County Supervisor John Cook slams the middle class

[Anonymous]

OP here. The rates for Fairfax County SACC are already on a sliding scale. This would shift more of the burden on those households above $83K in order to further subsidize lower-income families.

I suppose Cook didn't bother to mention "the rich" subsidizing the program, because he knows damn well it's pretty no frills and that most of the kids are middle income or below.

[Anonymous]

Make no mistake, this is part and parcel of a conservative ideology hell bent on driving middle class mothers out of the workforce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make no mistake, this is part and parcel of a conservative ideology hell bent on driving middle class mothers out of the workforce.

[Anonymous]

Not my first thought, but it makes as much sense as anything else. Rarely do politicians of either stripe try to piss off the middle class, even when they truly don't give a shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extended day in Arlington has a fee scale based on need. You can only use extended day if the parents work, but making the fee income-sensitive seems appropriate.

I think Arlington guarantees childcare if you register by a certain time and they have access to the entire school verses two classrooms and the gym. Do they also allow part time registration such as 3 days a week? I'm pretty sure SACC costs are similar to both Montgomery County and Arlington. My friend in Montgomery County though says their program offers more diversity with actual classes as part of their aftercare such as basketball and sewing whereas SACC generally is just supervision while kids play board games and either play on the playground or play games such as kickball.

It's actually not guaranteed now but I've only heard of people getting waitlisted if they waited until right before the August 1 deadline. It is a sliding scale with the top rate being about $350/month for 1 kid and that's at income of $65K+. You cannot do part time registration - it's all or nothing. And, yes, they have access to most of the school -- main hang out room is the cafeteria but staff runs games in the gym, they can go to the library, homework club in a classroom, play games in the computer lab. My DD also likes to go help a former teacher in her classroom.

Our Arlington ES offers a variety of after-school classes that the kids can participate in plus the ED staff organizes a variety of activities -- movies, science experiments, craft projects, field trips, parties for holidays and a carnival in the Spring.

[Anonymous]

Please stop complaining about SACC. It's much cheaper than private and is only open to a family if BOTH parents work or are in school 30+ hours a week. SACC ends in ES.

SACC is a subsidy as it is sliding-scale based. I don't know anything about Cook, but agree that the government needs to tighten its belts when it comes to funding.

Also, know that SACC doesn't pay for renovations, and over-crowded schools that have kids in trailers and open-space classrooms, dedicate a large space to SACC. Perhaps SACC should go away in schools that have over-crowding issues.
Not every school has SACC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop complaining about SACC. It's much cheaper than private and is only open to a family if BOTH parents work or are in school 30+ hours a week. SACC ends in ES.

SACC is a subsidy as it is sliding-scale based. I don't know anything about Cook, but agree that the government needs to tighten its belts when it comes to funding.

Also, know that SACC doesn't pay for renovations, and over-crowded schools that have kids in trailers and open-space classrooms, dedicate a large space to SACC. Perhaps SACC should go away in schools that have over-crowding issues.
Not every school has SACC.

You clearly don't know how school funding works. Where do you think FCPS gets its money...from the Fairfax County government! The Board of Supervisors authorizes a transfer from revenues collected from businesses and citizens. And who runs SACC...the Fairfax County government.

[Anonymous]

Please direct me to the budget line for CIP that says SACC or gov't paid. SACC is not part of learning for the children. It is daycare. Is there a separate line item? If so, I stand corrected. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought Arlington had some version of aftercare at school, but maybe it has changed?

Low income families need subsidized care. And I think having a sliding scale based on income is the most fair way to do this.

Sacc was only slightly cheaper than aftercare at an in home daycare in our neighborhood.

Maybe if we stopped subsidizing so much care for low-income families they'd stop coming here in droves or at least look into birth control.

I work at one of the poorest schools in FCPS. I can assure you that few students on free/reduced meals are using SACC. The majority of students in SACC are middle income families.

my children attend SACC at a school with a 70% + FARMS rate. I agree that the majority of the families seem to be middle income and above. We pay about $680 for just after school care for 2. I do see A TON of kids in the YMCA program housed at the same school (cafeteria) and I believe that program may be all subsidized, which may be why more use that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please direct me to the budget line for CIP that says SACC or gov't paid. SACC is not part of learning for the children. It is daycare. Is there a separate line item? If so, I stand corrected. Thanks!

SACC is not funded from the school budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please direct me to the budget line for CIP that says SACC or gov't paid. SACC is not part of learning for the children. It is daycare. Is there a separate line item? If so, I stand corrected. Thanks!

Huh? There are no "line items" in a CIP. SACC is mentioned on page 24 of the CIP.

[Anonymous]

I had seen documents back when FCPS was transitioning from 1/2 day kindergarten to full-day. The county had decreased costs so obviously SACC was not self-supporting. I remember 40million in one year. That was a hidden cost in going to full-day. Wonder why no one considered an expanded SACC with severely reduced fees for AM K in PM and the reverse. No-we are made of money.

Fairfax and FCPS get my property taxes and divvy them up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had seen documents back when FCPS was transitioning from 1/2 day kindergarten to full-day. The county had decreased costs so obviously SACC was not self-supporting. I remember 40million in one year. That was a hidden cost in going to full-day. Wonder why no one considered an expanded SACC with severely reduced fees for AM K in PM and the reverse. No-we are made of money.

Fairfax and FCPS get my property taxes and divvy them up.

So kindergarten students were then not eligible for SACC? You had to stay home or find private daycare to pick up up and drop off for three hours in the middle of the day? (Our school used to start at 10:30 or something weird like that.) Not sure about that....

[Anonymous]

So kindergarten students were then not eligible for SACC?

They were eligible. Generally, kids who were in half day K program would go to morning K, and then afternoon SACC. You had to pay more for after school SACC for K kids.

because he knows damn well it's pretty no frills and that most of the kids are middle income or below.

That was not our experience at all. The kids in SACC were typically from 2 fed families, a fed/lawyer, or a fed/consultant family.

I grew up in a poor area and have done research on the dynamics of the working poor. Generally the working poor tend to rely on kinship care, informal shared caregiving arrangements, and kids being latch key from an early age. This is why a subsidized SACC is important. It provides higher quality, stable care to families who have a lot fewer options.

[Anonymous]

There's no way to exactly quantify this to the penny, but several sources point to middle-class income in this region as being between $70,000 and $200,000 (which definitely applies to most of your average fed/fed working couples).

Also, again: SACC fees are on a sliding scale to begin with. No one expects the working poor to pay what a middle-class household is paying. What Cook and other supervisors want to do is skew the scale so that the middle class clients are paying a greater percentage. The incomes I state above do not allow tons of luxuries when you are looking at a typical Fairfax house payment, and they are not the incomes of people who could lose one job and barely notice.

Targeting the middle class in particular is a dangerous game if you want to preserve the state of FCPS. If you lose them to Loudon, you're left with rich and poor, which is a terrible scenario for a public school system. Ask D.C. and Alexandria as well as parts of Arlington.