School Budget Discussion

Re: School Boundaries

As our children have moved through the schools and we now have one at Briar Woods, it has become increasingly apparent to me that this is the case. A couple of examples:

Each high school has a full time Athletic Director and a full time Assistant AD. Plus there is an administrator at the Admin building who supervises these people. So, across the 10 high schools there are 21 people devoted to athletic direction. I ask you, did you have this at your high school when you were a kid? For me (at two different HS's), the AD was a position much like a coach and was staffed by a teacher on a part time basis. I am sure that a bureaucracy can find enough BS to fill these people's time, but is it worth while? Is the ~$2M that is spent on these 21 positions the best possible use of these funds? Will you buy the scare tactic argument that the Superintendent would likely make that without a full time AD and a central supervisor that athletics would not exist in the county schools?

Another example, Briar Woods has three assistant principals and a safety & security supervisor (how many of these positions did your high school have?). During the parent orientation in August, the principal treated us to a lengthy presentation on the recently completed: Vision Statement, Mission Statement, and Code of Conduct. He stressed the great amount of work and effort that went into developing these "important" documents. If the assistant principals have enough time to devote to this type of activity, then I think there are too many of them.

These are two examples of things that I have seen in my relatively limited interaction. My concern is that it points to a similar staffing condition through out the district.

The school district needs to take a bottom-up approach to looking at everything they do and deciding if it is really necessary and then cutting out that which isn't and sizing the staff to fit. Isn't that what the rest of the world has experienced over the last 20 years?

-Jim

 

Re: School Boundaries

A few off the top of my head...

Coupon books (get with the 90s, d-debit or pay online
why are nature center phones $550/month?
why does the newsletter cost $73k

not saying to axe these, just wondering about em.. seem high.

 

Re: School Boundaries

at my school kids didn't carry guns- the idea of a Columbine-like incident was unthinkable. I think a safety and security officer is an unfortunate necessity in EVERY high school these days.

regarding APs, how many kids are enrolled at Briar Woods? MY high school in Bellevue Nebraska had an enrollment of around 650 kids when i graduated in 1988. we had 1 principal and 2 APs.

I just checked the school's website- enrollment is over 1600 kids now, with 2 Principals and 4 Deans- 1 for each grade.

with so many kids- there needs to be enough staff to address issues. i'd rather see a school overstaffed than understaffed- the place where my kid spends 8 hours a day is NOT where I would want to county to cut funds from...

 

Re: School Boundaries

Hey boomer:
You can pay via direct deposit. If you're suggesting eliminating coupon books, I'm not sure I agree. We have thought of it in the past, but many residents opposed. It's worth looking into seeing if other HOAs have only direct deposit or online payments.

We are stuck wit the Openband contract. No competition, no choice, high prices.

Cost of printing and mailing the size of the Newsletter. By the way, it pays for itself with advertising.

 

Re: School Boundaries

In my high school in an area similar to Loudoun in its explosive growth in the 60's and 70's, and in one of the best school districts in the state, with many highly ranked sports teams, with 2400 kids in 3 grades:
No Athletic Director (this role was filled by one of the gym teachers), no Asst. Athletic Director, 1 Principal, 1 Asst. Principal, 30-35 kids/class.
Loudoun Schools THINK they need all this staff because that's what they're used to.

 

Re: School Boundaries

an option to be able to opt out of newsletter and coupon books, even if we didn't save on dues, would be nice. I can read a pdf and would rather not throw away all that paper/envelopes, etc.

 

Re: School Boundaries

agreed- 1600 isn't big. no secretaries on staff, just the admins i mentioned in my post.

 

Re: School Boundaries

The Dallas public schools have (or used to back in 1986) a police officer with an office at each high school. They called it the "Youth Action" office and was there to deal with the most disruptive or criminal type trouble kids would get into. So even back then schools in major metropolitan areas were concerned with the most troublesome kids.

 

Re: School Boundaries

Cliff:
You seem to contradict yourself in this thread (as the thread starter....unless this is a public service thread as opposed to your own concerns).
Why are we so concerned about school boundaries when parent involvement is the primary factor on the success of a student? I'm sure the children of Broadlands can get a similar education at any of the schools in the area.
Those parents who actually voice their opinion at school boundary meetings are already involved in their child's education...and probably the one's the county has to worry about the least.

 

Re: School Boundaries

As someone who grew up in Loudoun schools (1970's), we did not have anywhere near the number of extraneous positions that there are now and we had approx 1100-1200 students at Park View HS.

