As the Governor’s “Year of the Teacher” marches on, it’s critical to be on constant watch for surprises coming out of Richmond. Someone noted on my Facebook wall that, seeing what the Governor proposed regarding teachers this year, “You better hope he doesn't decide to have a ‘Year of the School Board.’” However, I have to believe that such an appellation could, in fact, also describe 2013.
The Governor’s proposals and accompanying legislation strike at the very basic authority of school boards to maintain local control of schools. The two most worrisome measures to be passed in different forms by both the House and Senate call for all schools to be branded with grades ranging from A to F and establish a statewide institution granted the power to take over failing local schools. These measures, relying on state and federal accountability measures, further entrench a testing-based culture and put more work on the backs of our teachers, two national trends from which the Fairfax County School Board has been desperately trying to pull away. Luckily, legislation failed that would have allowed the State Board of Education to authorize local charter schools without local School Board approval. While he’d never state it outright, this truly has been the Governor’s “Year of the School Board.”
As for Fairfax County’s priority positions, many of which involve retaining current levels of state education funding, the picture is mixed. It appears Fairfax will retain at least some Cost of Competing funding (which helps fund staff in our expensive job market) that was completely eliminated in the Governor’s budget, but Fairfax will see at least a 60 percent cut from pre-2012 funding levels. On the bad side, no budget amendments related to early (pre-K) education were included in budget proposals and the Governor’s proposal for increasing teacher salaries by 2 percent is of little help to Fairfax teachers—in order to access $1.6M at most for salaries, Fairfax would have to spend upwards of $40M.
On the legislative side, Fairfax's need to allow county-employed school health aides to administer epinephrine passed unanimously in both houses. Unfortunately, our perennial desire to remove the Labor Day calendar restriction has failed to make it out of the Senate Education and Health committee and the so-called “Tebow Bill,” which would allow home-schooled students to play on public school sports teams, passed the House and will be up for vote in the Senate.
One surprise piece of legislation—and unfunded mandate—would require that all teachers be required to be certified in Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and adds a SOL graduation requirement that all students be certified starting in 2016, as well. Of all things, we certainly needed another training course for our teachers and something else to pack into our curriculum.
If you desire to contact your legislators about issues critical to the School Board and public education in Fairfax, you might want to focus on three issues:
1) Repealing the Labor Day calendar restriction (Senators);
2) Ensuring the budget retains Cost to Compete (COCA) funding (House members);
3) Preventing the “Tebow Bill” from passage (Senators)
What this General Assembly session has shown is that, if we didn’t already know, Virginia’s Governor lacks the values supporting public education that we hold dear in Northern Virginia. What began as the “Year of the Teacher” turned into an all-out assault on public education.
Ryan McElveen (At-large) is the Fairfax County School Board's Liaison to the Virginia General Assembly.
In addition, since that one subject that I happen to know about is so poorly researched, how can I consider any of your other opinions as well thought out and researched?
Isn't commenting on his article a request for information? I did ask above "Why should you block other school districts from doing what is best for their students? " Most forums I go on, the article authors do monitor and respond to comments..... If that is not true here, I would wonder why.
It's also a matter of fairness. Would it be fair that an athlete attending the school were denied participation because a home schooled student took their place? No, it would not. If the legislature does insist on passing this bad bill, at the very least parents should have to pay a fee that covers the entire cost of their child's participation, and they should only be allowed to participate if there wasn't a student at the school qualified to take that spot.
1. The kids on the team all go to school at the same time and are dealing with the same type of schedule--the homeschooled kid can sleep in and do his work on his own schedule. 2. Grades are a factor on the teams--if you have below a certain average, you don't get to play. Who monitors the grades of the homeschooled student?
Apologies for the delayed response—the School Board had an all-day work-session today. The Tebow bill (HB 1442) would allow local school boards to determine whether home-schooled students can try out for local teams. The Fairfax County School Board voted to advocate against the legislation when it was introduced in 2012 because, in short, the bill would be unfair to current FCPS students who must comply with academic standards in order to participate. While the Tebow bill would require home-schooled students to meet academic benchmarks for two years before joining a team, those standards are not clear. As some have argued, public schools aren’t “a la carte”—students and their families have the choice to participate in the public school system and all of the activities it provides. This year, the Virginia High School League, the Virginia Education Association, the Virginia PTA and the Virginia School Boards Association, among others, have all advocated against the bill. The House of Delegates voted 56-43 in favor of the Tebow bill, and the Senate Education and Health Committee will be voting on it on Thursday, February 14 at 8:30 a.m. Last year, the bill died in this committee by a 7-8 vote. The Fairfax State Senators on this committee are Janet Howell, Dick Saslaw and George Barker. Last year, all three voted against the bill. Feel free to let me know if you have further questions or comments at ryan.mcelveen@fcps.edu. Ryan
Why is McElveen against letting other school boards choose what is best for its communities?
In other words, I don't think the homeschooling groups will simply accept the decisions of local school boards. Instead, they'll keep fighting to promote their view that public school programs and resources should be available on an "a la carte" basis. Most public school parents respect their right to homeschool, but homeschooling parents do not appear to respect the view of public school parents that teams and other school activities should be reserved to enrolled students who are full-time members of a school community. It's sad to contemplate what this could do to local teams and rivalries.
HB 1467 had bipartisan support. Its six patrons in the House included three from Fairfax County - Bob Brink (Dem), Barbara Comstock (Rep) and Tom Rust (Rep). http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+mbr+HB1467 When HB 1467 was considered by the House, a bipartisan group of 72 delegates voted for it. http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+vot+HV0480+HB1467 But, it was killed again this year in the Senate Education & Health Committee. http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+vot+S04V0181+HB1467 Of the 15 members of the Senate Education & Health Committee, three represent Fairfax County residents. One - Janet Howell - voted for HB 1467. Two others - Senates Saslaw and Barker - voted with the hospitality industry. All are Democrats.
Ryan