Wednesday, January 6, 2010

2010 Begins, and feels crowded

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Happy New Year everyone! I drafted a couple of posts in the last few weeks but never put the final polish on them, so the blog has been very quiet. We had our first Board meeting since mid-December last night, and so that was when this lapse was pointed out to me. Even so I drafted over 200 posts for you last year, more than in the previous years. I really just spent the last couple weeks of December with my family, hardly going near a PC, hardly making a phone call.

Most of the Board meeting last night was devoted to a review of the Capital Improvement Plan, our plans for buying land and building schools. Lord, what a fix we are in. Two years ago I told the Board of Supervisors that the problem of class size soon wouldn't be a matter of the operating budget, but of the lack of new schools. We're already there in some spots, we'll be there in a year or two in many more parts of the county, and it will be several years beyond that before we get out of it. So crowded classrooms are coming, there is no avoiding it. In a few years the people will ask "when did we get into this mess?" The answer is that we've been getting into it for the past few years, we're getting much deeper into it now. It's going to take some innovation to get through it, ways to increase the number of classrooms without building new schools or buying new land. Charter schools. Classrooms in innovative places. Maybe online learning. We can do it if we want to. Do you want to?

[Leesburg Today]
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13 comments:

  1. A little birdy told me that you are now Chair. Congratulations!

    Online learning is a great idea (my dad is head of on-line learning at NYU-Poly), as is consolidation of sports fields (nearby schools sharing fields); adapting the school design to be multi-story; adding more multi-use rooms (some specialized classrooms are unused during parts of the day at schools I've seen); and a willingness to expand existing buildings up or out
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  2. Congratulations. But too bad you voted to extend Hatrick's contract so soon. That must be so uplifting for all the rank and file facing layoffs and reductions. And what's with approving a contract before the salary has been decided on? Trouble trying to justify a raise?

    Sorry to rain on your parade there a bit, but hopefully you will show more independence than the last Chairman and force the administration to think outside of the box a bit. We can no longer afford to do things as we have in the past.
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  3. Congratulations on your election as Board Chairman.
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  4. John, I too congratulate you on your chairmanship. I believe you will serve well in that role.

    The challenges before the School Board and Supervisors are great and varied. It will take strong problem solving and tough decision making to resolve the CIP during these economic conditions. It will also take citizens taking the time to become informed about the current budget difficulties and the needs of the current students in LCPS and the 3000+ students that will join the system next school year.

    John, I appreciate the forum you have created with your blog. It provides an avenue for the public to be informed and allows them to respond and ask questions.

    I am hopeful Loudoun citizens (public school parents, students, school employees, and all other citizens) will become a part of this process.
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  5. John, you are to be commended for having this blog as a forum to hear from constituents and employees, and for taking the slings and arrows of folks like me.

    That said, can you reconsider your vote to extend Hatrick for four more years, and maybe try to wrk a deal for Jack Dale or someone like him?

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/07/AR2010010703945.html?hpid=moreheadlines

    Dale understands that we are in a deep recession and times are tough and that new approaches and sacrifices are needed. Unlike Hatrick who wants to hold on to his status quo forever. And extending Hatrick's contrat well beyond the current School Board's term is absolutely unneccessary and foolish. He will be replaced by the next newly constituted School Board and that money will be wasted.
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  6. Congratulations on your election to Chairman!
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  7. "It's going to take some innovation to get through it, ways to increase the number of classrooms without building new schools..."

    Roll in the trailers. Build some modular additions. It ain't rocket science! The School Board got themselves into this mess by building undersized schools and demanding too much money be spent on operations - which the BOS gladly agreed to - instead of a pay-as-you-go policy for new schools. The result is a crushing debt service burden and no money for new schools.
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  8. I think adding on to existing schools where it makes sense is the way to go. At my kids' elementary school, a few more classrooms would make a big difference. Class sizes are already 26-28 kids and there isn't physical room enough to add more kids per class. But an addition with even just a few more rooms would help stave off an otherwise unavoidable boundary redrawing (which would impact other neighborhoods, as well, not just ours). I know our supervisor says, well you can't easily increase the cafeteria -- so have some classes eat in their classrooms. Some are doing that now anyway. The kids go to the lunch room, get their trays and carry them back to the classroom.

    The crazy thing is, there's quite a bit of barely-used land with the school. The playing fields, for example, don't get used that much. Certainly not for PE. The kids don't go outside for PE even when the weather is nice. I think county rec leagues use the playing fields more than anyone else, but is that more important than classroom space at this point? If land is scarce and expensive, maybe we should be making better use of the land the school system already owns.
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  9. Anon at 11:13:
    The problems with having students eat in the classroom are many. By law, teachers receive a duty free lunch. Since there is no teacher to monitor the students eating in the classroom, who will do this? Hire more people? Ask for volunteers? What do you do when a student has a spill--and in elementary school there are plenty of these. Purchase a bucket and mop for each classroom? Then the student will need to get a new lunch. Who will pay for that? I'm not sure what school you keep tabs on, but you are dead wrong when you state that students don't go outside for PE even when the weather is nice. I appreciate that you are trying to think of alternative solutions, but things are never as easy as they seem.
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  10. I urge you and your Board members to look closely at proposed budget. I for one am tired of the teacher salary comparisons Hatrick makes. It does not tell the whole story. Teachers do a great job at LCPS, but to say they are being short changed relative to the likes of Fairfax County is purposefully misleading.

    For example, LCPS pays 9%, yes 9% of the teachers salary per year for their Virginia Retirement plan. Fairfax County only matches. To use his example Tuesday for a Step 1 teacher for LCPS, when adding in the matching funds, it is $1,409 more a year than a Fairfax Step 1 teacher receives. LCPS, it is $1,309 for a Step 9 Masters.

    LCPS retirement formula is 1.7%, Fairfax County using the same formula is .80%.

    It will take a close examination of his figures if it is the School Board desire to make an informed decision.
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  11. I used to be a fan of Hatrick but not anymore. Cutting teacher positions before central office jobs makes no sense to me. I've been teaching for 12 years in Loudoun and I can tell you that I don't need anyone up there to teach children.

    Profe
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  12. Anonymous who is up in arms about the 1% cola should be more upset about the millions spent to employ mostly foreigners ( who go back home after 3 years) to teach FLES and SAMs. Those teachers do not even have to grade papers or write lessons.

    I easily spend close to that whopping 1% of my salary on school materials each year.

    Profe
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  13. Profe, more of you disaffected teachers need to start sending these types of problems to the Supervisors. Your School Board apparently likes things just the way they are, seeing that they just extended Hatrick's contract for four more years. Give the Sups some real ammunition to starighten things out.
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