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At A Loss
Posted by: Connection ()
Date: February 14, 2008 05:43PM

At A Loss
School Board struggles with a likely shortfall in next year's schools budget.
February 13, 2008


Photo by Julia O'Donoghue/The Connection
Schools Superintendent Jack Dale said budget cuts will be felt at the local school level.





Robert Gordon wiped tears from his eyes as he talked about his austistic two-and-a-half-year-old son, Marshall David, in front of the school board Feb. 11.

His son had only been in Fairfax County's special education preschool program for two months but already Marshall David was showing improvement in his vocabulary and understanding.

"Unlike his previous schools where he cried when he was being dropped off, at Franklin Sherman he loves going to his classroom and learning from Ms. Sharon and his other teachers," said Gordon, who recently moved to McLean from the City of Alexandria.

Doctors have told Gordon that they do not know to what extent his son will be able to improve or whether he will slide back into silence. But experts have told him that autistic children can make the most improvement when they are three-to-four years if they have the right support and programs in place, he said. He cannot understand why Fairfax County Public Schools is considering cuts to its special education preschool funding.

Schools Superintendent Jack Dale has proposed cutting one third of the instructional assistants that work in special education classrooms countywide and increasing the class size from eight to 10 students.

The superintendent is trying to close a funding gap in next year's schools budget and the special education preschool cuts would save at least $2.7 million, said Dale. But this and other program cuts are proving difficult for both school board members and the public to handle.

"These are not just numbers we are talking about — this is the future of my son. My son and a thousand other children who can be helped if we don't turn our backs on them," said Gordon.

The Fairfax County School Board is scheduled to vote on its initial budget proposal Feb. 14 but has not settled on how much money they will request from county government.

Board members are wrestling with from some of the proposed cuts Dale has suggested in the face of the budget shortfall.

Given the downturn in the economy and declining housing values, Fairfax County Board of Supervisors chairman Gerry Connolly warned the school board last spring to expect a funding transfer for the 2008-2009 school year with zero percent growth from 2007 to 2008. A county funding transfer with no growth would leave the school system with an approximately $100 million shortfall for next year, said Dale.

At the direction of the school board, Dale proposed a budget with a projected $45 million shortfall, with the assumption that the county government could be willing to give the school system a three-to-four percent increase in its budget to maintain its programs.

Even if the supervisors are willing to meet the board halfway, Dale said education will still suffer.

In addition to special education preschool cuts, Dale's budget would also eliminate many programs that target at at-risk youth and promote college among those who would be the first to attend in their family. The school system would also stop paying for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes and impose a $100 to $50 fee for sports or other activities, according to documents.

"If you adopted [this budget] and we implemented this, we are going to have a drop in performance next year. ... Some of the more needy will not have the same level of service they have right now," said Dale.

Some school board members have said Dale's budget cuts are simply too severe and are trying to convince their peers to ask the supervisors for more money.

School board members Brad Center (Lee) and Tessie Wilson (Braddock) have proposed requesting slightly more money — $3 to $5 million — from the county and using the extra funds to restore some programs that were cut in Dale's budget, like the College Partnership Program and special education preschool.

By slowing the expansion of some of full day kindergarten from 21 schools next year to five schools, Center and Wilson's proposal could also provide funding to cover Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests for students and eliminate the proposed student activity fee, they said.

"We cannot go the Board of Supervisors and ask for $100 million. We are not going to get it. I think our budget request to the Board of Supervisors needs to fiscally prudent," said Wilson.

School board member Stu Gibson (Hunter Mill) has proposed restoring even more of the budget and requesting $80 million from the Board of Supervisors, leaving the school system with only a $20 million shortfall to cover.

Gibson said the supervisors could provide the $80 million by raising the real estate tax rate another 3 or 4 cents per $100 of assessed value. He added that, in recent years, the supervisors had lowered the tax rate by 34 cents.

Depsite the increased request, Gibson's budget would still slow the roll out of full day kindergarten. He also would cut some funding for the board's expansion of the foreign language elementary school program.

"If we do what is on the table, we will see decrease in student achievement next year. We will see a decrease in test scores," said Gibson.

Other school board members Kathy Smith (Sully) and Ilryong Moon (At-large) said they were preparing their own budget amendment that would put the request between the two already offered.

But Connolly indicated that even Dale's budget, which expected less of a transfer than either offered by the school board members, might have been out of reach.

When speaking of Dale's budget, he said: "Our revenue is actually going down, not up. There are still some decisions they need to make to cut back."

He added that if the gap were smaller, like $8 million, the county could the school system close it.

In this difficult economic environment, it is not a good time for the school system to be expanding programs, including the foreign language elementary school program and full-day kindergarten, Connolly said. The school system could also look at shaving the three percent cost-of-living adjustment for their employees in this year's budget to two percent, he suggested.

"They have $35 million in expanded or new initiatives," said Connolly.



I can think of a great way to save $2 million initially and 80 million in the long run. Aren't there still empty seats at LB and Hayfield. Use them before building another school.

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Re: At A Loss
Posted by: Anonymous ()
Date: February 14, 2008 05:52PM

Big difference between operating budget and capital budget

If you want to add to operating budget then cut Jack Dales ridiculous teaching ES'ers a second language

If you want to balance with the capital budget then stop Coppermine and put $25 million to operating

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Re: At A Loss
Posted by: nothing like an ()
Date: February 14, 2008 06:18PM

entitlement mentality ....

sucks that your toddler is autistic, truly. But why is it everyone else in the county's responsibility to provide him with a tutor? Not to mention the guy lives in McLean ... I couldn't afford to live there if I wanted to. maybe he should move somewhere cheaper and spend the difference on special tutors for his two year old. public education is BASIC education for K-12 ... you want extra, pay for it yourself or find a charity to help you.

