Reply to If you were in charge of FCPS, what budget cuts would you make?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know this will be inflammatory -- but the core/essential purpose of schools is the academic part.  So, keep PE b/c everybody needs a break and they do learn about health.... but get rid of sports teams.  Those are just not part of the core mission... sorry.

If I have to choose between counselors and a football team, I'm choosing counselors who might keep my kid from being bullied or might help someone with anorexia or abuse.

Then I'd reduce the number of instructional assistants -- I was shocked to look on my kids' elementary school website and see about 25 instructional assistants listed.  That seems like a whole lot.  Maybe we still need a lot of them for the special needs, but if they are not being used for special needs or kindergarten, I think they probably have to go.

Band/strings -- I'd hate to see it go, and I could argue that it is an academic pursuit b/c you can get a degree in music/fine arts.  But, it could become a fee-based program.

I'm willing to pay more taxes for all of the above and to avoid any other cuts.  [/quote]

The ES at which I teach has over 800 students. The website lists 9 IAs, 4 of which are in kindergarten and a couple of the others are designated for special education. I don't think we have too many and they are spread thin. Much of their time is spent covering classes for when we are out of the classroom in meetings.

Were those 25 IAs all for kindergarten? There are also IAs for special ed.  SPED requires a lot more assistants.

FWIW, I counted 14 IAs for my DS' ES.  [/quote]

4-5 are for kindergarten.  My kids' school has sort of a "center" for Spec. Ed (kids transfer to this school b/c of the Spec. Ed. programs)-- there are 14 people listed as "Special Education Teachers" in the directory.  There are 26 people listed as "Instructional Assistants" (5 of those are full time assistants in the kindergarten classes).  That leaves 21 who are not kindergarten instructional assistants.  That seems like a HUGE number for a school with 800 kids.  I can't make a sweeping statement that they should be cut, but it sure makes me wonder what they are doing and why we have so many.  I'm very grateful that my kids' class size is 22-26 in the past two years (previously was 29-30).  22-26 seems like a reasonable number for a teacher to manage.

Would love to hear from teachers regarding the value of IAs.[/quote][/quote]

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