Angry parents in the Washington suburbs have organized in recent weeks with rare force, determined to save Cadillac school programs from the budget ax.
Their advocacy sets up a quandary for county politicians aiming to balance the needs of a vocal few with those of the less-active majority of residents.
In Fairfax County, Foreign Language Advocacy for Grade Schools, or FLAGS, has collected about 2,000 signatures on a petition to save the county’s 13 language-immersion schools, as well as a program in 32 schools that offers two days of foreign language per week.
“If you lose these programs that make our schools a different quality school system, then you’ve taken away a lot of what attracts people to this area,” said Sandy Knox, who said she has been working nearly 60 hours per week as co-leader of the effort.
The Fairfax Arts Coalition for Education, or FACE, organized a rally earlier this month to garner support for the elementary band and orchestra program that serves about 25,000 of the county’s upper elementary students. A spiffy Web site lists contact information for co-chairmen representing classes from theater arts to guitar, while a list of “advocacy links” encourages parents to become lobbyists.
Superintendent Jack Dale has put the programs on the list of likely cuts if the Board of Supervisors pares back his budget request. But while a cut to them would mean fewer bilingual students, or a drop in the musically adept, it could save typical class sizes from growing.
In Montgomery County, parents of students at magnet schools are speaking out at budget hearings in an effort to save busing to their specialized programs. The district estimates that transportation, on average, costs about $950 per out-of-boundary student. But without it, parents worry that students who need the magnet schools’ unique curricula would be forced into a school less suited to their potential.
“If the county could replicate the performance of [the Montgomery Blair Science, Mathematics and Computer Science Magnet] at Bethesda-Chevy Chase, or at Walter Johnson, or at Einstein, or anywhere, that’d be great,” said Dan Shepherdson, a Blair parent. “But something is going on at Blair that is not going on at the other high schools.”
What is going on elsewhere must inform budget decisions, too, said Councilman Phil Andrews.
“It’s very important for the council to think about who’s not at the table, but who also has a lot at stake,” Andrews said. “The people working three jobs, for example, or groups that traditionally aren’t organized because of a lack of resources, or time, or maybe because their interests are much more general.”
