Students, Parents Rise In Defense of Programs

Almost 200 Fairfax County residents last night protested school budget proposals that would increase class size, cut subsidies for Advanced Placement tests and trim programs that serve minority or disadvantaged students.

Some in the standing-room-only crowd at Luther Jackson Middle School in the Falls Church area told School Board members that the cuts, proposed to help bridge a $100 million revenue shortage, would hurt needy students the most. Many students argued that a proposal to charge for after-school sports would be unfair.

"Extracurricular activities are not the rich kids' clubs; they are activities that enrich the education of all students," said LeighAnne Baxter, a 16-year-old junior at Robinson Secondary School.

Officials have called the $2.3 billion operating budget for the 2008-09 school year one of the leanest in recent times. Superintendent Jack D. Dale seeks to raise spending 3.3 percent, the smallest bump in at least five years for the 165,700-student system.

The School Board is likely to approve a preliminary budget Feb. 14, then send it to county supervisors, who will set the property tax rates and school spending levels. A final budget is expected to be approved in late May and would take effect July 1.

School systems in the Washington area and the nation are pinched this year, because of steep declines in real estate tax revenue.

Prince William County schools Superintendent Steven L. Walts last night submitted an $836.2 million budget for fiscal 2009 that officials said would not enable the 73,000-student system to match teacher salaries in many neighboring counties and cities. Still, the Walts proposal would reduce the size of some classes and continue adding International Baccalaureate programs in elementary schools.

"While Prince William County Public Schools continues to celebrate many successes, we are at risk of not being able to sustain our efforts to become World-Class," Walts wrote in his proposal.

Fairfax parents have sounded alarms over some proposed cuts.

Michele Menapace, president of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs, said that the budget was developed without sufficient parent input and that parents needed a clearer picture of changes to other programs.

Some argued that the school system should not fund new programs at the expense of deep cuts in others. Dale seeks to continue to expand full-day kindergarten in the county and foreign language offerings in elementary schools, at a combined cost of about $8 million.

Parents passed out school-bus-decorated stickers at the hearing and protested a proposal to replace door-to-door bus service for students who attend distant gifted-and-talented magnet programs with a depot system in which groups of students would be dropped off at their nearest elementary school.

Anne McAndrew of Springfield, whose son attends Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where busing service would be limited under the proposal, said she and her husband work 10- to 12-hour days and cannot pick up their son.

"Transportation of students to and from school is a basic service that should be provided to all children," she said in an interview.

Dozens of teachers wore bright red shirts and urged the board to support the proposed 3 percent cost-of-living pay increase and to reverse Dale's proposal to increase class sizes and reduce the number of instructional aides. They waved signs asking board members to support "What's Right . . . Not What's Left."