Fairfax County Public Schools Faces $140 Million Shortfall (Arlington, Alexandria: 2014, house)

[patriot201]

Originally Posted by CaliTerp07

They are working on that. Every middle school (not sure about elementary) is becoming an AAP "Center", so that kids can go to their base school instead of going elsewhere.

Did this pass? There was SUCH a battle over it last year, and I know it didn't pass for this school year. Is this "for sure" happening in the future?

[car54]

Originally Posted by acgood

Again, no. If you refer to the original cited article, payroll is 85%

Correct. The transportation budget is well under 10%.

At some point, the decision will have to be made whether or not to continue providing transportation. They have only purchased a handful (25 or so) of new gen-ed buses in the last five years. The average age of a school bus is now over 11 years. Virginia law mandates that a school bus must be replaced at 18 years. If things continue as they are, by 2017, 60% of the bus fleet will have to junked.

My cynical side says it may not be a bad idea to end transportation. It would save a lot of money...and not just the money spent on busing. Tens of thousands of kids simply would stay home. Class sizes would drop. Free lunches would drop. Tons of teachers could be sent packing.

If there were no school buses, I'm sure most of you imagine armies of moms in SUVs driving kids to school...which certainly would happen. But how about the low-income apartment complexes where we sometimes need two or more 78 passenger buses to pick up ONE bus stop? Most of those moms are at work cleaning houses or taking orders at McD's when it's time for the kids to go to school.

Most of those kids would stay home. There are certainly societal implications to that.

[OrangeFish]

Originally Posted by CaliTerp07

Our school is actually working to offer free dinner to students who are at school until 7 pm each night. The government offers grants to schools in low income areas, and our middle school qualifies based on the percent of students in poverty. (Yep, in Fairfax County). We try to staff projects and clubs or safe hang out places as late as we can each night so the kids have somewhere supervised to be.

My kids and I volunteer by providing dinners one night a week at a nearby middle school. One time we were part of the delivery crew and it was great to see the many happy faces! I think such a program at your school would be a great community service project.

[OrangeFish]

Originally Posted by patriot201

Did this pass? There was SUCH a battle over it last year, and I know it didn't pass for this school year. Is this "for sure" happening in the future?

It is not "for sure" happening in the future.

[choff5]

Fine reading in the School Board docs, BoardDocs® Agenda Item: 2.02 FY 2015 Budget. In the agenda there are attachments at the bottom with all the proposals in more detail. What I found interesting is they still have items there they have not costed out, such as department reductions. Can't they turn an eye on themselves and figure out their own reductions can save as well as they can figure out the ones in the schools?

[snowdenscold]

Originally Posted by ICS67

In reply to a previous poster, no Irish twins in the class (actually very few Irish students at all) but we did have a set of Italian twins.

"Irish twins" means two siblings born within 12 months of each other. It's origins is in reference to Irish Catholic fertility rates.

[Oldhag1]

Originally Posted by Ben 'n Jen

During a recent discussion with a principal of an area high school, I asked him "What is your single largest line item on your budget?"

Answer: the lunchroom.

The cost of feeding 2500+ kids every day, a portion of those that don't pay a thing, costs him more than the teacher's salaries.

All three of our kids take lunches most days.

So let me aske this...why should our schools be required to feed the kids in the school? You and I don't get cheap lunches at work?

On a national level teachers cost approximately $8.60 per student/per day, and it is probably higher here. I certainly hope that is more than he spends on feeding students or he has some major mismanagement going on. He is reimbursed for the cost of meals for the portion of his students on the free/reduced lunch by the federal government. Perhaps, he is talking about his expenses and the district picks up the teachers' tab, although even that seems a bit off as lunch programs are at least partially run at a school district level.

We feed them at school because some parents don't feed them enough at home for a variety of reasons, including some who are slime and care about the things like cigarettes, booze, or drugs more than their kid. We have too much in this country to have malnourished children, who have no say in the choices their parents make.

[CaliTerp07]

Originally Posted by patriot201

Did this pass? There was SUCH a battle over it last year, and I know it didn't pass for this school year. Is this "for sure" happening in the future?

I don't know. My admin is acting like it's passed, talking about programs for when we have AAP students here, how class schedules will look, etc. We're in the midst of becoming IBMYP this year, so AAP has taken a back seat in administrator's brains lately, but it was spoken of a lot last year.

[Hickory patrick]

chump change compared to the Chicago public school black hole that is 99 Billion behind on funding retirement funds they stole over decades, thats 99 billion with a B''

[Ben 'n Jen]

In response to a snide comment about elementary math....

This school's teacher salary total for 2012/13 was $5.64M (118 teachers)...but as noted by previous posters, he probably doesn't pay that, the county does.

His budget for lunchroom and related expenses was in excess of $5.8M. $2.34M was for food expenses. Other expenses go to staff, utilities estimate for running the kitchen, supply restock, equipment repairs, certification, licensing, etc.

My point was that a significant portion of a county's budget is simply to feed the kids. But why is it the responsibility of the county to feed their students. It was just an option back in our day.

And as far as feeding starving students, we have kids 3 in schools at every level and one of us teaches. The 'starving children' argument is overblown and is mostly a political pressure point for more money.