PSA: Fairfax County Proposed Budget CANCELS Middle School After School Programs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am OK with it. My kidd are out and we would have never complained about the start times. We just changed middle school times and all I saw this year was stupid parents getting angry about middle school times. It was overreaching. 2 years is just fine with a 7:30 start. Stop complaining about small issues.

the after school program is not related to start times and is not a small issue. Stop being a jerk.

The later start times was. It should never have been brought up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are raising assessments AND the property tax rate. I don't understand where all the money goes. The county services our family would use are libraries--which are in complete disrepair and disgusting and unusable--and the ms afterschool program. Our kids play rec soccer and they don't even get to practice on a real field because our league says there is a field shortage. They play rec basketball and practice once a week in school gyms and those are closed half the time and practice is canceled. Other counties have much nicer amenities. Where does all the money go?

70% of our taxes (from food, property, gas, plastic bags, etc) go to Richmond and south.
There's relarively a small/disproportional amt for the northern counties despite the dense population (1.8 million people in Ffx Co...I'm guessing adjacent counties are also almost as highly populated).

+1. It's long past time to tweak the LCI. We should not be sending 70% of our tax dollars downstate and getting pennies in return.

Civil war. Let Richmond break off and form South Virginia! We will stay Virginia, though, because North is a lot to write every time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The afterschool programs in FCPS middle schools are nothing special.

This is something that the Rec Centers should take care of.

How would the kids get there? The MS after school clubs are at the schools and students can do them with other students, which is fun and also creates a school community. A rec center program would be completely different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:48 again and for those who don’t understand, the late bus is not the normal bus. It’s a bus that does a longer route to cover a greater distance to take more kids home.

Right but don't a lot of parents pick their kids up?

No idea, because my kids don’t go. Because we are at work and can’t pick our kids up at 3 or 4. As I said, riding the bus to get home at 6 is unreasonable. Everyone doesn’t work at home or have flexibility in their jobs for a mid afternoon school pick up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:48 again and for those who don’t understand, the late bus is not the normal bus. It’s a bus that does a longer route to cover a greater distance to take more kids home.

Right but don't a lot of parents pick their kids up?

No idea, because my kids don’t go. Because we are at work and can’t pick our kids up at 3 or 4. As I said, riding the bus to get home at 6 is unreasonable. Everyone doesn’t work at home or have flexibility in their jobs for a mid afternoon school pick up.

Then how are you picking up your kids at 2 when school gets out? If they ride bus at 2, why not ride bus later if want to do a club? Not following logic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are raising assessments AND the property tax rate. I don't understand where all the money goes. The county services our family would use are libraries--which are in complete disrepair and disgusting and unusable--and the ms afterschool program. Our kids play rec soccer and they don't even get to practice on a real field because our league says there is a field shortage. They play rec basketball and practice once a week in school gyms and those are closed half the time and practice is canceled. Other counties have much nicer amenities. Where does all the money go?

70% of our taxes (from food, property, gas, plastic bags, etc) go to Richmond and south.
There's relarively a small/disproportional amt for the northern counties despite the dense population (1.8 million people in Ffx Co...I'm guessing adjacent counties are also almost as highly populated).

+1. It's long past time to tweak the LCI. We should not be sending 70% of our tax dollars downstate and getting pennies in return.

Money flowing to Richmond is why through to have a casino in Fairfax county. It didn’t go through this session, but it will be back again.

The revenues from a casino are overstated, and 3/4 would flow to Richmond anyway, not to mention the increased financial costs to the county (additional law enforcement for one) and increased societal costs (as example the increased ease of access would increase the incidence of problematic gambling addiction in our county).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:48 again and for those who don’t understand, the late bus is not the normal bus. It’s a bus that does a longer route to cover a greater distance to take more kids home.

Right but don't a lot of parents pick their kids up?

No idea, because my kids don’t go. Because we are at work and can’t pick our kids up at 3 or 4. As I said, riding the bus to get home at 6 is unreasonable. Everyone doesn’t work at home or have flexibility in their jobs for a mid afternoon school pick up.

