How does this end?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More money is not the answer. FCPS got a huge influx of cash from the Covid funds and they are getting worse every day. I voted for the meals tax but am happy now that it did not pass.

Covid funds couldn’t be used for recurring expenses like teacher raised because they expire.

Yeah, the restrictions on what those funds COULD be used for essentially made them useless.

They could have been used for real tutoring instead of online garbage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only hope I have is that FCPS will finally pass a collective bargaining agreement. Teachers are the experts on what teachers need and don’t need. I’m sick of the entire profession being controlled by people who have never spent time in a classroom professionally and have NO idea.

With power, teachers can insist on the class sizes, planning time, staffing ratios, and compensation that our community needs in order to strengthen our entire public education system and make the teaching profession more attractive to retain existing good teachers and recruit new teachers.

Teachers know what our classrooms need. We need the power to actually do what we know the KIDS need. Please help us get that power by letting your school board know that you support collective bargaining!!!

What do teachers plan to ask for? Are they expecting double digit raises even though there is no money? I don’t understand how collective bargaining helps. I’m sure it will happen since the board is all democrats but, as a parent, all I think is there will be strikes and more closed schools like what’s happened in other districts with unions.

There IS money. And we are choosing to spend it on things like Tutor.com, ST Math, the boondoggle of Schoology, layer upon layer upon layer of bureaucracy, and all kinds of things that do not directly benefit students…and in many cases detract from student learning.

Having been at negotiating meetings in another state, I can say that a seat at the table would have gotten us a saner school calendar with fewer random PD days strewn about the place, interrupting routine. More teacher workdays at the end of the quarter, with teacher-directed work time and predicable schedule to allow for family travel or child care programs like 2-day camps adjacent to the weekend.

That budget-neutral change alone would have had a huge impact on instruction for me this fall. It’s been nearly impossible to re-establish routine with so many missed instructional days scattered all over October and November.

It’s not all about money in teacher pockets but yes, that’s part of it. Fairfax County voters and cowardly elected officials have repeatedly chosen to buckle and dime our school system rather than finding teacher compensation adequately. Things like biting down the meals tax which would have had very little impact on lost families but could have had a huge positive impact on schools. I believe our community in general understands the value of good teachers and would support budgets that prioritize teachers. But teachers have had little power to effect this change.

So you want to get rid of the religious holidays?

DP. ES Teacher
Yes.

DP, absolutely. It's not a good thing when kids joke about being in school for a full week like it's an outlier

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More money is not the answer. FCPS got a huge influx of cash from the Covid funds and they are getting worse every day. I voted for the meals tax but am happy now that it did not pass.

Covid funds couldn’t be used for recurring expenses like teacher raised because they expire.

Yeah, the restrictions on what those funds COULD be used for essentially made them useless.

They could have been used for real tutoring instead of online garbage

+100

The COVID funds could and should have been used to directly address learning loss via hiring outside tutors. No one knows how FCPS managed to spend so much and have nothing to show for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More money is not the answer. FCPS got a huge influx of cash from the Covid funds and they are getting worse every day. I voted for the meals tax but am happy now that it did not pass.

Covid funds couldn’t be used for recurring expenses like teacher raised because they expire.

Yeah, the restrictions on what those funds COULD be used for essentially made them useless.

Huh? ESSER was incredibly permissive on how the funds could be used:

USES OF FUNDS.—A local educational agency that receives funds under this title may use the
funds for any of the following:
(1) Any activity authorized by the ESEA of 1965, including the Native Hawaiian Education Act and
the Alaska Native Educational Equity, Support, and Assistance Act (20 U.S.C. 6301 et seq.), the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq.) (‘‘IDEA’’), the Adult
Education and Family Literacy Act (20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq.), the Carl D. Perkins Career and
Technical Education Act of 2006 (20 U.S.C. 2301 et seq.) (‘‘the Perkins Act’’), or subtitle B of title
VII of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 11431 et seq.).
(2) Coordination of preparedness and response efforts of local educational agencies with State,
local, Tribal, and territorial public health departments, and other relevant agencies,
to improve coordinated responses among such entities to prevent, prepare for, and respond to
coronavirus.
(3) Providing principals and others school leaders with the resources necessary to address the needs
of their individual schools.
(4) Activities to address the unique needs of low-income children or students, children with
disabilities, English learners, racial and ethnic minorities, students experiencing homelessness, and
foster care youth, including how outreach and service delivery will meet the needs of each
population.
(5) Developing and implementing procedures and systems to improve the preparedness and
response efforts of local educational agencies.
(6) Training and professional development for staff of the local educational agency on sanitation
and minimizing the spread of infectious diseases.
(7) Purchasing supplies to sanitize and clean the facilities of a local educational agency, including
buildings operated by such agency.
(8) Planning for and coordinating during long-term closures, including for how to provide meals to
eligible students, how to provide technology for online learning to all students,
how to provide guidance for carrying out requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (20 U.S.C. 1401 et seq.) and how to ensure other educational services can continue
to be provided consistent with all Federal, State, and local requirements.
(9) Purchasing educational technology (including hardware, software, and connectivity) for students
who are served by the local educational agency that aids in regular and substantive
educational interaction between students and their classroom instructors, including low-income
students and students with disabilities, which may include assistive technology
or adaptive equipment.
(10) Providing mental health services and supports.
(11) Planning and implementing activities related to summer learning and supplemental afterschool
programs, including providing classroom instruction or online learning
during the summer months and addressing the needs of low-income students, students with
disabilities, English learners, migrant students, students experiencing homelessness, and
children in foster care.
(12) Other activities that are necessary to maintain the operation of and continuity of services in
local educational agencies and continuing to employ existing staff of the local educational agency

[Anonymous]

+100

The COVID funds could and should have been used to directly address learning loss via hiring outside tutors. No one knows how FCPS managed to spend so much and have nothing to show for it.

I agree with this, but is there really some kind of untapped reserve of tutors for FCPS and all the neighboring districts to access?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like one big factor that doesn’t help and that FCPS can’t control is the ability for so many other professions to work from home at least part time now. It’s hard to sign up for a job that has none of that flexibility when others around you are in sweatpants on Zoom. Never mind the low pay and extra aggravation. I know teaching is a calling, but at some point those quality of life factors start to weigh more heavily. This issue obviously isn’t specific to FCPS but being in a high COL area with bad traffic and crazy parents just adds to the challenges.

COVID changed the working world and attitudes toward work. We are going to see fewer people interested in going into teaching because of it.

Agree with you 100%. And I wonder at what point the pressure to staff schools becomes so critical that flexibility is offered to retain/attract staff. For example, 4 slightly longer school days per week instead of 5, and students focus on asynchronous work on the 5th. Or early release Friday at noon every week when teachers can go home (or stay) to focus on the many hours of grading, planning, copying, parent meetings, etc. many of which are usually reserved for the weekend. Work has changed and the model of “work in front of student all week with no time for all the other minutiae of your job until the system runs you into the ground” can’t possibly continue.

If there’s no money for significant compensation changes, benefits in the form of work life balance and others need to be considered.

I agree with both of these posts!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If there aren't step increases in the budget, I'm just leaving, it's that simple. I am sick of FCPS prioritizing everything except compensation. One year of appropriate compensation doesn't make up for two years of total freezes when they were getting flooded with federal Covid funds and this year won't buy my tolerance for another freeze. They can pay for online tutoring no one asked for or uses or numerous trainings that ultimately are of no benefit in any way, but when it comes to teacher pay, suddenly the bank is empty and we can't afford it. Add on top of that they abruptly changed our health insurance with absolutely no input or warning, and I'm running out of reasons for a sane person to stay with the county. It's one thing to lose out on a raise if you don't earn it, but all we hear is how much the county 'values' us. I appreciate the sentiment, but sentiment doesn't pay my mortgage.

I bet you see increases in the bolded with the recent agreement between FCPS and the US Dept Of Education's Office of Civil Rights. How much $ will that take away from raises?

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-educations-office-civil-rights-announces-resolution-investigation-fairfax-county-public-schools-virginia-related-needs-students-disabilities-during-covid-19-pandemic

Depending how the county handles the resolution.....may lead to more SPED teachers leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a special education teacher. I'm on year 23. If I could quit tomorrow I would. Special education has become a nightmare. I love the teaching aspect of it and I generally have no issues with parents. But the excessive paperwork and meetings...I just can't anymore. I am CONSTANTLY missing class for meetings. And about 90% of all my planning time is writing IEPs, narratives, goals, taking data, filling in progress reports, responding to the neverending onslaught of requests for information for IEPs for kids I teach, etc. I also foolishly got certified to test kids so now I'm losing time I don't have to do that. Normally teachers who test are given an extra planning to compensate. Not me! They needed me to teach all the classes I was given as there's no one else to do it since we lost funding for multiple sped positions somehow (even though my classes are bigger than ever???) I was also given a new curriculum to teach this year so I'm trying to figure all that out too. My teaching itself....you know, the thing I was actually hired to do, is literally the last thing that gets my attention.

