***FCPS: Ideas for Improvement Master Thread***

[Anonymous]

How to improve FCPS:
1. Open it for in-person learning immediately.
2. Reduce administrative/top-heavy Gatehouse staff; raise salaries of staff, teachers and subs commensurate with adjacent jurisdictions.
3. Contract with K12 or Virtual VA if considering offering DL next year; FCPS is brick & mortar teaching system only.
4. Can we get rid of 8-9 SB members? That would be a big improvement, albeit late to the game.
5. Textbooks, workbooks.
6. Teach sentence structure and spelling.
7. Split district by regions.
8. Learn the real definition of equity—instead of giving every kid the same thing, give every kid what they need in an attempt to get them on more equal ground. Some will need more, some will need less.
9. Focus on those reading & writing skills from a young age.
10. Have ES kids start school earlier and MS/HS kids start later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Raise our salaries. Priority number 1

This is will not happen for at least a few more years. The anger of parents/voters/tax payers have sadly crushed any chance.

You give yourself far too much influence. The economy, and only the economy, will dictate raises. You're not in charge of the budget.

Plus, many parents DO support teachers and recognize their hard work this year and that they are also a critical component to our children's education in the future.

Additionally, we in LCPS have receive a lump sum last Friday and will continue to receive increased pay in the checks between now and June. Next year the step increases will continue. Make the move. I’d be damned to work for FCPS. Plus, haven’t you heard we get snow days.

Maybe I should apply there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Raise our salaries. Priority number 1

This is will not happen for at least a few more years. The anger of parents/voters/tax payers have sadly crushed any chance.

You give yourself far too much influence. The economy, and only the economy, will dictate raises. You're not in charge of the budget.

Plus, many parents DO support teachers and recognize their hard work this year and that they are also a critical component to our children's education in the future.

Additionally, we in LCPS have receive a lump sum last Friday and will continue to receive increased pay in the checks between now and June. Next year the step increases will continue. Make the move. I’d be damned to work for FCPS. Plus, haven’t you heard we get snow days.

Maybe I should apply there.

FCPS is going to lose a lot of teachers this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How to improve FCPS:
1. Open it for in-person learning immediately.
2. Reduce administrative/top-heavy Gatehouse staff; raise salaries of staff, teachers and subs commensurate with adjacent jurisdictions.
3. Contract with K12 or Virtual VA if considering offering DL next year; FCPS is brick & mortar teaching system only.
4. Can we get rid of 8-9 SB members? That would be a big improvement, albeit late to the game.
5. Textbooks, workbooks.
6. Teach sentence structure and spelling.
7. Split district by regions.
8. Learn the real definition of equity—instead of giving every kid the same thing, give every kid what they need in an attempt to get them on more equal ground. Some will need more, some will need less.
9. Focus on those reading & writing skills from a young age.
10. Have ES kids start school earlier and MS/HS kids start later.

#8 is what happens now. Result? Parents complaining that XYZ kids get ABC thing that THEIR kid doesn't get. It's gross, and wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How to improve FCPS:
1. Open it for in-person learning immediately.
2. Reduce administrative/top-heavy Gatehouse staff; raise salaries of staff, teachers and subs commensurate with adjacent jurisdictions.
3. Contract with K12 or Virtual VA if considering offering DL next year; FCPS is brick & mortar teaching system only.
4. Can we get rid of 8-9 SB members? That would be a big improvement, albeit late to the game.
5. Textbooks, workbooks.
6. Teach sentence structure and spelling.
7. Split district by regions.
8. Learn the real definition of equity—instead of giving every kid the same thing, give every kid what they need in an attempt to get them on more equal ground. Some will need more, some will need less.
9. Focus on those reading & writing skills from a young age.
10. Have ES kids start school earlier and MS/HS kids start later.

7 will never happen. I hope 3 does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some thoughts on school vouchers and charter schools - I think they would signal the end to a quality public education in FFX County

I know there are success stories and charter schools which helped kids... and then there is Khan Academy whose genius I imagine was fueled by vastly underpaid college graduates whose intelligence and creativity was ably exploited by Khan. I just realized what an appropriate name that is - Khan, the conquerer, brute barbarian appropriating others’ brilliance for his own gain.

But overall, charter schools are like privatized prisons. You go down that road and America starts to get pretty corrupt and disgusting.

(Also weren’t there those charter schools in Michigan that were supposed to substitute for the public schools, but when the charters realized they couldn’t make a profit, they pulled up stakes and left a whole community with no school? Charter schools do crap like that.)

Quality public education in fairfax county already ended with this school board, fyi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish they’d bring back “sentence diagramming.” Do any middle schools still do that?

Me too!

It is a lot of work to teach, so they dropped it.

I used it with my 7th grader who was stduggling. It yielded immediate and notable improvements.

Just so you know, fcps barely teaches any parts of speech besides nouns, pronouns ans verbs.

Ask your kid what and adverb is...

[Anonymous]

--Smaller Class Sizes
--Break up fairfax
--pay teachers and subs more to attract more quality candidates. we're loosing people to Loudon which pays their teachers more and is cheaper to live than Fairfax

[Anonymous]

Teaching spelling would be a great start. My 2nd grader uses the Google dictation feature for all of her schoolwork these days. And her teacher encourages it.

[Anonymous]

-Teaching spelling, writing, sentence structure
-Separating ESL kids into their own classes. There is an ESL kid in DS's first grade class and she is clearly totally lost and not following anything.
-Textbooks
-Special election for every school board seat in 2022

[Anonymous]

They will not break up FCPS. It's not going to happen.

[Anonymous]

I would start by hiring teachers who actually teach - not just pull random crap from the Internet and pass it off as “lessons”.

I would return to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. It’s shameful when an FCPS graduate can’t make change if the cash register isn’t working, can’t fill out a job application coherently, or understand a news article. Very little education is happening in FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would start by hiring teachers who actually teach - not just pull random crap from the Internet and pass it off as “lessons”.

I would return to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. It’s shameful when an FCPS graduate can’t make change if the cash register isn’t working, can’t fill out a job application coherently, or understand a news article. Very little education is happening in FCPS.

Sorry that's not a FCPS problem; there are deeper issues if a graduate cannot complete any of these tasks.

[Anonymous]

Fcps inability to open back up to hybrid, when schools across the country have been doing so, with months of mounting evidence that it’s relatively safe, has convinced me that we should seriously look at vouchers. Our preschool figured out a safe way to open for in person in late August! It’s called incentives. The free market is not perfect by any means, but it’s certainly has the potential to be better than Fcps, a huge lumbering system with too many competing needs to serve any of them well.

Why not give us back money to choose where to send our kids? That is how our university system works. When the government wanted ex soldiers to go to college, they didn’t open up government run schools and only pay for soldiers to go there. The federal government provides lots of grants for students and allows them to chose where to go. Let’s do it k-12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fcps inability to open back up to hybrid, when schools across the country have been doing so, with months of mounting evidence that it’s relatively safe, has convinced me that we should seriously look at vouchers. Our preschool figured out a safe way to open for in person in late August! It’s called incentives. The free market is not perfect by any means, but it’s certainly has the potential to be better than Fcps, a huge lumbering system with too many competing needs to serve any of them well.

Why not give us back money to choose where to send our kids? That is how our university system works. When the government wanted ex soldiers to go to college, they didn’t open up government run schools and only pay for soldiers to go there. The federal government provides lots of grants for students and allows them to chose where to go. Let’s do it k-12.

And in case it matters, which it doesn’t, I’m a Democrat.