School Board update 12/05/2022
The Christmas lights are shining on Broad Street, so that can only mean one thing: it’s the beginning of budget season. Dr. Noonan gave a presentation to a joint meeting of the city council and school board. Highlights from that meeting plus some highlights (including SOL scores, exploration of changing to later start times for secondary students, and results of the staff survey) from the past few meetings are provided below.
Budget Meeting
Dr. Noonan provided an overview of the budgetary challenges facing FCCPS this year.
The vast majority of FCCPS expenditures is spent on salaries of more than 500 employees.
A step increase costs ~$950,000
Every 1% increase cost-of-living-adjustment costs ~$400,000
Remaining competitive with surrounding jurisdictions is critical
The overall (non-pared-down if-everything-were-funded) expected expenditure increases is ~$6.5 million (including a step increase and a 3% COLA)
Enrollment is down ~130 students from pre-pandemic enrollment but is higher this year than last. FCCPS expects a small increase in enrollment for next year.
City manager Wyatt Shields provided a breakdown of revenue sharing and noted that the projected 4.2% increase in revenue would come out to about a $1.85 million increase for the schools. Nothing has been finalized.
Here are the video and slides of Dr. Noonan’s presentation and video of Mr. Shields presentation.
Staff Survey
Here are the video and slides of the survey results from the September 13 meeting.
A couple high points:
94% of participating staff members strongly agreed or agreed that their work is interesting
83% of participating staff members strongly agreed or agreed that they are proud to work for FCCPS
Some places for improvement
58% of participating teaching staff members said the majority of their students take personal responsibility for their behavior
56% of participants said they see professional growth and long-term career opportunities with FCCPS
Given that this is the first survey, it is more providing a baseline for understanding future decisions
Exploring later secondary start time
The board received a presentation from the schools about the considerations involved in changing start times.
The main challenge (among other considerations) is an agreement with Fairfax to not start Mt. Daniel Elementary before 8:50 a.m. (recall that MDES is located in Fairfax County, not Falls Church City), which limits the schools ability to start elementary students earlier in order maintain the multiple-run schedule of the current bus fleet.
Despite the challenges, board members encouraged the schools to continue to explore the issue
Student performance
The board received a presentation on student assessment at the September 27 meeting.
See the presentation for a comprehensive report on a wide variety of student activities: sports and other extracurriculars, IB diplomas, instructional enhancements being used this year
Regarding academic testing data
SOL scores showed overall pass rates bouncing back in the 2021/22 school year
There is some variation across grade levels
Several board members expressed interest for future presentations to contain more cohort analysis for better understanding of how students are performing across time
Below, you can find the overall pass rates by subject followed by the pass rates for grades 3-8. Not included are the end-of-course tests for the high school, though they showed similar trends to the overall results (with variation).
