Funding & Standards of Quality

Education Funding & Standards of Quality

Virginia’s outdated education funding formula underestimates staffing need to serve Virginia’s students, uses recession-era caps to limit funding, and fails to adequately account for the true costs of educating students at-risk due to poverty, special education or limited English language proficiency. Virginia’s over-reliance on local governments to fund a high-quality education has fueled inequities across the Commonwealth, a shortage of fully licensed teachers, and contributed to achievement gaps.

The Standards of Quality (SOQs) establish minimum staffing standards that all Virginia schools must provide, and drives 85% of state funding for local school divisions. The Virginia Board of Education develops and recommends SOQs, and while the Governor may propose funding changes in the biennium budget, final changes and standards are established by vote of the Virginia General Assembly.

JLARC Study – Cost of K-12 Education

All of Virginia’s school divisions exceeded the required minimum SOQ staffing levels, spending $4.4 billion above the base SOQ requirements in fiscal year 2020. Legislation passed in 2021 (SJ294) directed the General Assembly’s nonpartisan research agency, the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission (JLARC), to study the cost of education in the Commonwealth, and provide an accurate assessment of the costs to implement the Standards of Quality.

JLARC’s K-12 Funding report, issued in July 2023, found that “Virginia school divisions receive less K–12 funding per student than the 50-state average, the regional average, and three of Virginia’s five bordering states. School divisions in other states receive 14 percent more per student than school divisions in Virginia, on average, after normalizing for differences in cost of labor among states. This equates to about $1,900 more per student than Virginia.”

JLARC made eight Near Term Recommendations, five Long-Term Recommendations and five Policy suggestions to make it easier for Virginia to develop and maintain a funding formula that has a clear and justifiable rationale, reflects prevailing practice, and that is accurate, fair, predictable, and transparent.

During the 2024 General Assembly session, the Board of Education did not support implementation of those recommendations, the Governor’s proposed budget also failed to take steps to implement changes. However, advocacy during the 2024 session by Virginia PTA and many other education stakeholders resulted in the General Assembly increasing At-Risk Add-On Funding ($371M), and English Language Learner Funding ($74.1M). A Joint Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education was also established to further study the recommendations and policy options highlighted below.

During the 2025 General Assembly session after a decade of advocacy we won a full repeal of the Support Cap to begin restoring the allocation of state funding based on the actual costs of providing a high quality education.

About the Standards of Quality

The Standards of Quality underpin Virginia’s resources-based funding formula by defining the minimum staff-to-student ratios that each local school division must meet OR exceed.

SOQ funding is determined in two steps:

  • State Determines the Cost of Education: The ‘prevailing’(average) cost of a staff salary is multiplied by the number of students in the school division (Average Daily Membership). Rebenchmarking occurs every two years to reflect changes in staff salaries and benefits, inflation, and other factors.
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  • Calculate the State’s Share of Education: The Local Composite Index (LCI) measures a locality’s ability to pay vs. other localities and is used to determine a state and local share or education funding for each school division. LCI considers property value, adjusted gross income, taxable retail sales, and the student and total population in each division. LCI is calculated every two years.

K– 12 funding is 30 percent of the state general fund budget and 13 percent of the total state budget, which makes the SOQ formula, and annual technical adjustments to maintain previously approved staffing levels a key factor in the budget appropriations process. The SOQ formula’s staffing and funding calculations do not reflect prevailing practice largely because the formula has been altered on a piecemeal basis by prior governors and General Assemblies based on available revenue for the state budget in a given year.

Lift the Support Cap

Support Staff are family and community outreach/engagement coordinators, maintenance workers and custodians, food service staff and nutritionists, Instructional & Technology Support, school-based attendance, health, and clerical positions. These essential positions help maintain a safe, clean school, and meet the academic, social, and emotional learning needs of students.

