How would you cut the budget?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vouchers. $4B divided by 170K students comes out to over $23K per student. Parochial and private institutions could rent the existing infrastructure and deliver a better product at a reduced rate.

Given projected declines in K-12 school age population in the coming years this would be a win-win for the overall Fairfax County budget as well.

Come on Board of Supervisors make the bold call and be seen as a “progressive force” in improving education in America.

Won’t work. All it will do is enable mid-high income folks to pay for private while pulling funding from public schools where only low-income families will attend, eventually leading to the failure of the public schools (but that’s what you want, right?). Fewer schools will lead to consolidation of the schools, which will lead to longer bus rides. Oklahoma did this and they are 49th or 50th in the nation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Vouchers. $4B divided by 170K students comes out to over $23K per student. Parochial and private institutions could rent the existing infrastructure and deliver a better product at a reduced rate.

Given projected declines in K-12 school age population in the coming years this would be a win-win for the overall Fairfax County budget as well.

Come on Board of Supervisors make the bold call and be seen as a “progressive force” in improving education in America.

In this scenario of vouchers, would the only students remaining in public schools be those with significant disabilities, poor English proficiency, and very low income? In this area, there aren’t enough private schools to accept vouchers- where would the students be able to attend? Or would they ultimately be forced to stay in public schools, which would then be funded even less? I don’t see vouchers helping in Northern Virginia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vouchers. $4B divided by 170K students comes out to over $23K per student. Parochial and private institutions could rent the existing infrastructure and deliver a better product at a reduced rate.

Given projected declines in K-12 school age population in the coming years this would be a win-win for the overall Fairfax County budget as well.

Come on Board of Supervisors make the bold call and be seen as a “progressive force” in improving education in America.

Won’t work. All it will do is enable mid-high income folks to pay for private while pulling funding from public schools where only low-income families will attend, eventually leading to the failure of the public schools (but that’s what you want, right?). Fewer schools will lead to consolidation of the schools, which will lead to longer bus rides. Oklahoma did this and they are 49th or 50th in the nation.

Ohio also does vouchers and they are also ranked bottom of the list with terrible public schools. The families using vouchers were already attending and affording private schools.

[Anonymous]

Florida and Utah have school vouchers and are ranked #2 and 4

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vouchers. $4B divided by 170K students comes out to over $23K per student. Parochial and private institutions could rent the existing infrastructure and deliver a better product at a reduced rate.

Given projected declines in K-12 school age population in the coming years this would be a win-win for the overall Fairfax County budget as well.

Come on Board of Supervisors make the bold call and be seen as a “progressive force” in improving education in America.

In this scenario of vouchers, would the only students remaining in public schools be those with significant disabilities, poor English proficiency, and very low income? In this area, there aren’t enough private schools to accept vouchers- where would the students be able to attend? Or would they ultimately be forced to stay in public schools, which would then be funded even less? I don’t see vouchers helping in Northern Virginia.

Private school supply is elastic. I’ve heard your argument before in another context and it’s just not true at all.

I recommend listening to a NYT “The Daily” podcast from the fall titled “Why So Many Parents Are Opting Out Of Public Schools.” It’s pretty eye opening and lays out why a lot of the equity-based programs, including the recurring comprehensive boundary reviews, are going to boomerang around on the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. Cut the number of administrative staff at Gatehouse and at each school. Too many vice-principals who each have a myriad of staff.

2. Cut the amount of tech in schools - kids should not have a one-to-one laptop. Kids who need it can take laptop home but no need to give one to each kid and no laptops or ipads at the elementary age at all. That will reduce number of tech staff as well.

3. Cut the edtech programming subscriptions. Lexia, Prodigy, IXL, ST Math ... I could go on and on. Each subscriptions costs money every year. Buy textbooks that you can reuse year after year.

4. Cut DEI - I know what you are thinking. I'm super liberal but I don't believe in jobs that don't have any metrics that you can pinpoint to - what does the head of DEI do actually on a day to day basis? If there is an actual thing that will help disadvantaged kids, I'm all for it. I just don't see that happening anywhere in FCPS.