I'm so over it. I was absolutely planning on working past my retirement date because I used to love what I do. Now, I am retiring pretty much as soon as I am able and moving on to something else. These working conditions are atrocious. And I'm at a GOOD school with an amazing admin and fabulous co-workers.

My dream would be the federal government funding multiple new special ed teachers for every school but that will never happen because even if the money was there, no one wants this job.

Oh yeah...and the two year pay raise for special education teachers that they're now taking away? Talk about morale killer. They literally admitted that we deserve to be compensated for all of our extra work by giving us those raises and by taking them away, they're basically saying they don't value what we do enough to pay us for it.

+1 to all of this. Morale is low

[Anonymous]

Here is what is moving forward tonight, https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CJYMMX5B26AF/$file/FY%202024%20Fiscal%20Forecast%20v13.pdf

$24.6 million in technology
$6 million for Superintendent pet projects

Agree, morale has never been lower at FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If there aren't step increases in the budget, I'm just leaving, it's that simple. I am sick of FCPS prioritizing everything except compensation. One year of appropriate compensation doesn't make up for two years of total freezes when they were getting flooded with federal Covid funds and this year won't buy my tolerance for another freeze. They can pay for online tutoring no one asked for or uses or numerous trainings that ultimately are of no benefit in any way, but when it comes to teacher pay, suddenly the bank is empty and we can't afford it. Add on top of that they abruptly changed our health insurance with absolutely no input or warning, and I'm running out of reasons for a sane person to stay with the county. It's one thing to lose out on a raise if you don't earn it, but all we hear is how much the county 'values' us. I appreciate the sentiment, but sentiment doesn't pay my mortgage.

+1. I haven't even been at it that long. So many people are talking about leaving. Even those of us who went in with students in the Fall of 2020 before anyone was vaccinated got told we didn't care about kids and weren't doing our jobs well. I don't want to stay around for the aftermath if things keep going down this path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If there aren't step increases in the budget, I'm just leaving, it's that simple. I am sick of FCPS prioritizing everything except compensation. One year of appropriate compensation doesn't make up for two years of total freezes when they were getting flooded with federal Covid funds and this year won't buy my tolerance for another freeze. They can pay for online tutoring no one asked for or uses or numerous trainings that ultimately are of no benefit in any way, but when it comes to teacher pay, suddenly the bank is empty and we can't afford it. Add on top of that they abruptly changed our health insurance with absolutely no input or warning, and I'm running out of reasons for a sane person to stay with the county. It's one thing to lose out on a raise if you don't earn it, but all we hear is how much the county 'values' us. I appreciate the sentiment, but sentiment doesn't pay my mortgage.

+1. I haven't even been at it that long. So many people are talking about leaving. Even those of us who went in with students in the Fall of 2020 before anyone was vaccinated got told we didn't care about kids and weren't doing our jobs well. I don't want to stay around for the aftermath if things keep going down this path.

+2. I haven't been at it long at all but it's pretty awful. I see so many of my older colleagues just gritting their teeth and saying they can't wait to retire.

[Anonymous]

It is pretty interesting. I used to listen to the crazies at school board meeting who shout “would y’all just focus on academics!!!” and think “but public schools are so much more than that!”

Now, I am so inundated with the byproducts of school board and Leadership Team minutiae that I actually find myself cheering them on. Please let me teach my students to be fluent readers and mathematicians, give me my yearly pay raise so that I can support my family with all this inflation, and then LEAVE THE SCHOOLS ALONE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where do the teachers and classrooms come from for smaller class sizes?

They don’t. It’s just a talking point to make collective bargaining seem student friendly

Kind of like charters and private school vouchers....where do the teachers come from. They don't it's just a talking point that makes it sound like it's for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Watching SB meeting…. Rachna Sizemore Heiser asked HR to prep information on how FCPS may be lagging many other counties on pay and benefits and then Megan McLaughlin shot her a withering look with a protest. Why does this woman never go away? I am not sure she gets it, and seems to think we can continue to attract a workforce when many are already leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So teachers at Title I schools would make less money than other schools because they have smaller classes?

I am the previous poster suggesting compensation over a base. I think the pay model should change for a variety of factors. That was just one suggestion.

It's a horrible suggestion.