Putting More School in the Community and More Community in the School

I. Introduction

The Fairfax County Council of PTAs (FCCPTA) has long believed that sustaining broad community support is an essential ingredient in the success of the public schools in Fairfax County. For years, the FCCPTA and local PTAs have worked to help our community appreciate the high quality of our public schools. We must develop strategies to reach beyond those with the closest affinity to the schools. In appealing to those who do not have children in the schools, school supporters have pointed to the relationship between the quality of schools and the resale value of residential real estate.

We must also reaffirm the value of public education in helping our county's children become economically productive adults, informed citizens and responsible parents. The consent of our communities to finance public education is part of what has been termed the "social contract," that is, the acceptance of our responsibilities as individual members of a society to pay for services that are of indirect benefit to us as individuals, but of direct benefit to our society. The maintenance of a community's commitment to the social contract is of paramount importance in the success of that community, and must not be taken for granted. Preserving that commitment depends on citizens being confident in the quality and efficiency of the services being provided, in this case, from our public schools. Thus, as the demands on our schools and the makeup of our student population change over the next decade, we must maintain our focus on both sides of the social contract--providing excellent schools and promoting community support for our schools.

There must be a renewed effort at all levels by both schools and PTAs to reach out to all segments of our community. We are all partners in this contract to ensure continued support for public investment in our schools at a level needed to maintain their high quality. We regard the following ingredients as essential for the schools to retain the confidence and support of the public:

• At the core level, the schools must offer a high quality education to all students. Although there is, and perhaps will always be, a debate over what constitutes high quality education, we believe that the Fairfax County Public Schools and the county's citizens support this principle of excellence.
• The schools must deliver education efficiently. Whether they have children in the schools or not, citizens must have a sense that their tax dollars are being spent in a cost-effective manner.
• Both in terms of the quality of education and its efficient delivery, our schools must hold themselves accountable for their performance.
• Next, the schools--from central office administrators to school custodians--must maintain a "customer" orientation that is attentive and responsive to the concerns of all parents--including those who do not regard the Fairfax County Public Schools as an unqualified success.
• Finally, there must be an ongoing school-community dialogue. Our schools must convey accurate information about themselves to every segment of the community, and there must be a genuine invitation to the community to share their ideas and concerns with the schools and their PTAs. In turn, our communities must make a good faith effort to understand the needs of our schools and staff, according them the respect they merit as professionals.

In addition to sustaining adequate funding for public education, a supportive and engaged community can contribute ideas and time to the schools. Thus supported, our school system will maintain its reputation for excellence, attracting residents and businesses to Fairfax County and thereby maintaining its tax base and the quality of life for its residents. A strong public school system is beneficial even for citizens who do not have family members attending public schools. To quote an FCPS publication, "Good Schools are Good for Everyone."

We address these issues now because the recent years of good economic growth and relatively uncontroversial budgets may have left many Fairfax residents complacent about the state of public education in the county. We are concerned that the implementation of the Standards of Accreditation (SOA)--which require the issuance of "School Report Cards" on each school next fall--may undercut public confidence in some schools. Finally, demographic trends suggest that over the next decade an older, established population, unfamiliar with the many changes in educational approach since their days in school and unaware of the greater challenges posed by the increasing diversity of our student body, will be asked to support a more needy school population.

As active PTA members who support public education in general and our Fairfax County schools in particular, we are well aware of the strengths and limitations of our individual schools, and we are well aware of the problems our schools face due to budget limitations. Although we have no "scientific" survey evidence, we believe there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction even among some active, involved parents themselves. The FCCPTA believes that we--both our PTAs and our schools--must not ignore the concerns of dissatisfied parents.

The fact that we choose to address these issues of community support is not an implied criticism of the many excellent, dedicated, and committed teachers and principals in our schools. Nor do we wish to imply in this report that we have found the best and only ways to build and sustain community support. We offer these recommendations as a way of sharing with all the many approaches to building and maintaining public support we have found in use at one school or another, at one level or another, in Fairfax County Public Schools, as well as some initiatives we have found in use in other school systems.

In this report we identify some of the areas that require attention if we are to sustain and enhance community support for public education. Although a high-quality education is necessary for that support, that topic is beyond the scope of this document. The efficiency of the school system has been addressed in many prior Fairfax County Council of PTAs (FCCPTA) documents, as well as last year's Management Review by MGT of America. Our focus here will be on the other ingredients of public support: accountability, customer orientation, and school-community dialogue.

