Virginia voters broadly support increased investment in public schools, with particularly strong support for addressing teacher shortages, expanding career and technical education and repairing aging school buildings, according to a new statewide poll.
School divisions in Southwest and Southside face many of the challenges identified in the survey, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates on behalf of the Virginia Business-K12 Partnership — including recruiting and retaining teachers, preparing students for the workforce and maintaining aging school facilities.
The poll of 800 registered Virginia voters, conducted Aug.18-25, found that more than 70% agreed that Virginia’s K-12 public schools are generally well-run, provide high-quality instruction and are a sound place to invest public dollars. Two-thirds of respondents said Virginians should feel proud of the state’s public education system.
But voters across party lines also identified areas where they believe more investments are needed and deserve prioritization by Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the General Assembly in next year’s legislative session, which starts in January.
Of those surveyed, about 37% identified themselves as Republicans, 41% as Democrats and 22% as independents or “something else.”
About 97% of respondents said addressing Virginia’s shortage of K-12 teachers is important, including 70% who called it “very important.” More than 90% of respondents also said it is important for the state to invest more to address students’ post-pandemic recovery in reading and math (93%) and to address the fact that Virginia spends less per student than the national average (91%).
The condition of school buildings also drew attention, with 85% saying increasing funding to improve school facilities is important.
The poll comes as 47 Virginia localities have a referendum on this fall’s ballot for an additional 1% sales tax for school construction in an attempt to raise funds for ballooning maintenance and capital project costs. School divisions across the state are continuing to grapple with the cost of maintaining older buildings while facing enrollment changes and limited local tax bases.
Stewart Roberson, chair of the Virginia Business-K12 Partnership, said these findings will help inform what the group advocates for in the next General Assembly session.
He also said they weren’t surprising.
“The teacher shortage is one that we need to tackle,” Roberson said by phone. “How can we make it easier and more affordable for high school students to earn college credit through dual enrollment? I would expect that that will gain our attention as we’re thinking about a legislative package. And I expect that we will want to give support to a new funding model that invests at or above the national average per student.”
Investing in public schools
The Virginia Business-K12 Partnership is modeled after the Virginia Higher Education Business Council, which serves as a way for the business community to advocate for more state support of higher education.
The K-12 partnership aims to do the same, including pushing for more investment in public schools.
Virginia’s public schools are funded by local, state and federal government, but the majority of funding comes from the local community, primarily through property and other taxes.
The General Assembly allocates funding to schools in the state budget, but the amount a school district receives varies based on the economic vitality of its local community. Federal funds typically make up less than 10% of school divisions’ annual budgets and are usually earmarked for low-income schools, special education and other specific uses.
Whether the state’s current funding formula is fair or equitable has been a source of debate for years, with calls for recalculating or revamping it increasing in recent years.
Virginia spends about $2,000 less per student than the national average; when asked about that fact, 91% of poll respondents said it is important to address the disparity.
Additional support could help address needs that local schools grapple with every day, members of the partnerships’ executive committee argue, such as filling teacher vacancies, improving student achievement and preparing students for the workforce.
A 2023 report by the state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found that Virginia trails the 50-state average and three of its five neighboring states in per-pupil funding.
“If we’re going to stay economically competitive and being one of the top states for business and for education, we’re going to need to continue those investments because investment in education drives economic development,” Scott Braband, executive director of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, a former superintendent and a member of the partnership’s executive committee, said by phone Monday.
Respondents to the poll also noted that local schools are important to their local communities’ economies — both for attracting business investment and preparing the future workforce.
Strengthening workforce preparation
Many communities are already investing in dual-enrollment and career and technical education, or CTE, programs, which prepare students for high-demand jobs such as those in healthcare, technology and cybersecurity, and skilled trades like electricians and HVAC technicians.
About 95% of respondents said that the state’s most important investment should be ensuring that every public school graduate can access education or training leading to an in-demand job. The options presented to respondents included universities, community colleges, skilled-trade training and industry-recognized credentials.
More than 90% of poll respondents support expanding dual-enrollment programs that lead to industry credentials and providing funding for CTE programs that could provide additional equipment, work-based learning coordinators and expanded programs.
