Friday, May 24, 2013
In budget approval, school board members divided on how best to keep teacher pay competitive moving forward.
After months of debate on how to fairly compensate Fairfax teachers and keep pace with salaries in other jurisdictions , the Fairfax County School board voted for a $2.5 billion budget Thursday that will give employees a 2 percent mid-year market-scale adjustment — making good on a commitment from school board members to provide some sort of compensation relief during this fiscal year. Much of the Fiscal Year 2014 spending plan is dedicated to changing demographics and unprecedented student growth — 3,089 students are expected to join the system next year, pushing total enrollment to 184,625. To view the full budget, click here. The pay raise was the biggest hurdle in this year's budget, school board members said Thursday night as they…
Monday, May 20, 2013
The Governor's Challenge in Economics and Personal Finance took place last week.
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology students were awarded 2013 Governor’s Challenge Champions in Economics and Personal Finance last week. The winning students from Fairfax's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology were Scott Gibson, Hamil Shah, Catherine Shi, and Robert Wang, who are coached by teacher Haywood Torrence. The team won first place in their division. The Governor’s Challenge is mean to enhancing economics and financial education for students in grades K-12, according to a press release from the Fairfax County Public School syste. The Fairfax County students went up against more than 2,100 high school students in Virginia competed in preliminary rounds of the competition. Students are …
Friday, May 17, 2013
Fairfax County School Board will hold listening sessions next week to help develop a strategic plan for digital learning.
Teachers, students and parents in Fairfax County didn't have the smoothest experience with digital learning in 2012-2013. As Fairfax County Public Schools rolled out a new online math program in Fall 2012, students and teachers complained they had difficulty navigating the books, saying there were publisher errors and inconsistencies, technology roadblocks and student difficulty in accessing the information, among other complaints, like a lack of teacher buy-in to the program. They said the program, instead of advancing learning and achievement, was pushing it back, calling the $10.4 million initiative "a big disaster" with no clear solution. The short-term solution was to re-negotiate contracts to get some hard copy books back in the …
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Drew Bonner was just announced as the recipient of the 2013 Allstate Foundation-VHSL Achievement Award.
A Fairfax High School student has been recognized by the Virginia High School League (VHSL) for his achievements in athletics and academics. The honor is one of the most prestigious students awards statewide. The 2013 Allstate Foundation-VHSL Achievement Award, the highest honor given by the VHSL, is given to students who have excelled in the classroom and in athletic and academic activities. Fairfax High School's Drew Bonner received the Andrew Mullins Courageous Achievement Award for his continued involvement in baseball and basketball while facing the progressive, life-threatening disease Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Drew earned four letters in baseball, and three in basketball, serving as the Fairfax team's manager after DMD …
Teacher pay and foreign language cutbacks are also concerns as Fairfax County School Board looks for another $30 million in reductions for next year's budget.
If push came to shove, Jane Lipp would give her right kidney to keep an instructional coach at her school. The principal of South County High School, which has a 49 percent minority population, said that's the kind of sacrifice she'd make, drama aside, to keep a position that's been 'instrumental" in helping her teachers push the school's diverse student body to succeed. More than a dozen of the 40 speakers who addressed the school board Tuesday night in a public hearing about Fairfax County Public Schools' budget spoke about the role coaches play in the day to day lives of teachers and students, including their help toward narrowing student achievement gaps. The public hearing comes as the school board prepares to adopt a $2.5 billion …
Officials say no funding for consultant as school board members say there is a 'facilities crisis and a capacity crisis.'
The Fairfax County School Board decided Monday to postpone re-evaluating how to determine the order in which county schools are renovated. Heeding the recommendation of the county’s Facilities Planning Advisory Council, Board members agreed they needed more time to discuss the matter to implement any real changes. The board develops its Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) every five years, which includes new schools, renovations, capacity enhancements, additions and infrastructure management. Schools currently receive improvements in the order in which they're ranked on the system's renovation queue, driven by a list of weighted criteria ranging from how the buildings serve "Fundamental Educational Requirements (FER)," to their age and …
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Some school board members say 'disconnect' and mistrust still exists between principals and parents.
As the Fairfax County School Board prepares to vote on another round of changes in a years-long push for reform of its discipline policies, board members are struggling to find common ground on when parents should be notified if their child could be suspended or expelled. Fairfax County Public Schools staff returned to the school board Monday with a number of proposed changes to the Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook, some of them based on a list of 52 recommendations to overhaul discipline practices systemwide a community committee put forth earlier this spring. See all proposed changes here. But parental notification — an issue on which there has been little agreement since the push for reform began following the suicide of …
Monday, May 13, 2013
Superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools had surgery for an aortic aneurysm May 7.
Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Dale was released from the hospital Sunday after emergency heart surgery May 7. FCPS spokesman John Torre told Patch in an email Monday that Dale had been released from the hospital to recover from surgery at home. Dale was taken to INOVA Fairfax Hospital on May 7 after telling coworkers he hadn’t been feeling well that day. He had surgery after suffering an aortic aneurysm that night. Torre said Dale was expected to return to work sometime in early June. “He is making progress and is not expected to return to work until early June on a part time basis,” he wrote in his email. Dale is planning to retire this summer. Deputy Superintendent Richard Moniuszko is managing superintendent duties …
Hundreds of students will be shifted to different school attendance pyramids after Thursday night's vote by the FCPS board.
The Fairfax County School Board voted Thursday evening to approve adjustments to school attendance areas in an effort to alleviate overcrowding at Fairfax High School and Lanier Middle School in Fairfax City. The boundary changes will be phased in beginning in the 2014-15 school year, with an option for families to move their rising seventh-grade students and rising ninth-grade students to their newly-assigned schools in fall 2013, with transportation provided, to avoid having to transfer after one year in the current pyramid. Rising eighth-grade students and rising eleventh- and twelfth-grade students will be allowed to remain at their current schools in the fall of 2014. The Board also approved an amendment that reassigns the …
Friday, May 10, 2013
Andrea Hsu won the opportunity to join the band on stage for a special solo performance.
The City of Fairfax Band will have a very special guest solost for its concert this Saturday night - a high school student. A senior at Chantilly High School, Andrea Hsu will join the City of Fairfax Band on stage at 8 p.m. this Saturday, May 11 at WT Woodson High School as this year’s Young Artist Competition winner. Andrea Hsu has a deep love of music and enjoys sharing that love with others. “Playing for others gives me a rush because I love knowing that the music you help bring to life could really have an effect on someone,” she says. Since its creation in 1996, the City of Fairfax Band Association’s Young Artist Competition (YAC) has encouraged the development of stand-out high school musicians from throughout northern Virginia …
mccoy swanson
4:14 pm on Friday, May 24, 2013
talked about this with my teacher whose been teaching for 20 some years today actually and he said they weren't. they say teacher get mor and they dont more ›