What can you do? April 21, 2008 County Budget Markup Apr 1, 2008 County Budget Hearings March 26, 2008 Braddock District Coalition Meeting Background on the Budget Crisis Background on the Braddock District Coalition Links for more information

Background on the Braddock District Coalition:

Citizens within the Braddock District have recently joined in order to communicate more effectively and strongly on this budget crisis.  This "Coalition" brings together parents, students, citizens, PTA officers, volunteers, mothers, fathers, teachers, and taxpayers in the Braddock district of Fairfax County.  

The Braddock District Coalition was formed to:
- Raise community awareness of the FY09 Budget crisis
- Encourage the School Board to exercise strong leadership and represent their true constituents (the students and schools)
- Challenge the School Board and the Board of Supervisors to find and/or develop funding solutions that will preserve the "World Class" quality of Fairfax County schools
- Encourage the county Board of Supervisors to prioritize school funding in all years, regardless of temporary economic setbacks
- Empower all Braddock District families to exercise their rights as direct participants in the School Board's decision-making process

What Can You Do?

Voice your opinion on what the FCPS priorities should be to our Braddock District School Board representative (Tessie Wilson, 571-423-1088).  You may also click here to contact other school board members.

May 22nd FCPS School Board approved the FY09 budget

FY09 Budget passed with only one dissention (Gibson). Following amendments passed: 

• Expand full day kindergarten (FDK) to 5 add’l schools (not sure yet which ones).  An amendment to delay expansion of FDK and FLES failed, as did an amendment to cut FLES while expanding FDK.  Dr Raney and Tessie support FDK and FLES but don’t believe this is the time to expand either; rather, wait until the economic climate permits.   Ms Hone supports the commitment to FDK but believes FLES can wait.  Both FDK and FLES have sustainment tails and over the next few years of possibly deeper cuts we’ll be hard-pressed to continue to fund each.  Tessie said she cannot support the expansion of these programs at the expense of other programs and while schools in her district have destaffed teachers and instructional assistants, transition $$ to Title I schools, etc.  Tessie’s also concerned that we’re going into the next budget year with possibly little or no carryover into next year.  All other board members voted against the amendment, most expressing a desire to honor the Board’s commitment to parents to offer FDK to every 5yr old in the county and to teach every child a 2nd language.  We need to send the community a signal that we’ve not abandoned our priorities.
• Set aside $1M (maybe 15-16 positions) for our teacher staff reserve not only to handle unanticipated enrollment but also for title I and small schools to build in some more flexibility to relieve disproportionate impact of the new staffing formulas.  If this reserve isn’t used for new teachers then it’ll go back into the budget to be used for something else. I missed part of this discussion but I believe they added some conditions that help to define which schools are eligible for staffing relief.
• Give a $500 stipend to the lowest wage earners (less than $12.75/hr) & newly-hired teachers in the district passed after a number of iterations.  Offset would be a hiring freeze for non-class-based employees.  Ms Hone supported it but argued at the same time to reconsider the Superintendents plan to expand some teacher contracts from 10 to 11 months (if that were removed from the base, and teachers would again receive stipends for summer programs etc, that would provide enough $$ to pay for these stipends for lower-wage employees. [I didn’t fully follow this discussion].  Another motion passed to require the superintendent to report on how he’ll pay for this stipend NLT end Jul 08.

Some amendments that failed included:

• expanding FLES to 4 schools (funded by increasing student parking fees from $150-$200)
• Kaye’s amendment to provide $150K to hire add’l hourly teachers to eliminate the waiting list at Woodson adult HS program (from tech plan, printing, special functions)

comments by board members before final vote:

• Stu Gibson spoke on administration size and potential cuts there.  Gave a historical perspective, saying that admin staff has increased over the years but so has enrollment as well as IT/infrastructure, necessitating increases in staff.  Responded to the HS junior’s observations about why FCPS staff is larger in certain respects than Montgomery.  FCPS superintendent’s office has functions that in Montgomery county are resident elsewhere; for HR FCPS includes functions that in Montgomery county are resident elsewhere.  Is confident that the taxpayer’s dollars are being used effectively in central offices.
• Ms Hone spoke on the initial lack of transparency from the superintendent’s office at the beginning of the budget process.  Expressed hope that next year’s process is started early enough and with enough fidelity in information so that board members can make well-informed decisions instead of being asked to vote on faith.  She cited an example being the 11-mo contract being slipped into the baseline by the superintendent’s office. 
• Liz Bradsher didn’t get the same response from staff as what she found in previous publically-released reports. Will continue to press for answers. 
• Tessie spoke in support of the main motion but said she speaks for everyone that noone will likely be happy with the end result, but we’ve got to deal with the hand we were dealt. 
• Ms Smith stressed that the community needs to remain aware of issues/problems/successes in the schools and the FCPS school board needs our advocacy.

