District overview
York County School Division
How York County School Division is funded and governed, and what it is building next.
Who pays for York County's schools, and who decides?
York County School Division teaches about 13,000 students in 19 schools between Williamsburg and Newport News. Like every Virginia division it cannot levy a tax. Its money is state aid under the Standards of Quality formula, a share of the state sales tax, federal funds including military impact aid, and a lump-sum appropriation from the York County Board of Supervisors. In the 2026-27 school operating fund of $205,985,675, state money and the state sales tax together are about 58 percent, the county appropriation about 32 percent and federal money about 9 percent. The board writes a budget and the county decides what it will pay for, and the same is true of buildings: the Board of Supervisors sets a total spending allowance for each year of the six-year capital programme and the School Board chooses which projects fit inside it. In 2026 the pressure showed up on the building side. The division's own facilities plan says its 18 school buildings average 55 years old, that no new elementary school has opened since 1989, and that seven of ten elementary schools are using classroom trailers.
Five members, one per election district
The board has five members, each elected from one of the county's five election districts to a four-year term, with the next election in November 2027. Zoran Pajevic chairs it and James E. Richardson is vice chair. The board changed superintendent during the year: it appointed an interim in September 2025, bought an executive search, held a public hearing on search criteria in October, ran two interview windows over the winter and approved a superintendent's contract on March 9, 2026. James E. Carroll, Ed.D., the division's chief operations officer in the 2025-26 budget, appears as superintendent in the 2026-27 budget.
The county pays about a third, the state most of the rest
For 2026-27 the county appropriation for operations is $63,870,794 plus $1,551,489 for grounds. State aid is $102,930,475 and the state sales tax share $17,109,358. Federal money, which for York County includes impact aid tied to its military installations, is $18,393,502 and is budgeted to fall by $834,689 from the year before.
Spending per student sits below the state average
The division's own notice to parents puts the 2024-25 cost at $14,911 per student. The most recent Virginia average the notice can quote, for 2022-23, is $16,676 against York County's $14,375 that year. The figure covers day school, food services, summer school and adult education but not buildings, debt or capital additions.
A sales tax question goes to voters in November 2026
The Board of Supervisors has asked the circuit court to put a referendum on the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot on a local retail sales tax of up to 1 percent, restricted to building and majorly renovating schools and to the borrowing costs of those projects. The division estimates a full 1 percent would raise about $12 million a year and says it does not campaign either way. Approval would only give the county permission; the supervisors would still have to act to impose the tax.
None of this says the division is in trouble. Its audited accounts carry an unqualified opinion, its budget documents have won national awards for presentation, enrollment is at or near a record high rather than falling, and the crowding it reports is the kind that comes from a place people are moving to. The board also meets often and publishes an agenda for every meeting, including its special and closed ones. What the record does show is an old building stock, a six-year construction list that has grown by about $20 million in two editions, and a year in which the division changed superintendent and then spent months filling the operations post that left open.
Where the division stands
Up from 12,183 ten years earlier and just below the 13,051 the 2025-26 budget projected, which the budget message described as the highest in division history.
Up from the $199,451,610 approved for 2025-26, a rise of about 3.3 percent.
$5,046 local, $7,126 state, $1,244 from the state sales tax and $1,495 federal. Excludes buildings, debt service and capital additions.
Up from $96,955,389 in the 2026-31 edition and $97,150,321 in the 2025-30 edition. The single largest year is 2026-27 at $26,718,000.
Across 18 school buildings. The last new elementary school opened in 1989 and the last new secondary schools in 1996.
484 students against an instructional capacity of 360 on Sept. 30, 2025, projected to reach 810 by 2031-32 on current trends. Four other elementary schools were also above capacity.
$140.7 million of $218.3 million total spending. Operation and maintenance took 7.8 percent, administration, attendance and health 6.6 percent, technology 6.5 percent and pupil transportation 5.3 percent.
Regular meetings, work sessions, special meetings and a two-day retreat in Charlottesville, publishing 683 agenda items in all. Two meetings in the year were posted and then cancelled or rescheduled.
Every item the board listed, including procedural ones such as roll call and the pledge of allegiance.
