This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Schools

$1.3 Million for Priority Schools Funding Goes to Final Vote

Measure is expected to pass today

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve a provision giving Fairfax County Public Schools $1.3 million to fund new and old programs for at-risk students along with the rest of the FY2010 Carryover Budget at a public hearing this morning.

Earlier this year, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Dale unveiled the Priority Schools Initiative, a new program designed to assist underperforming students. The program was initially planned to replace existing programs assisting underperforming students, such as Project Excel.

The new program was designed to better target resources at underperforming students and those enrolled in English for Speakers of Other Languages programs. While previous resource-targeting evaluation methods looked mainly at the number of low-income and ESOL students, the Priority Schools Initiative will allocate resources based on the number of students who have not passed a Standards of Learning test and by looking at achievement differences between student sub-groups, such as white and minority students.

Find out what's happening in Burkewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The new initiative has upset parents in communities currently served by the Project Excel and Focus Programs. "There was a pushback from those schools that were Project Excel schools, which didn't want to lose the resources," said Braddock District School Board member Tessie Wilson.

The teachers' unions were also leery of the changes. "It troubles me that this school board (in my opinion) was not given proper time to solicit input from the community on this proposal," Steven L. Greenburg, President of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, said in a speech this summer. "We didn't have an opportunity to give input on it," said Mike Hairston, President of the Fairfax Education Association.

Find out what's happening in Burkewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In response, the school board decided not to fund the Priority Schools Initiative and maintain the funding of the other projects for an additional year. This July, the school board asked that the Board of Supervisors allocate an additional $1.3 million so the schools could fund both the initiative and continue the other programs for an additional year.

The Board of Supervisors voted to include the extra allocation in the proposed FY2010 Carryover Budget in their July 27 meeting, which is virtually assured approval at the Board of Supervisors Meeting today.

John Cook (R-Braddock) and Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) both voted against the late request for the funds, in a vote they lost 7-2. They have stated concerns in interviews with Burke Patch that the irregular nature of the request would set a bad precedent for future last minute budget requests. "Schools need to stay within budget like everyone else," Cook said. "It's bad policy to come back this late and add a request," Herrity said.

Once the Board of Supervisors allocates money to FCPS, it has no say in school policy or budgeting, despite the fact that over half of the county's total budget goes to the schools.

While the issue of money has captured headlines, school leaders would like to emphasize that distributing resources and staff is the real focus of the initiative. "It's less about money and more about  providing resources from the central office," said FCPS spokesman Paul Regnier. "It helps target resources from those offices to the schools."

A portion of the money will be used to fund on-going faculty training programs at the University of Virginia. "We firmly believe that teacher and principal training is a big part of achievement," said Wilson. Wilson stressed that this will not account for the bulk of the money and that the training is part of on-going efforts in continuing faculty education.

Project Excel was begun in the late 1990s by previous Superintendent Daniel Domenech as a way to boost achievement at low performing schools.  It provided schools with extra money, which was often used to fund longer school days and all-day kindergarten. The decision to replace the existing programs was in part due to those programs' successes.  "Those 20 schools that were first identified were no longer at the bottom," Wilson said.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?