Mathews school board members and supervisors held a work session Tuesday afternoon to discuss the proposed 2025-2026 school budget. Much of the conversation, however, again revolved around long-term capital needs of the division and concerns whether any building improvements undertaken now would be made irrelevant if school building use were to change in a few years.

In November, the two boards held a day-long work session on a Saturday looking at the building needs for Mathews schools, touching on such issues as whether the county should pursue a single combined campus for all its K-12 students.

At that meeting, the boards agreed to seek bids on a space needs assessment, looking at the current condition of the three county schools and exploring options of either new school construction or the renovation of existing space.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. David S. Daniel said that bids closed Friday on the Requests for Proposals for a four- to five-month study of the issues. The county has received two bids, he said. One was about $79,000, with potential add-ons, while the other was about $105,000, he added.

“The concern is the maintenance,” supervisor Janice Phillips said. “Are we going to fix the bathroom that we’re not going to use,” she asked. School board member Linda Hodges agreed with that assessment. “You don’t want to spend money and have it leveled two years down the road,” she said. That, she said, “is the conundrum we’re in.”

School board chair Dr. Mari Gibbs said that a recommendation on moving forward is contingent upon looking at the health and safety of the school buildings, such as the presence of asbestos. “And we’re in the process of that and we don’t have those pieces of information” yet, she said.

County supervisors are poised to take over maintenance of the school buildings through a Memorandum of Understanding between the two boards, although the school board would still be responsible for its own custodians and grounds maintenance. That was reflected in the FY 2025-2026 draft budget, which shows a reduction of $544,671 in the maintenance line.

The budget also included several new positions, including a custodian/groundskeeper position. The budget also included a secondary reading specialist, a teacher/athletic trainer and a CTE teacher.

Overall, the draft budget of $18 million is an increase of slightly over $283,000 from the current budget. The budget includes a pay increase for teachers and other employees of 4 percent plus step on the salary scale, absorbing the anticipated health insurance increase, and maintaining current positions.

The budget is based on a student enrollment of 725 students. The projected enrollment is lower than the current K-12 population of roughly 760 students, but there is an anticipated drop-off of about 25 students, “give or take,” Daniel said.

While the budget is based on every person returning next year, he said that his office will look at possibly absorbing positions if vacancies occur, depending where those vacancies happen. “Where we can shrink positions (and) where we can afford to grow in class size,” he said.

In the draft budget, the county is being asked to contribute roughly $10 million; an increase of slightly over $290,000 from the current budget. State funding is expected to drop about $172,000, while federal revenue remains essentially unchanged.

A public hearing will be held on the draft budget at 5 o’clock tonight, Thursday, Feb. 6, in the J. Murray Brooks Auditorium at Thomas Hunter Middle School, with a budget work session to follow. The school board is expected to adopt its budget at the Feb. 18 monthly meeting.

MES water issue

Tuesday’s work session, as well as the regular monthly meeting that followed, had been postponed from Jan. 21, because the division had been closed that day, dealing with a water/boiler issue at Mathews Elementary.

During the regular meeting, Daniel provided a detailed timeline about the water issue. On Jan. 13, during a joint leadership meeting with the school board and supervisors, one of the issues to come up was the ongoing water pipe leaks at Mathews Elementary. It was discussed to get estimates as soon as possible on repairs to the problem.

County maintenance staff met with Southern Air to develop a quote for repairs to the pipes. During the review, questions were brought up about the interconnected pipes and valves between the boiler system and the domestic water supply to the school. The concern revolved around the ethylene glycol in the chilled water system in the boiler/HVAC system and the possibility of cross contamination.

“If all of these things begin to fail, we could have an issue,” Daniel said. Because of this concern, schools were closed on Jan. 16 and 17. Testing was conducted and there was no evidence of cross contamination. However, there was a verbal miscommunication on Jan. 20 (when the schools were closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday) about the testing, and based on that, schools were closed a third day, on Jan. 21. Going through the actual test results that day, it was determined that the chemical was where it was supposed to be, and not where it wasn’t. School was set to open the next day, pending weather. However, schools were closed on Jan. 22 and 23 because of snow, reopening on Jan. 24.

Going forward, the division is seeking estimates for ongoing valve inspections and working to have ethylene glycol replaced with propylene glycol, which is a safer alternative. A third water test is scheduled for Friday.

The school division lost a total of four days to weather issues, and three days to the MES water issue. The board did approve an amended academic calendar on Tuesday night, but that did not address the missed days, rather changing Mathews High School graduation from June 7 to the previous Saturday, May 31, to avoid a conflict with the VHSL state championships on June 6-7, in which a number of seniors are expected to compete.

At the Feb. 18 meeting, the school board is expected to address the missed days with a revised calendar, adding time to each school day. Daniel said that the plan does not involve taking back any of Spring Break to make up the lost time.
Following a closed session, the board approved a number of personnel actions, including accepting the retirements of MES teachers Delores Bloomfield and Amy Hudgins and bus driver Kim Davis, and the resignation of THMS teacher Carter Vrooman.

Spring coaching appointments were approved for J.J. Ashberry (softball), Craig Raines (boys’ soccer), Michael Congrove (girls’ soccer), Andre Smith (co-ed JV soccer), Tony Forrest (track and field) and Stacey Griffith (strength and conditioning). Volunteer coaching appointments were approved for Noah Wright and Jason Heming (wrestling), Joice Small (JV girls’ basketball), Gilbert Coons (softball), James Sowers and Justin Jenkins (boys’ soccer), Chris McBurney (girls’ soccer) and Thomas Hubbard (baseball).

Intramural basketball coordinator appointments were made for Jennifer Doss at MES and Susan Haynes and Carter Vrooman at THMS, and Mark Givens was appointed to oversee the THMS band.