Supporters of the Loudoun County Public School System and those opposed to a tax rate increase dominated two public input sessions Feb. 24 aimed at giving residents a voice on how their tax dollars should be spent.
It’s a scenario Loudoun County supervisors have faced every year as they gear up to pass the budget.
While most asked the board to spare cuts to the school budget, some, like Robert Burton, of Lovettsville, offered solutions.
Burton, a father of five homeschooled children, recommended that county leaders utilize technology through online courses as a way to save money.
Each year, taxpayers are asked to provide funding for new buildings and technology for schools, but continue to keep an antiquated model of teaching methods in place, he said.
“Corporate America and universities have figured this out and now offer online courses at a fraction of the cost of traditional education,” Burton told the board. “The largest and fastest-growing universities are online. This is the future, but you may not hear that from some people today. The babysitting model of education needs to be changed.”
He suggested the county offer elective courses online as a way to save money.
Michelle Copeland, of Leesburg, said she believed if residents must pay a higher tax rate than neighboring counties, they should receive the same quality in services.
“I’ve had to sacrifice for years so that I could pay the taxes here so that my son could have the best education possible,” Copeland told the board as she held up a picture of her son. “I’m happy to pay whatever it takes to make sure that next year Austin has a quality kindergarten teacher and a reasonable class size.”
Doug Upright, a teacher at Monroe Technology Center, encouraged the board to allow the school budget to weather the economic storm through a modest tax increase. Upright said he feared a cut in school funding would mean a decline in technology and the employees that teach it.
“Right now we’re in a downturn, no doubt about it,” he said. “But now is not the time to abandon the great progress we’ve made on our school system. We will get through this down economic cycle, just like we have in the past.”
Still, some residents said they’ve already sacrificed enough through their tax bills and did not want to see any further rate increases.
“It’s time the school system learns to live within reasonable means, and that can only be achieved by you with your funding allocations,” Cliff Kierce, a county planning commission member and president of the Broadlands Homeowners Association, told the board.
Kierce, a father of three, recommended the board cut school budget costs by increasing class sizes, eliminating several non-teaching support positions and redrawing attendance boundaries.
Loudoun County supervisors will hear from the public once more Feb. 27 before beginning a series of work sessions to try to close a $191.6 million spending gap for fiscal year 2011.
The board is weighing two budget scenarios: A budget that reflects a 5 percent increase over last fiscal year’s expenditures that were funded with local tax money, and one that keeps expenditures flat.
A 5 percent increase would raise the tax rate from $1.245 to $1.40 per $100 of assessed value and still require $12 million in expenditure cuts and employee layoffs.
A flat expenditure rate would require an additional $22 million in expenditure cuts and employee layoffs, according to county documents.
Dear Disappointed County Worker—
You clearly have no conception that education can take place apart from a government organization. Even a few minutes research would reveal that people teach all kinds of children, including special needs kids, outside of government schools. Homeschoolers have art classes, science labs, and sports leagues. All done at far less cost than any public school system in the country.
The mentality that says only the govt can do education is the same mentality that sees the solution to every problem as taking money away from working people and throwing it at wasteful government programs.
I still don’t hear anything about Supt. Hatrick and his cronies giving up their free cars and gasoline, along with their perks and benefits packages that would make Donald Trump proud. Hatrick makes more $$$ than any other administrator in this county. Its time for the “chiefs” to step up to the plate, take a pay cut (like many parents have had to do) and give up those glossy toys they have. When that happens we can talk about what to cut in a classroom, but it has to start at the top down!
Public Schools hurt Education is somewhat mistaken. Every private company that has taken over education has failed (Philadelphia, Arkansas districts, etc.). They fail because business is in the habit of trimming the fat from the equation. Get rid of the pieces that aren’t working effectively.
In education, that is quite often the kids themselves. You can’t choose which kids to educate. Some are more expensive than others. The law dictates this - LCPS can’t choose. Educating everyone is expensive. Giving people money to go elsewhere, is irresponsible. The people with means will take the money and run, and you will be left with the most expensive to people to educate - those that need buses, those that need special services (expensive) and those that need smaller classes. The law dictates that LCPS must provide these things.
