FCPS: Preliminary Menu of Potential Reductions and Fees

[Anonymous]

My pay is not going up at the rate of 10% per year! Not even close.

Well, pay attention to the SB race and the Supervisor race. After the election, look for the Supes to raise the property tax or add a meal tax. They won't be concerned once the election is over. Watch who you vote for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS teacher here...

Late buses - in a time of budget crisis, why are we spending money on late buses so kids can stay after school to play basketball?
SBTS and coaches - should be on the same 194 day contract as teachers - no need for them to work (and get paid for) extra days
AP/IB - I hate IB. I'd like to see it gone. I think it's a waste of money. But since I'm sure that will never happen, I'd like to at LEAST see people have to PAY for taking those tests. I think it's ridiculous that the county pays those fees.
194 day contracts - we used to only work 193 days. I'd be okay with them moving us back to 193 day contracts and taking the money saved and applying it toward the deficit. I can't remember why they moved us to 194 in the first place...something to do with budget maybe? But I honestly can't remember.
Summer school below the high school level - aside from ESY for special education students - waste of money
Free/Reduced lunch - can we at least ATTEMPT to verify the information people put on these forms? My understanding is that you could fudge these numbers all you want and no one verifies any of it. I'd like to see how much this is abused. I've taught kids with smart phones and brand name clothes who get lunch for free. Something's not adding up there...

Late buses also take kids home after academic activities so they need to stay.
SBTS have a variety of duties and you clearly aren't aware of all of them. That job can't be completed in 194 days, especially for the split SBTS.
Agree about AP and IB tests.
If you cut teacher contracts, then make the cut from one of those useless PD days.
Summer school does benefit the younger kids!
Free/reduced lunches are paid for by the Feds, not the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Shit just got real. Closing AAP centers?

Have at it folks. Decide what you can live without. If you can't live without something, the talk with the Board of Supervisors about increasing the transfer. Talk about a meals tax. Get out there and make your voice heard. But please do not expect for things to continue as usual without paying a price.

It's beyond time for them to go.

[Anonymous]

SBTS have a variety of duties and you clearly aren't aware of all of them. That job can't be completed in 194 days, especially for the split SBTS.

Please list those duties that we are unaware of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are no cuts. There have never been.

Actual numbers from http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/budgetdocuments.shtml

Year Budget Growth
2014 $3,458,612,301 13.2959%
2013 $3,052,723,802 5.2784%
2012 $2,899,667,909 3.6362%
2011 $2,797,930,754 13.5300%
2010 $2,464,486,233 0.3886%
2009 $2,454,946,306 2.4217%
2008 $2,396,899,736

There will be more dollars next year than this. In English, there are no cuts for FCPS.

To the teachers that report cuts, yes, classrooms are not the priority and they've been sacrificed for pet projects, but FCPS has more money each year.

Please people...don't fall for the hysteria. Do the math. Really, look at actual numbers.

You again? You really need to stop posting this nonsense. Costs grow as years go by and currently Fairfax County is experiencing an enrollment growth as well. The "cuts" are what is provided per student, not in actual dollars, but in actual services per student. If you can't see that services are going down per student from year to year especially for our general education students, you are blind.

I'm not blind, but you're not good at math.

Cost per pupil:
2014 13,472
2015 13,519
2016 13,718 (forecast)

Math is not nonsense.

You make my point. Actual dollars continue to go up. Services go down. It's management priorities that are the problem. Not funding.

You are showing a 1.8% increase over 3 years. Most of the additional students in FCPS have more needs now than the did back in 2014 whether it be for ESOL or special needs, so the actual increase per general ed student is only about 1% and is not keeping up with typical cost of living increases in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS teacher here...

Late buses - in a time of budget crisis, why are we spending money on late buses so kids can stay after school to play basketball?
SBTS and coaches - should be on the same 194 day contract as teachers - no need for them to work (and get paid for) extra days
AP/IB - I hate IB. I'd like to see it gone. I think it's a waste of money. But since I'm sure that will never happen, I'd like to at LEAST see people have to PAY for taking those tests. I think it's ridiculous that the county pays those fees.
194 day contracts - we used to only work 193 days. I'd be okay with them moving us back to 193 day contracts and taking the money saved and applying it toward the deficit. I can't remember why they moved us to 194 in the first place...something to do with budget maybe? But I honestly can't remember.
Summer school below the high school level - aside from ESY for special education students - waste of money
Free/Reduced lunch - can we at least ATTEMPT to verify the information people put on these forms? My understanding is that you could fudge these numbers all you want and no one verifies any of it. I'd like to see how much this is abused. I've taught kids with smart phones and brand name clothes who get lunch for free. Something's not adding up there...

Late buses also take kids home after academic activities so they need to stay.
SBTS have a variety of duties and you clearly aren't aware of all of them. That job can't be completed in 194 days, especially for the split SBTS.
Agree about AP and IB tests.
If you cut teacher contracts, then make the cut from one of those useless PD days.
Summer school does benefit the younger kids!
Free/reduced lunches are paid for by the Feds, not the school.

I am a teacher, and I actually think we need those days scattered throughout the school year. When we had a 193 contract, we went back on the Tuesday before Labor Day. Now we go back on the Monday a week before Labor Day. I would be OK taking that Monday away again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS teacher here...

