FCPS Budget

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how much FCPS would save if we got rid of AAP Centers.

I'm not saying get rid of AAP, I'm saying Centers. That would significantly reduce bussing costs and reduce the number of AARTs that are required.

This would reduce bussing but how would it reduce staff? With no centers FCPS would need to keep an AART at each school.

AARTs at LLIV schools are part-time. Two schools can share an AART. This would reduce staff. But it would be a huge reduction in bus costs. Like in the millions.

8 million. Which isn’t really that much at all in a 4 billion budget, but you can nitpick the things you don’t like even if they don’t take that much money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Knowing we have a Superintendent and Board that, in most cases, doesn't have the skills to manage and lead a school system the size of FCPS what do we to bring FCPS back to being one of the premier school systems in the United States? Where would you cut funding and where would you increase while looking to maintain a flat or reduced overall budget?

1-cut a bunch of high priced Gatehouse positions, and also the instructional services ones where people are paid to make boring slide shows and deliver bad PD that teachers absolutely loathe
2-cut all the school-based instructional coaches and anyone else in a non-administrative but also non-teaching position

That right there would make life much better for teachers and maybe allow us to actually do our jobs instead of checking boxes for the county's "accountability."

You sound like a teacher who doesn’t want to be held accountable for what you teach and how you teach it. Teaching methods and curriculum constantly shift, you’re employed to keep up and teach using specific methods as dictated by Gatehouse.

Gatehouse has entered the chat.

In this instance gatehouse is right. Do you seriously think letting thousands of teachers teach what they want and how they want is the right way to run things? Name a single company that lets their employees go to work with no oversight, training, or accountabilityth. That’s ridiculous.

Whether it’s brand new teachers who need guidance and support, or veteran teachers who need help keeping up with the latest teaching methods, professional development and oversight are both necessary.

This is not to say that teachers should have no say, but there’s a difference between having a say and expecting to do your job with no accountability and consistent expectations.

Silly. You are not understanding how these positions work. There is a curriculum, the teachers are all accountable to teach the curriculum and the principal and assistant principal are the ones who make sure the teachers use it.

Coaches go to central meetings that teachers could attend and disseminate information to the classroom teachers. The coaches may help one or two new staff members occasionally, but other than that they create letters about interventions and make copies. Coaches often have taught 1 or 2 of the 6 different grades or classes they are supposed to coach. They know nothing about the other grades and the classroom teachers often have to explain to the coach how the curriculum works in their grade.

They do not perform evaluations. They are not responsible for keeping classroom teachers in line and the principal “professional development” they give could easily ahve been given directly to the classroom teachers rather than the coach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Knowing we have a Superintendent and Board that, in most cases, doesn't have the skills to manage and lead a school system the size of FCPS what do we to bring FCPS back to being one of the premier school systems in the United States? Where would you cut funding and where would you increase while looking to maintain a flat or reduced overall budget?

1-cut a bunch of high priced Gatehouse positions, and also the instructional services ones where people are paid to make boring slide shows and deliver bad PD that teachers absolutely loathe
2-cut all the school-based instructional coaches and anyone else in a non-administrative but also non-teaching position

That right there would make life much better for teachers and maybe allow us to actually do our jobs instead of checking boxes for the county's "accountability."

You sound like a teacher who doesn’t want to be held accountable for what you teach and how you teach it. Teaching methods and curriculum constantly shift, you’re employed to keep up and teach using specific methods as dictated by Gatehouse.

Gatehouse has entered the chat.

In this instance gatehouse is right. Do you seriously think letting thousands of teachers teach what they want and how they want is the right way to run things? Name a single company that lets their employees go to work with no oversight, training, or accountabilityth. That’s ridiculous.

Whether it’s brand new teachers who need guidance and support, or veteran teachers who need help keeping up with the latest teaching methods, professional development and oversight are both necessary.

This is not to say that teachers should have no say, but there’s a difference between having a say and expecting to do your job with no accountability and consistent expectations.

Silly. You are not understanding how these positions work. There is a curriculum, the teachers are all accountable to teach the curriculum and the principal and assistant principal are the ones who make sure the teachers use it.

Coaches go to central meetings that teachers could attend and disseminate information to the classroom teachers. The coaches may help one or two new staff members occasionally, but other than that they create letters about interventions and make copies. Coaches often have taught 1 or 2 of the 6 different grades or classes they are supposed to coach. They know nothing about the other grades and the classroom teachers often have to explain to the coach how the curriculum works in their grade.

They do not perform evaluations. They are not responsible for keeping classroom teachers in line and the principal “professional development” they give could easily ahve been given directly to the classroom teachers rather than the coach.

As usual, it's a good idea that FCPS ruined. I honestly love most of our coaches - they're very capable and know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, they aren't getting to do the job they thought they signed up for. Instead of helping teachers when they need it, they mostly do county-required tasks. A lot of it is record-keeping.

