How would you cut the budget?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone within 2 miles of their school walks.

That is technically incorrect. There is a policy that if you have to cross a road that someone deems not safe (even if sidewalks and marked crosswalks), you get a bus. There’s a stop 3/4 mile from our local ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone within 2 miles of their school walks.

That is technically incorrect. There is a policy that if you have to cross a road that someone deems not safe (even if sidewalks and marked crosswalks), you get a bus. There’s a stop 3/4 mile from our local ES.

everyone at our elementary school takes the bus. Even if the student lives across the street, they take the bus. It started 10 to 15 years ago when we lost our crossing guard and they couldn’t find one. They have built quite a few additional sidewalks since then, and they could really do a larger walking area now - if they could find the crossing guards.

[Anonymous]

The kids who live across Georgetown Pike from Cooper take the bus. Georgetown Pike, even with it's traffic light and crosswalk, is deemed too dangerous to cross. It's absurd to baby middle schoolers in this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: . . .

Also, PTOs are paying for most of the technology in the ES classrooms (at least this is what's claimed by my ES)? So where does the FCPS technology budget go??? Parents already have to pay extra to get "basics" in their schools via PTO fundraising. I don't need to pay more taxes, and more to the PTO, while not getting raises, or potentially having one of us lose of our jobs, because FCPS administrators aren't capable of higher math. (Not a troll, but am a Democrat who doesn't believe in blank checks)

Large percentages of the technology budget fund the universal issuance of laptops to every FCPS student, with guaranteed replacement
When the student breaks or loses the laptop.

Also rolled into the technology budget is FCPS’ translation of online documents, websites (including updates), services to students and parents, etc. FCPS is highly diverse, so it is important that anything FCPS does online needs to accessible in every language, to provide equitable access.

Then why did FCPS just drop $119,000,000 on textbooks for 2024-2025?? An unusually large sum.

That is well more than $60 per student. That sounds excessive since all kids don't use textbooks. However, it would not surprise me if the cost is not $60 per book.
I've posted this before: the textbook companies are happy to wine and dine the selection committees. It is so easy to spend other people's money.

My child never had a book in FCPS in elementary school, although we quit before middle school.

Textbooks:

2021: 26,459,000
2024: 74,848,000 !!!!
2025: 45,830,000

This has to be one of other largest increases:

ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages):

2021: 63,520,000
2025: 102,199,000

$38,679,000 increase = 61% increase

I think it's important to review spending before jacking up residents taxes during tough economic times locally to pay for even greater spending

[Anonymous]

Our retirement savings are going up in smoke and our neighbors have lost their jobs. No more additional money for FCPS and certainly no raises for people who should be happy just to have jobs until the economic situation stabilizes.

[Anonymous]

How is all that money going to textbooks? My kids don't have textbooks.

[Anonymous]

Teachers and other county workers should not be getting big raises at a time when Fairfax families are seeing their life savings wiped out by the Trump administration. They should be lucky they at least have a job, unlike many others in the region facing unemployment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is all that money going to textbooks? My kids don't have textbooks.

Online textbooks cost money too. That is what the "textbook" money covers

[Anonymous]

eliminate AAP and IB

[Anonymous]

Online textbooks are a huge waste of money.

They should get rid of all laptops for K-8.

[Anonymous]

Lots of the IT costs are for cybersecurity. The IT department has ballooned in recent years. I would love getting rid of 1-1 laptops in ES and letting those kids learn off screen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Online textbooks are a huge waste of money.

They should get rid of all laptops for K-8.

I would say “most”. Some students need laptops and get them through their IEP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 million (and I'd add, cut AAP centers. Local Level IV at every school.)

Some schools are over capacity even after shipping out all their AAP kids to a center. They couldn't do Local Level IV if they wanted to.
Others don't have enough AAP kids per grade to fill a classroom so they need the center. It's probably cheaper to run the busses to centers who can take them than to hire more teachers for half empty classes.

Then obviously, all kids need to be returned to their base schools and boundaries redrawn based *only* on what those numbers look like.

Not all kids. You cannot, for example, get rid of the DHOH pyramid (CWES, Frost, Woodson). It's simply not a good use of resources to try and have all those translitorators and translators spread out across the county. It makes sense to bus kids who need cued speech, sign language, and other supports to one place. I assume there may be other situations like this. The transit costs - which are sometimes covered by things like a taxi where a bus doesn't make sense - have got to be less than the cost of spreading those staff out.

But sure, everyone else who isn't in a really special population like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers and other county workers should not be getting big raises at a time when Fairfax families are seeing their life savings wiped out by the Trump administration. They should be lucky they at least have a job, unlike many others in the region facing unemployment.

When times are “good”, I’m sure you’re the first one signing up to speak and advocate for school employee raises. Right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is all that money going to textbooks? My kids don't have textbooks.

I'm wondering how much all the Benchmark materials cost. Wouldn't that be "textbooks"?