How would you cut the budget?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Quit paying contractors for studies like BRAC. It will cost milllions by the time they are finished. They've likely spent at least $1million already.

Adjust the boundaries of schools that really need it--like Coates. This is not rocket science and could be adjusted with surrounding schools that share boundaries with little change.
This could easily be done in house with small adjustments.

Stop the idiotic county wide boundary study which has likely already cost FVCPS $1million.

Greatly reduce top tier executives at Gatehouse. Check out the top salaries.

Get rid of IB. It is more expensive than AP and less flexible. I don't see how they can consider any high school boundary changes while we have two very different programs in high schools. It allows for unnecessary Pupil placement.

Do a deep dive on how much is being spent on unnecessary materials.
Ask the teachers--not the specialists--what they need in the classroom.

BRAC is the closest thing to DOGE that FCPS has ever undertaken. The “one off” boundary changes are expensive and incredibly inefficient, costing up to several hundred thousand dollars each, which is large part of the reason why they aren’t common. One BRAC analysis for 2x to 4x cost that covers every school in FCPS? That is incredibly, incredibly efficient by comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cut all DEI personnel and programs immediately.

So kids with dyslexia aren’t important and don’t deserve help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cut all DEI personnel and programs immediately.

So you mean to cut special education?

Did I say that? You're just making stuff up.

DEI includes more than LGBQ

[Anonymous]

Cut:
the entire AP program, including TJ
all instructional coaches and generic resource teachers
half the Assistant Principals
all the dual language programs
and at least half of Gatehouse bureaucrats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cut all DEI personnel and programs immediately.

So you mean to cut special education?

Did I say that? You're just making stuff up.

DEI includes more than LGBQ

Please explain how it includes dyslexia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cut all DEI personnel and programs immediately.

So you mean to cut special education?

Did I say that? You're just making stuff up.

DEI includes more than LGBQ

Please explain how it includes dyslexia.

Do you know what the D in DEI is?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cut:
the entire AP program, including TJ
all instructional coaches and generic resource teachers
half the Assistant Principals
all the dual language programs
and at least half of Gatehouse bureaucrats.

I'm not sure if I wold cut APs. Good ones make a huge difference in a school. They are the ones that deal with discipline issues for the most part. I've been lucky as a teacher and had very supportive admin and have often wished for an extra AP or two at the schools I've worked in.

[Anonymous]

BRAC is the closest thing to DOGE that FCPS has ever undertaken. The “one off” boundary changes are expensive and incredibly inefficient, costing up to several hundred thousand dollars each, which is large part of the reason why they aren’t common. One BRAC analysis for 2x to 4x cost that covers every school in FCPS? That is incredibly, incredibly efficient by comparison.

No. It is not anywhere comparable to DOGE except for major disruption.

The purpose of DOGE is to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Whether it does that is certainly up for discussion.

However, this BRAC is:
BRAC committee is anything but transparent--NDA's for committee members; questionable selection processes for the committee.

Waste: Spending $$$ to a contractor --why? So, FCPS can pass the buck on decision making and pretend that an unprejudiced third part is making the decisions. (Meanwhile, the committee selected is anything but unprejudiced.)
While there certainly are boundaries that need to be adjusted, it would appear they are not the ones much discussed on this thread.
A PP said this would be money savings. Does he/she really believe that this is only 2 to 4 times the cost of an individual school boundary study?
Why spend money on a study that is not needed? It seems to me that with all the construction going on around Coates that this could have been easily adjusted two years ago.

$$ for double busing.
Do you think it is not going to cost money to switch staffs? Haven't heard a word about how these changes are going to affect that.

Fraud: Maybe, maybe not. Why was there a non-compete award? Is the contract limited to $500K? Highly unlikely
Have there been change orders?

Abuse: Putting the entire school community into uncertainty. It may not be a right to be sent to a certain school, but when a switch is made, it disturbs neighborhoods and communities. Anyone who says differently has not been through a boundary change.

Not addressing the AP/IB issue when discussing this. That is a major concern of many parents of high school students.