This report is directed at three groups; the analysis and recommendations are organized in a way we hope is helpful for each of those groups. First, we identify the major initiatives that can be undertaken system-wide to enhance community support. These initiatives are directed at the School Board, Dr. Domenech, and his leadership team and focus on the themes of responsiveness and accountability. Second, we identify county-wide settings for school-community interactions and offer a number of suggestions, as well as a number of commitments from the FCCPTA, to improve support for the schools. These recommendations are aimed at the FCCPTA and FCPS central and area office staff. The third set of recommendations is directed to local schools and their PTAs. This final section addresses strategies for cultivating local school-community communication.

Not only must the school community effectively inform the public at large, but we must develop a more collaborative relationship, one that expands the role of the community in the schools and expands the role of the schools in the community. We are aware that our school principals and teachers are already overburdened, particularly now with the challenges presented by the implementation of the Standards of Learning and Standards of Accreditation. We are also aware that Dr. Domenech is proposing a number of significant changes in the organization of our schools that will further challenge our local school staff. Nevertheless, because the successful implementation of change requires a responsive and supportive community, we believe our local schools and PTAs must strive to improve their communication and interaction with all the potential partners in their local areas.

We acknowledge that our ideas may for some be just the beginning of an effort to sustain community support, while for others they may be "old news." We hope that this document will be taken as the first step in a collaborative, open, and frank discussion, occurring at all levels, of the many ways we can work together to support our schools.

II. A Responsive and Accountable School System

Citizens are more likely to support the needs of the Fairfax County Public Schools if they believe that schools are responsive to the needs of the community and are held to account for their performance. Moreover, the community will be more supportive, and understanding of the problems our schools face, if it is actively engaged in decisions about the schools. One commentator has observed:

A well-established phenomenon in contemporary American life is the growing dependence on experts and professionals to solve our social problems. A striking consequence of this development has been the loss of real dialogue among most citizens about issues that are significant to the vitality of the nation. Though leaders and experts spend years and years working through difficult problems, relying on serious dialogue as an approach to crafting solutions, they rarely invite ordinary citizens into their deliberations. Rather once they have arrived at a consensus, they present their list of solutions to citizens and expect the country to "sign on." When they encounter public resistance, they are bewildered and turn belatedly to "public engagement," the activity that appears today on every expert's agenda.

Public engagement, if it is to be successful, must be more than just another public relations strategy. Genuine opportunities for public input and participation in school decision-making are critical to the continuation of community support for the schools. Unfortunately, many citizens, including parents of schoolchildren, have an image of FCPS as a huge bureaucracy that is indifferent and unfriendly to its patrons and concerned only with the preservation of a tenured profession. The national media attention on the poor quality of public education in the United States today--however inapplicable that judgment may be for Fairfax County-- has had its impact on public perceptions. The FCCPTA believes the schools must combat this image from within, first, by assuring that they have developed a customer-friendly orientation, and, second, by developing a system of accountability.

A. Responsiveness

The school system as a whole, from top to bottom, must make "customer orientation" an important priority. This effort must start with the School Board and end with every school employee. From the School Board on down, there are a myriad of advisory and planning groups that involve parents, community and staff. These groups are important links in the community support structure of our schools, and should be nurtured. Where citizens are engaged in the planning and implementation of education, they are more likely to feel a commitment to the success of the public schools. FCPS should identify and explore every opportunity for increased public input, awareness and participation.

Just as the School Board has made a commitment to understanding the diverse learning needs of students and providing programs that meet those needs, so too the School Board should make a commitment to ensuring the participation of community members from all the diverse communities that exist within Fairfax County. FCPS staff leaders should also commit to improving opportunities for input and participation from all our community members as part of a system-wide effort to broaden participation. Diversity is one of the assets of living in Fairfax County.

It is critical that the School Board and FCPS clarify the role of citizens appointed to various advisory committees. School Board appointees sometimes seek input from the community, but sometimes simply speak only for themselves. When appointees simply speak for themselves, they risk undercutting the credibility of the advisory committee and limit the public's access and contribution of ideas to their elected School Board members. We believe that non-staff appointees should be expected to represent the community, in order that a wide variety of views can be considered in the decision-making process.

Recommendations

1. School Board Advisory Committees.

The FCCPTA believes that these groups are not being used as effectively as they could be. The FCCPTA recommends that a parent or community member chair the committee and that each group receive training at the beginning of each new term of office on the role and responsibilities of staff, community and parent representatives on these groups. During a meeting in March with Dr. Domenech he agreed to establish an orientation session for advisory committees, effective in the fall of 1998. We also suggest that School Board members can demonstrate their commitment to more meaningful citizen participation on these committees by regularly communicating with their appointees. Further, we recommend that School Board members encourage their appointees to communicate with PTAs and other interested community organizations in their district's schools, to ensure that these appointees represent the views of their communities—and not just their own personal opinions. To facilitate the process of advisory committee appointees communicating with local schools to solicit input, the School Board and advisory committee chairs should formalize some communication channels (e.g., establish e-mail addresses for each advisory committee that are printed in every issue of Familygram; require advance circulation of advisory committee meeting agendas to local PTAs; distribute annually to every PTA and school office brief descriptions of each advisory committee, including mission/area of purview, names and phone numbers of chair and committee members).