May 14th FCPS School Board hearings on the FY09 budget

• The first speaker was a first grader from Cherry Run speaking about FLES (foreign language in the elementary schools)
• A junior in high school offered some comparisons between Fairfax’s HR/administrative/superintendent staff overhead and Montgomery county’s (Fairfax has some 165K students, Montgomery 130K-something, yet Montgomery’s staff is about half as large).  She suggested three areas for potentially large offsets. 
• Speakers argued against the preponderance of cuts being made in the classrooms and into the core of Fairfax’s education basis.   Main themes were:  against cutting IA’s and increasing class sizes, for retaining FLES, and for expanding full day kindergarten to all elementary schools.   Several schools had very strong representation last night — principals, teachers, PTAs, parents all speaking out on these issues (Cherry Run, Braddock and Vienna elementary schools).  It seemed to me the prevalent message was to NOT cut 1/3rd of our gen ed IA’s as this last budget draft proposes (but maybe I just keyed in on that as that was my own key message). 
• 3% COLA for FCPS employees was another prominent theme.  Fairfax Education Association as well as many of our district’s lower-paid workers made very good cases for instating more adequate raises to allow our hardworking employees to make ends meet. 
• Fees for AP tests and sports were debated — some arguing against such fees as their free offering makes them available to all, while others argued that in this budget crisis maybe fees could be on a sliding scale kind of like free lunches.  

April 21st Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Transferred an additional $40 million to FCPS

On Monday April 21st, the Fairfax Board of Supervisors voted 8 to 2 to transfer to the schools an increase of $40 million over last year—90% of the Board’s available funding based on a $.92 real estate tax rate.  Click here for more information.  The Board prioritized school funding in great part thanks to advocacy like the Braddock District Coalition petition many Ravensworth parents signed. 

However encouraging this $40M additional transfer is, it still leaves a deficit from the additional $63.7M proposed by the school board.   That deficit is in part made up by the elimination of full day kindergarten expansion, no FLES expansion, and 2% COLA instead of 3% COLA.   From discussions with our Braddock district representative to the School Board Tessie Wilson, other School Board members,  Braddock supervisor Sharon Bulova, FEA president, parent activists, and others, the Braddock District Coalition has put together the following estimate of the numbers the School Board will be using to decide on how to balance the FY09 FCPS budget:

 $63.7M        original deficit
-$40.0M         transfer from county
-  $3.0M         no Full Day K expansion
-  $1.5M         no FLES expansion
-$17.4M         2% COLA instead of 3% COLA
====================================================================
    $1.8M         Remaining deficit

But to make a bad budget year worse, the FCPS demographers are predicting a sudden increase in the influx of new students and think they must plan instead for 4000 or even 4500 more students instead of 1450. 

+$11.5M        greater increase in enrollment ($25.9 total, less $14.4 already in the budget)
=====================================================================
$13.3M        Remaining deficit given increased enrollment projections

Therefore, the Braddock Coalition estimates that between now and May 22nd, the school board needs to find $13.3M in programs to cut/reduce in order to balance the FY09 budget. 

The schools already plan to introduce no new programs for the 2nd year in a row, to restructure summer schools ($4.7M savings), reduce Central Office spending by $10M (burdening the schools, in part, to take up the slack for supplies etc), introduce no new textbooks ($2.7M), and other prunings.  Transportation has also begun informing elementary school parents that bussing to gifted and talented centers will change to a depot model ($1.7M est.).  

Still, Increasing class size by reducing the numbers of teachers (not hiring new teachers) and increasing the burden to manage larger classes by reducing the numbers of instructional assistants (not hiring new IAs)) will likely be on the table for the school board's consideration, as these personnel cuts could "save" FCPS nearly $13M if they follow the "general education class size increase of .5" model proposed in the FCPS advertised budget.

