Coalition says no cuts
By Frank Mustac
Concerned with proposed cuts in the Fairfax County Public Schools budget, the Braddock District Coalition hosted a question and answer forum at Annandale High School last week attended by Supervisor Sharon Bulova (D-Braddock) and four school board members.
There are more than 30 public schools located within the Braddock District. Among them are elementary and middle schools whose students feed into Annandale and Woodson high schools and Robinson and Lake Braddock secondary schools.
Stacia Aman, one of the coalition organizers, was in the audience at the Annandale High School auditorium on March 26. Like others within the group, which formed in January, Aman is calling for the School Board and Board of Supervisors to fully fund a deficit of nearly $100 million identified by FCPS Superintendent Jack Dale in his original $2.3 billion schools budget.
School board members voted in February to ask for about $64 million of the $100 deficit from the county for fiscal 2009.
“If it is anything less than $100 million, then there will be populations of parents fighting for funding for specific programs that they don’t want cut,” said Aman, an Annandale resident and president of the Wakefield Forest Elementary School PTA.
“Our school system does a great job serving a broad spectrum of learners,” she said. “To make any cuts would greatly diminish its capacity to do that.” The reason why the coalition formed was to inform parents of the process and how they can get involved.
Aman also outlined the coalition’s concerns when she spoke before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Tuesday evening during a public hearing on the county budget. She also presented a petition with hundreds of signatures attached.
“I understand that they are frustrated, as we all are,” said school board member Judith “Tessie” Wilson speaking by phone on Tuesday.
Wilson, who represents the Braddock District on the school board, also attended the March 26 meeting at Annandale High School.
She said that in what has become a challenging budget year, some younger parents of elementary school children may be experiencing an economic downturn for the first time.
“I think that this has come as kind of a shock to them,” Wilson said. “Sometimes the school system is at the mercy of an economic downturn.”
“The economic reality is that things are tough,” she said.
“I applaud [the coalition’s] advocacy for Fairfax County Public Schools,” Wilson said. “Sometimes people are so apathetic, but this group certainly is not.”