After publishing my initial response, I kept digging. I wanted to go beyond national data and look at Madison County specifically: which positions were actually added, where the money came from, and what happened to those positions.

Below is a breakdown of the temporary positions that were funded through ESSER in Madison County. These were all funded through ESSER II or ESSER III, and every single one of them was eliminated when that funding expired. That is not waste. That is temporary emergency funding doing exactly what Congress wanted it to do, and then ending.

  • Student Success Coaches at MPS, WYES, and WMS
  • Graduation Coach at MCHS
  • Elementary Behavioral Specialist
  • Additional Elementary Counselor
  • Additional School Nurse
  • Math Interventionist for grades 3 through 5
  • Additional SPED Teacher at MPS
  • MCHS Counselor Assistance

The one position that did not follow that pattern is the Technology Support Specialist, funded through ESSER III. During COVID, Madison County decided to significantly expand its Chromebook deployment, resulting in more devices, more students, and greater support demands. You cannot scale up your technology infrastructure and continue running it with the same size tech team you had before. It was an operational necessity driven by increased workload. They do amazing work with limited staffing and resources, too.

Now, here is the part that the public comment presentation not only ignored but also directly contradicts the narrative being constructed. While ESSER positions were expiring as designed, Madison County has simultaneously been cutting real, permanent positions year after year since 2019 (and before) to balance our budget. These are not temporary pandemic hires being wound down. These are cuts to the bone: instructional staff, administrative support, intervention specialists, therapists, and the support staff who keep our buildings clean and functional. Since 2019-2020, Madison County has eliminated the following positions, totaling $1,252,645 in budget savings:

  • High School Assistant Principal, cut 2019-2020
  • Cosmetology Teacher, cut 2020-2021
  • Director of Administration (Central Office), cut 2021-2022
  • Data Specialist/DDOT (Central Office), cut 2021-2022
  • Instructional Coach (High School), cut 2021-2022
  • Director of Alternative Education (Reclassified to Assistant Principal and moved to High School), cut 2023-2024
  • Math Interventionist (Primary School), cut 2023-2024
  • Primary Teacher (1st Grade), cut 2023-2024
  • Math Teacher (MCHS), cut 2023-2024
  • Math Teacher (WMS), cut 2023-2024
  • Occupational Therapist (Services to PREP), cut 2023-2024
  • Speech Therapist (Services to PREP), cut 2023-2024
  • Primary Teacher (Kindergarten), cut 2024-2025
  • Elementary Teacher (4th Grade), cut 2025-2026
  • Elementary Teacher (5th Grade), cut 2025-2026
  • Science Teacher (WMS), cut 2025-2026
  • Alternative Education Instructional Assistant, cut 2025-2026
  • Two custodians, cut 2025-2026

Look at that list carefully. That is not trimming fat. That is cutting into muscle and bone. We have lost classroom teachers at the primary, elementary, and middle school levels. We have lost intervention specialists. We have lost therapists who served our most vulnerable students. We have lost instructional coaches who supported teacher development. We have lost administrative capacity at the Central Office. And this year, we cut two custodians.

In practice, this means the remaining staff absorbs those responsibilities. Teachers take on additional duties. Administrators step away from their primary roles to cover gaps. Central Office staff, people who already have full-time jobs running this division, are spending portions of their days covering positions that no longer exist. That is not a sustainable model. It degrades the quality of everything those people were hired to do in the first place, and it puts real strain on the educators and students who depend on them. And don’t get me started on the argument that these folks are overpaid. Resources and positions are cut year after year, adding to their responsibilities, and I still hear the complaint that these people are overpaid and don’t deserve the same raise as their colleagues. These administrators are taking on at least one additional responsibility that a fulltime staff member should be doing. Absolutely reckless to say these folks don’t deserve their salaries or a raise.

Many of the positions on that cut list are directly tied to student achievement. Math interventionists, instructional coaches, classroom teachers, etc. When you eliminate a Math Interventionist at the Primary School, those struggling students do not just figure it out on their own. Someone else picks it up, stretched thin, with less time and fewer resources. When you cut an Instructional Coach, teacher development suffers. When you eliminate a Speech Therapist or Occupational Therapist serving students, you are cutting services to children with the most significant needs in the division. The downstream impact of these cuts on student outcomes is real, measurable, and not reflected in the data presented to the board during public comment.

I also want to specifically recognize our support staff, because they are too often invisible in these conversations. We have cut two custodial positions this fiscal year alone. The people who remain are covering more square footage, more buildings, and more responsibilities with fewer hands, tools, and supplies that do not always match the scale of the job they are being asked to do. They show up every single day, and they get it done. Often, our mechanics at the bus shop take on bus routes, and they do it without hesitation. They deserve to be included in this conversation, not overlooked because they do not appear on a staffing ratio chart.

What made the public comment presentation even more problematic was the disconnect between the national data in that paper and the actual Madison County numbers. The research cited broad national trends, staffing up, enrollment down, and then pointed at Madison County as if we were a symptom of the same problem. But when you dig into our specific positions, our specific funding sources, and what actually happened to those positions, the narrative falls apart. You cannot take aggregate national data built on 13,000 school districts and drop it on a rural Virginia county of 1,572 students and call it an analysis. That is not how data works. The national figures captured ESSER surge at its peak. Madison County’s data shows those positions came and went exactly as designed, while at the same time, we have been quietly cutting over $1,250,000 in permanent positions just to keep the lights on.