In 2009, lawmakers added a budget “cap” on funding support staff. The cap was a straight budget cut and was not based on an evaluation of common school division staffing. Fifteen years later, despite state budget surpluses, increasing student enrollment, larger schools, and higher numbers of students with unique learning needs, the artificial cap on state support staff spending remains in place. The state helps pay for less than 40% of support staff in Virginia’s public schools, down from a 61% contribution in 2009

In 2023 (FY24), following a decade of advocacy, we won a partial lifting of the support cap ($152M) and effective establishment of a staffing ratio of 24 support staff to 1,000 students. In 2025 we won a full repeal of the support cap with an allocation of $223M and establishment of the standard (prevailing) support staff ratio of 27.89 staff positions to 1,000 students.

Removal of this arbitrary cap on essential school staff returns flexible spending to our localities and starts to restore the practice of allocating state funding based on the actual costs of running a high-quality school.

At Risk Add-On

At-risk (low-income) students are the largest group of higher needs students in Virginia, accounting for 53 percent of students statewide. To succeed academically low-income students often need more direct work with teachers or instructional specialists, meal assistance, mental health counseling, social worker assistance, or before and after school services.

The state has eight programs that fund prevention, intervention, and remediation services for at-risk students. All eight programs require the local school division to provide matching funds except for the smallest program (Project Graduation).

The largest program is the “At-Risk Add-on” which provides an 11% add-on to basic aid funding per at-risk student, and additionally distributes a variable add on between 0%-37% per At-Risk student based on the concentration of At-Risk students in the school division. Other At-Risk programs provide targeted funding to reduce K-3 class sizes down to 14 or 19 students per teacher, or provide targeted reading and math prevention, intervention, & remediation services in small groups or with a tutor.

The At-Risk Add-On funding formula undercounts the number of economically disadvantaged students because it is calculated using free lunch data that was collected before school divisions started providing free meals through the federal Community Eligibility Program. As a result, JLARC’s 2023 report recommended that the more accurate federal Identified Student Percentage (ISP) should be used to calculate At-Risk funding. Additionally, JLARC recommends that At Risk Add-On funds should be included in the Standards of Quality to align with other at-risk programs and reflect how important the supplemental services are to academic success.

During the 2024 General Assembly session we won $371M in At-Risk Add-On funding. Budget language additionally replaced the outdated lunch metric with the more accurate federal Identified Student Percentage, however legislation is still needed to codify the improved formula across all At-Risk Programs, and add the Add-Risk Add-On to the Standards of Quality.

JLARC's 2024 Recommendation Summary

JLARC made 20 recommendations and 5 policy suggestions, for legislators to consider. Below is a quick overview of the recommendations. Items that Virginia PTA supported in the 2024 General Assembly Session are highlighted with an asterisk. Progress was made with funding added to support low-income and English learner students, however, additional advocacy is needed to fully close the significant gap in state education funding.

The majority of the near-term recommendations were included in SB105 which passed the House 96-0, and the Senate 40-0 but was vetoed by the Governor.

Near-Term JLARC Recommendations (8)

Recommendation 1*: Technical Adjustments to Recognize Prevailing Staffing (Governor vetoed bill)
Recommendation 4*: Remove Great Recession Caps including Support Cap  ($200M/yr to lift the support cap)
Recommendation 6*: Calculate salary cost using Division Average instead of Linear Weighted Average (Being studied)
Recommendation 7*: Change Local Composite Index to a 3-year average instead of 1 year (Being studied)
Recommendation 8*: Include At Risk Add-On as part of the SOQ model (Governor vetoed bill)
Recommendation 9*: Replace outdated free lunch metric with federal Identified Student Percentage (in budget)
Recommendation 10*: Consolidate At Risk Add-On programs into one SOQ At-Risk Add-On Program (in budget. Governor vetoed bill)
Recommendation 11*: Study special education staffing needs  (being studied) 

Long Term JLARC Recommendations (5)

Recommendation 2 &3*: Set new fixed and prevailing staffing to reflect actual staffing (Study. Estimated state cost $1,860M/yr) 
Recommendation 5: Update salary assumptions to use current salaries paid by school divisions (Study.)
Recommendation 12: Replace the current cost of competing adjustment with a more accurate Virginia cost of labor index (Study. Likely $595M/yr)
Recommendation 13: Adopt economies of scale adjustment for divisions with fewer than 2,000 students (Study. Likely $90M/yr)

JLARC Policy Recommendations (5)

