PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Portsmouth Public Schools is asking the city for $14.6 million to fund two new school buildings, state-mandated teacher pay increases, and a wave of new staffing needs, but the city has so far proposed only half of what the district says it needs.
Superintendent Dr. Eli Bracy and School Board Chair Dr. Cardell Patillo outlined the district's priorities in a recent interview, saying the funding gap could force painful cuts if city leaders don't come to the table with more money.
At the center of the budget request is a plan to build a new K-8 school that would serve as the district's fourth middle school.
Currently, Portsmouth's 13 elementary schools house students through sixth grade. The new building would allow the district to move all sixth graders into a dedicated middle school setting, grades six through eight, aligning with what school leaders say is a more appropriate academic model.
"The new K-8 will help alleviate the issues that we're having at Churchland Elementary School, but also what that's gonna do is gonna allow us to align ourselves with the middle school model," Bracy said.
Beyond academics, Bracy said sixth graders in elementary schools are currently missing out on extracurricular opportunities like athletics, clubs, and band, activities available to students in middle school settings.
The push for a new building is also driven by urgent safety and infrastructure concerns at the aging Churchland Elementary school. Patillo said the building's layout poses a serious evacuation risk.
"There's an extreme safety concern with Churchland Middle School," Patillo said. "God forbid if there were ever to be an emergency at the school, it would be difficult getting all the students from the top two floors down one corridor, one hallway, and one stairwell."
Patillo added that simply maintaining the existing building is becoming financially unsustainable. The HVAC system alone, he said, would cost more than $1 million to replace.\
A significant portion of the $14.6 million request, $9 million, is dedicated to teacher and staff compensation. The district is seeking to fund a state-mandated 2% pay raise outlined in the governor's proposed budget, along with an additional step increase to further decompress the teacher pay scale.
Patillo said the district completed a compensation study last year and has since climbed to the top of the regional pay rankings.
"We've been seeing tremendous growth as far as within our staff for certified teachers, because right now we're listed as the highest paying division in the region because of that, and we wanna maintain the staff that we have, and also it's a great recruitment tool, uh, to get more teachers in as well," Patillo said.
School leaders say skipping the additional step this year risks undoing that progress and pushing the district back into the salary compression problems it worked to escape.
The budget request also accounts for the opening of a new Career and Technical Education facility called the PACE Center. Bracy said staffing a brand-new building comes with high costs, including a school nurse, custodians, office assistants, bookkeepers, career counselors, and security officers.
The district is also requesting a new senior supervisor of security, full-time athletic trainers at each secondary school, a 504 specialist, a clinical mental health counselor, an additional hearing officer, and two English as a Second Language teachers, the latter of which Bracy said is mandated by the state based on enrollment percentages.
"Some of these initiatives are definitely needs, but some are mandated by the state," Bracy said.
With the city proposing roughly half of the requested $14.6 million, school leaders say they are actively working to close the gap, but warn that cuts may be unavoidable.
"Once we get a final number, if it's not where we need it to be, we're gonna have to look at our budget carefully again, and we may have to cut some items to be able to get the needs that the board has prioritized," Bracy said.
Patillo said communication between the school board and city council has improved significantly compared to prior years and expressed confidence that city leaders share the district's commitment to teacher pay.
"I'm confident that council is gonna meet us where we need to be to ensure that happens," Patillo said.
The school board chair identified teacher and staff pay, school safety, and career readiness as the board's three top priorities heading into the final budget negotiations.
"Anything that effectively, directly impacts classroom outcomes, the student outcomes — that's curriculum and instruction," Patillo said. "Staff for our PACE Center to make sure our students are career-ready for those that don't choose to go to college."
Budget negotiations between Portsmouth Public Schools and the city are ongoing. Bracy says they meet with city officials regularly, including monthly liaison meetings, and are continuing to explore options to bridge the funding gap before a final budget is adopted.
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