Superintendent seeks more money for schools

Brabrand

Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand proposes a $3.2 billion fiscal year 2021 budget that includes funding increases for teacher compensation, special education, and high-need schools.

The proposed budget represents an increase of $172.2 million, or 5.8 percent, over the budget approved for the current year.

It calls for an $89.7 million (4.2 percent) increase in funds transferred from the Fairfax County government, primarily to fund compensation and benefit increases and to cover the costs associated with enrollment increases and student demographic changes.

The proposed budget includes $50.1 million for a step increase for eligible employees, $15.4 million for additional salary scale enhancements, and $25.3 million for a 1 percent market scale adjustment.

It also includes $2.7 million for the second year of a three-year plan to bring the salaries of instructional assistants and public health training assistants to 50 percent of teacher salaries in the salary scale for teachers with a bachelor’s degree.

Other proposed expenditures include $28.8 million for enrollment and student demographic adjustments, $13.3 million for projected health insurance increases, and $15.6 million for employer contribution rate increases for the Virginia Retirement System.

“In FY 20, we completed a multiyear plan to bring teacher salary scales to the market average,” said Brabrand. “My goal is to have FCPS leading the way in teacher compensation in our region.”

“We recognize that teachers have the power to change lives and deserve salaries commensurate with the critical work they do each day in our classrooms,” Brabrand says. “Our focus is achieving success for each of our more than 189,000 students and that can only be accomplished by ensuring that we have the ability to recruit and retain the very best teachers.”

The proposed budget would allocate $601.6 million for special education services, an increase of 7.5 percent over the budget approved for the current year.

That increase would support nearly 1,000 additional special education students by funding teachers, assistants, and attendants. The funding also recognizes a shift toward greater levels of resource-intensive services provided to special education students.

A total of $3.5 million would fund special education chair positions at elementary schools with large populations of students with disabilities. The new positions would support local screening committees, parent meetings, instruction, and behavior-crisis management.

Other proposed funding initiatives include:

• $3.5 million to support needs-based staffing to ensure low-class sizes for schools with increased numbers of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals. 
• $4 million to expand FCPSOn to support leased laptops for middle and high school students.
• $800,000 for high schools, based on the number of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals, to support student activity fees. 
• $300,000 to increase the pool of male teachers from broader and more diverse backgrounds.
• $1.5 million for dropout prevention, including on-time graduation coordinators for nine high schools.
• $300,000 for substance abuse prevention specialists to support the equity plan for discipline policies and practices. 
• $1.4 million for additional school counselors.

The school board will hold a hearing on the proposed budget Jan. 27 (and Jan. 28 and 29 if needed). A school board work session is scheduled for Jan. 30. The school board will adopt an advertised budget on Feb. 6 and will present it to the Board of Supervisors on April 14.