Ok, it’s time for the “average Joe’s & Jane’s” to take a stand. There seems to be an overabundance of so much misinformation about our wonderful Hanover Schools and someone needs to speak up and tell the truth. Several of the local newspapers featured thoughts from a small group of people like Mr. Ragan Philips.
He stated that there’s been a ten year “significant decline” in county funding to the schools. This is just NOT true. The fact is, according to the Hanover County finance department which is easily available to all citizens on the county website, that for the past ten years the transfer of funds from the county to the schools has averaged 50.7%. Think about that, for every dollar you contribute in taxes, on average, over half of it is returned to the schools. Thus, there has been NO major decline using Philip’s figures.
So, what’s the real motive of this small group that thinks ONLY “they” have the answers? Is the intent to use scare tactics on Hanover’s parents, teachers, students, and taxpayers that something’s terribly wrong? If so, this is NOT supported by factual statistics from the Virginia Department of Education or County records that I checked. Creating discontent does not help us work together. I can not understand this divisive approach.
Dr. Roberson was proud of our ability to do more with less. This guiding principle in education funding has served us well, as we have extraordinary achievement. And prepared Hanover well for dealing with this unusually long down turn in the economy that does not seem to be getting better in any way.
Just throwing money at a problem and haphazardly adding more staff in a declining student population in Hanover is not a prudent way to solve problems of any kind.
Dawna Lee
Mechanicsville, VA 23116
