The 2017 School Board and Superintendents school budget found itself motivated by many things. The raising enrollment of students, the rising costs of health insurance, retirement, and maintenance as well as keeping our teacher salaries competitive with our neighboring districts.
Known enrollment has steadily increased in the last several years. According to the School Board’s 2017 budget, enrollment has more than doubled from 1,101 students in 1985 to 2,509 students in 2016 and is projected to grow even more by 2-3% in the coming years.
According to the Superintendent’s original budget, the actual building capacity for George Mason High School is 780 students and was increased to 900 students with trailers, but with more students every year, the need for an expansion or a whole new school to be constructed is present.
“I do not like the rising enrollment because it makes the school larger and it makes it less personal,” said Student Liaison to the School Board Dorian Charpentier. “But at the same time it is not something that the school board can control because it comes from development projects from city council… So I think they are doing their best they can with the hand they are dealt.”
In order to account for all the new students, the schools pressed for new teaching positions. For this to work the number of positions in the support staff have stayed the same since 2007, despite having more students and larger schools, the City of Falls Church secretaries, custodians, maintenance, workers, and bus drivers have been estimated to have stayed the same.
According to the city of Falls Church’s 2016 fiscal year budget, Falls Church City gets more than half of its revenues from real estate taxes and receiving the rest of its revenues from various other taxes and service fees.
Of the adopted 2016 fiscal year, all of FCC’s revenues add up to $83,027,150. Falls Church spends 47% of that 83 million dollars on education; a strong investment, considering our own GMHS is ranked the fifth best high school in Virginia according to U.S. News and World Report.
“It makes sense that [Falls Church] spends that money on education, because I think they can and it is easier to do than having to pay for other things that a bigger city or county would have to pay for,” Said Freshman Simon Lundquist.
To address our teacher’s salaries, which are on the whole lower than neighboring Arlington County, the school board planned to go into their third year of a four year alignment — but that plan has been scrapped for the time being.
