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Why do we fall so far short of matching the rest of Virginia’s county school efforts in most expenditure areas, while incurring so much heavier expenses in other areas? And why are Rappahannock schools getting so much less support in total?
ONE KEY: Ours is a mini-system among Virginia’s county districts. In the 1984-85 year, all of Virginia’s county school district together had an Average Daily Membership of 6,705 pupils. Only four Virginia counties had ADM’s under 1,000. Rappahannock, with an ADM of 997, was one of the four.
That fact explains a lot. Look at our administration costs. Rappahannock has — along with one superintendent — only one assistant superintendent, only one other professional administrative staff member, and only very small numbers in other categories. Yet our administration costs per pupil are nearly double the average. So how do you have fewer than one superintendent, or fewer than one principal per school?
The extremely small number of pupils helps explain, too, the high per-pupil costs in other areas. We spend nearly a third more per pupil on transportation than does the average county. With the fourth smallest number of pupils spread out over a very large county, that seems unavoidable.
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