For example, the county requires that everyone in every school do a special lesson that a coach will observe. There are different choices for the lesson - about a hundred different ones, just guessing. It's not difficult. But the coach has to keep records of every single teacher and which lesson they will do and what day and time, and then observe every single one and fill out a bunch of forms. Trust me, there are no consequences if the teacher cannot even do the lesson he/she chose effectively. There isn't even a follow-up. It's just checking off boxes and filling out forms and it all goes into some kind of county system that is apparently designed to just create a paper trail showing the county is trying to improve instruction.

They also have to present slide shows for PD days and staff meetings, but they don't even get to make them. It's just the same slide show that went to everyone, and sometimes the same one from last year, and they just have to stand there and read it and do a bunch of other paperwork.

So ultimately these positions don't benefit teachers or students at all. There may be exceptions out there, but not at my school. And like I said, our coaches are actually smart people who know their stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Knowing we have a Superintendent and Board that, in most cases, doesn't have the skills to manage and lead a school system the size of FCPS what do we to bring FCPS back to being one of the premier school systems in the United States? Where would you cut funding and where would you increase while looking to maintain a flat or reduced overall budget?

1-cut a bunch of high priced Gatehouse positions, and also the instructional services ones where people are paid to make boring slide shows and deliver bad PD that teachers absolutely loathe
2-cut all the school-based instructional coaches and anyone else in a non-administrative but also non-teaching position

That right there would make life much better for teachers and maybe allow us to actually do our jobs instead of checking boxes for the county's "accountability."

You sound like a teacher who doesn’t want to be held accountable for what you teach and how you teach it. Teaching methods and curriculum constantly shift, you’re employed to keep up and teach using specific methods as dictated by Gatehouse.

Gatehouse has entered the chat.

In this instance gatehouse is right. Do you seriously think letting thousands of teachers teach what they want and how they want is the right way to run things? Name a single company that lets their employees go to work with no oversight, training, or accountability. That’s ridiculous.

Whether it’s brand new teachers who need guidance and support, or veteran teachers who need help keeping up with the latest teaching methods, professional development and oversight are both necessary.

This is not to say that teachers should have no say, but there’s a difference between having a say and expecting to do your job with no accountability and consistent expectations.

Except these positions don't actually accomplish any of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can confirm that the county is already de-staffing employees, particularly from the ESOL department since they say that department is overstaffed by 100. They are moving teachers mid-year regardless of seniority. The last in, first out rule has been thrown out.

ESOL teacher who hasn’t seen or heard this.

I am also an ESOL teacher.It has happened at Herndon HS and was also mentioned on a Facebook group for FCPS teachers and staff. Someone on our staff was voluntold he would need to move to teach a gen ed classroom at an elementary school, since we are apparently overstaffed and he has prior experience and is endorsed as an elementary teacher as well. He was told on Wednesday and the rest of the staff was told Thursday afternoon so we didn’t even have a chance to organize a send off because he needs to start in his new position Jan 5th.

This same situation happened to someone else as noted in the teacher Facebook group.

Where is this teacher fb group? I'm also a school with unexpectedly low enrollment, but the admin managed to stave off most of the destaffs. At least until next year. I can't imagine anything worse than being told I have to teach elementary with a week's notice, no time to even find another job. I'd probably just quit.

Here you go: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C3onoG5Cy/?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Knowing we have a Superintendent and Board that, in most cases, doesn't have the skills to manage and lead a school system the size of FCPS what do we to bring FCPS back to being one of the premier school systems in the United States? Where would you cut funding and where would you increase while looking to maintain a flat or reduced overall budget?

1-cut a bunch of high priced Gatehouse positions, and also the instructional services ones where people are paid to make boring slide shows and deliver bad PD that teachers absolutely loathe
2-cut all the school-based instructional coaches and anyone else in a non-administrative but also non-teaching position

That right there would make life much better for teachers and maybe allow us to actually do our jobs instead of checking boxes for the county's "accountability."

You sound like a teacher who doesn’t want to be held accountable for what you teach and how you teach it. Teaching methods and curriculum constantly shift, you’re employed to keep up and teach using specific methods as dictated by Gatehouse.

Gatehouse has entered the chat.

In this instance gatehouse is right. Do you seriously think letting thousands of teachers teach what they want and how they want is the right way to run things? Name a single company that lets their employees go to work with no oversight, training, or accountability. That’s ridiculous.

Whether it’s brand new teachers who need guidance and support, or veteran teachers who need help keeping up with the latest teaching methods, professional development and oversight are both necessary.

This is not to say that teachers should have no say, but there’s a difference between having a say and expecting to do your job with no accountability and consistent expectations.

Except these positions don't actually accomplish any of that.

