District overview
Lynchburg City Public Schools
How Lynchburg City Schools is governed and paid for, and what its school board is working on now.
Who pays for Lynchburg's schools, and who decides?
Lynchburg City Schools was founded in 1871 and serves about 7,700 students in 19 buildings, including 10 elementary schools, three middle schools and two high schools, under Superintendent Dr. Kristy Somerville-Midgette. Nine school board members are elected, three from each of the city's three districts, and they choose a chair and vice chair every July. Like every Virginia city division, Lynchburg cannot levy a tax. Its money comes as state aid under the Standards of Quality formula, federal grants, and a lump sum appropriated by Lynchburg City Council. The City of Lynchburg also owns every school building, so construction money sits in the city's capital improvement plan rather than in the division's own accounts. That is why the budget year is a negotiation that runs from a public hearing in December through a joint meeting with City Council in April to adoption in June.
Almost all of the operating budget is people
The adopted 2025-26 operating budget is $119,084,068, up about 4.5% on the year before. Personnel and benefits account for $99,568,025 of that, more than 83.6%. Instruction alone is $83.3 million, up $4.6 million.
Federal pandemic money has run out
The grants fund fell to $16.7 million for 2025-26, down 20.3%, after falling about $15.97 million the year before. The division names the expiry of federal coronavirus relief as the reason. Those grants paid for things like achievement-gap work, mental health support and security.
The division insures its own staff, and says the fund is short
Lynchburg pays employee health claims from its own fund. Its adopted budget says the money set aside for 2025-26 is expected to be too little to balance that fund, because claims keep rising and earlier budgets never matched the real cost. The board's finance committee returned to health insurance at five meetings during the year.
The board works through standing committees
Most detail is done in committee before it reaches the full board: Finance and Facilities met 14 times in the year, including one special call meeting, Academic Success 12 times, Legislative Advocacy and Community Relations six times, an Ad Hoc Achievement Gap Committee once, and the Student Discipline and Policy Committee 41 times to hear individual suspension appeals.
None of this means the division is in trouble. It completed its budget cycle on time, holds a national finance association award for the quality of its budget document, matched the state's 3% pay increase for all employees rather than only state-funded posts, and increased instruction spending by $4.6 million in a year when federal grant money was falling away. The strains here are the end of pandemic funding and the cost of health cover, not basic financial management.
Where the division stands
Total student count published in the division's own adopted budget for 2025-26. The federal NCES directory recorded 7,856 students in its 2022 collection.
Up about 4.5% from $113.91 million in 2024-25. Total across all division funds is $135,785,794.
$99,568,025 of the $119.1 million operating budget.
Down 20.3% from $20.96 million in 2024-25, which was itself down about $15.97 million on the year before, as federal coronavirus relief funds expired.
Twelve full School Board meetings, nine work sessions, one board training session, two joint meetings with Lynchburg City Council, 33 standing committee meetings and 41 Student Discipline and Policy Committee sittings.
Every item the board listed, including procedural ones such as roll call and the pledge.
Major projects
School buildings capital programme
Growing: $10 million of renovation work in progress, $30 million discussed for 2026-27Lynchburg City Council owns the school buildings and funds their repair through the city's capital improvement plan. The 2026-2030 plan carried by the division's budget lists roof replacements, HVAC, electrical and plumbing work, elementary school gymnasium additions, playground modernisation, paving and fencing, a chiller and cooling tower replacement at Dunbar Middle School, middle school career and technical education improvements, and a renovation and addition at Sandusky Elementary School. In June 2026 the board took up a Construction Manager at Risk resolution, an approach that brings the builder in early alongside the architect under an agreed price cap.
- Facilities Plan comes to the board's work session consent agenda
- Facilities plan process presented to Lynchburg City Council at a joint meeting
- Finance and Facilities Committee takes a capital project update and an access control project item
- Committee reviews progress on $10 million of renovation funds, planned projects for $30 million of 2026-27 capital funding, and a $3 million reallocation request to City Council
- Board takes up a Construction Manager at Risk resolution as a consent agenda action item
- Committee takes a construction projects update and a monthly maintenance and repairs report
Funding
City of Lynchburg capital improvement plan, adopted by City Council, which owns the school buildings
FY 2027 operating budget
Adopted June 2026The board's budget for the 2026-27 school year ran a six-month course from a published budget calendar in November 2025 to adoption in June 2026, including a public hearing, the superintendent's proposed budget, a February continuation, and a presentation to Lynchburg City Council. A 4% salary and cost-of-living increase was still being discussed in July 2026, after adoption.
- FY 2027 budget calendar comes to the board's consent agenda
- Work session and public hearing on the FY 2027 budget
- Superintendent's proposed budget taken as an action item
- FY 2027 budget presented to Lynchburg City Council at a joint meeting
- FY 2027 budget adoption on the board's consent agenda
- Board and finance committee discuss a 4% salary and cost-of-living increase
Funding
Virginia Standards of Quality state aid, federal grants, and a city appropriation from Lynchburg City Council
Metal detectors in schools
Implementation plan taken up, updates continuingEntry screening moved from a committee item in September 2025 to an implementation plan on the full board's work session consent agenda in October 2025, with a committee handling the rollout and communication and reporting back through March 2026. The division carries a separate Metal Detector Implementation section on its own website.
- Metal detectors taken up by the Finance and Facilities Committee as an action and discussion item
- Metal Detector Implementation Plan comes to the board's work session consent agenda
- Committee takes up metal detector committee and communication arrangements
- Metal detectors update to the Finance and Facilities Committee
- Further metal detectors update to the committee
Funding
Division safety and security spending, with related access control work in the city capital improvement plan
Strategic plan 2026-31 and mission refresh
Presented June 2026, in its first yearThe division worked through 2025-26 on a new five-year strategic plan, which sets the goals later budget and programme decisions are measured against. The work included a comprehensive strategic plan discussion with City Council in September 2025, an entry plan feedback presentation from the new superintendent in October 2025, a mission statement change discussed by the finance committee in November 2025, a strategic plan and mission and vision session in March 2026, and a vision, mission and logo presentation in May 2026.
- Comprehensive strategic plan discussed with Lynchburg City Council
- Superintendent's entry plan feedback presentation to the board
- Strategic planning update to the board
- Strategic plan, mission and vision session at the board work session
- Vision, mission and logo presentation as new business
- Strategic plan presentation by the superintendent
Funding
Operating budget
Recent news
Built from two kinds of official record. The first is the Lynchburg City School Board's own published meeting index, an XML feed listing every meeting the board and its committees have posted, with the date, meeting name and full ordered list of agenda categories and item titles with their action types; its trailing-year slice, Sept. 1, 2025 to Sept. 1, 2026, holds 98 meetings and 1,032 agenda items. The second is the division's adopted annual operating budget and capital improvement plan for FY 2026 and FY 2025, two 260-page PDFs published on the division's own website, both read in full.
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