PULASKI, Va. – The Pulaski County School Board is planning to vote on its final budget next week after learning how much money it will get from the state.
Vice-Chair of the Pulaski County School Board, Timmy Hurst, said the school system is expected to receive an additional $3,400,00 in funding for the next fiscal year.
“Because of that we are able to accomplish a lot of things to funding in school systems, most of the money goes toward salaries,” Hurst said.
Hurst added the additional funding from the state will also help pay for a 5% raise for teachers and staff as well as purchasing Chromebooks for students to use.
“We have a replacement cycle that’s going to require us to spend $446,000 to replace those Chromebooks and that’s currently, (this year),” Hurst said.
The one major thing school leaders requested was to have 19 teacher aides in the classroom.
According to Hurst, that request is still being worked out.
“We do hope that we can work with putting paras in each kindergarten classroom in the future,” Hurst said. “If we’re able to do that, but a lot of that will be determined by the county and we’re working with the county.”
County leaders said they are willing to work with the schools.
“The county intends to fund the school system an additional 427 thousand dollars more next year,” Jonathan Sweet, Pulaski County Administrator said. “We hope that students are put first, we hope teachers are taken care of, we hope that safety measures are met.”
The effort to make sure schools have the resources they need to educate children pleases parents like Gary Hash II.
“I just want to make sure we invest in the kids who need us to invest in them,” Hash said.