This is also my list, plus getting rid of AAP centers (and I say this as a bleeding-heart liberal and parent of a center kid!). Move to a LLIV contained-classroom model for every school with at least 20 Level III/IV kids - no principal discretion to implement 'cluster model'. DEI-related programs like Girls Can Code, student affinity groups, etc. can and should continue at the school/pyramid/region level but the current head of DEI and her staff are horrible and need to go. HR should be able to cover the legal/anti-discrimination aspect.

I do think Instructional Aides play an important role in many schools so I wouldn't want to see them blanket cut, but a metrics-based approach to their deployment might cut down on their numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d set up a transitional school for English language learners. You test in/out and return to your neighborhood school once fluency is achieved.

Eliminate AAP centers. Your base school will suffice.

Considering the number of ESL students in the county, that school would need to support 15-20% of the county’s students.

Setting up a separate school and running transportation sounds like a good idea but not a way to reduce expenses.

This. It will never happen for the same reason the district is trying to do away with standalone special ed programs and sheltered classes at the secondary level. Some of the students will never exit either program through no fault of anyone. The programs are expensive to staff and it’s much cheaper to push everyone into the same classroom and then blame teachers for not meeting the needs of all learners.

Even if FCPS wanted to do this, it will never happen due to federal law.

The system is created to quickly assimilate small numbers of recent, mostly educated non English speaking immigrants to US language and customs.

It is not designed to support the current situation created over the past 4 years of vast numbers of non educated, often illiterate, students from culturally dissimilar areas (some of the high immigrant schools have dozens of languages spoken, often from places that are not modern societies with modern views on women and culture, for example), in a school system that now despises assimilation or promoting an "American" culture.

The federal laws on placing ESOL students in mainstream classrooms worked under limited immigration and minimal illegal migration, when the schools used to value assimilation to US language and culture.

The laws cause massive failure under the current migration and immigration patterns, in a part of the country that teaches tgat assimilation is a bad thing to be avoided, and that America is a failed idea.

If you want to make the laws match what is needed in the schools now, you need to start with Connolly, Kaine and Warner, none of whom will support what you want and what the schools need, because what you propose is too trumpy for their political belief system. You must fix it at a federal level. FCPS hands are tied.

This. I was coming here to say this is why we need immigration enforcement but know that will never happen here.

In addition, address high admin salaries and cut DEI. I would consider cutting AAP but it was our escape from majority ESL elementary and middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vouchers. $4B divided by 170K students comes out to over $23K per student. Parochial and private institutions could rent the existing infrastructure and deliver a better product at a reduced rate.

Given projected declines in K-12 school age population in the coming years this would be a win-win for the overall Fairfax County budget as well.

Come on Board of Supervisors make the bold call and be seen as a “progressive force” in improving education in America.

In this scenario of vouchers, would the only students remaining in public schools be those with significant disabilities, poor English proficiency, and very low income? In this area, there aren’t enough private schools to accept vouchers- where would the students be able to attend? Or would they ultimately be forced to stay in public schools, which would then be funded even less? I don’t see vouchers helping in Northern Virginia.

Private school supply is elastic. I’ve heard your argument before in another context and it’s just not true at all.

I recommend listening to a NYT “The Daily” podcast from the fall titled “Why So Many Parents Are Opting Out Of Public Schools.” It’s pretty eye opening and lays out why a lot of the equity-based programs, including the recurring comprehensive boundary reviews, are going to boomerang around on the county.

I listened to both this and NYT/Serial's "Nice White Parents", and there's nothing new in either one. It's just another way to send public money to private schools, it's just not always a traditional private school - now you also have the microschools, online education providers, and homeschoolers who will charge up to whatever voucher amount is available, primarily with no oversight or accountability. Vouchers are still basically just a way to divert public money to the people who are best able to afford private school in the first place or using taxpayer funds to support schools that are not required to meet the same standards (nor accept the same students) as public schools are. Now add to that a bunch of venture capitalist starting up schools to siphon up public money by fear-mongering to parents. States that have implemented voucher programs have not shown better outcomes and include several of the worst-performing states in the country. The kids who were already going to succeed in public school will leave for private options, and the quality privates will continue turning away any students that cut into their profit margin or test scores.