The coach positions are useless for the most part. The problem is, they have been legislated in and so removing them would require changing state law. The reason why those positions feel so crappy and beraucratic is because they are politically mandated.

[Anonymous]

bureaucratic- sorry!

[Anonymous]

The Dems in the school board and the superintendent need to stop wasting our money to pay for lawyers to CYA. Unfortunately, FCPS priority is to protect their extremist and unlawful policies. As extracted from a recent IW article:
…”IW Features previously reported that from Fiscal Year 2019 to 2025, the district spent about $44 million in legal fees. And in August and September 2025 alone, the district paid a single law firm, King & Spalding, $980,515.14.”

Entire article:
https://www.iwfeatures.com/commentary/fairfax-county-public-schools-forfeits-case-challenging-transgender-policies/

Why should we continue having our property taxes in Fairfax increase in order to accommodate a budget that covers for this nonsense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Knowing we have a Superintendent and Board that, in most cases, doesn't have the skills to manage and lead a school system the size of FCPS what do we to bring FCPS back to being one of the premier school systems in the United States? Where would you cut funding and where would you increase while looking to maintain a flat or reduced overall budget?

1-cut a bunch of high priced Gatehouse positions, and also the instructional services ones where people are paid to make boring slide shows and deliver bad PD that teachers absolutely loathe
2-cut all the school-based instructional coaches and anyone else in a non-administrative but also non-teaching position

That right there would make life much better for teachers and maybe allow us to actually do our jobs instead of checking boxes for the county's "accountability."

You sound like a teacher who doesn’t want to be held accountable for what you teach and how you teach it. Teaching methods and curriculum constantly shift, you’re employed to keep up and teach using specific methods as dictated by Gatehouse.

Gatehouse has entered the chat.

In this instance gatehouse is right. Do you seriously think letting thousands of teachers teach what they want and how they want is the right way to run things? Name a single company that lets their employees go to work with no oversight, training, or accountability. That’s ridiculous.

Whether it’s brand new teachers who need guidance and support, or veteran teachers who need help keeping up with the latest teaching methods, professional development and oversight are both necessary.

This is not to say that teachers should have no say, but there’s a difference between having a say and expecting to do your job with no accountability and consistent expectations.

Except these positions don't actually accomplish any of that.

The coach positions are useless for the most part. The problem is, they have been legislated in and so removing them would require changing state law. The reason why those positions feel so crappy and beraucratic is because they are politically mandated.

Could you explain this? Do other counties have them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Knowing we have a Superintendent and Board that, in most cases, doesn't have the skills to manage and lead a school system the size of FCPS what do we to bring FCPS back to being one of the premier school systems in the United States? Where would you cut funding and where would you increase while looking to maintain a flat or reduced overall budget?

1-cut a bunch of high priced Gatehouse positions, and also the instructional services ones where people are paid to make boring slide shows and deliver bad PD that teachers absolutely loathe
2-cut all the school-based instructional coaches and anyone else in a non-administrative but also non-teaching position

That right there would make life much better for teachers and maybe allow us to actually do our jobs instead of checking boxes for the county's "accountability."

You sound like a teacher who doesn’t want to be held accountable for what you teach and how you teach it. Teaching methods and curriculum constantly shift, you’re employed to keep up and teach using specific methods as dictated by Gatehouse.

Gatehouse has entered the chat.

In this instance gatehouse is right. Do you seriously think letting thousands of teachers teach what they want and how they want is the right way to run things? Name a single company that lets their employees go to work with no oversight, training, or accountability. That’s ridiculous.

Whether it’s brand new teachers who need guidance and support, or veteran teachers who need help keeping up with the latest teaching methods, professional development and oversight are both necessary.

This is not to say that teachers should have no say, but there’s a difference between having a say and expecting to do your job with no accountability and consistent expectations.

Except these positions don't actually accomplish any of that.

The coach positions are useless for the most part. The problem is, they have been legislated in and so removing them would require changing state law. The reason why those positions feel so crappy and beraucratic is because they are politically mandated.

Could you explain this? Do other counties have them?

Each school is required to have a Reading Specialist, based on the Virginia Literacy Act. Other than that, I’m not sure what this poster is referring to. The state has Standards of Quality that list which positions each school school should have and what the ratios should be, but coaches aren’t included in this list.
—DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Knowing we have a Superintendent and Board that, in most cases, doesn't have the skills to manage and lead a school system the size of FCPS what do we to bring FCPS back to being one of the premier school systems in the United States? Where would you cut funding and where would you increase while looking to maintain a flat or reduced overall budget?

1-cut a bunch of high priced Gatehouse positions, and also the instructional services ones where people are paid to make boring slide shows and deliver bad PD that teachers absolutely loathe
2-cut all the school-based instructional coaches and anyone else in a non-administrative but also non-teaching position

That right there would make life much better for teachers and maybe allow us to actually do our jobs instead of checking boxes for the county's "accountability."

