I know several FCPS employees who use their insurance plan for their families rather than their spouses because it is a better deal. Suggestion: if spouse is eligible for own health care plan, take him/her off FCPS.

Anonymous wrote:I'm correcting my previous post. DOn't know why they are on FY 15 but the $27 million figure is correct.

I assume they're offering health insurance to more workers per the employer mandate, and that explains the cost, not some rate increase.

Write to your school board member and ask them why the dramatic increase in costs....
As a former employee in FCPS, I can tell you that many of the FCPS employees are not covered under FCPS' plans.... many are military dependents (spouses) and are covered under the military plan or under their spouse's plan.
BTW - they are on FY 15 because they begin the budget process more than a full year ahead of the fiscal year. It will not be approved until the spring.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FLES instruction which is an hour a week is nice but not enough to teach a child a language. This is different from the immersion schools.

AAP level 4 has almost no additional costs, especially for a full-time program. My son has never had special materials or books. He's just given photocopies.

same books and essentially same curriculum; just accelerated with smarter kids in the classroom so they can go into the subjects in more depth.

Send them back to general ed, increase the class sizes for general ed, and lay off the AAP teachers. You can save a bundle doing that. It's what I'd do.

Brilliant! increase class sizes - now there's an idea everyone can get behind!

Well, that's already the proposal. They want to push ES past 30 kids now.

Meanwhile in Arlington, classes in third/fourth grades are about 22.

We could do that too, if fewer children as a % of the population were enrolled in public school. Arlington's is less than 10%, Fairfax County is more than 15%.

Our neighbor works in the office of an FCPS elementary and they have inadvertently discovered 3 out-of-county students attending school this year already. (They weren't looking or checking.)

I think FCPS needs to shift some useless Gatehouse admins over to investigating and removing kids who don't live in Fairfax.

I would rather pay more in property tax than have student-teacher ratio increased.

Our elected reps in Richmond need to do more to keep FCPS from getting screwed by the rest of Virginia in the funding formulas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FLES instruction which is an hour a week is nice but not enough to teach a child a language. This is different from the immersion schools.

AAP level 4 has almost no additional costs, especially for a full-time program. My son has never had special materials or books. He's just given photocopies.

same books and essentially same curriculum; just accelerated with smarter kids in the classroom so they can go into the subjects in more depth.

Send them back to general ed, increase the class sizes for general ed, and lay off the AAP teachers. You can save a bundle doing that. It's what I'd do.

Brilliant! increase class sizes - now there's an idea everyone can get behind!

Well, that's already the proposal. They want to push ES past 30 kids now.

Meanwhile in Arlington, classes in third/fourth grades are about 22.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FLES instruction which is an hour a week is nice but not enough to teach a child a language. This is different from the immersion schools.

AAP level 4 has almost no additional costs, especially for a full-time program. My son has never had special materials or books. He's just given photocopies.

same books and essentially same curriculum; just accelerated with smarter kids in the classroom so they can go into the subjects in more depth.

Send them back to general ed, increase the class sizes for general ed, and lay off the AAP teachers. You can save a bundle doing that. It's what I'd do.

Can't increase class sizes too much, we are already bumping up against the VA State maxes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FLES instruction which is an hour a week is nice but not enough to teach a child a language. This is different from the immersion schools.

AAP level 4 has almost no additional costs, especially for a full-time program. My son has never had special materials or books. He's just given photocopies.

same books and essentially same curriculum; just accelerated with smarter kids in the classroom so they can go into the subjects in more depth.

Send them back to general ed, increase the class sizes for general ed, and lay off the AAP teachers. You can save a bundle doing that. It's what I'd do.

Brilliant! increase class sizes - now there's an idea everyone can get behind!

Anonymous wrote:

Putting all the students back at their base schools would save little or nothing.

Wrong. That is an incredibly naïve statement. Costs: buses; bus drivers; gas; maintenance; etc.etc.

my kid is bussed to a center. Eliminate AAP and he/she gets bussed to the local school. So what's the difference?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FLES instruction which is an hour a week is nice but not enough to teach a child a language. This is different from the immersion schools.

AAP level 4 has almost no additional costs, especially for a full-time program. My son has never had special materials or books. He's just given photocopies.

same books and essentially same curriculum; just accelerated with smarter kids in the classroom so they can go into the subjects in more depth.

Send them back to general ed, increase the class sizes for general ed, and lay off the AAP teachers. You can save a bundle doing that. It's what I'd do.

Agree about FLES cut. Nice to have program. With the budget money like it is, it has to go. Kids do not learn language with a class once or twice a week.

Putting all the students back at their base schools would save little or nothing.

Wrong. That is an incredibly naïve statement. Costs: buses; bus drivers; gas; maintenance; etc.etc.

I would suggest full day Mondays and cut back the hours to whatever T-F

Anonymous wrote:Cut out early Monday closure and a lot of need for expensive training will be eliminated.

I agree with this. But when they went to the half day Monday, they increased the school day for T-F. Are you also suggesting that the full days of school be shorter or are you suggesting that the total number of school hours be increased? If so, you would have to address teachers asking for more money if they are required to teach more hours.

Anonymous wrote:Another unintended consequence of AAP is overcrowded schools. When you take kids out of their boundaries,not only is there transportation cost but it shifts the numbers.

You are just squeezing a long balloon in a different place. You are not adding capacity nor are you increasing or decreasing the total number of students. Most of the IB schools are also over crowded. Overcrowding needs to be addressed by boundary changes and increased capacity - it is not caused by AAP programs.

Anonymous wrote:First, FCPS needs to be open about the costs. The budget is not available to the public in detail. For example, what is the cost of AAP busing? How do you know it is not significant?

% cost of bussing as part of the entire budget x % of students in AAP who would now walk to their local school instead of taking the bus.

At my local ES that would be zero as there are no children who walk to school, all are bussed. At my local MS, it wold be zero for my neighborhodd as it is also our IB school. In other ES and MS, some of the current AAP students would walk to their IB school instead of being bussed to a different AAP Center school - keep in mind that for many their IB is also their AAP school- so the bussing would be the same. HS would not be affected, unless you are also suggesting turning TJ back into a neighborhood school.