Archive for August, 2010

Almost Good News in Prince William County

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

There was a time that Prince William County schools faced a possible cut of more than 700 jobs in its fiscal 2011 budget. Gradually that number was whittled down until it finally reached zero. That was great news. The school system went from calamity to calm relatively quickly and restored peace of mind to parents, students, and schools’ staff.

Of course, that great news simply meant that the status quo was maintained. But recently, Prince William County schools became hopeful that they might actually get extra staff thanks to federal stimulus funds. With those funds, the school system could have hired 180 extra teachers for its classrooms.

That was all thanks to the U.S. Congress, which recently decided to make 10 billion extra federal stimulus dollars available for education jobs across the country. Virginia will get about $249.5 million of that.

It was up to the Prince William Board of County Supervisors to make the final decision on the new jobs. And it did. The supervisors decided not to use the stimulus funds this fiscal year and instead to reconsider them next time.

To read about this, go here.

The use of stimulus funds is a complicated topic. In this case, the funds would have lasted only for a year. After that, the school system would have had to come up with the money to keep any new jobs. Something similar happened when Prince William County schools decided in 2009 to give a raise to school system employees beginning in fiscal 2010. The raises were made possible by federal stimulus funds that would last for only two years – 2010 and 2011. After that, county taxpayers will be footing the bill. Some county supervisors were skeptical of the move back then and have apparently retained that attitude this time around.

Ultimately, the current crop of stimulus funds may cost the county money. But it’s hard to deny that the extra money would benefit the students in Prince William, at least in the short term. The fewer teachers there are the more students each individual teacher must instruct. We all know that students learn better in smaller classes. So, it’s reasonable to assume that having 180 new teachers would mean smaller classrooms and better education to a certain extent.

Regardless, until the supervisors reconsider the funds for fiscal 2012, the discussion is moot.

In the meantime, county officials and taxpayers must think about which is more important: saving money or educating students? That may seem like an easy question to answer, but it’s not. More money in one place means less money elsewhere, so someone will suffer for the sake of better education. Everybody must understand who will suffer, how much they will suffer, and how much schools will benefit before stimulus funds should be used. Everybody has an extra year to think about it.

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Schools Bursting at the Seams

Friday, August 27th, 2010

The degenerative disease of school overcrowding continues to spread across the country, inflicting damage on the ability of students to learn and administrators to keep order.

Unfortunately, Virginia has no cure, and so we, too, must suffer the symptoms.

Researchers at the University of Virginia say that the state can expect swelling enrollment in public schools during the next five years. That is in addition to the record number of students already attending. Our current numbers have their positive aspects — in 2009-10, a record 88,624 high school graduates are expected, and getting educated adults out into the population is good by any standard. However, graduation rates are expected to hit their high in the 2011-2012 school year and then start declining.

Meanwhile, large school enrollment without accompanying growth in infrastructure means overcrowding — something nobody likes. We have all witnessed the results: trailers, large classroom sizes, less personal attention for students and children being lost in the crowd.

News of the expected increase in enrollment over the next five years is particularly bad for Northern Virginia because our jurisdictions are the ones expected to be hardest hit by the growth. Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties will make up 85 percent of the increase across the state. In fact, in other parts of the state, enrollment will actually decrease.

So, what does all of this mean for the three most affected counties? We need more schools and more teachers. Sadly, this is the absolute worst time for such necessities. Financial worries have led jurisdictions across the country to slash budgets, including those for education. But there is no doubt that regardless of economic woes, accommodations will have to be made for extra students.

Prince William County is busy building four new schools — two elementary, one middle and a high school. Local officials recognize that the county is in something of a unique situation and that action needed to be taken.

“We are definitely building at a rapid pace,” said Lionel White, supervisor of planning for the Prince William County school system. “Given the state of the economy, a lot of school systems’ growth is flat or they are losing schools. People, though, are coming here, buying homes. . . . We’re a little atypical compared to the rest of the state.”

Loudon and Fairfax are in the same boat, and all three jurisdictions need to recognize that for the next five years, expectations will be on them to satisfy the demands of a growing student marketplace.

To read a press release about the University of Virginia Study, go to UVA’s website.

To read more about the new schools coming to Prince William County, click here.

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Helping Students Catch Up

Monday, August 9th, 2010

“No Child Left Behind” is an ambitious project set up under the Bush administration to do exactly what its title implies. Despite that, some students in school systems continue to lag behind. Schools often have their own measures for helping those students. Now, Fairfax County Schools have a new one.

The Fairfax County school system says it can make progress with poorly performing black and Hispanic students, but it needs monetary support from the Fairfax Board of County Supervisors to make it happen.

The school system says it needs $1.3 million dollars to morph programs at some of its schools from something called the Excel program to a newly created “Priority Schools Initiative.” Excel has been in place in 20 Fairfax schools since 1998. It was supposed to help low-income elementary school students improve their grades. But school officials say that many aspects of Excel weren’t working. Rather, other efforts — such as needs-based staffing, which decreases student-teacher ratios at schools with a lot of low-income and beginning English-speaking students — were more effective in helping the schools that were part of the Excel program, school officials say.

So, Excel is basically out and the “Priority Schools Initiative” is in. Rather than focusing on low-income students alone as Excel did, the “Priority Schools Initiative” will look to help poorly performing students no matter how much money their families have. In particular, schools where Black and Hispanic students don’t do as well as their white and Asian peers will be targeted by the new program.

All together, 30 schools —some elementary, some middle — will be part of the “Priority Schools Initiative.” Some of these schools were formerly part of the Excel program, but not all. The plan is to give these 30 schools more resources for at least three years. The school system allocated the $1.3 million dollars so that it could use that cash to move schools previously using Excel to the “Priority Schools Initiative.” The county supervisors have set aside exactly that amount for the schools, assuming school officials are able to show that the money is really needed.

So far, not all the supervisors are convinced.

Read more about the situation at Fairfax Times.

It’s the constant battle of public schools to find a way to reach those students who can’t seem to keep up. Countless hours and dollars have been spent trying to achieve what all teachers’ desire: the effective teaching of every student. As some programs fail to accomplish that task, others must come up to replace them. The only thing that is clear is that doing nothing is not an option.

Towards that end, Fairfax County Schools are making a concerted effort to help students who are often forgotten. Parents and students in Fairfax County schools may have first-hand experience with this. Perhaps some of your children did well under Excel. Perhaps some of them will do better under the “Priority Schools Initiative.” Perhaps not.  Regardless, projects like these two will continue — in Fairfax and across the country — as long as there are students lagging.

Learn more about Fairfax’s new program. Whether you think it will help your child or it’s a waste of money, contact the Board of County Supervisors to let members know what you think about the possibility of them spending this $1.3 million. If you’re a part of the school system, don’t let this opportunity to be heard pass.

Go to http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/government/board/ to find more information on how to contact the supervisors.

Go to http://www.fcps.edu/schlbd/members.htm to find out how to contact your school board members. Ask them to tell you more about the “Priority Schools Initiative.”

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