I have a special needs kid at one of the county's CSS programs. Bright kid, needs extra help to reach the same outcomes, will graduate with an advanced studies diploma after taking part in the county's transition to employment program. We want them to be self-supporting and think it's a better investment now to get them educated with some extra effort so they aren't reliant on assistance after we're gone. We spend a lot of our own money supporting their public education with outside resources. Even if we got a larger than usual voucher as the podcast suggests, there are very few SN privates even in an affluent and populous area like NoVA. I know because we had them at one of the SN privates, which was then acquired by a PE education company, at which point the quality tanked and the long-time teachers who knew what they were doing left and were replaced with babysitters.

Education is an area that can't be run like a business. "Competition" doesn't drive school to succeed, and "elastic" supply does not equal quality - that PE education company could open a dozen more school and offer to babysit kids rather than teach them for the $30K/year voucher money. Voucher and charter school states already have some that just sit your kid down in a cubicle to watch videos all day, and I'm sure AI will up the ante on that. If all your options are shitty, you essentially have no options.

Public education was broken deliberately for ideology and profit.

[Anonymous]

Would these vouchers go to for-profit privates? Who would monitor them and hold them accountable? Would they have the same testing requirements and ratings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vouchers. $4B divided by 170K students comes out to over $23K per student. Parochial and private institutions could rent the existing infrastructure and deliver a better product at a reduced rate.

Given projected declines in K-12 school age population in the coming years this would be a win-win for the overall Fairfax County budget as well.

Come on Board of Supervisors make the bold call and be seen as a “progressive force” in improving education in America.

In this scenario of vouchers, would the only students remaining in public schools be those with significant disabilities, poor English proficiency, and very low income? In this area, there aren’t enough private schools to accept vouchers- where would the students be able to attend? Or would they ultimately be forced to stay in public schools, which would then be funded even less? I don’t see vouchers helping in Northern Virginia.

Private school supply is elastic. I’ve heard your argument before in another context and it’s just not true at all.

I recommend listening to a NYT “The Daily” podcast from the fall titled “Why So Many Parents Are Opting Out Of Public Schools.” It’s pretty eye opening and lays out why a lot of the equity-based programs, including the recurring comprehensive boundary reviews, are going to boomerang around on the county.

I listened to both this and NYT/Serial's "Nice White Parents", and there's nothing new in either one. It's just another way to send public money to private schools, it's just not always a traditional private school - now you also have the microschools, online education providers, and homeschoolers who will charge up to whatever voucher amount is available, primarily with no oversight or accountability. Vouchers are still basically just a way to divert public money to the people who are best able to afford private school in the first place or using taxpayer funds to support schools that are not required to meet the same standards (nor accept the same students) as public schools are. Now add to that a bunch of venture capitalist starting up schools to siphon up public money by fear-mongering to parents. States that have implemented voucher programs have not shown better outcomes and include several of the worst-performing states in the country. The kids who were already going to succeed in public school will leave for private options, and the quality privates will continue turning away any students that cut into their profit margin or test scores.

I have a special needs kid at one of the county's CSS programs. Bright kid, needs extra help to reach the same outcomes, will graduate with an advanced studies diploma after taking part in the county's transition to employment program. We want them to be self-supporting and think it's a better investment now to get them educated with some extra effort so they aren't reliant on assistance after we're gone. We spend a lot of our own money supporting their public education with outside resources. Even if we got a larger than usual voucher as the podcast suggests, there are very few SN privates even in an affluent and populous area like NoVA. I know because we had them at one of the SN privates, which was then acquired by a PE education company, at which point the quality tanked and the long-time teachers who knew what they were doing left and were replaced with babysitters.

Education is an area that can't be run like a business. "Competition" doesn't drive school to succeed, and "elastic" supply does not equal quality - that PE education company could open a dozen more school and offer to babysit kids rather than teach them for the $30K/year voucher money. Voucher and charter school states already have some that just sit your kid down in a cubicle to watch videos all day, and I'm sure AI will up the ante on that. If all your options are shitty, you essentially have no options.

