Oppenhagen Column: The good and bad

When is good news not good news — or rather, not helpful good news? When it comes to education funding from the state.

Governmental leaders are beginning work on proposing budgets for the upcoming year. This is going to be an especially trying time in Prince William County. Revenues are down, and money is tight all
over. Our School Board and superintendent have a particularly rough time each year since they have to anticipate not only county funding levels but also federal and state. And this year is no different.

The only bright news on the money front comes in the form of “local composite index.” The local composite index (LCI) is an antiquated formula that stems from a Virginia Supreme Court decision
requiring an equitable education for all students throughout the state. What ensued is a LCI that has more affluent areas paying more for education than poorer localities. This is what the politicians refer
to as “sending more of our money to Richmond” or getting less from Richmond than what we send them. It’s been a sore point for years. The higher the value of property, the higher a locality’s LCI.

The most recent LCI calculation benefitted Prince William. It was a combination of lower property values thanks to the recession as well as higher student numbers. It’s not a huge amount of money, but
it would certainly help matters out. Our most recent LCI has Prince William County responsible for 40.36 percent, down from 44.37 percent. The change doesn’t amount to an increase in funding overall,
but merely a shift in who funds it. In short, the state is now sending us back more of our money.

How the state decides the cost of educating a child makes about as much sense as the LCI. The state uses its Standards of Quality (SOQ) benchmarks to determine the minimum needed to educate a
child. The SOQs dictate a certain teacher/student ratio, number of principals and assistant principals, guidance counselors, secretaries and other support staff, and more. These numbers are idealized
and absolute minimums. Any staff over and above the SOQ minimum must be paid in full by the county.

Even if you could appreciate the SOQs, our changed LCI doesn’t matter much this year. The state is going to have to make significant budget cuts, which would equate to us getting a bit more of a
smaller pie. That number is difficult to ascertain at this point; we will need to see what happens in Richmond in January. The county’s budget is also going to be smaller this year. The school system gets
an agreed upon percentage of the whole budget; this is going to provide even fewer funds to the school system.

At this week’s meeting, the School Board began getting its proverbial ducks set into a row. The news was good, given the circumstances. We’re no longer last in teacher salaries or benefits, for which
the School Board and Superintendent Walts deserve kudos. However, we do have the highest student/teacher ratio in the Northern Virginia area (31.6 -1). That helps explain how we can have the lowest
cost per student in the area as well. And while that number seems to indicate that we’re efficient, we have only to look at our progress toward achieving adequate yearly progress (AYP) in all our schools
to see that we should try to work toward decreasing that ratio.

It was interesting to listen to some of the discussion about traditional high schools. In this economic environment, I would suspect the topic is moot; however, I question even the need. Each of our high
schools has a specialty program. Our specialty programs run the gamut from international studies to advanced studies to specific technological studies to fine arts studies. We also have the Governor’s
School opening next year. What could a traditional high school possibly offer that cannot be found in our “regular” high schools already?

I don’t want you to think that all is dire with our schools. There was a report from one of our more challenged schools that elected to have a uniform this year. What was related by the School Board
member is that discipline referrals in that school have drastically decreased. In my humble opinion, good discipline is directly related to student achievement. If teachers can focus on educating students
rather than disciplining them, they can get a lot more teaching in. Maybe we could get more schools to buy in to the uniform idea.

So, all the news about our schools right now isn’t bad. The stuff we cannot control, like incoming finances, yeah — not so good. But the people within our schools — oh, yeah — very good. Let’s make
keeping it that way (the people, not the finances) our priority.

Denise Oppenhagen is a longtime resident of Prince William County and can be reached at DenOp1@comcast.net.