However attractive from a budget-balancing perspective, larger class sizes will adversely impact our children's quality of education.  Principals will be forced to adopt combined or split classroom models (combining children spanning two grade levels for all or some subjects).  The student to teacher ratio would increase, leaving each teacher with less time to devote to each student, to target teaching strategies to what sets each child up to succeed and learn.  General education teachers with mainstreamed special education students will have less time/energy to effectively implement these students' individualized education plans (IEPs)--especially as there are fewer general education IAs.  These mainstreamed special education children -- and in fact children with no diagnoses at all -- may find it harder to succeed in larger classrooms with more stimulation and activity.  The time spent by teachers on those students requiring more time and attention -- special education, ESOL, gifted, those with undiagnosed behavior issues -- is time diverted away from the children who normally are in the middle of the bell curve.  While grouping strategies could encourage children of like abilities to help one another -- and higher-achievers to assist their struggling peers -- it is more difficult to implement grouping strategies with fewer general education IAs.   While research is not conclusive on this emotional issue, it seems anecdotally clear that no child could benefit when placed in a classroom too large for the teacher to effectively tailor strategies to each child's learning style.

Once class sizes increase (staffs are decreased), it is extremely unlikely they will again decrease (staffs are increased), even when the economic cycle returns to prosperity and budgets increase.  Class sizes were increased during the last economic downturn in the 1990s, and if they increase again, we are setting future generations of children up for enduring less than world-class learning situations.  Surrounding counties have not succumbed their children to these increases.

Per #1 on the "what can you do section," above, voice your opinions on these issues to our school board!

April 1st Fairfax County Public Hearings on the FY09 Budget

On April 1st, the Fairfax County school board presented its FY09 budget to the Fairfax Board of Supervisors (BOS) during the second of three public hearings on the county budget.  The Braddock District Coalition was the 18th of 75 speakers, including many educators also advocating full funding of the schools. 

• Our speaker reading the petition statement--clarifying “full funding” meant transferring to the schools the full $100M increase over FY08 levels--elicited such rousing applause that the BOS Chairman was stern in quieting the audience. 
  
• The presidents of each Fairfax Association of Principals (elementary, middle and high) spoke later, with more than 200 teachers, parents and administrators standing and applauding in support.  A school board member remarked to us that she’d never seen anything like it in 15 years of budget hearings. 
  
• Speakers encouraged the BOS to find funding solutions to avoid further cuts to the core of Fairfax education, testifying that:
•  Fairfax schools have already made sacrifices in their FY09 budget
•  schools have already saved money by increasing class sizes over the years (once cuts are made, they’re often irreversible)
•  Fairfax has been responsible in maintaining modest per-pupil funding compared to some of our neighboring school districts. 
  
• NEXT STEPS: 
  
•  April 28th:  Fairfax BOS will announce how much money they will transfer to the schools. 
  
• May 14th:  opportunity to speak at the School Board public hearings.
• May 22nd:  School Board will adopt the FY09 budget. 

Please click here for posting of the public hearing presentations (it may take a few days for the site to be updated). 

26 March Braddock District Coalition Meeting

About 100 parents, teachers, administrators and county citizens attended the 26 March Braddock District Coalition meeting regarding FY09 funding for the schools.  A fully-engaged panel answered questions and listened to parents/teachers until 10:15pm.  The panel consisted of:

•    Fairfax County Supervisor, Sharon Bulova, and Fairfax County Director of Management and Budget, Susan Datta
•    FCPS CFO Carl Thompson
•    Braddock representative to the FCPS School Board, Tessie Wilson; Mason District rep to the School Board Kaye Kory, and at large members Tina Hone,  lryong Moon and James Raney

Despite a few discussions getting heated and adversarial, each side was able to put a face, story and perspective to the other side.  The elected members of the  panel do have political agendas that drive many of their decisions, but at the same time state a commitment to assuring education reaches every student—especially those in challenging circumstances—in the way they need it.  Cutting anything is going to hurt one constituency or another.  There was no evidence that the School Board makes decisions based on top-level priorities (as tough as that would be for them to  arbitrate) like preserving class size well under VA standards of quality,  focusing on core curriculum, etc.  The opinion of one board member was that to advertise their priorities—if the board could ever come to agreement to begin with—would be to communicate to the county Board of  Supervisors (BOS) that anything stated to be a lower priority was low-hanging  fruit that could be cut.  She said the result would be weakening the argument that FCPS needs full  funding.