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Re: At A Loss
Posted by: Radiophile ()
Date: February 14, 2008 08:14PM

nothing like an Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> entitlement mentality ....
>
> sucks that your toddler is autistic, truly. But
> why is it everyone else in the county's
> responsibility to provide him with a tutor? Not
> to mention the guy lives in McLean ... I couldn't
> afford to live there if I wanted to. maybe he
> should move somewhere cheaper and spend the
> difference on special tutors for his two year old.
> public education is BASIC education for K-12 ...
> you want extra, pay for it yourself or find a
> charity to help you.

This argument sounds eerily familiar... Why is that?

Oh, it is because of Graeme Frost. Thank you to the above poster, but we know who you are, Senator Mitch McConnell..

SLIMING GRAEME FROST

Paul Krugman, October 12, 2007

Two weeks ago, the Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address was delivered by a 12-year-old, Graeme Frost. Graeme, who along with his sister received severe brain injuries in a 2004 car crash and continues to need physical therapy, is a beneficiary of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Mr. Bush has vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded that program to cover millions of children who would otherwise have been uninsured.

What followed should serve as a teaching moment.

First, some background. The Frosts and their four children are exactly the kind of people S-chip was intended to help: working Americans who can’t afford private health insurance.

The parents have a combined income of about $45,000, and don’t receive health insurance from employers. When they looked into buying insurance on their own before the accident, they found that it would cost $1,200 a month — a prohibitive sum given their income. After the accident, when their children needed expensive care, they couldn’t get insurance at any price.

Fortunately, they received help from Maryland’s S-chip program. The state has relatively restrictive rules for eligibility: children must come from a family with an income under 200 percent of the poverty line. For families with four children that’s $55,220, so the Frosts clearly qualified.

Graeme Frost, then, is exactly the kind of child the program is intended to help. But that didn’t stop the right from mounting an all-out smear campaign against him and his family.

Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).

You might be tempted to say that bloggers make unfounded accusations all the time. But we’re not talking about some obscure fringe. The charge was led by Michelle Malkin, who according to Technorati has the most-trafficked right-wing blog on the Internet, and in addition to blogging has a nationally syndicated column, writes for National Review and is a frequent guest on Fox News.

The attack on Graeme’s family was also quickly picked up by Rush Limbaugh, who is so important a player in the right-wing universe that he has had multiple exclusive interviews with Vice President Dick Cheney.

And G.O.P. politicians were eager to join in the smear. The New York Times reported that Republicans in Congress “were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance” but had “backed off” as the case fell apart.

In fact, however, Republicans had already made their first move: an e-mail message from the office of Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, sent to reporters and obtained by the Web site Think Progress, repeated the smears against the Frosts and asked: “Could the Dems really have done that bad of a job vetting this family?”

And the attempt to spin the media worked, to some extent: despite reporting that has thoroughly debunked the smears, a CNN report yesterday suggested that the Democrats had made “a tactical error in holding up Graeme as their poster child,” and closely echoed the language of the e-mail from Mr. McConnell’s office.

All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.

Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.

Politics aside, the Graeme Frost case demonstrates the true depth of the health care crisis: every other advanced country has universal health insurance, but in America, insurance is now out of reach for many hard-working families, even if they have incomes some might call middle-class.

And there’s one more point that should not be forgotten: ultimately, this isn’t about the Frost parents. It’s about Graeme Frost and his sister.

I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period. Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2008 08:18PM by Radiophile.

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Re: At A Loss
Posted by: schev ()
Date: February 15, 2008 08:23AM

Actually special education is funded for the 0-5 year olds with diagnosed learning delays. This is the case in every state.

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Re: At A Loss
Posted by: Gravis ()
Date: February 15, 2008 07:05PM

stop buying new shit!

problem solved.


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."095042938540

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Re: At A Loss
Posted by: Margie ()
Date: February 15, 2008 09:57PM

nothing like an Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> entitlement mentality ....
>
> sucks that your toddler is autistic, truly. But
> why is it everyone else in the county's
> responsibility to provide him with a tutor? Not
> to mention the guy lives in McLean ... I couldn't
> afford to live there if I wanted to. maybe he
> should move somewhere cheaper and spend the
> difference on special tutors for his two year old.
> public education is BASIC education for K-12 ...
> you want extra, pay for it yourself or find a
> charity to help you.


You obviously are completely ignorant!!!


"public education is BASIC education for K-12"

Next time, Get your facts straight before you make a complete ass of yourself again!

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Re: At A Loss
Posted by: Neen ()
Date: February 15, 2008 11:00PM

Anonymous Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Big difference between operating budget and
> capital budget
>
> If you want to add to operating budget then cut
> Jack Dales ridiculous teaching ES'ers a second
> language
>
> If you want to balance with the capital budget
> then stop Coppermine and put $25 million to
> operating

That works for me. No elementary school child should be learning Italian or Greek when we still have children that have not been taught to read and write in English.

BTW, the foreign language elementary program was not Dale's idea. It was a school board GOAL that all elementary school children be proficient in a foreign language. Just one of their many foolish goals.

Dr. Dale did not set the goals, the school board did.

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