You sound like a teacher who doesn’t want to be held accountable for what you teach and how you teach it. Teaching methods and curriculum constantly shift, you’re employed to keep up and teach using specific methods as dictated by Gatehouse.

Gatehouse has entered the chat.

In this instance gatehouse is right. Do you seriously think letting thousands of teachers teach what they want and how they want is the right way to run things? Name a single company that lets their employees go to work with no oversight, training, or accountability. That’s ridiculous.

Whether it’s brand new teachers who need guidance and support, or veteran teachers who need help keeping up with the latest teaching methods, professional development and oversight are both necessary.

This is not to say that teachers should have no say, but there’s a difference between having a say and expecting to do your job with no accountability and consistent expectations.

Except these positions don't actually accomplish any of that.

The coach positions are useless for the most part. The problem is, they have been legislated in and so removing them would require changing state law. The reason why those positions feel so crappy and beraucratic is because they are politically mandated.

Could you explain this? Do other counties have them?

Each school is required to have a Reading Specialist, based on the Virginia Literacy Act. Other than that, I’m not sure what this poster is referring to. The state has Standards of Quality that list which positions each school school should have and what the ratios should be, but coaches aren’t included in this list.
—DP

I was a teacher in a system that did not require the reading specialist to work with kids. STUPID IDEA. This was a long time ago, but she was supposed to advise and suggest.....She did nothing. I knew far more about teaching kids how to read than she did. (This was before they called it the Science of Reading--but GOOD teachers have known the science for a very long time.) The reading specialist just thought her job was to issue the reading materials.

Later, in FCPS, I saw a reading specialist take a child and turn him around in six weeks. ( He was in a first grade class with a new teacher who was using the "exposure" method. She had no clue about how to teach kids to read.)_ The reading specialist use phonics--back when phonics was not cool.

[Anonymous]

I used to complain about the coaches, but now I think there are far bigger fish to fry…the Willow Oaks and Gatehouse bloat. If you read the vacancies every week, you start to find positions that are very clearly pet projects and positions that are heavily duplicated. There is FAR more bloat outside of schools than in them. FCPS likes to crow about how they have fewer non-school based positions than their area counterparts, but that is easy when they are so large…every county regardless of size needs a licensure specialist, an HR head, a food services head, a safety head, etc.
A few examples that could go:
-There are multiple data specialists in some offices, yet we need a contract for some Harvard students.
-We have a bunch of Get 2 Green coordinators, which in better budget years, was a nice to have.
-We have a ton of special projects type people in Instructional Services…I’m looking at you, Global Classroom Project and POG POL.
-We have a bunch of equity/cultural responsiveness facilitators in the Equity Office
-The website/Atlas team is huge for the number of programs they run
-We ran just fine without all the executive principals and their assistants. And without all the regions we have now. The current structure with all the region superintendents and executive principals is absurd and make it so our principals don’t stay in their jobs as long as they used to.

Pro tip for people within FCPS: You can pull specific numbers/look at job titles by going to the directory, looking at the asst supt or manager for a group, and then looking at who reports to them and then keep drilling down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue is embezzling and misappropriating funds.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Dems in the school board and the superintendent need to stop wasting our money to pay for lawyers to CYA. Unfortunately, FCPS priority is to protect their extremist and unlawful policies. As extracted from a recent IW article:
…”IW Features previously reported that from Fiscal Year 2019 to 2025, the district spent about $44 million in legal fees. And in August and September 2025 alone, the district paid a single law firm, King & Spalding, $980,515.14.”

Entire article:
https://www.iwfeatures.com/commentary/fairfax-county-public-schools-forfeits-case-challenging-transgender-policies/

Why should we continue having our property taxes in Fairfax increase in order to accommodate a budget that covers for this nonsense?

Then maybe you and your right wing grifter friends should stop filing frivolous lawsuits picking on trans kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Dems in the school board and the superintendent need to stop wasting our money to pay for lawyers to CYA. Unfortunately, FCPS priority is to protect their extremist and unlawful policies. As extracted from a recent IW article:
…”IW Features previously reported that from Fiscal Year 2019 to 2025, the district spent about $44 million in legal fees. And in August and September 2025 alone, the district paid a single law firm, King & Spalding, $980,515.14.”

Entire article:
https://www.iwfeatures.com/commentary/fairfax-county-public-schools-forfeits-case-challenging-transgender-policies/

Why should we continue having our property taxes in Fairfax increase in order to accommodate a budget that covers for this nonsense?

Then maybe you and your right wing grifter friends should stop filing frivolous lawsuits picking on trans kids?

Quit gaslighting. It doesn't work any longer.