without making any changes

Cate Phillips, whose children attend public school in St. Albans, can see how tightened school budgets have impacted her kids’ education, like decreased field trips and extracurricular activities.

West Virginia’s school funding is tied to student enrollment. While the number of students has decreased, counties have grappled with shrunken budgets, spurring layoffs and school closures. Nineteen school closures and consolidations have been proposed in the 2025-2026 school year. 

Members of the Republican supermajority introduced multiple bills to update the school funding formula, including increasing funding for expensive special education services. When they gaveled out in March, none of those measures made it to the governor’s desk; the clock ran out the last night on one of the bills. 

Phillips, 41, said the current public school funding “is not sustainable.” She questioned lawmakers’ priorities. 

“How many of them are sitting in the seats that they’re in today as a product of public education, and are you pulling the ladder up behind you in the name of a party allegiance?” she questioned. “Are you really doing what your constituents are asking of you, or are you aligning with a party?”

House Education Chair Joe Statler, R-Monongalia said, “I don’t believe anybody let up on the special needs funding. I really do believe we all really thought we had the time and would get it across the line. It just did not happen. That to me was the biggest failure of the session.”

“These counties desperately need that funding. It is going to cause a lot more counties to go into deficit,” he said.

Upshur County Schools recently cut 67 teachers and service personnel, citing an enrollment crisis. Superintendent Christine Miller said they expect to lose an additional 400 students over the next two years. 

She had hoped lawmakers would address the funding formula. 

“We were disappointed, as everybody else across the state was as well, so we had already started down the path of making us as lean as we possibly could,” Miller said. 

“Things in our county are very, very tight,” she continued. “Unlike 43 other counties, we do not have an excess levy that can help support additional expenditures that do occur, so we have to rely solely on the state aid formula and the local local share from property taxes.”

West Virginia uses a seven-step formula to determine how much state funding goes to county school systems based on factors including the number of students enrolled. The state’s population is declining, while the number of special education students is increasing; this has culminated in tight budgets for districts. 

What happened to the school funding bills?

Lawmakers’ had bold ideas for revamping the formula, like simplifying the funding formula by providing block grants of $6,100 per enrolled student. That original bill would have cost $214 million, but the price tag was a hang up for lawmakers. 

Special education costs are forcing districts into millions of dollars of debt, and lawmakers also proposed plans to bolster special education funding. The current funding formula doesn’t account for the number of special education students, which in some counties is nearly a quarter of children enrolled in public schools. A study paid for by the House of Delegates suggested that the state give more money to these services to improve school budgets.

Miller said that, due to staffing issues, her district has to contract with outside companies to provide special education services. 

“That’s additional funding that goes out the door to be able to support our students in the manner they deserve to be supported,” she said. 

Some of lawmakers’ measures got sidelined, then, the one remaining bill was whittled down to increased special education funding by $8 million in 2027. West Virginia School Board President Paul Hardesty said it wasn’t near enough while counties reported $224 million in debt, calling it “putting lipstick on a pig.”

The lone school funding bill never made it to the governor’s desk despite passing the Senate and House of Delegates. The final hour in the House was chaotic and took up with a fight over Raylee’s Law, and they failed to concur with the Senate’s changes on the school funding bill.

Senate Education Committee Chair Amy Grady, R-Mason, has been vocal that this was the most disappointing session she’d seen, in part, because lawmakers failed to address public school funding issues. She had spearheaded the change.

“I went in thinking it was a priority for everybody, and apparently, it wasn’t as big of a priority as I thought,” Grady said.

“I feel like there were a lot of roadblocks this year when it came to different factions, different groups, and different people’s needs. I know it’s an election year, so that’s even more,” she continued, noting that Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s office had influence over legislation. “I felt like there was a lot of feedback from downstairs that usually isn’t considered as much.”

House Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, commended Grady for her efforts but said the GOP super majority has placed their priorities elsewhere besides public school funding woes. 

“If we are not able to afford a thorough and efficient public education system, then our state is going nowhere,” Hornbuckle said. “It doesn’t matter how many companies they try to attract, how many taxes they try to slash. If our folks are not educated and are unable to be productive members of our workforce … then we’re just dying from within. It is way past time that is the priority of our West Virginia Legislature.”

More teacher, personnel teacher job cuts this year

West Virginia schools are 2,685.92 school personnel positions over formula, according to the state education department. Some counties will use local funds to avoid cutting jobs. 

Cabell County School Board President Josh Pauley watched the legislative session closely.

“It definitely is disappointing that nothing happened,” he said, adding, “I still feel like we offer a good quality education to anybody who wants it.

The county cut 107 school positions and transferred 135 employees last year due to lack of funding, which was impacted by declining county population and students leaving to use the Hope Scholarship. Last week, the Cabell County Board of Education cut 37 positions. 

The district has an $8 million deficit from providing mandated special education services, Pauley said. 

“We were able to manage with local funds to cover the amount above what we’re actually being funded for special education,” he said, adding that they have a local levy to help fund schools.  “We need a new method to try to figure out the best way to fund our schools, and the complicated funding formula that we have that most people don’t understand needs to be addressed, and that wasn’t addressed.”

Kanawha County Schools, the state’s largest school district, is cutting 126 positions, including teachers, custodians and early learning staff. Student enrollment dropped by over 1,000 students in 2025, spurring a loss of state and federal funding. 

The county has the state’s largest share of students using the Hope Scholarship for private school tuition, homeschooling and more. During the 2024-25 school year, 1,293 Kanawha County students used the education voucher program.

Education chairs plan to address school funding in 2027

After the session, when Grady returned back to the public school where she teaches fourth grade, she said most of her colleagues weren’t surprised to see the Legislature hadn’t done anything to help the problem while dozens of schools have closed in the last two years.

“It’s kind of heartbreaking, because I feel like maybe they’ve lost faith in the entire system,” Grady said. 

She and Statler both have the goal of coming up with a cohesive plan to address the school funding formula before the 2027 legislative session in January. 

“I think it matters the most to get both of us on the same page, so that when something does come through one chamber, that it also goes through the other,” Grady said. 

Statler hopes relief for schools will come sooner by Morrisey calling for a special session on education funding. 

“I’m still not completely unhopeful that the governor will maybe call us in a special session at some point at one of the interim sessions to take care of this. This is critical,” Statler said. 

In the meantime, it’s an election year in West Virginia. All 100 House seats are up for election and several Senate seats.  

Phillips thinks the failure to address school funding will have an impact on election outcomes.

“I’m not even looking at party lines. I’m looking at, ‘Where are you sitting with public education?’” she said.