Wednesday, May 15, 2013
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 …
Monday, May 13, 2013
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 …
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Fairfax County's pre-kindergarten program will likely go another year without the funding it needs to shorten a wait list with hundreds of kids.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is ready to adopt the Fiscal Year 2014 Budget package, but some officials are unsettled by the lack of funding for the expansion of the Head Start program, which currently has hundreds of students on the waiting list. Through a mix of county, state and federal funding, Head Start provides free pre-kindergarten classes to students from low-income families, giving them the extra attention they need to be on par with their peers when they enter the Fairfax County Public School system. Roughly 1,500 kids are currently enrolled in the program — but more than 800 others are waiting. The program won’t receive any additional funding in this year’s budget because of worries that more funds will be lost in …
Monday, April 22, 2013
An online petition has already gathered more than 400 signatures.
Students at Fairfax Academy are devastated that one of their most beloved teachers appears to be losing his job due to budget cuts. Now, they are fighting to show Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) how much the teacher is valued in an effort to try and save his job. Students, alumni, parents and supporters have started an online petition on Change.org on behalf of Dave Ruby, a teacher in the school's Professional Television Production program, and leader of the student-run production company, Digital Wave Productions. "Students have been devastated to discover that beloved teacher, Mr. Dave Ruby, had been laid off," said 11th-grader Sarah Heaton, 17. "He is admired by all his students and no one wants to see him go." Sarah and other …
Friday, April 19, 2013
All high schools in Fairfax County, as well as Fairfax City's high school, made the 'Washington Post's' list of top high schools in the country.
The Washington Post has released its annual list of the top high schools in the country - and schools in the City of Fairfax, as well as Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), made an impressive showing. FCPS' Woodson High School had the highest ranking of FCPS high schools on the list, which is based on a formula devised by Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews. Woodson was ranked 117th on the list of 1,900 schools in 2013. In the City of Fairfax, Fairfax High School ranked 205th. Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews, who determines the school's rakings based on an original formula, says the index is designed "to identify schools that challenge average students." The index score is the number of college-level tests …
Thursday, April 18, 2013
In passionate speeches, some parents — most from Fairfax Station — said they felt 'targeted' and the shift would be 'a nightmare' for them.
A large number of parents from the Fairfax Station "island" community turned out Wednesday evening for the Fairfax County School Board's public hearing on a proposed school boundary line shift - and most of them were not happy. Many parents from the Fairfax Station community, who face being pulled out of the "Frost-Woodson pyramid" - meaning, their elementary school would no longer feed into Frost Middle School and then Woodson High School - said they felt "unfairly targeted" and that they were being treated as "statistically insignificant" because of their community's small size. Chidlren from the community would instead go to Robinson Secondary School, according to a plan proposed by school officials. Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS…
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
The public will get a chance to speak out on a study that could move 750 students out of Lanier and Fairfax.
Fairfax County Public Schools is studying whether to move 750 county students out of Fairfax City schools in order to ease overcrowding issues. Parents and teachers will get a chance to sound off on this boundary study at two more meeting this week and next. Mark your calendars: Students would be moved from Lanier Middle School and Fairfax High School to surrounding Fairfax County schools in school year 2014-15. Possible destinations include: Read the following stories for more information. School Board OKs Study to Move Students Out of Fairfax, Lanier FCPS Recommends Schools for FHS Student Relocation School Officials to Consider Moving Students from Fairfax, Lanier to Other Schools
Friday, February 1, 2013
Restoring full day elementary on Mondays also discussed as Fairfax County School Board stares down Feb. 7 budget vote.
Amendments to Fairfax County Superintendent Jack Dale's $2.5 billion proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget could direct more money toward head start and early learning programs, along with those that tackle the county's achievement gap, school board members said Thursday at a work session on the spending plan. Though board members are still in the process of drafting amendments to the budget, some gave a glimpse of what they hope to adjust next week before the plan is adopted and sent to the Board of Supervisors. On Tuesday, a dozen speakers addressed the board with their own concerns about the proposal: that it doesn't adequately address teacher compensation, time or workload issues, a living wage for other employees like bus drivers, food …
Monday, January 28, 2013
Fairfax County School Board votes against expanding at Thoreau, Cooper, Herndon middle schools, asks for broader study of advanced academic program offerings as a whole.
Fairfax County School Board members voted Thursday to expand the school system's Advanced Academic Program Centers to three additional elementary schools this fall in an effort to relieve overcrowding at several existing centers. But they stopped short of expanding the program across about a dozen and a half more elementary and middle schools in time for the next school year, as was proposed last fall, pending a broader discussion of what advanced academics truly means in Fairfax County, whether the system is in line with national best practices of gifted and general education and where board members envision the program going in the future. The decision came at the end of a four-hour discussion Thursday that stretched into the wee hours …
Friday, January 18, 2013
Visitor access, locked doors, teacher training top list of policies teachers want reviewed, according to survey.
A group of Fairfax County educators say while some of the county's school safety procedures are effective, the system needs to reassess its security policies. In a survey last week on guns and school safety by the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, one of the county's largest teachers' unions, 60 percent of the nearly 500 teachers who responded said visitor control procedures were among the larger threats to school safety and security. Enforcement of policies about guest sign-in, locked entry doors and whether students and parents were allowed to roam halls are inconsistent from building to building, they said. "Anyone can walk in and do whatever they want," one teacher wrote. "That's the scary part." In comments attached to the …
Dean Smollar
11:27 pm on Monday, April 22, 2013
Dave Ruby is a good man and Fairfax High School's TV Production class is an incredibly important class for many people who grew up in Fairfax County. I am an alumni of TVPro, and currently live in Los Angeles working as a Camera Operator on feature films. I would not be who I am today if not for that class, and I know that many of my fellow alumni (many of whom have been making an impact in the … more ›