Spotsylvania Co. VA: 'Immediate need' for 9 more SPED classrooms; 79% increase in autism over 5 yrs
Spotsylvania County Public Schools needs more funding from the state in order to meet the needs of all students.
That was the underlying theme of the preliminary budget presentation given to the school board by Chief Financial Officer Phillip Trayer at a work session on Monday.
Trayer said — and school board members agreed — that superintendent Clint Mitchell and division leaders have worked to establish productive and collaborative relationships with the county administrator and Board of Supervisors, relationships that have resulted in more local funding for the schools in the past two budgets.
But, Trayer said, “Pressures on instruction continue, especially in areas of special education and student support.”
And the state’s 52-year-old school funding formula is not helping local school districts meet student needs. A December 2023 study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee found that local governments spend much more on K-12 public education than the state. This week, a joint legislative subcommittee on education approved hiring a consultant to work on a new formula over the next two years. . . .
According to Trayer, Spotsylvania has pressing special education needs, and the locality is paying far more than half of the cost. For example, the division has an “immediate need” for nine additional special education classrooms for students with autism or multiple disabilities.
Staffing these classrooms will require nine new full-time teachers and 19 paraeducators at an estimated cost of $1.6 million, Trayer said. . . .
Spotsylvania, like school divisions across the state and country, has seen the number of enrolled students with autism grow every year since 2020. There were 470 students with autism enrolled in 2020 and 815 as of the Dec. 1, 2025, Child Count, an increase of 79%, Trayer said.
Beyond the nine new classrooms, the division also needs more diagnosticians to support special education testing and case management and more paraeducators to provide 1:1 support to students whose individual education plans require it.
These needs come with costs, the majority of which are being funded by the locality.
The total cost of special education in Spotsylvania schools’ current budget is $49.1 million, and 68% of that is covered by local funding. . . .
Trayer said the division is projecting $4.8 million in new state revenue for the fiscal year 2028 budget. Gov. Abigail Spanberger will release her budget recommendations in December. Federal revenues are expected to be flat. . . .
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