The scope of the meeting remained relatively broad, focusing on the current dismal fiscal realities and the need for full-funding of the schools rather than on impacts to individual schools. A few points:

• Parents and teachers unanimously and passionately argued against teacher cuts that would lead to increased  classes, and against IA cuts that bind teachers’ hands in dealing with larger and  combined/split classes.  They invited the board to sit in some of  the already crowded classrooms like at Little Run where, as one parent put  it, her 7 yr old’s 28-student class didn't have space to sit on the floor at once to  hear a story.  Ms Wilson agreed to start making such visits.
  
• Ms Wilson emphasized that no gen IA’s will get laid  off—rather, decreases will be made by attrition (retirements, moves  etc).   
• The  guidance for 0% growth in the FCPS budget over last year, as one parent put  it, is “ridiculous” because a flatline automatically prevents any  possibility of giving our teachers/staff much-deserved/needed 3% COLA  increases, and of having the $13K or so to educate each of the 1000+  estimated additional students next year (last year FCPS had 1500 additional  students over what the statisticians estimated).    
• It’s immensely complicated but there are some other  revenue options the school and county are looking into, including for  example petitioning the general assembly for an exception to the “Dillon  Law” that currently prevents local business/recreation/etc taxing.  The  most interesting to me is corporate sponsorship.  As one parent pointed  out, the School Board could make it easier for local business owners—alumni  of FCPS themselves—to share their financial success in some way.  But  there’s obviously legal loopholes to navigate.   
• Many/most panelist answers communicated political motivations ... one even saying at one point that if the BOS hadn’t cut the  tax rate by 24 cents over 2 years (in answering a question about why they  couldn’t have continued the pattern of more modest cuts that could have left  an estimated $500M in reserve for such a crisis as this) that “none of the  Board of Supervisors would have been reelected.” 
• Both the county and the school board are doing  “lines of business” analysis in which they’re looking at every service to  see where there might be redundancies or  efficiencies.
  

Background on the Budget Crisis

Fairfax County's first decline in revenue since the 1992 recession will result in our schools facing a budget deficit of tens of millions of dollars in FY 2009.   The impact to our schools of this reduced revenue will include: 

• Increased class sizes and/or combined classes resulting from teacher cuts
• Fewer instructional aids to assist teachers in instructing larger classes
  
• Fewer additional schools with full-day kindergarten
  
• Fewer students with access to summer school programs
  
• Fewer  (or no) cost of living increases for FCPS staff.
  

 Click here for a Power Point flier that provides more information and details.  Click here for an analysis and background of the Fairfax budget crisis.

The FCPS School board passed an amended budget restoring some programs previously cut in the proposed Jan 08 budget and retaining other cuts by a vote of 10 (for) to 2 (against).  This FCPS Advertised Budget increases the amount of the County transfer request by $7.9 million for a total of $63.7 million or 4% more than the FY08 funding level.  The BOS will deliberate the FCPS request within the county budget through April 28 when the budget is adopted during their regularly scheduled BOS meeting. 

This is a county-wide problem requiring a county-wide solution.

Reducing funding to the very school system charged with educating the next generation of leaders will hurt Fairfax County as a whole.  The backbone of Fairfax County--and the reason why many choose to live here--are our strong schools which provide  nationally-recognized education to the broadest spectrum of learners.  Currently, 73% of the FCPS budget is funded by real estate taxes, which are decreasing due to the depressed real estate assessments and foreclosures.   Preserving world-class education quality demands diversity in funding sources, not over-reliance on a source vulnerable to economic volatility.   The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors as well as the county General Assembly are accountable to county taxpayers for providing adequate and consistent funding to the schools to meet educational priorities set by the FCPS leadership.

Links to more information:

1.  Read about the county budget:  http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dmb
2.  Read about the FCPS budget: http://www.fcps.edu/fs/budget/documents/
3.  Watch Fairfax County Government Channel 16, which is video streamed at http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/cable
4.  Click here for a Power Point flier that provides more information and details.
5.  Click here for an analysis and background of the Fairfax budget crisis.
6.  Read statements by parents to the school board:
    http://www.wfespta.org/Pdf_files/Flyers%202007-2008/January/Letter%20to%20FCPS%20Board%20Members.pdf

6.  Email or call Amy Ryder, Ravensworth's liaison to the Braddock District Coalition.