Comment from AC9725
Time: March 26, 2008, 10:55 am

I would be one of the last to suggest compromising on the quality of education for our schoolchildren in Rappahannock County, or compromising on the quality of our educators (you get what you pay for), but it’s an undeniable fact that our County’s population rose by just ten people in the past year, and has in fact declined over the past three years. Our school enrollment has also declined, as the median age of Rappahannock County’s residents has risen.

The time has come to draw the line in the sand. Our very way of life and our lifestyles have been severely impacted by cost-of-living increases, driven primarily by the rapid increases in fuel costs (up 67 cents a gallon since 2007 as reported just this morning on Fox News). Many of our residents are on fixed incomes, and an increase in real estate taxes on homes that many of them own outright and in which they have lived for many years, and in many cases, their entire lives, may force them to leave.

For residents who are employed, the costs of commuting has also risen dramatically. The increased fuel costs are catching us at the fuel pumps, and those who supply us with goods and services are passing the increasing costs to them on to us. We are paying more for what is often less.

Rappahannock County’s tax rate is lower than that of the aurrounding counties, but we do not have the population and industries of our surrounding counties. Rappahannock County seems also to have been largely spared the epidemic of foreclosures which have plagued surrounding counties, but sooner or later, the foreclosures will come here, likely spurred on by a tax bill that we won’t be able to afford to pay if the tax rate increases. If it’s an increase in school spending that will increase the tax rate, then I believe the Supervisors in Rappahannock County need to recognize a tightening of the belt as we are all having to tighten our belts just to get by each day.

–Art Candenquist, Amissville

Comment from Bill Freitag
Time: March 27, 2008, 8:04 am

The impulse to always raise taxes has to be overcome. If I could get my employer to raise my salary everytime I need or want something new, I’d be happy to share some of it with the school system. As it is, my income has been unchanged for several years and the price of everything continues to rise leaving no flexibility in my budget. I learn to cut here and there and do without some things.

I continue to believe that our student to teacher ratio must give to achieve realistic budgets. My acquaintences in Fairfax drop their jaws when I talk about our 10 to 1 ratio. Maybe our teachers need to each cover an extra subject (or class) so that fewer can still adequately cover the needs.

–Bill Freitag, Flint Hill

Comment from AmySilverOLeary
Time: March 28, 2008, 5:19 pm

This statement doesn’t make sense to me: “Other residents contend that with school enrollment falling, […] the budget should be reduced or held even to avoid any need to raise property taxes in the coming year.” You phrased your poll question similarly: “No, with enrollment dropping, school spending should be held level to avoid any increase in the property tax rate.” Anyone who read your poll questions would have assumed that the budget was going up this year.

On March 20, you reported that the School Board’s proposed 08-09 budget is actually around $33,000 less than last year’s budget. The reason more funds are needed from the county, possibly necessitating a rise in taxes, is that the state has reduced its contribution, due mostly to the county’s rapid rise in real estate values. (I recalculated the LCI as though we had many more students, and it stayed at the maximum: .80.) Am I missing something here?

Also, Bill, I’m not sure where you got figure of 10 students to 1 teacher. There are different ways to calculate this number, of course. The one you would probably want to use if you were comparing RCPS to other school divisions is the Superintendent’s annual report, which is posted on the state ed web site, here http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Publications/. According to the most recent data on teacher/pupil ratios posted, which is for FY 2006, RCES had 11.2 students to each teacher, and RCHS had 10.9 to 1. That’s not vastly different than 10:1, but it’s more like 11:1. This includes state-mandated special ed classes and other classes with very low ratios, which skew the numbers, of course. For the same year, Fairfax schools had ratios of 12.2 to 1 in grades K-7, and 11.3 to 1 in grades 8-12 — not jaw-droppingly higher than ours, especially considering Fairfax’s economies of scale. When RCPS is compared with school divisions of around the same size (I looked at 10 divisions with between 790 and 1,285 students, for example), our ratios are a little better than the average, which was 10.4 in K-7 and 10.2 in 8-12. I guess you could argue that all the school divisions in the state have too many teachers, but saying that your Fairfax friends drop their jaws when you tell them we have a 10 to 1 student-teacher ratio is misleading. It just demonstrates that they don’t know what their ratios are, either.

While the schools need to be frugal and address both the declining state contribution and declining enrollment, the way to do this is neither obvious nor simple. The data are very complex and people should define their terms and name their sources when they’re quoting numbers. The administrators and school board members who are trying to deal with these complex factors are neither stupid nor irresponsible. It’s not an accident that RCPS was one of 5 school divisions (out of 30) undergoing Efficiency Reviews that were advised to spend not less money, but more.

–Amy Silver O’Leary