Education can’t be streamlined becuase the students can’t be streamlined. The most needy child must be offered the same opportunities as the most gifted. That is the law - federal and state.
If you want to teach classes online only, that’s fine, but the taxpayers have to pay for the computers for kids to have at home. Any child that can’t afford to attend school must have the extra’s paid for - be they pencils, paper, backpacks or computers. If you are going to teach online classes instead of in classroom, then you must provide the computers. Again, it IS the law. Like it or not.
And what are you going to do with all of these kids at home all day by themselves (which is also against the law by the way)? I am sure no teenager or middle school student would get in trouble while at home by themselves instead of at school. And before you say it is the parents fault, realize that as petty crime and property crime increases from all these kids not at school (and it will), your home will decline in value requiring an increase in taxes to pay for all the new police officers required to try to keep the crime rate reasonable.
Also, which classes are you going to teach from home - band, drama, choir, tech ed (shop), family and consumer science (cooking and child care), foreign language? How on earth do you expect these interactive disciplines to possibly work through online classes. These are the electives. If you don’t want them offered to save you money, talk to the state. They are graduation requirements, they are fields that many of these students will go to work in, and they can’t be done without sitting with a group in a classroom.
Did I mention the problem with doing this with sports? Like it or not, athletics and physical fitness are big pieces of many students lives. Or do you just want them at home on a couch watching their course online and sucking down a slushee?
That’s a good one. In Southeast DC they spend even more for public schools than we do! Obviously money isn’t the answer. If the county took half the money spent on each child and offered that to families to take their kids out of LCPS, LCPS would have more money to improve education and less students. We wouldn’t need more schools, and more debt. If the best interests of the students and taxpayers were the determining factors, we’d do this in a heartbeat.
Imagine a county where there were 50 restaurants but they were all owned by the same person. The menu was the same in each restaurant, the cooks had to cook everything according to a prescribed formula, the prices for each item were the same in all 50 restaurants. What kind of dining experience do you think that would be? Many, if not most, would think they were getting good food because the owner would tell you were and what would you have to compare it to? Well, that pretty much sums up public education.
Here is an idea. Take the almost $12,000 per student, multiply that by grade population. Lets use a typical Loudoun 4th grade as example (12,000 x 23 kids x 5 classes). That works out to be nearly $1.4 million. Ask yourself honesty that if you took the best teachers and one smart businessman (or woman) and gave them 1.4 million do you think they could give your kids a better education than they are now getting? Now do you think they could do it for 10,000 a kid? Of course they could and that would include the cost of space, materials and the teachers would be paid better than they are now. Do you think the teachers and the businessman would have lots of administrators, counselors, and secretaries? Probably not.
Public bureaucracies cannot help but to build power and power in the public sector means size. Size means bigger budgets. LCPS have no incentive to be efficient.
“Burton, a father of five homeschooled children, recommended that county leaders utilize technology through online courses as a way to save money. “
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Somebody still has to teach the course. Nearly 80% of the LCPS budget is for Instruction. That is everything from books to teachers salaries. The problem with school systems, they’re labor intensive institutions. The costs that can only really be cut are in the 20% of the pie which makes up transportation, facilities, administration, etc.. Otherwise, you have to start laying off teachers. And as teachers decline, so will the school system.
Least we forget, schools are an investment in the community. The better we educate our kids, the more likely they are to grow up and become “productive” citizens in the community. Repaying those education costs with the taxes they’ll pay from their jobs. Whereas, systems which poorly educate their children end up with unproductive adults in the future. Few people contribute to the tax base and more are dependent on the government. Straining resources and creating a death spiral that is impossible to get out of. The community declines, property values decline, etc…
As much as I dislike the taxes I have to pay to keep the school system functioning, I much rather have a great community school system that yields future benefits, than one which creates a depressed community. I don’t see businesses flocking to SouthEast DC. But I see new firms relocating to Loudoun County all the time.
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