on that health insurance plan, maintaining our buildings, always very important,” Jackson said. “[We also provide] after-school transportation for students, we provide school bus transportation home for after-school activities.”
Many board members leaned towards Option B, but no action was taken regarding the budget at Monday’s meeting.
The electronic version of the 2025-2026 school budget will be posted on June 4 with the June 10 School Board meeting agenda.
On June 10th, bound copies of the full budget will be provided to board members with the intent of approving the final 2025-2026 budget.