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Health & Fitness

School Board Matters

A quick wrap-up of School Board news from your Hunter Mill representative.

I began my School Board day today reading Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go to a charming, thoughtful class of fifth graders at McNair Elementary School in Herndon.

I will end this day at Hunter Mill Supervisor Cathy Hudgins’ citizen budget review committee’s evening meeting, taking comments and answering questions about the proposed FCPS 2013 budget. 

On the scale of School Board duties I’m already comfortable doing, reading Dr. Seuss with kids is at one end, explaining our $2.4 billion budget proposal is pretty near the other.  

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Fortunately, I will have a member of FCPS staff with me tonight to help with numbers.  I also know I can count on the members of Supervisor Hudgins’ advisory committee, having been a member myself in past years, to educate me about community priorities when it comes to schools and the other public services our tax dollars support.  

We on the School Board know that our proposed budget is optimistic.  We are hopeful that we can recover some of what’s been lost over the last four years of budget cuts and growing enrollments.  But we know that we will almost certainly have to make tough choices in May, after we find out what the county and state budgets will provide for schools.

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Unlike some of my colleagues on the School Board, I voted with the majority to keep all of our hopes on the table as we head into conversations with the Board of Supervisors and the public. I want us to have as much time as possible to hear from the community, so that our tough priorities discussion in May will be fully informed.

If you want to follow the budget process, check both the FCPS and county web sites:  www.fcps.edu and www.fairfaxcounty.gov.  Both web sites have budget links on their home pages, where you can read the budget documents and find out how to participate.  Always feel free to contact me at pmhynes@fcps.edu.

. . . . .

This past Saturday, the School Board and the Board of Supervisors spent the whole day in one room talking about how we can work together more effectively on common goals.  Very early in the conversation, two truths became apparent: all of our goals envision the same healthy, well-educated and successful community; and our respective staffs are already working together in many unexpected ways.  

The combined retreat, the first one in anyone’s memory, was mostly a brainstorming opportunity.  Discussion topics included: coordinating transportation services as the county continues to urbanize; designing school buildings to incorporate other family services; building in safe routes for pedestrian and bike access to schools; coordinating and scaling up early education efforts to close the kindergarten readiness gap; and improving communication on challenging issues like the budget.

At the end of the day, it was generally agreed that more combined retreats are needed.  The fairly informal atmosphere was a welcome change from how the two boards usually interact, in my opinion.  Two more retreats were tentatively planned for the remainder of the calendar year.

. . . . . 

As I’m writing this, I see that Fairfax County Executive Tony Griffin has just today released his proposed FY 2013 county budget, which includes a 4.5-percent increase over last year in the county’s transfer to FCPS.  An increase is welcome news, of course, though the amount falls short of our hopes.  Please let your school board members and supervisors know where you think our budget priorities should be. 

. . . . .

As you may know, America celebrates Dr. Seuss this week, with Read Across America Day on Friday and week-long activities in honor of what would be his 105th birthday.  I am so enjoying sharing great books with our students.  I hope everyone will have time at least once this week to curl up with a good book and read!

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