WaPo: Teacher, staff jobs at risk in new MoCo budget proposal

[Anonymous]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/28/AR2011012806323.html

"We've gotten 6,300 more kids in the last 36 months, mostly poor, not speaking English," Weast said, alluding to a population in need of support services that the district will struggle to provide because of budget cuts.

[Anonymous]

I think I understand the states rationale to maintain spending/student but in these budgetary times how can they continue to enforce this? The article says MoCo has a 300 million dollar deficit and the schools get 52% of the county budget.

[Anonymous]

How does it make sense that if they keep spending the same as last year, there is a need to cut 600 teachers, etc.

Am I reading the article wrong?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone think they should just start cutting sports/pe/art/ etc first. It seems to me that the schools should hold the 3 R's at a high level, but cut everything else. Parents can teach PE/art/sports/other at home or somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

I think the article says that the schools need 82 million more from the county to just hold steady. If they don't get it then they get fined 22 million by the state. So they end up 100 million in the hole.

[Anonymous]

150 million - 82 million - 22 million= about 66million
this would be less than half of last years budget. This has to be wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:150 million - 82 million - 22 million= about 66million
this would be less than half of last years budget. This has to be wrong.

I don't know what the hell I said there.
The school budget is 2.2 billion.

[Anonymous]

The average cost of educating a student in MCPS in 2010 was over $15K. See the Washington Area Boards of Education 2010 report, a copy can be found here:

http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/wabe/2010.pdf

So at about $15K/student, an increase of 6300 students over 3 years means an increase of over $94 million in costs in just 3 years. I thought that enrollment was projected to continue up over the next few years. The maintenance of effort law is unsustainable. Also, teacher salaries in MCPS are higher than in any other local county or city. (Sorry MCPS teachers, not knocking you at all, just stating a fact.) Personally, I don't want to see the specials like art, music or PE cut. If MoCo wants to continue having a world class school system, other departments will suffer, but the county needs to figure out its priorities. Also, I think they need to stop planning for increased housing. The county encourages people to keep moving here but hasn't been able to plan properly for how they'll pay for all the services those people will require.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The average cost of educating a student in MCPS in 2010 was over $15K. See the Washington Area Boards of Education 2010 report, a copy can be found here:

http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/wabe/2010.pdf

So at about $15K/student, an increase of 6300 students over 3 years means an increase of over $94 million in costs in just 3 years. I thought that enrollment was projected to continue up over the next few years. The maintenance of effort law is unsustainable. Also, teacher salaries in MCPS are higher than in any other local county or city. (Sorry MCPS teachers, not knocking you at all, just stating a fact.) Personally, I don't want to see the specials like art, music or PE cut. If MoCo wants to continue having a world class school system, other departments will suffer, but the county needs to figure out its priorities. Also, I think they need to stop planning for increased housing. The county encourages people to keep moving here but hasn't been able to plan properly for how they'll pay for all the services those people will require.

That is an interesting report. Never seen that before. Is there one published every year? I just don't get MC's budget issue. We pay a lot in property taxes and yet the money seems to disappear. The class size at my wife's elementary school is close to 30 students. But for some of the specials classes (gym, art, music) they combine more than one class, so those classes are in excess of 30 students. The teacher's contract has a goal of 30 or less students for the main classroom, but no limit on the size of the classes for the specials. Personally, I'd rather see furlough days on one or two of the teacher work days than have 193 teacher positions cut.

[Anonymous]

MCPS does a lot of social service/outreach work that dilutes the cost of education. Not that I'm against these things at all, but it makes the per student cost kind of skewed.

I'm thinking of the Parent Academy and other related things.

[Anonymous]

Agree that I'd like to see furloughs on teacher workdays rather than more cuts or increased class sizes.

Oh, and how 'bout getting the teachers union to change their contract so that teachers go out w/the kids at recess. That should eliminate the need for special recess aides. I wonder what that would save.

[Anonymous]

PP, yes the WABE report seems to be prepared annually by FCPS. The 2009 report is found at:
http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/wabe/2009.pdf
A link to the 2008 report:
http://www.acps.k12.va.us/board/wabe.pdf

You'll see that cost per pupil has increased in each of these years for MoCo. Given the increase in student numbers and resultant increase in class sizes, shouldn't the per pupil cost go down? I was able to crosswalk the FY 2010 report to MCPS published financial data-found here:
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/budget/FY2011/approved/pdf/operating/appendix.pdf
Pages 7 to 25 gives detail on costs included in cost per pupil.

It looks like class sizes will be increased again next year but that's not sustainable too much longer (and in some elementaries, not even for the coming year). When I was in elementary our class sizes were very large and while I did survive, I didn't learn much at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, yes the WABE report seems to be prepared annually by FCPS. The 2009 report is found at:
http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/wabe/2009.pdf
A link to the 2008 report:
http://www.acps.k12.va.us/board/wabe.pdf

You'll see that cost per pupil has increased in each of these years for MoCo. Given the increase in student numbers and resultant increase in class sizes, shouldn't the per pupil cost go down? I was able to crosswalk the FY 2010 report to MCPS published financial data-found here:
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/budget/FY2011/approved/pdf/operating/appendix.pdf
Pages 7 to 25 gives detail on costs included in cost per pupil.

It looks like class sizes will be increased again next year but that's not sustainable too much longer (and in some elementaries, not even for the coming year). When I was in elementary our class sizes were very large and while I did survive, I didn't learn much at school.

Yes, the WABE report is compiled every year. But this year MCPS refused to participate and so there are no MCPS numbers in the most recent report.

http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/10/dont-compare-us-mcps-stops-releasing.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, yes the WABE report seems to be prepared annually by FCPS. The 2009 report is found at:
http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/wabe/2009.pdf
A link to the 2008 report:
http://www.acps.k12.va.us/board/wabe.pdf

You'll see that cost per pupil has increased in each of these years for MoCo.../quote]

Yes, the WABE report is compiled every year. But this year MCPS refused to participate and so there are no MCPS numbers in the most recent report.

http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/10/dont-compare-us-mcps-stops-releasing.html

MCPS declined to participate due to "budget cuts". Still, it's possible to find this information in the budget that is posted on the MCPS website:

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/budget/FY2011/pdf/BudgetAdopted2011.pdf

Reference Table 6 for per pupil cost.