NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The Newport News School Board voted on a new $409 million budget Tuesday night, including $1 million to hire 30 new security guards.
During a presentation of the budget, the division's chief financial officer, Scarlett Minto, said the plan will support additional staffing requests and include safety officers.
The president of the Newport News Education Association, Dr. James Graves, said more money for security inside the schools is a good thing.
“That’s a great start. We had to wait until the incident happened on January 6th," Grave said, referring to the Richneck Elementary School shooting that left teacher Abby Zwerner hurt. "We should have done that before, but at least we’re doing it now. Teachers are saying if they don’t feel secure if they don’t feel safe, they cannot teach, and kids cannot learn.”
This extra funding comes as school administrators work to install new metal detectors inside every school in the division.
Administrators had planned to get metal detectors installed in all the division’s schools by March 14 but didn’t hit that deadline because of “delivery delays.” School leaders did not give a new completion timeline.
Graves said he will make sure the additional metal detectors stay top of mind for school administrators.
“We still have some schools that don’t have metal detectors in," Graves said. "They say they’re trying to work things out. Like I said before, it takes money. These metal detectors come in in the middle of the budget season."
The new budget also comes with salary increases for teachers of at least seven percent and up to 10 percent. The school board is also increasing the starting pay for new teachers.
“It’s good news for the teachers and staff of Newport News public schools," he said. “It sends a message that the Newport News school board is listening and hearing and seeing that teachers are very important to our school system.”
Graves said it seems the school board is listening to the needs of teachers and staff with this new budget.