Do you feel that FCPS has your child’s best interests at heart?

[Anonymous]

No and they don’t have teacher’s best interest at heart either as our insurance has gone up too!

They won’t care if we die!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a teacher. I think most of the teachers and admin do have the kids' best interests at heart. I think the county itself is far removed from that and mostly make decisions based on money and politics. And a lot of the problems in Fairfax actually come from the state, which absolutely does not have the kids' best interests at heart. It's all individual politics.

This. I am also a teacher-I feel for teachers and students in this county. No one seems to have their best interests at heart. Now the comfy Gatehouse positions-those are well protected.

Do you really believe that?

Our local School Board member only gets excited when talking about pay increases for FCPS teachers and staff. If you ask her about our run-down school building, she stonewalls you and tells you there's no money or says we should make personal trips to Richmond to convince state legislators to send more money back to Fairfax.

I support paying teachers adequately as well, but the contrast between her commitment to increasing pay and benefits for FCPS teachers and staff and her indifference to our school couldn't be more stark.

What are you going on about

Just what I said.

It’s not hard to understand why some would be quite happy to see FCPS shut down and replaced with vouchers.

[Anonymous]

FCPS is far too large. Why can’t we split it up into 2 or 3 more manageable sections? Oh yeah, politics and no one wants to give up control for more territory is worth more pay to Gatehouse employees. It’s a huge disservice to both the students and the teachers, the most important parts of the school system. It would be so much more manageable and less of a beast. And yes, if your kid has trouble at school, please go to the police and stay on top of them, the school system will try and absolve themselves of anything they can. My kids only have a few more years but it can’t come soon enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is far too large. Why can’t we split it up into 2 or 3 more manageable sections? Oh yeah, politics and no one wants to give up control for more territory is worth more pay to Gatehouse employees. It’s a huge disservice to both the students and the teachers, the most important parts of the school system. It would be so much more manageable and less of a beast. And yes, if your kid has trouble at school, please go to the police and stay on top of them, the school system will try and absolve themselves of anything they can. My kids only have a few more years but it can’t come soon enough.

I feel the same way. I grew up in a small town with one high school. FCPS just seems like a factory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is far too large. Why can’t we split it up into 2 or 3 more manageable sections? Oh yeah, politics and no one wants to give up control for more territory is worth more pay to Gatehouse employees. It’s a huge disservice to both the students and the teachers, the most important parts of the school system. It would be so much more manageable and less of a beast. And yes, if your kid has trouble at school, please go to the police and stay on top of them, the school system will try and absolve themselves of anything they can. My kids only have a few more years but it can’t come soon enough.

I’m at the point that even reporting to police feels pointless if it has anything to do with students. FCPS will ignore it. They claim immigration and hunger on in scope but harassment and drugs out of scope. Ridiculous.

I wish they would focus on education, and let other county agencies take the lead on the rest. In the mean time, FCPS talks out of both sides of its mouth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See subject. I’m not talking about individual teachers. I’m talking about whether the system is set up to care about students as humans as opposed to widgets.

Should FCPS only care about providing a teacher who teaches focuses solely on academics ignoring also other aspects (eg, behavior, personal issues) or should it care only about getting kids out the door in 12th grade regardless of grades?

Should it care about students welfare out side of school or their mental health?

If a parent sees a problem outside of school that may impact what happens inside of school, should they bother keeping school/FCPS informed?

If there are issues happening in school (eg, bullying) that may impact what happens at home, should FCPS/school inform the parents?

—Insisting on edtech for young children despite the evidence (which has been around for awhile at this point) that it is neurologically and socially stunting

—crap cafeteria food knowing how important nutrition is

—instructional fads so inadequate that many families had to teach reading themselves, leading even the local NAACP to call them out for this disparate impact

Etc

No the system doesn’t give a good gotdamn about what is best for children.
Never mind whether Larlo needs to sit
away from the window or Larla is borderline for AAP and the principal won’t let her in.

FCPS isn’t special in this regard, they are absolutely ordinary.

Perhaps smaller town/county systems in which the people running it mostly have deeper roots and connections to the children they serve have a higher incidence of caring what is best for students.

I grew up in this kind of school system and my parents were teachers and administrators in that system and in theory it sounds nice like it should work and that everyone does better because they all care more deeply and are giving back to their community and it's more personal, but in reality, the lack of broad resources (human, economic, academic support) and the lack of diversity of viewpoints ends up killing the system and providing a vastly inferior education than what we see in a large system like in Fairfax.

Trust me the grass isn't greener.

Firstly, the subject under discussion is whether FCPS cares, not whether a large uncaring system provides better academic offerings than a little system of people that give a damn.