Major projects
Waller Mill Elementary School expansion
In the approved building programme as a two-year projectWaller Mill is the most crowded school in the division, with 484 students against an instructional capacity of 360 and a projection of 810 by 2031-32. The approved 2027-2032 building programme carries design work and a six-to-eight classroom expansion with common-area changes, spread over two years. The school sits in the Bruton attendance zone, where the facilities plan counts 82 active and 829 pending homes.
- Enrollment recorded at 484 against an instructional capacity of 360
- Six-year facilities master plan identifies the expansion as a capacity need
- Expansion carried in the School Board approved capital programme for 2027-2032
Funding
York County capital improvement programme, within the annual allowance set by the Board of Supervisors
Queens Lake Middle School expansion
In the approved building programme, construction in the later yearsThe plan adds eight classrooms at Queens Lake Middle School along with a new gymnasium, a new cafeteria, a rebuilt front office and front entrance, low-slope roof repair and a new bus loop. Queens Lake serves the same growing Bruton corner of the county as Waller Mill, and a locker and team room renovation approved in an earlier year is being folded into this project rather than done separately.
- Facilities master plan carries the expansion in its recommended project schedule
- Project included in the approved 2027-2032 capital programme
Funding
York County capital improvement programme
Tabb High School renovations and additions
Design under way, scope reduced to control costTabb High is the division's largest single renovation. The facilities plan says construction costs have moved sharply since the pandemic and lists what staff have done to hold the price down: cutting back the architects' original vision and renegotiating their fee, bidding the LED lighting conversion together with turf field lighting, reusing the Tabb design work for a already-approved locker room renovation at Bruton High School, and applying for the state's School Construction Assistance Program. Two of those steps have been done; the combined lighting bid drew no bids and is being re-tendered, and the plan notes the cost-cutting has slowed the project down.
- Facilities master plan sets out the cost-reduction strategy and its status
- Renovations and additions carried in the approved 2027-2032 capital programme
Funding
York County capital improvement programme, with an application to Virginia's School Construction Assistance Program
November 2026 school construction sales tax referendum
On the ballot, decided by voters on Nov. 3, 2026The York County Board of Supervisors has asked the circuit court to put a question to voters on adding a local retail sales tax of up to 1 percent, restricted to building or majorly renovating public schools and to the borrowing costs of those projects. The division estimates a full 1 percent would raise about $12 million a year and states that it does not advocate for or against ballot measures. A yes vote would only give the county permission; the supervisors would have to act separately to impose the tax, which would expire on or before July 21, 2046. The money could not be used for teacher salaries, instructional programmes, school operating costs or existing debt.
- An independent facilities study is due to be presented to the School Board and Board of Supervisors at a public meeting in September
- Referendum on the general election ballot
- Latest date the tax would expire if imposed
Funding
A new dedicated local sales tax, if voters and then the Board of Supervisors approve it
Changing superintendent
Search completed, contract approved March 2026, operations post refilled over the springThe division changed superintendent over the year. The board met on interim candidates and on awarding an executive search contract in early September 2025, then on the terms of both an interim appointment and the separation of a specific employee. It ran an open search from there: a session with Virginia School Boards Association representatives on the process, a public hearing on search criteria, a meeting to set candidate qualifications and compensation, and two announced interview windows. The board took up a motion to approve the superintendent's contract on March 9, 2026. Because personnel matters are decided in closed session, the record shows the process and its dates but not the reasons.
- Closed sessions on interim superintendent candidates and on an executive search contract
- Closed session on the interim appointment and the separation of a division employee
- Public hearing on superintendent search criteria
- Board establishes candidate qualifications, compensation and benefits
- Superintendent interview window announced
- Second interview window announced
- Board takes up a motion to approve the superintendent's contract
Funding
Operating budget; the executive search was let as a public contract
Built from two official sources. The first is the York County School Board's own published meeting index, a feed the board maintains covering every meeting it has posted since 2013; the trailing year from Sept. 2, 2025 to Sept. 1, 2026 contains 48 meetings and 683 agenda items with their categories, headings and action types. The second is the division's finance page: the 2026-27 proposed budget and the superintendent's proposal summary, the 2025-26 approved budget, the approved capital improvement programmes for 2025-30, 2026-31 and 2027-32, the six-year facilities master plan dated Nov. 10, 2025, the audited annual financial reports for the years ended June 2023, 2024 and 2025, three years of per-pupil expenditure notices and three years of the state-format annual report of expenditures. Seventeen documents in all, every one of them read.
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