I attended my first school board meeting last night and was surprised by how few attended. The auditorium was mostly empty. Why don't more citizens attend? In California parents attend regularly and offer public comment. FCPS allowed only a few speakers and I was turned away.

Are these meetings usually better attended? What are your thoughts of the school board meetings in FCPS?

KimL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I attended my first school board meeting last
> night and was surprised by how few attended. The
> auditorium was mostly empty. Why don't more
> citizens attend? In California parents attend
> regularly and offer public comment. FCPS allowed
> only a few speakers and I was turned away.
>
> Are these meetings usually better attended? What
> are your thoughts of the school board meetings in
> FCPS?

The School Board is a bunch of people who could care less about monitoring the school staff, no matter what you say. Any issue directed to them because of problems not solved by the school staff gets turned back to the staff, and nobody will get back to you. It doesn't matter if you attend the meetings or not. They won't fix your problem.

Attendance depends on the topics being voted on. Sometimes it is a packed auditorium. Sometimes it is empty.

if you sign up in advance you can have 3 minutes to address the Board - IF you are one of the first 10. Speakers are often "stacked" with partisan supporters of whatever issue is before the Board. The attitude of many Board members towards the public can range into scorn, derision and contempt - many are extremely arrogant. There is a defensiveness and unwillingness to be open, transparent and cooperative - this attitude extends to the Board's relationship with the Board of Supervisors. The strong party associations and the very liberal attitude of most of the School Board means that disputes become nasty, somewhat personal affairs. Mr. McElveen, along with Ms. Hynes, and on the other side Ms. Schultz are among the most polarized. Mr. Moon represent his special interest (primarily issues of interest to the Korean community - think TJ). Ms. Palchik is a less well informed or influential partisan of special interests and liberal agenda in general. Ms. Hough is a moderate voice of reason but without strong allies. The rest are largely seat warmers, responding to their noisy constituents and without a strong vision of where the district needs to go or how it can evolve there. Note that the recent Board meetings have obsessed with Trans issues, political activities in support of gaining more funding, changing the name of schools (to be PC) and grading changes. The "accomplishments" of the Board have been to change school start times, obsess about the Students Rights & Responsibilities, and fight with the Board of Supervisors and local restaurants. There is a need for competent leadership. The bureaucracy at Gatehouse (administration) runs the show and keeps the Board distracted and stonewalled from accomplishing major reforms. It is amazing to realize that the number of actual teachers teaching has dropped as the enrollment of kids has risen (excluding social workers, psychologists and therapists). The idea of actually TEACHIING kids has been supplanted by a vision of NURTURING kids which expands teh responsibilities of the school system into providing food, child care and numerous other services ancillary to actual education. It is an indication of the frustration and lack of engagement that the Board meetings are so poorly attended.

Tom Davis, former Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Congressman, now Rector and Professor at George Mason], recently commented on the Board on WMAL:

"I'm afraid if you give these folks (FCPS School Board) too much money they're going to start doing some goofy things, instead of just educating kids. I'm really very anxious about giving the School Board more money sometimes - you're going to see political correctness run amok; so I'm going to vote against the Meals Tax this time."

As an example of the "goofy things" he mentioned that the School Board has hired a consultant at ~$200,000 to look at changing the name of JEB Stuart High School, even though the students and community have registered their opinion that the name should not be changed. [The Board subsequently suspended the engagement of a consultant].

From another informed poster on the forum: During the period of time that the School Board increased class sizes and teachers received no cost of living increases or step increases they found the money to make the following purchases. 1) $14-$15 million for synthetic turf fields and in the same year spent $400,000 for additional administrative staff 2) spent $500,000 for external defibrulators at the schools 3) Spent $700,000 for Assistant Principals at elementary schools in which nobody really knows what they do 4) Spent $375,000 for a new culinary arts program 5) Spent $10-$15 million for new busses plus 3 additional positions to their legal staff 6) Gave themselves a EIGHTY FIVE PERCENT INCREASE IN SALARY. Can anyone seriously claim that this Board can be given another source of revenue to exploit and waste?

But perhaps the best evidence of the theater of the absurd that the Board engages in was highlighted by this poster - watch the Board meeting at the link...

"I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked."
Posted by: a good laugh ()
Date: September 25, 2016 12:53PM

this is a direct quote from the public testimony before the School Board this past Thursday (9/22) - see the video at https://www.youtube.com watch?v=n2Er4gPDYWg at 39:24 (btw; it's the first line from The Martian by Weir - required reading for many HS freshmen and sophomores). The earlier commenters are also provocative and worth looking at.

There's a quick introduction to the Fairfax County Public School Board that won't make it into the promotional reel.

KimL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I attended my first school board meeting last
> night and was surprised by how few attended. The
> auditorium was mostly empty. Why don't more
> citizens attend? In California parents attend
> regularly and offer public comment. FCPS allowed
> only a few speakers and I was turned away.
>
> Are these meetings usually better attended? What
> are your thoughts of the school board meetings in
> FCPS?


"In California parents attend regularly and offer public comment."



The difference is that here in Va. most people have jobs and kids are so are either too beat by the end of the day to attend a boring ass meeting where their voice doesn't count anyway or are running around with their kids to various practices and activities.