Public education was broken deliberately for ideology and profit.

There is nothing wrong with educational vouchers. It's the same concept as food assistance. Instead of being assigned a certain menu or list of approved items, people are (or at least were) free to buy what they want. Some people will buy whole chickens, ground beef, eggs, blueberries, broccoli and rice. Others will spend it up on frozen pizza, Oreos, corn chips and hot pockets. Both will spend up to the limit. Some people will cook and use the assistance to maintain health. Others will eat themselves and feed their children into morbid obesity. In either case, it is assistance with the freedom to use it as desired.

I do agree with your last statement. Government schools have been sabotaged so much that more and more people with a choice, avoid them.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely no AAP centers. Have a flexible AAP group available to all students in all schools for all subjects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You might be surprised to learn that teacher and instructional aid salary only makes up 41% of the budget. It is common misconception that is driven by FCPS messaging.

For example, the FCPS FY Toolkit (https://www.fcps.edu/fy-2026-budget-toolkit) includes the following statements:

“More than 85% of the budget is dedicated to instruction and reflects the needs of our community’s young people in response to the changing world around us. Budget priorities include providing competitive compensation for all employees, including a 7% salary increase for all staff. The majority of the budget increase is dedicated to that proposed 7% pay increase.”

and

“Breaking Down the Budget: Investing in Our Classrooms
Did you know that more than 85% of FCPS’ budget stays in our classrooms?”

Every presentation I have seen about budget needs highlights the salary differences between FCPS and surrounding districts based on teacher salary charts. The argument is always the same: competitive teacher salaries are essential for recruitment and retention.

If FCPS already pays bus drivers, custodians, principals, school-based counselors, and/or central office employees more than or commensurate amounts as other districts, should all these employees should get a 7% raise based on a disparity in teacher pay with other districts, if the primary goal is to increase teacher recruitment and retention?

It seems like there is an opportunity to make teacher pay more competitive, even with a reduced budget. I sincerely believe that every employee is an essential member of the team to support student learning. However, when the budget is tight, it is worth looking to see if a 7% raise is necessary for all employees of FCPS if the goal is teacher recruitment and retention, especially if those other positions already receive competitive levels on compensation.

Unless, of course, the true goal held by leadership is to scapegoat teachers for budget shortfalls.

+1
They blame it on the teachers because they think that will get them the money.

Thank you for posting this. Claiming that 85% is spent on instruction (I suspect that Reid's $500K is included in that) and then illustrating that only 41% is spent on classroom instruction is revealing.

I was a teacher. This is egregious. Every line item should be examined.

ESOL spending went from $63m to $102m in 4 years (2021 to 2025). An approx. $40m increase. It's huge. God knows what it is in 2026 budget.

Why is this though? Back in the day, many of my friends were 1st gen and yet ended up at the same state college. They spoke their parents' languages at home.

[Anonymous]

Project Momentum

[Anonymous]

Drop chromebooks and tech spending.

[Anonymous]

Starting cuts:

- AAP centers and associated multi-million dollar transportation apparatus. Students currently attending can finish their time through 6th grade at ES. No new admissions. All ES have local programs to meet this need. The cost is redundancy in transportation and staffing cost is INSANE when there is no longer a reason for ES centers to exist now that all schools have it. A poster above referenced "Nice white parents". This budget item is your posterchild and I won't be able to respect any FCPS budget until it's removed.

- Reduce DEI staff by 75%

- Hopefully cut a lot of overstaffed ESOL positions this summer with enrollment going down

- Remove 8-hour contracts for special ed teachers. They were fine for COVID when supplemental paperwork and workload was added, but the pay inequity is no longer defensible. Maybe take a look at the specific sped positions where turnover is highest (severe disabilities, emotional disturbance, etc.) and keep only that small %

- Reduce SBTS positions to .5 per school, unless school is over 1000 students.

- pay remaining staff more, when possible, to continue to retain top talent