Prince William County schools face cuts
Next year, teacher salaries will be frozen, class sizes will increase and some school renovation projects will be postponed in Prince William County, if Superintendent Steven L. Walts’ proposed budget is approved.
The School Board got its first look at Walts’ $744.5 million proposed operating budget for fiscal 2010 on Wednesday.
The budget, which is a 7 percent reduction from fiscal 2009’s budget, includes many cuts to address what Walts called “the greatest budget deficit in our history.â€
A total of $94 million had to be cut from the budget to deal with projected revenue shortfalls from both the state and the county, Walts said.
“For the first time in memory, our school division will receive less money than the year before,“ Walts said Wednesday.
He proposed a slew of cost-saving measures, including eliminating planned pay raises for employees, cutting some positions, raising maximum class sizes at most levels and eliminating funding for school repair projects.
He also proposed replacing the middle school athletic program with an intramural program. School officials said that would both save money and open the program to more students.
The maximum kindergarten class size in county schools would be raised from 28 to 29 students, the state limit. The number of teacher assistants would also be reduced in kindergarten. Classes with fewer than 25 students would share an assistant with another class. Classes with 25 or more students would still have one full-time assistant.
The maximum class size in first through fifth grades would also be raised, from 29 to 30 students, the state maximum.
Class sizes in some middle school and high school subjects would also be raised, to a maximum of 35 students, also the state maximum.
In addition, some high school electives would be eliminated.
No new school construction or renovation projects are funded in the proposed budget, Walts said.
But funding has been included to begin construction on the 11th high school, in the Linton Hall area, and to complete the replacement school project at Triangle Elementary School.
Funding is also included to complete school repair and renovation projects at Coles, Enterprise, Neabsco, Sinclair and Westgate elementary schools, which have already begun.
Walts and other school officials said they did not like making any of the proposed cuts, but some cuts must be made. “Cuts must be made and they will be painful to many,“ Walts said.
The are only two new items funded in the budget, Walts said. The first is about $368,000 needed to meet new state standards for testing Limited English Proficient students. Another $112,000 is included to continue the planning process for a proposed academic year governor’s school in the area.
Walts also proposed raising some student fees to generate more revenue for the county schools. Student parking fees would increase from $50 to $100 and driver education fees would increase from $225 to $275. A new fee of $50 per sport would be charged for participation in high school sports.
School officials are projecting that enrollment will rise by 1,423 students next year, at a cost of $14 million. Total student enrollment is expected to reach 74,744 students next year.
School officials are also proposing using $18.6 million that will be left over in the fiscal 2009 budget to fund one-time expenses that otherwise would have been included in the fiscal 2010 budget.
Walts has proposed using that money to buy 15 replacement buses, purchase SmartBoards for schools, and begin renovation projects at Rippon and Godwin middle schools, among other things.
A public meeting on the superintendent’s proposed budget will be held Monday at 7 p.m. at Hylton High School, 14951 Spriggs Road in Woodbridge.
The School Board will hold three work sessions on the budget, before holding a public hearing and voting on the budget on March 18.
For more information about the budget or to view the superintendent’s presentation, visit http://www.pwcs.edu/finance/budget.html.
Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.
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Reader Reactions
I have mixed feelings about the sports in middle schools, but what bothers me (this is only one issue of my many with PWCS) is how students do not have their own text books. They have to share with other students in their class and also another classroom. Can PWCS not afford text books for all students? Its really hard when a student brings homework home and they don’t have a text book as resource to go to when they need help. Fortunately for us we have internet, but not everyone has it. Maybe PWCS administration should have thought about the many things they are now cutting, like salaries, hiring teachers, making classes bigger, etc before the PWCS Administration built their new office building off of Rte 234 to house them. Also budgets are normally done 2-3 years ahead with changes later, so they would have known this was coming. Maybe the PWCS Administartion should review their rules on allowing non-legal resident children attend the schools—wonder how much this save us? I’m tired of the excuses of not getting a adequate education for our (the taxpayers) students.
There is no correlation between obesity and playing after school team sports. Students learn how to eat healthy from their parents and possibly from health class if they are listening. They learn how to exercise in P.E. The kids who are chosen to play on school teams are usually from families that can afford to start their kids on county teams while they are very young. You never see fat kids trying out for middle school or high school sports. This is a rarity. The “prevent obesity through team sports” mantra does not work here. Why should the county spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to foster a rare occasion that a student will actually receive a sports scholarship? It makes no sense when you have actual teachers with families that will be laid off in the upcoming school year. Custodians, bus drivers, teaching assistants, secretaries, support staff – gone. Supplies – gone (Gee, wonder how that will pan out for art, science and tech ed courses). Classes packed like sardines. And we are to consider spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year so a few privileged, already fit and healthy kids can play after school sports so that someday they just might receive a college scholarship?
