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City School Board, NAACP raise concerns about RPS budget proposal
By Holly Rodriguez
Superintendent Jason Kamras’ budget presentation during a School Board meeting last month launched the school division’s budget talks for the 2023-2024 school year, while also raising questions about budget allocations for RPS students.
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“My main concern is again, a lack of sustainable academic needs,” Shonda Harris-Muhammed, 6th District, said in an email. I am deeply concerned that we are asking the leaders of City Council and the mayor for additional funding without the metrics to demonstrate what we have done and how we have allocated current funding.”
The School Board and Richmond City Council met last week for the first time in several years to discuss RPS funding needs. The School Board will meet several more times this month to further discuss the budget and a public hearing is set for Monday.
Ms. Harris-Muhammed is not the only Sschool Board member who has concerns and is calling for changes to the superintendent’s $35 million budget increase over last year. Kenya Gibson, 3rd District, said while she agrees with budget dollars going toward honoring the historic collective bargaining agreement reached for teachers and some RPS staff last year, she said resources are needed to address student safety and chronic absenteeism.
“I am pushing for the board to hire an auditor that would focus on identifying issues related to school safety,” she said. “In the past year, we’ve had multiple fires; an autistic elementary school student was found wandering the streets; and students of a high school arrived one morning to see
“It was not in the interest of keeping the public safe, because one must ask, was not it in the interest of keeping the public safe that Tyre Nichols would be with us today? Was he not also entitled to the right to be safe? So when we talk about public safety, let us understand what it means in its truest form. Tyre Nichols should have been safe,” she said.
Rev. Sharpton said the officers who beat Mr. Nichols might have acted differently if there was real accountability for their