Then how are you picking up your kids at 2 when school gets out? If they ride bus at 2, why not ride bus later if want to do a club? Not following logic.

After school programs at Carson get out at 4:30. The late bus route is pretty long and can take a while to get all the kids home. We pick up DS when he finishes clubs because it takes us 15 minutes to get home versus the 45 minutes it would take on the bus. We car pool with friends of his so it is once a week that we pick up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$2 million would be enough to keep MS afterschool programs

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news/fairfax-county-pilot-program-provide-2m-guaranteed-income-180-eligible-families

1) No it wouldn’t, 2) That article is 18 months old. Can someone find the program in the 25 or 26 budget?

[Anonymous]

So Young Scholars is out? That is afterschool at middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:48 again and for those who don’t understand, the late bus is not the normal bus. It’s a bus that does a longer route to cover a greater distance to take more kids home.

Right but don't a lot of parents pick their kids up?

No idea, because my kids don’t go. Because we are at work and can’t pick our kids up at 3 or 4. As I said, riding the bus to get home at 6 is unreasonable. Everyone doesn’t work at home or have flexibility in their jobs for a mid afternoon school pick up.

The late program ends at 4:30 specifically so that kids can come home on the bus between 5:00-5:30. They have the bus specifically because working parents like you and your husband don't have to pick kids up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:48 again and for those who don’t understand, the late bus is not the normal bus. It’s a bus that does a longer route to cover a greater distance to take more kids home.

Right but don't a lot of parents pick their kids up?

No idea, because my kids don’t go. Because we are at work and can’t pick our kids up at 3 or 4. As I said, riding the bus to get home at 6 is unreasonable. Everyone doesn’t work at home or have flexibility in their jobs for a mid afternoon school pick up.

Then how are you picking up your kids at 2 when school gets out? If they ride bus at 2, why not ride bus later if want to do a club? Not following logic.

After school programs at Carson get out at 4:30. The late bus route is pretty long and can take a while to get all the kids home. We pick up DS when he finishes clubs because it takes us 15 minutes to get home versus the 45 minutes it would take on the bus. We car pool with friends of his so it is once a week that we pick up.

The Rachel Carson late bus drops off our middle schooler at 5:00.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:48 again and for those who don’t understand, the late bus is not the normal bus. It’s a bus that does a longer route to cover a greater distance to take more kids home.

Right but don't a lot of parents pick their kids up?

No idea, because my kids don’t go. Because we are at work and can’t pick our kids up at 3 or 4. As I said, riding the bus to get home at 6 is unreasonable. Everyone doesn’t work at home or have flexibility in their jobs for a mid afternoon school pick up.

Then how are you picking up your kids at 2 when school gets out? If they ride bus at 2, why not ride bus later if want to do a club? Not following logic.

After school programs at Carson get out at 4:30. The late bus route is pretty long and can take a while to get all the kids home. We pick up DS when he finishes clubs because it takes us 15 minutes to get home versus the 45 minutes it would take on the bus. We car pool with friends of his so it is once a week that we pick up.

The Rachel Carson late bus drops off our middle schooler at 5:00.

Mine gets home around 5:30 if he takes the bus. The stop is further from home and it takes longer to get there. I can pick him up on the way home from work so it isn’t a big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So Young Scholars is out? That is afterschool at middle schools.

I would guess not since that might be title 1 funding- if that exists for much longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:48 again and for those who don’t understand, the late bus is not the normal bus. It’s a bus that does a longer route to cover a greater distance to take more kids home.

Right but don't a lot of parents pick their kids up?

No idea, because my kids don’t go. Because we are at work and can’t pick our kids up at 3 or 4. [/b]As I said, riding the bus to get home at 6 is unreasonable. [b]Everyone doesn’t work at home or have flexibility in their jobs for a mid afternoon school pick up.

Late buses don’t ride home at 6 pm. They leave after the second block which is over at 4:20 ish pm.

[Anonymous]

Bumping this a million times. Our taxes keep going up year after year. What the hell are we paying for? Go through this budget line by line.