Policy Option 1: Teacher salaries at or above the national average (Not implemented. 5% raise in FY21 & 22 and by 3% in 24-26 budget.)
Policy Option 2: Weight student enrollment and general population equally in the Local Composite Index (Study. Could save $45M)
Policy Option 3: Replace Local Composite Index with a Revenue Capacity Index (Study. Could save $85M)
Policy Option 4: Replacing the SOQ formula with a student-based formula based on actual school division expenditures (Study)
Policy Option 5*: Create student based or add-on funding to reflect actual costs for Special Education and English Learner Students. (Partial funding. Special Ed Add-On approx $418M/yr

English Language Learners

Virginia’s students speak more than 240 languages, and about 14% of our students are English Learners (EL). Depending on the school division, English learner students make up ~30% of students whereas other divisions may have just a few English Learner students. The six divisions with the most EL students are Fairfax County, Prince William County, Loudoun County, Chesterfield County, Arlington County, and Alexandria City. The top five languages spoken by Virginia’s students are Spanish (70%), Arabic, Dari, Pashto, and Urdu.

English Learner (aka multilingual students) often arrive with different levels of English proficiency and formal education. Supplemental funding, based on proficiency levels is required to provide individualized learning plans, differentiated instruction, and classroom aides. Many students who are refugees also need trauma counseling. School divisions purchase learning materials in multiple languages, invest in parent welcome centers, translators, and professional development for general education teachers to support English learner instruction.

Historically Virginia has lagged behind other states in providing sufficient instructional support for English language learners. As a result, English learners often have lower test scores than their peers in other states and low graduation rates in parts of the Commonwealth.

Virginia PTA supports:

  • Scaled staffing ratios that take into account the different proficiency levels and instructional staff required to support EL students
  • Accessible standardized testing in multiple languages
  • Funding for school division translators and resources to increase communication with parents
  • Robust world language instruction for all students

Incremental funding progress has been made since the 2022 General Assembly session. In the 2024 session the approved budget included $74.1M to provide additional English Learner teachers and transition to a new tiered-staffing standard based on student English proficiency levels.

Targeted Staffing Ratios

Virginia PTA supports targeted SOQ revisions that would provide essential school staff for every school including full time principals, librarians, technology teachers and nurses.

  • Principals: The daily dedicated leadership and safety oversight that a full-time principal provides is critical to safe learning conditions. Additionally, providing teachers with the instructional support of a principal is a component of addressing teacher retention and the teacher shortage. The fiscal impact to change the principal ratios from part time to full time for elementary schools with less than 300 students is $7.5-7.9 million for FY’22.
  • Librarians: Nationwide research suggests that important indicators of student success, including graduation rates and mastery of academic standards improve when schools employ certified full-time librarians. Librarians not only provide information management but also establish a culture of literacy and inclusiveness by exposing students to invaluable new perspectives and teaching research skills. Librarians also provide teachers with professional development, support the implementation of new instructional strategies and help teachers embed new resources in instruction. A full-time librarian in schools with less than 300 students will provide students and teachers with daily access to library resources and improve the opportunities of success for vulnerable and at-risk learners, including students of color, low-income students, and students with disabilities.  Fiscal impact to change the librarian ratios from part time to full time for schools with less than 300 students is $5.93 million for FY’22.
  • Technology Resource Teachers: Technology resource teachers collaborate with teachers and school administration to facilitate the use of technology in classrooms and the school as a whole. COVID-19 has forced a rapid shift to a full reliance on technology and virtual learning to support instruction. Lowering the ratio of technology teachers will support expansion and effective use of technology for both in person and virtual instruction. The fiscal impact on changing the ITRT ratio from 2:1,000 to 2:750 is $13.4 million.

  • School Nurse: There is no staffing standard for school nurses. For the past 27 years Virginia PTA has held the position that every school should be staffed with a Registered Nurse. Per the CDC 25% of students have chronic health concerns and the presence of a school nurse enables students to attend school while being assured access to life-saving medication and health care during the school day. Registered Nurses uniquely support physical, mental and behavioral health concerns — are essential for infectious disease surveillance, health screenings and immunization compliance. For many children living in or near poverty, the school nurse may be the only health care professional they access regularly.

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