School board asks Fairfax County supervisors for more money Tuesday to deal with growing pains and teacher pay.
Fairfax County Executive Ed Long has recommended giving the county's school system a 2 percent increase in funding over the transfer it received last year. But at Tuesday night’s public hearing on the county’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget plan, schools officials and advocates said it still wasn't enough. Fairfax County School Board Chairman Ilryong Moon kicked off the first day of public input on County Executive Ed Long’s proposed $7 billion budget plan, asking the Board of Supervisors for a higher transfer to the school system. Long’s budget, which raises real estate taxes and cuts funds to parks, libraries and some other services, provides the school system with $1.72 billion – approximately $62 million less than the school board was hoping …
In town hall meeting with school board members Monday, teachers ask for solutions to workload and morale issues that, after half a decade, are as "worse as they've ever been."
Dan Hale has been a teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools for 20 years, but he’s never felt or seen his colleagues as overwhelmed as they are today. He used to know his students as readers and as writers, he says; now he only knows them as bits of data or ECART scores; pacing points and percentages. And after spending far more than eight hours at school, he leaves (with work in tow) thinking ‘What am I doing tomorrow?’ — planning time in the context of the school day, he says, is nearly nonexistent. The story was one of many shared by a few hundred teachers Monday night at a town hall sponsored by one of the county’s largest teachers unions, an effort to better connect school board members with teachers and workload issues that have …
Because of school board action on VRS shift, new teachers will earn less than those hired in 2009; administrators say lower scale is necessary to prevent inequity across the system
Leaders of Fairfax County teachers unions say new teachers hired at the lowest pay step this school year will be earning $1,129 less than their counterparts in 2009 as part of pay scale adjustments expected to take effect next month. The adjustments were a response to Fairfax County School Board action on new state legislation requiring public school employees who participate in the Virginia Retirement System to pay a 5 percent employee contribution, which school systems currently pay. To offset the increased contribution, the legislation requires school systems to in turn pay a 5 percent salary increase to employees. School systems have the choice of implementing the change all at once or over the course of five years, but all new …
Jody
10:44 am on Monday, April 29, 2013
So true T-Bird. Union statement above: “Your decisions on our pay and benefits will be a demonstration of your belief in us.” Of course we believe in them. We also expect them to do their best at teaching whether they get a raise or not. What I believe is that we're in a recession, we can't ignore the fact that county money is tight (county employees have a pay freeze), and that any raises above … more ›