We are in tough times here. Everyone is going to have to do their part. If the middle school kids lose their sports, they can catch up in high school – BIG DEAL! I would rather see that money spent on funding teachers and aids for disabled/disadvantaged children.
MY point is..why take away sports if you’re gonna crank mess in our ear about OBESITY? kids that are obese and don’t do anything about it (or their parent’s don’t force a turn-around) clearly don’t care. there’s kids that are TALENTED and enjoy the sports and it keeps THEM in shape and healthy. yes, there are plenty of wonderful county-based teams out of the school system, but it doesn’t take a genius to be aware of the fact that a key place for scouts to look for star players is in the SCHOOLS. kids who can’t afford college turn to acedemics & sports for scholarships. if you take those things away, what are they striving for? can we catch a break here? one of the things we look foward to is playing sports and attending games. it would really break my heart to have to hear of Save The Sports foundations as there are Save The Music foundations for music activities in the schools. That would be ridiculous. Get it together. Seriously.
Get rid of the sports programs NOW! Where is it written that part of a child’s education is to play football? Health - okay. Physical education (in the form of how to exercise and why) - okay. Team sports? NO WAY. The schools should have never fallen into this trap to begin with. This is a huge waste of time, money and energy on all levels. Stop using the word team sports as a synonym for teaching health. When was the last time the overweight girls in your school tried out for soccer in order to get healthy? In addition to that, Prince William county has tons of county sports teams to choose from.
The county is getting rid of hundreds of teachers and stuffing classes to the brim. The layoffs are not just for special classes, they will include core area teachers. Instead of the typical class of 30 students you will now see class sizes of 40 (Did you know the limit is 50?). Anyone who is employed by PWCS knows how bleak the 2009-2010 school year will be and should be concerned about the security of their jobs. Yet, all I am hearing is what a shame it is that the kids can’t play sports. Shame on P.W. county parents for putting team sports ahead of your child’s education and above the necessity of having reduced class sizes with qualified teachers! That is what is most important.
To help off-set the costs we could require the students to rent desk space on a monthly bases per class, purchase their own text books and also have a metro pass to ride the school buses to and from school. We as parents already have to supply pens, pencils, notebooks, notebook paper, 3 ring binders, highlighters, paperclips, copier paper, colored pencils, chalk, whiteboard markers, note cards, tape, staples, paperclips, post-it notes…..and the list goes on. Every new school year it is like stocking a new office with supplies for my daughter to just go to school. So let’s take it to the final stage of the game and charge for every little thing needed for our kids to get an education.
All this could be handled by taxes, you know, the thing you pay everyday of the week for public service, like, police, fire, roads, schools….oh wait our taxes do cover schools. Then what does the tax money pay for?
As I see it, it pays for transportation (charge them for the bus trip), building upkeep (Rent the desk space) and teachers and admin salaries. Give me sometime and I will think of a way to charge salaried back to the parents whom already pay taxes. Ok are we all confused?
cutting the middle school sports programs? & raising costs like parking passes to $100? bogus. i propose they use that extra $18.6 MILLION to fund the sports programs. they claim all the children are unhealthy and don’t get enough exercise, yet they want to cut the only outlet some kids may have to get it. and if sports are cut at the middle school level, there will be no real training and preparation for students going into high school, expecting to make teams. it doesn’t work like that. leaving them with a petty intramural program isn’t likely to get much play & participation. kids want real competition….not new smart boards. as a high school student with smart boards in most of my classes, i don’t see the real use of them. teachers got by with marker bords and chalk boards my other 11 years of school, why waste the money on them now? i’m graduating next year, but i honestly feel sorry for the KIDS that are going to have to endure the changes made for years to come.
Sounds like this piece is written with a little bias against Mr. Watts? He’s working under a budget restraint. Why tag him with “Mr. Watts’ budget.“ Where is he going to come up with extra money.
In any event, 2003’s budget was a little less than $699 mil. Adjusted for inflation, $745 is about right. All the daycare, oops, I mean Perks, oops again, I mean Pre-K, should be cut. Perhaps if social engineering could be cut then students could focus on productive education. You know, math, English, chemistry, history, etc. Then they could be productive members of society and this economy.
Alright - this is just too strange that I said something about this yesterday and here it is already. Wow.
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