School Board met on March 10

Botetourt County School Board met for the regular monthly meeting on Thursday Mar. 10.

Recognitions included Employee of the Month Elizabeth Foster a Math teacher from JRHS,  The James River Wrestling team and Governor’s School Project Students and their award recognitions.

A full viewing of the meeting and awards can be viewed on the BCPS.k12.va.us go to Live and click on Archive.

Two main items stand out from the meeting

For 10 years Capital Improvement items have not been funded by the Board of Supervisors. Matt East, Rep from Blue Ridge said, “ We have kicked the can down the road for 10 years. We cannot kick it anymore.” A laundry list of items from school roofs, the Read Mountain Middle School track, visitor bleachers and more are mentioned. Chairman Anna Leffel encouraged parents concerned about the state of their buildings to contact the Board of Supervisors.

Secondly you can view the worst case scenario budget on the School Board section of the website under School Board and Board docs in the agenda. The state has not finalized the budget. The next meeting for the School board budget team is 8:30 AM on March 17 at the Central Office. The Public Hearing for the budget is March 24.

To grants to the schools were given by the Board of Supervisors for IT and Chrome Book replacement as well as one for Welding at BTEC.

A review of the first year of the Virtual Academy was given for the board. Currently 76 students are enrolled.  Prepartion and enrollment has begun for 2022-23 school year.

–Cathy Benson