I see Hatrick managing "his" budget alot like some gov't oranizations due theirs. They will spend EVERY penny of the budget whether they need to or not so that the budget level will not drop the following year. I would bet that near the end of the fiscal year, when money "needs" to be spent, is when most "extraneous" positions/ideas are put into place.

 

Re: School Boundaries

No contradiction that I can see.
At no time did I say a child's education would be different at a different school.
One of the primary considerations in school boundaries is that, whenever possible, communities do not get split up.
Given that a large number of children at Eagle Ridge and Broadlands do not live in the community the school is in, it makes no sense to carve out a piece of Broadlands and send it somewhere else when a smaller community can be moved and remains together.
Example: does it make more sense to leave Regency at Mill Run and move part of Broadlands out?
Moving Regency out will keep that community together and leave Broadlands together.
Also, many of the kids in Broadlands that may be moved are within walking distance of these schools. Doesn't make sense to move them.
On the other hand, if there are more children within a community than a school can serve, then some sections will have to be moved. I understand that.

 

Re: School Boundaries

We also didn't have the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.....which has created many of these "extraneous positions". SOL's and NCLB were also absent from the 1970s...and 80s, and most of the 90s. We didn't have officers in the school, or employees to manage the hundreds of computers in the schools. We didn't have worry about compliance with Title IX either. There were no ESOL classes as we would define them today.

So yes, the staffs have grown in public education. Just giving a little perspective.

 

Re: School Boundaries

Yes, certain advancements require new positions but 1200 students is still 1200 students. IMO, it is the "assistant" type positions that are mostly (not all) extraneous.

We had 1 AD and he did a great job but he was not overly busy during the school day and he even had a few volunteer students who helped him (I was one). Sure there are new sports programs compared to my day but there are not THAT many more.

 

Re: School Boundaries

It seems real easy to say cut the AD or the Assistant AD's. That's the easy suggestion, and one that isn't very well thought out.

The easy conclusion is to say ADs and AADs don't do anything. But have you really thought what those positions do, or mean to the education program. It's an erroneous conclusion to think these positions don't do anything.

A couple points,

This ain't Kotter's High School from the seventies. Times have changed.

Athletic programs of today are enormous. Each High School represents at least 50 different teams. Easily over 100 coaches, assistant coaches, and trainers. Take a moment and think about how much work it would be to manage this many people, and have hundreds of participants to enroll, uniforms to buy, store, maintain, distribute, collect, equipment to buy and maintain (soccer nets, balls, gymnastic equipment, football pads, lacrosse goals, wrestling mats, track hurdles, softball bats, baseball helmets, medical equipment, etc), coaches to hire, fire and recruit, parents to deal with, fund raisers to organize, schedules to schedule, transportation to arrange, schedule changes to handle, make sure game clocks are working, volunteers are coordinated, sound systems working properly, tickets to buy, control, distribute and sell, large event security, coordination with local police, communication with opposing teams, playoffs to coordinate, etc, etc, etc.

Then make sure that administrators are at every game, and oh by the way at least at Stone Bridge the AD, and/or his Assistant are at most every game and are the last to leave as they turn out the lights. It's not uncommon to have 4 or 5 games occurring at the same time.

It's a huge job. This a product of a huge program. The AD and Assistant positions aren't the issue here. It may sound like an easy solution to just cut the positions but it is not.

If you really want to crack the budget issue on sports, make some hard and unpopular choices. If you think cutting an AD or an Assistant AD is the thing to do, tell me what sports you're going to cut, because losing those positions will mean cutting sports programs. That's the decision that takes real skill. Talk about which sports program you want cut. It's cowardly just to easily say just cut the staff.

This example goes throughout the school system for every program. There is no fat, each cut will mean a reduction in what we provide educationally. Don't hide behind the easy shotgun answers, dig deep and really figure out the problem. It's not an easy one by any means, but at least be realistic.

 

Re: School Boundaries

Spoken like a true believer.

 

Re: School Boundaries

Sounds to me like sports programs should be cut then. These can be after school, private league based activities that kids can electively enroll in.

and I would argue there is fat in any budget. Why do we need to pay for parent liasons (a 630K expense)? I looked at the description of these in the proposal and what a bunch of fluff.

 

Re: School Boundaries

I don't agree. In this day of skyrocketing obesity we need everything imaginable to get our kids off the couch on the playing field. Not all families would be able to afford to do private league activities, not to mention the real estate for all such teams. The pools, the fields, the courts... It's a big deal.