One of the SB members said that they would not eliminate AAP centers because of the AAP so activism. Fine, but why does one group have so much influence, when the community as a whole has made it clear they do not want this fiasco of a study? Overwhelmingly, people want to stay at their current schools.

From the CIP, there do not appear to be any high schools that are too small. There are a couple that are full, but it appears that is a temporary situation.

Fairfax County residents are undergoing a major employment upheaval right now. Adding this to it is abusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cut:
the entire AP program, including TJ
all instructional coaches and generic resource teachers
half the Assistant Principals
all the dual language programs
and at least half of Gatehouse bureaucrats.

I'm not sure if I wold cut APs. Good ones make a huge difference in a school. They are the ones that deal with discipline issues for the most part. I've been lucky as a teacher and had very supportive admin and have often wished for an extra AP or two at the schools I've worked in.

Was this written by an IB person?

And, no, we cannot and should not cut AP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cut:
the entire AP program, including TJ
all instructional coaches and generic resource teachers
half the Assistant Principals
all the dual language programs
and at least half of Gatehouse bureaucrats.

I'm not sure if I wold cut APs. Good ones make a huge difference in a school. They are the ones that deal with discipline issues for the most part. I've been lucky as a teacher and had very supportive admin and have often wished for an extra AP or two at the schools I've worked in.

Was this written by an IB person?

And, no, we cannot and should not cut AP.

That was my response to 11:54. I was addressing the proposal to cut half off assistant principals. But, yes, the idea to cut Advanced Placement courses is absurd. It is probably the most cost-effective way for students to earn college credit while in high school. It baffles my mind why IB is in so many lower income schools. AP would be much better for higher performing students in that demographic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine:
Streamline what is offered:
Three foreign languages in all MS and HS - the same three. I don’t really care which three.
Same AP classes offered at all HS- pick 12
Do boundary changes to make the bussing the most efficient. First priority
Eliminate any support for sports - create a non-profit that is separate and rents the fields.
Give up on universal prek until budget prospects get better

This would eliminate so many pupil placements. The rare language students could take their remaining years online. Curious how many students really, really want to learn Russian now that it’s not a rocket into Langley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:- ES AAP centers (including the buses)
- get rid of AARTs in ES, replace them with a part time math specialist. Save on the other half salary.
- redundant warehouse staff who sit around and do little
- Get2Green department, “learning innovations” department, the crazy large ESOL office... get them back into schools. All nice to haves but not essential.
- everything DEI
- take a look at the crazy amounts of IT admins who haven’t set foot in a school in 30 years

Agree with this list. And omg, there is a “learning innovations” office? Someone please tell me what they do and how much taxpayer money they command

I work for another education company and there is def a ton of positions back from the glory days of tech entering the sphere. Many can be cut back now. Teachers are mostly tech savvy enough

[Anonymous]

Make good decisions up front and save a lot of money on legal fees.

Cut gatehouse staff precipitously.

Stop wasting money on trend of the day curriculums.

Don’t survey if you are not going to listen.

Stop wasting money on consultants and boundary studies that won’t solve real problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cut:
the entire AP program, including TJ
all instructional coaches and generic resource teachers
half the Assistant Principals
all the dual language programs
and at least half of Gatehouse bureaucrats.

How would this save money? It doesn’t involve busing and wouldn’t the system still need the same staffing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cut gatehouse staffing by 50%, reduce superintendent pay by 20%, eliminate IB or at most offer at 1 school.

Congrats, you've cut 1% of the budget. What's next?

The reality is that the only way to substantially cut costs is to reduce the biggest part of the pie, which is in-school staff. Since nobody really wants to do that, we should just raise taxes.

Is it even 1%?

We don’t know because they are not transparent about the budget and manipulate the numbers to hide how much admin is really costing. Admin costs a lot more than FCPS is making it out to be, all kinds of costs are getting lumped in with costs that are actually for students in the classroom. Before anyone can make suggestions about cuts, the public needs real transparency about what the taxpayer money is currently being spent on, not a bunch of manipulated numbers and data on costs lumped into categories where those costs don’t belong.