Late buses - in a time of budget crisis, why are we spending money on late buses so kids can stay after school to play basketball?
SBTS and coaches - should be on the same 194 day contract as teachers - no need for them to work (and get paid for) extra days
AP/IB - I hate IB. I'd like to see it gone. I think it's a waste of money. But since I'm sure that will never happen, I'd like to at LEAST see people have to PAY for taking those tests. I think it's ridiculous that the county pays those fees.
194 day contracts - we used to only work 193 days. I'd be okay with them moving us back to 193 day contracts and taking the money saved and applying it toward the deficit. I can't remember why they moved us to 194 in the first place...something to do with budget maybe? But I honestly can't remember.
Summer school below the high school level - aside from ESY for special education students - waste of money
Free/Reduced lunch - can we at least ATTEMPT to verify the information people put on these forms? My understanding is that you could fudge these numbers all you want and no one verifies any of it. I'd like to see how much this is abused. I've taught kids with smart phones and brand name clothes who get lunch for free. Something's not adding up there...

Late buses also take kids home after academic activities so they need to stay.
SBTS have a variety of duties and you clearly aren't aware of all of them. That job can't be completed in 194 days, especially for the split SBTS.
Agree about AP and IB tests.
If you cut teacher contracts, then make the cut from one of those useless PD days.
Summer school does benefit the younger kids!
Free/reduced lunches are paid for by the Feds, not the school.

The SBTS position should be a 208-day teacher contract. Right now it's a 219-day US 20 contract. That US20 contract means they are working 8 hour days instead of 7.5 like teachers. For the life of me, I can't see why they need to be there for a full 8 hours. And they do have things to do before teachers come such as working with the TSSpec to re-image and they need to take care of equipment after teachers leave. But there's no need to be there all month in August. In short, change the classification to a teacher position and cut the number of days by at least 11 days. That's a good start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are no cuts. There have never been.

Actual numbers from http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/budgetdocuments.shtml

Year Budget Growth
2014 $3,458,612,301 13.2959%
2013 $3,052,723,802 5.2784%
2012 $2,899,667,909 3.6362%
2011 $2,797,930,754 13.5300%
2010 $2,464,486,233 0.3886%
2009 $2,454,946,306 2.4217%
2008 $2,396,899,736

There will be more dollars next year than this. In English, there are no cuts for FCPS.

To the teachers that report cuts, yes, classrooms are not the priority and they've been sacrificed for pet projects, but FCPS has more money each year.

Please people...don't fall for the hysteria. Do the math. Really, look at actual numbers.

You again? You really need to stop posting this nonsense. Costs grow as years go by and currently Fairfax County is experiencing an enrollment growth as well. The "cuts" are what is provided per student, not in actual dollars, but in actual services per student. If you can't see that services are going down per student from year to year especially for our general education students, you are blind.

I'm not blind, but you're not good at math.

Cost per pupil:
2014 13,472
2015 13,519
2016 13,718 (forecast)

Math is not nonsense.

You make my point. Actual dollars continue to go up. Services go down. It's management priorities that are the problem. Not funding.

You are showing a 1.8% increase over 3 years. Most of the additional students in FCPS have more needs now than the did back in 2014 whether it be for ESOL or special needs, so the actual increase per general ed student is only about 1% and is not keeping up with typical cost of living increases in this area.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

SBTS have a variety of duties and you clearly aren't aware of all of them. That job can't be completed in 194 days, especially for the split SBTS.

Please list those duties that we are unaware of.

What duties are you aware of?

[Anonymous]

^ Obviously they are the duties that occur during the summer months so I would be unaware of those. List the duties that are occurring during the summer.

I'll be honest. I have no idea what these people do during the year either . . . so I'm totally unaware. I'm a teacher. I never see this person.

[Anonymous]

For what does SBTS stand?

[Anonymous]

School Based Technology Specialist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[guardian]

Anonymous wrote:
Our tax bill is up 10% over last year---went from 6K to 6600.

It's clear that the numbers of students are up, but revenues are not going up fast enough. I can only surmise that these students' families are not paying taxes somehow. They must be doubling and tripling up in houses or coming in from somewhere outside the county. Something is very wrong. If this rate of increase keeps up, I will be paying $7200 next year. My pay is not going up at the rate of 10% per year! Not even close.

Really, if they cracked down on this housing issue of multiple families in homes, they would probably solve this issue.

Baloney. To the extent there are multiple families in homes, this is a drop in the bucket. The overall problem is current taxes do not support the high quality school system people want. This is one of the most prosperous areas of the country and yet our teachers are some of the worst paid in the area. Yet Virginia gloats about it's low tax rate and Fairfax County bends over backwards to give breaks to developers. It's appalling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
School Based Technology Specialist

Thank you. I will say in support of the SBTS at our ES. He does quite a bit of technology upgrading, networking and organizing in the summer. Plus, having more male teachers is great in ES, where they are as common as hen's teeth, with the possible exception of Churchill Road which has an unusually large number of male teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The overall problem is current taxes do not support the high quality school system people want. This is one of the most prosperous areas of the country and yet our teachers are some of the worst paid in the area. Yet Virginia gloats about it's low tax rate and Fairfax County bends over backwards to give breaks to developers. It's appalling.

+100 on the above, but I will also add much of the fault lies in Richmond as the General Assembly treats Northern Virginia like an ATM machine for the rest of Virginia. And that's appalling.