Monday, April 8, 2013
School board agrees on a number of measures to re-evaluate teacher workday, but associations say teachers "need relief now."
Fairfax County School Board members agreed Monday on four initiatives to address the system's years-long teacher workload issue, including the creation of a committee charged with returning to the board with recommendations on reducing teacher time demands by the end of the month. But the board did not agree on specific actions to relieve teachers in the short term, as teachers associations and some school board members had hoped. More analysis and discussions, they said, are "not enough" — and continuing for much longer without concrete action will begin to impact student achievement, if it hasn't already, they said. "I'm not happy. ... This has been the No.1 issue in my tenure," Michael Hairston said of his time as president of the …
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
In town hall meeting with school board members Monday, teachers ask for solutions to workload and morale issues that, after half a decade, are as "worse as they've ever been."
Dan Hale has been a teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools for 20 years, but he’s never felt or seen his colleagues as overwhelmed as they are today. He used to know his students as readers and as writers, he says; now he only knows them as bits of data or ECART scores; pacing points and percentages. And after spending far more than eight hours at school, he leaves (with work in tow) thinking ‘What am I doing tomorrow?’ — planning time in the context of the school day, he says, is nearly nonexistent. The story was one of many shared by a few hundred teachers Monday night at a town hall sponsored by one of the county’s largest teachers unions, an effort to better connect school board members with teachers and workload issues that have …
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Educators don't support arming teachers or principals, but would welcome more trained, armed School Resource Officers "if money was no issue."
A group of educators from one of Fairfax County's largest teachers' unions says it doesn't want guns in schools, according to a survey released Thursday morning by the union, which goes on to say security personnel "can help address a portion of the issue (of school security), but they cannot fix the entire problem." The results come after nearly 500 members of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers responded to a survey on school safety and security — in an effort to make teachers' voices a larger part of state and nationwide conversations about gun control and schools, according to the federation's president, Steve Greenburg "The issue of guns being brought to schools and the issue of making our schools more secure is a complex effort…
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
In light of Sandy Hook shootings and ahead of Virginia General Assembly kickoff this week, union turns to members to get opinion on guns in schools and what safe schools should look like.
In the weeks since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., politicians and advocacy groups have issued recommendations for how schools can try to prevent the tragedy — which killed 26 students and school employees — from happening again. A voice so far largely absent from those discussions in Fairfax and Northern Virginia: teachers. One of Fairfax County's largest teachers unions is hoping to change that, launching Tuesday a security and schools survey asking its 4,265 members about the use of guns in schools, where the system could use extra security personnel, how safe schools are now and how to make them safer, among other topics. "What I see more and more of is politicians posturing up and taking positions …
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Leader of Fairfax County Federation of Teachers says lack of discussion before textbook program came to fruition has resulted in no buy-in, issues of access and equity.
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Thursday, November 8, 2012
To the Editor: There is a new math ‘series’ that is being implemented in Fairfax County Public Schools, currently. It is an online disaster that could have been avoided. Let’s reflect upon how this happened: Right after the FCPS School Board approved the FY 2013 budget (which was ‘tight’ due to revenue problems), the superintendent dropped a $7.7 million bill on their laps at the FY 2012 budget review, announcing that $10 million dollars was now available from the previous year. Later, it was discovered that FCPS administration had the nerve to sign the contract for the math series before the school board even approved the money for it. The fact that the new math series was to be primarily an online resource (vs. the more ‘traditional’ …
Monday, July 16, 2012
Because of school board action on VRS shift, new teachers will earn less than those hired in 2009; administrators say lower scale is necessary to prevent inequity across the system
Leaders of Fairfax County teachers unions say new teachers hired at the lowest pay step this school year will be earning $1,129 less than their counterparts in 2009 as part of pay scale adjustments expected to take effect next month. The adjustments were a response to Fairfax County School Board action on new state legislation requiring public school employees who participate in the Virginia Retirement System to pay a 5 percent employee contribution, which school systems currently pay. To offset the increased contribution, the legislation requires school systems to in turn pay a 5 percent salary increase to employees. School systems have the choice of implementing the change all at once or over the course of five years, but all new …
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
State mandates academic progress account for 40 percent of county's evaluation system
Starting this fall, Fairfax County teachers will be evaluated under a new system that weighs student academic progress as 40 percent of their overall ratings. The shift comes as part of new Virginia Department standards and evaluation criteria for teacher performance localities must approve by July 1 of this year. For several months, the 40 percent was only a recommendation, said Fairfax Education Association President Michael Hairston, who sat on the state workgroup that addressed the issue. But a June 1 press release about the state’s second attempt at a waiver from federal No Child Left Behind requirements indicated to Fairfax officials that amount was mandatory. “There’s a lot of angst. There’s a lot of concern from teachers,” …
Nein Juan Juan
12:21 pm on Thursday, April 11, 2013
The middle east is a big place. While there may be a few countries in the middle east with a better education system, I doubt most could make that claim. Although, the U.S. has nothing to brag about our education system. The problem is we throw money at the problem and add layers of bureaucracy instead of worrying about the basics, teaching the students. more ›