Friday, May 24, 2013
In budget approval, school board members divided on how best to keep teacher pay competitive moving forward.
After months of debate on how to fairly compensate Fairfax teachers and keep pace with salaries in other jurisdictions , the Fairfax County School board voted for a $2.5 billion budget Thursday that will give employees a 2 percent mid-year market-scale adjustment — making good on a commitment from school board members to provide some sort of compensation relief during this fiscal year. Much of the Fiscal Year 2014 spending plan is dedicated to changing demographics and unprecedented student growth — 3,089 students are expected to join the system next year, pushing total enrollment to 184,625. To view the full budget, click here. The pay raise was the biggest hurdle in this year's budget, school board members said Thursday night as they…
Unified Prevention Coalition, with support from local police, have launched an advertising campaign in movie theaters in an effort to stop young adults from drinking and driving.
Coming soon to a theater near you: Local advocates and police on the big screen warning moviegoers not to drink and drive. The ads are part of a campaign launched Wednesday by the Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County (UPC) and local police to curb drunk driving among young adults in advance of the Memorial Day weekend. The ad campaign is part of the UPC's efforts to encourage drivers ages 18 to 24 to not drink and drive. The ads were unveiled Wednesday and shown to students and parents at a UPC-sponsored "Perils of the College Drinking Culture" forum at the Annandale campus of Northern Virginia Community College. Around 320 crashes in Fairfax County are blamed on drunk drivers between the ages of 15 and 24, according to the UPC…
Monday, May 20, 2013
Fairfax County Public Schools are seeking community input on a strategic plan for "digital learning."
Parents in northern Fairfax County will have an opportunity to weigh in on "digital learning" in Fairfax County Public Schools in June. "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) will hold a series of community meetings ... to gather suggestions from students, parents, staff members, and citizens to help develop a strategic plan for digital learning. Information gathered at these meetings will be forwarded to the Fairfax County School Board for use during its work session on digital learning in the fall," according to a school system release. The meeting for community members in the McLean and Great Falls area is scheduled for Monday, June 3. The meeting will be from 7 - 9 p.m. at Great Falls Elementary School. "The meetings will provide an …
Friday, May 17, 2013
Fairfax County School Board will hold listening sessions next week to help develop a strategic plan for digital learning.
Teachers, students and parents in Fairfax County didn't have the smoothest experience with digital learning in 2012-2013. As Fairfax County Public Schools rolled out a new online math program in Fall 2012, students and teachers complained they had difficulty navigating the books, saying there were publisher errors and inconsistencies, technology roadblocks and student difficulty in accessing the information, among other complaints, like a lack of teacher buy-in to the program. They said the program, instead of advancing learning and achievement, was pushing it back, calling the $10.4 million initiative "a big disaster" with no clear solution. The short-term solution was to re-negotiate contracts to get some hard copy books back in the …
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The early education program helps prepare students for K-12 education, but more than 800 are waiting for services.
Lillian Hill’s Head Start classroom at Camelot Elementary School is bustling and filled with kids the Friday before Mother’s Day. Hill teaches 16 kids — it's a full classroom. Head Start has 89 classrooms across 62 Fairfax County elementary schools, but it's not enough to meet the demand. The program is at capacity, but a lack of funds for expansion partly because of sequestration means 800 children will stay on a waiting list for Head Start, leaving them less prepared than their peers to enter kindergarten and to learn. The White House estimates that because of the sequester, 70,000 children nationally who would have been served by Head Start will not have access to the program by the end of the year. On this day in Hill's classroom, she …
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Teacher pay and foreign language cutbacks are also concerns as Fairfax County School Board looks for another $30 million in reductions for next year's budget.
If push came to shove, Jane Lipp would give her right kidney to keep an instructional coach at her school. The principal of South County High School, which has a 49 percent minority population, said that's the kind of sacrifice she'd make, drama aside, to keep a position that's been 'instrumental" in helping her teachers push the school's diverse student body to succeed. More than a dozen of the 40 speakers who addressed the school board Tuesday night in a public hearing about Fairfax County Public Schools' budget spoke about the role coaches play in the day to day lives of teachers and students, including their help toward narrowing student achievement gaps. The public hearing comes as the school board prepares to adopt a $2.5 billion …
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Some school board members say "disconnect," mistrust still exists between principals, parents.
As the Fairfax County School Board prepares to vote on another round of changes in a years-long push for reform of its discipline policies, board members are struggling to find common ground on when parents should be notified if their child could be suspended or expelled. Fairfax County Public Schools staff returned to the school board Monday with a number of proposed changes to the Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook, some of them based on a list of 52 recommendations to overhaul discipline practices systemwide a community committee put forth earlier this spring. But parental notification — an issue on which there has been little agreement since the push for reform began following the suicide of two Fairfax students two years …
Officials say no funding for consultant as school board members say there is a "facilities crisis and a capacity crisis."
The Fairfax County School Board decided Monday to postpone re-evaluating how to determine the order in which county schools are renovated. Heeding the recommendation of the county’s Facilities Planning Advisory Council, Board members agreed they needed more time to discuss the matter to implement any real changes. The board develops its Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) every five years, which includes new schools, renovations, capacity enhancements, additions and infrastructure management. Schools currently receive improvements in the order in which they're ranked on the system's renovation queue, driven by a list of weighted criteria ranging from how the buildings serve "Fundamental Educational Requirements (FER)," to their age and physical…
Monday, May 13, 2013
Superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools had surgery for an aortic aneurysm May 7.
Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Dale was released from the hospital Sunday after emergency heart surgery May 7. FCPS spokesman John Torre told Patch in an email Monday that Dale had been released from the hospital to recover from surgery at home. Dale was taken to INOVA Fairfax Hospital on May 7 after telling coworkers he hadn’t been feeling well that day. He had surgery after suffering an aortic aneurysm that night. Torre said Dale was expected to return to work sometime in early June. “He is making progress and is not expected to return to work until early June on a part time basis,” he wrote in his email. Dale is planning to retire this summer. Deputy Superintendent Richard Moniuszko is managing superintendent duties …
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Dale underwent surgery for an aortic aneurism Tuesday evening.
Jack Dale, the outgoing Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent, underwent emergency heart surgery Tuesday evening after suffering an aortic aneurism. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Dale, 64, was conscious and resting at the intensive care unit of Fairfax Inova Hospital in Falls Church. He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance Tuesday evening after telling coworkers he was feeling unwell, the Post reported. As of Wednesday afternoon, he was in stable condition. Hospital officials were unable to comment further on Dale’s condition Thursday afternoon. Dale is planning to retire this summer but it’s unclear whether he will return to his post after recovering from surgery. FCPS spokesman John Torre told Patch on …
mccoy swanson
4:14 pm on Friday, May 24, 2013
talked about this with my teacher whose been teaching for 20 some years today actually and he said they weren't. they say teacher get mor and they dont more ›