Among the school divisions that have recently expanded their CTE programs, Buchanan County opened its new $92 million Southern Gap High School this year. It not only responded to the county’s need to move students out of aging facilities in flood zones but also moved and expanded the county’s CTE programs under one roof to provide easier access for students.
Other school divisions across the region, including Roanoke and Rockbridge counties, have opened new CTE centers in recent years, while others may not have the funding to do so.
“The partnership comes at its work because we believe that every Virginia K-12 graduate should have access to education or training leading to an in-demand job,” Roberson said. “So we know that we will give a good deal of emphasis to what that means when we talk about career and college pathways,” he added of the partnership’s legislative priorities.
Support for school construction sales tax
One of the poll’s most specific questions asked respondents whether they would support a 1% increase in their local sales tax to renovate or replace old school facilities.
Statewide, 78% said they would support the increase, including 37% who strongly support it. Twenty-two percent oppose it.
More than half of Virginia’s school buildings are more than a half-century old, according to recent data from the Virginia Department of Education, even though a school building’s lifespan is considered to be 50 years.
For small and rural communities across the state, the question of how to pay for school construction is particularly consequential. Many school divisions in Southwest Virginia are seeing declining student enrollment at the same time that school buildings need massive upgrades.
At least eight communities in the region put the sales tax on this fall’s ballot, with hopes to raise extra funds for renovations and new construction.
A separate poll, conducted by Hart Research Associates of 500 voters from Sept. 14-18, found similar results.
At least 50% of voters surveyed said they would likely vote in support of the additional 1% sales tax in their area, according to Virginians for Modern Schools, a nonprofit formed to offer voter education and campaign resources to communities pursuing the tax, which commissioned the survey.
Sixty-three percent of respondents to the September survey said they were more likely to support the tax knowing it went directly to local schools in their own community.
“Virginians aren’t being asked for a blank check,” Kelly Chopus, board chair of Virginians for Modern Schools, said in a Sept. 29 news release. “They’re being asked whether they want to fix their own school buildings without raising property taxes, and when you put it that plainly, a majority says yes.”
Teacher shortage draws concerns
Whether students have access to high-quality teachers amid a nationwide teacher shortage was another significant concern among those polled by the Virginia Business-K12 Partnership.
“Ninety-seven percent of the respondents believe that addressing Virginia’s teacher shortage is an important reason to invest more in K-12. Now, that doesn’t take away from some of the other areas in which they thought that investment was important, but the teacher shortage leads the way,” Roberson said. “I think that the strength of this poll suggests that we need to examine whether the policies that are in place to address the teacher shortage have the strength that the voters think that they should have.”
A majority of respondents said they were in favor of increased teacher compensation, scholarships for future teachers and retention bonuses for teachers working in high-needs schools or areas with critical shortages, like special education or advanced math and science.
Since 2022, Virginia’s overall teacher vacancy rate has dropped from 3.86% to 2.5%, according to data from the Virginia Department of Education, but that number still varies across parts of the state.
Southwest Virginia saw the lowest vacancy rate of the Education Department’s eight regions last year at just above 1%, but vacancies rose to around 5% in specific areas, including special education and positions at Title 1, or lower-income, schools.
In Southside, about 3.6% of teaching positions — or more than 160 — remained vacant last school year.
State education officials under former Gov. Glenn Youngkin said that Virginia’s progress in decreasing vacancy rates was due to salary increases as well as to efforts to provide alternative ways for people to become teachers, such as through teacher residency programs that allow them to teach while attending school or working toward licensure.
Braband said that he, and members of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, would like to see continued flexibility in allowing local school districts to bring in teachers with bachelor’s degrees but no formal teaching credentials. Currently, such a teacher can work under a provisional license for a year, but he’d like to see it become renewable.
“We need some licensure reform,” Braband said. “The delays in licensure are real, and they cause frustrations for school districts and for people who are new trying to get into teaching. We’ve made it too hard.”
About 87% of poll respondents said they’d support expansion of such programs.
“A high-quality teacher is still the most definitive determinant of a kid getting a great education. So we need great teachers in great school systems if we’re going to continue to keep the economic edge in Virginia,” Braband said.
The poll’s reported margin of error was plus or minus 3.95 percentage points. Respondents represented 116 different counties and cities, but separate results by locality were not provided.
