The supervisors decision to withhold $25 million from Loudoun County Public Schools March 22 has been met with criticism from educators across the county.
“I believe there may have been a genuine misunderstanding of the impacts of these reductions,” Superintendent Edgar Hatrick said in a letter. “Making those reductions would affect the employment of 293 LCPS employees and directly affect classroom instruction and opportunities for our students.”
Taking $25 million out of the school system’s proposed budget means the school system will likely enact a list of cuts proposed to reach that funding level earlier this year. The School Board will make the cuts once the final funding is announced by the Board of Supervisors April 6.
After collecting more than 3,000 signatures for a petition in support of a fully-funded school budget next year, Sandy Sullivan, president of the Loudoun Education Association, said she is disappointed by the cuts to school funding.
“This would force additional cuts onto Loudoun County Public Schools, which already faces larger class sizes at every grade level,” she said. “All of this sounds like a bad dream.”
The proposed cuts include the reduction of 293 full-time positions in the schools including reading specialists, teacher assistants, guidance counselors, assistant athletic directors, career center assistants, elementary administrative interns, and high school and middle school deans.
Other possibilities are reducing the elementary foreign language program and eliminating summer school.
School employees also would not receive a proposed 1 percent cost-of-living adjustment for a savings of $5.5 million, and they will be required to take two furlough days, saving another $4 million.
School Board Chairman John Stevens (Potomac) said he is hoping the supervisors will restore $20 million to the school system’s budget once they understand the deep cuts that would need to be made under their current proposal.
Stevens said supervisors were under the impression the school system had a $20 million overage from last year’s budget, which was being saved for a one-time expenditure, but really those funds are needed for the school budget.
“We have done a poor job of explaining to the supervisors one of the key components of the budget, and that is the $20 million that we worked hard to save from this year’s budget to be able to apply to next year’s budget,” he said. “Without that, there will be painful cuts, and so we’re going to work very hard to do a better job of explaining this to the supervisors.”
Stevens said without those funds, the Loudoun school system will suffer, and he doesn’t believe that is the supervisors’ intention.
“I don’t think they are hostile to schools,” he said. “I don’t think they want to degrade the quality of education.”
Contact the reporter at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
RC - I always thought there were no strikes because teachers were pretty happy with their employment. What other professional employer offers up to $96k, a pension and great health insurance for only working 9 months out of the year?
In the past I, and probably others, have paid little attention to the School Board or their administrators. Despite this neglect Loudoun County has acquired great teachers, beautiful schools, and high-achieving students. So the School Board and its administrators must be doing something right. And yet, this same complacency may have created an unbridled funding/lobbying entity that could yet be our undoing. My gut feeling is that we’re now appropriating too many dollars for the schools, and that the School Board puts the Board of Supervisors in a bind by using children as foils for their incessant money demands. I would like to see concrete proposals from the School Board and Dr. Hatrick on how to economize without adversely impacting teachers and students…seems to me they could do so given their intimate knowledge of the system.
A concerned citizen,
Ron Milberg
Ashburn, VA
Dispatcher 24/7 are kept busy at 2:00AM. They answer emergency calls for ALL the county buildings: (Homeless shelters, Office buildings, Corrections Centers, Senior centers, Fire houses, and more)so the Counties after hours person could be cut. Schools also have buses out on over night trips and out of county trips for athletics and other school functions, which can break down, be involved in accident/bad weather, have medical emergencies which means supervisors, schools, parents, and mechanics would need notification. All buses and security guards have radio’s which have to be monitored. Schools are monitored, for breakins, equipment malfuctions, vandalism and other emergencies. Employees emergencies, needing immediate replacement for morning routes/trips are answered. Filing, paperwork, and other office needs are also done during this time. To sum up your tax dollars at 2:00am: Monitoring camera’s in all schools and properties. Answering bus, emergency, matanance,and security radio’s. Answering regular, county, emergency, bus,and security telephones calls. Handling weather alerts, office work, and emergency calling, are all done by ONE person which during the day as many as 8 plus staff handle. So sleeping, doing nothing, I don’t think so. The County and School Board are using ONE person to do many jobs which is a benifits to all of our tax dollars.
Talk about wasteful spending by Dr. Hatrick. Does anyone know why the school dispatchers work 24/7 365 days a year? Every time I ask this question, the answer is, “What if there is a fire”, gee call 911. Who out there knows the direct phone number to the school switchboard? We do not need school dispatchers working when school is not in. What do the dispatchers do at 2am in the morning, oh that’s right, watch TV, read a book, sleep and we the county taxpayers are paying for this.
LEA is not a union. Get your facts straight. No teacher unions in VA (which may be why you can never seem to remember the last time there was a strike).
How much in union dues will the LEA lose if 293 positions are cut?
Updated: Thirteen-year-old pedestrian hit crossing Route 7 near Dulles Town Center
UPDATE: Missing Leesburg man drowns in drainage pond
Leesburg high schools switch things around
Loudoun inmate dies after suffering massive stroke in prison
Two Loudoun County residents involved in $1.5 million mortgage scheme