Secondly, I also grew up in a smaller town and county. I can say with certainty that overall, the teachers, admin down to the cafeteria workers seemed to care from elementary through high school. The education was quite good, (which is part of the reason that the town and county population has skyrocketed in the past 30 years.) What I had no connection to is the level that our county board of ed gave a da*n. (Which is why I used the word "perhaps." Not only for my own town, but because I was obviously offering a hypothesis for why FCPS is the way it is rather than suggesting they are just uniquely uncaring) Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.

It sucks that you grew up in a crap small town with crap education. I only know one kid who graduated from a tiny town system in the modern era (married into the family) and that wasn't the experience thank goodness for them.

I'm glad that whatever you and your parents did outside of school to compensate was enough.

If you want to discuss all the pros and cons of smaller/vs. larger systems, that could actually be a really good thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is far too large. Why can’t we split it up into 2 or 3 more manageable sections? Oh yeah, politics and no one wants to give up control for more territory is worth more pay to Gatehouse employees. It’s a huge disservice to both the students and the teachers, the most important parts of the school system. It would be so much more manageable and less of a beast. And yes, if your kid has trouble at school, please go to the police and stay on top of them, the school system will try and absolve themselves of anything they can. My kids only have a few more years but it can’t come soon enough.

Ironically, you would think that the structure of regional superintendents would allow for this kind of flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I do think FCPS has my child's best interest at heart. I think there are some teachers, usually those that are two steps from retirement, that really don't seem to care and instead of teaching spend most of the class period surfing the web, but those are few and far between.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:See subject. I’m not talking about individual teachers. I’m talking about whether the system is set up to care about students as humans as opposed to widgets.

Should FCPS only care about providing a teacher who teaches focuses solely on academics ignoring also other aspects (eg, behavior, personal issues) or should it care only about getting kids out the door in 12th grade regardless of grades?

Should it care about students welfare out side of school or their mental health?

If a parent sees a problem outside of school that may impact what happens inside of school, should they bother keeping school/FCPS informed?

If there are issues happening in school (eg, bullying) that may impact what happens at home, should FCPS/school inform the parents?

Yes, I think FCPS has our children's best interests at heart. What kind of dumb question is that? What are you insinuating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is far too large. Why can’t we split it up into 2 or 3 more manageable sections? Oh yeah, politics and no one wants to give up control for more territory is worth more pay to Gatehouse employees. It’s a huge disservice to both the students and the teachers, the most important parts of the school system. It would be so much more manageable and less of a beast. And yes, if your kid has trouble at school, please go to the police and stay on top of them, the school system will try and absolve themselves of anything they can. My kids only have a few more years but it can’t come soon enough.

Could not agree more....FCPS is failing kids and teachers. It's run like an oversized corporation with no accountability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I do think FCPS has my child's best interest at heart. I think there are some teachers, usually those that are two steps from retirement, that really don't seem to care and instead of teaching spend most of the class period surfing the web, but those are few and far between.

lol

[Anonymous]

Girl, no. They’re just putting on a show at Gatehouse to keep their outrageously large salaries going. I don’t doubt the teachers, tho. They’re there for the right reasons and are doing their best to help the kids. But central admin? No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See subject. I’m not talking about individual teachers. I’m talking about whether the system is set up to care about students as humans as opposed to widgets.

Should FCPS only care about providing a teacher who teaches focuses solely on academics ignoring also other aspects (eg, behavior, personal issues) or should it care only about getting kids out the door in 12th grade regardless of grades?

Should it care about students welfare out side of school or their mental health?

If a parent sees a problem outside of school that may impact what happens inside of school, should they bother keeping school/FCPS informed?

If there are issues happening in school (eg, bullying) that may impact what happens at home, should FCPS/school inform the parents?

Yes, I think FCPS has our children's best interests at heart. What kind of dumb question is that? What are you insinuating?

I am saying it does not have the best interests of our kids (or teachers) at heart. They care about visuals. They don’t want to know what’s really happening and chose to ignore threats. They just pray that the bad stuff happens after hours or off campus. They get info and chose to ignore it, and in some cases, the worst happens. Kids die and the DGAF.

They chose to focus on other non-academic issues to feel like they are helping students. Education is secondary to those things. Threats to students are at the bottom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Girl, no. They’re just putting on a show at Gatehouse to keep their outrageously large salaries going. I don’t doubt the teachers, tho. They’re there for the right reasons and are doing their best to help the kids. But central admin? No.

The sad part is a lot of teachers are giving up and feeling down....they can't teach while Gatehouse does their show to keep their cushy jobs. Their show makes more work and roadblocks for teachers to actually teach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girl, no. They’re just putting on a show at Gatehouse to keep their outrageously large salaries going. I don’t doubt the teachers, tho. They’re there for the right reasons and are doing their best to help the kids. But central admin? No.

The sad part is a lot of teachers are giving up and feeling down....they can't teach while Gatehouse does their show to keep their cushy jobs. Their show makes more work and roadblocks for teachers to actually teach.

+1