2. County-wide Planning.

FCPS engages in the development of multi-year plans that are tied to School Board priorities and local school plans. The FCCPTA is particularly pleased with Dr. Domenech's "Two Year Division-Level Planning Cycle" process, which describes several critical points where there will be community input and an opportunity to contribute to the development of the plan. The Office of Planning and Evaluation is developing a survey to be done by Voicepoll to collect community input for the plan. The FCCPTA is encouraged by the outlines of this process, and recommends that parent and community groups be active participants in the development of the school-level objectives and accountability measures. As in the case of other advisory groups, the role of parent and community members should be clarified.

3. Increasing the diversity of participants.

The School Board and FCPS have initiated various actions to improve the responsiveness of the school division to the diverse needs of students and parents, such as the Extended Family Solutions Conference and diversity training, but additional efforts are needed. However, a specific commitment from the School Board to improving community participation in general, and the diversity of the community participating in particular, would demonstrate a serious commitment to this effort. The FCCPTA recommends that the School Board establish as a priority for the next two-year planning cycle the improvement of parent and community participation, emphasizing the importance of participation from all parents.

4. Budget Input.

The FCCPTA has previously noted its concern that insufficient time exists between the submission of the Superintendent's Proposed Budget and the School Board public hearings on the budget. The FCCPTA supports Dr. Domenech's plans to open up the budget development process during the fall before submission of the budget to the School Board. The FCCPTA also recommends that FCPS budget office staff seek out opportunities to speak to community groups--particularly those groups identified in this document-- after formal submission of the budget to the School Board.

5. School-Based Advisory Councils.

Individual schools should form councils consisting of local business and community people, who can be informed of the school's activities and discuss school-community issues with school staff. Such councils should include local PTA representation to ensure that all constituents of the school have a voice on the council. The participation of civic and business leaders in the Principal's Advisory Council is a major means of strengthening a school's ties with the community and community support for the schools. The FCCPTA recommends that all schools be encouraged to establish an advisory council, and that principals actively seek broad community participation even though it may be difficult to arrange because of the pressures of time and conflicting schedules.

6. Electronic Communications.

The FCPS home page on the World Wide Web is an excellent public relations tool. The FCCPTA commends FCPS staff for the quality of its web-site and the depth and breadth of information about our schools that is available on-line. Nevertheless, the FCCPTA believes the web-site could be made more interactive through the establishment of an on-line "suggestion box" or question-and-answer forum, where correspondents' suggestions, questions and answers could be posted for all to review. This could be structured similar to a "use-net" site where parents and staff communicate cooperatively to answer each other's questions, rather than the responses being the responsibility of a specific FCPS staff person. The FCCPTA recommends that FCPS explore additional ways our electronic resources can be used to solicit input from parents and community at the broader, county-wide level. Other suggestions on the use of our electronic resources to communicate at the school level appear in Section IV, below.

7. Public Participation in Personnel Selection.

In recent years FCPS has broadened the involvement of parents, teachers, and other community members in the process of selecting upper-level administrators, ranging from the Superintendent to individual school principals, and the FCCPTA applauds these efforts to include stakeholders. However, we are concerned that the role of community panels is unclear, the selection of members is done by a variety of undefined methods, and the impact (or lack thereof) of the panels' recommendations can leave participants feeling frustrated and used, rather than satisfied and valued. Further, applicants need to have a clear understanding of the hiring process before they decide whether to apply. The FCCPTA recommends that the School Board clarify the role of stakeholder participation in administrative personnel selection, and that FCPS staff work with citizen groups like the FCCPTA to develop procedures to implement that role.

B. Accountability

For the public to remain committed to and supportive of our schools, the FCPS must demonstrate its effectiveness in educating students and its accountability for their accomplishments and problems. Our schools along with their communities must identify goals for the schools to accomplish and the criteria for gauging those accomplishments. Although test scores may be one component of assessment, the FCCPTA has in the past specifically opposed the use of SAT scores as a measure of school achievement. We have advocated that FCPS provide more comprehensive longitudinal data for test scores (ITBS, TAP, CoGAT) broken down by socioeconomic status, length of time in FCPS, language and ESL status for each school. Some of this information is now available on the FCPS web-site, but not at the detailed analytical level necessary to demonstrate the effectiveness of individual schools in educating specific populations of students, nor is it broken down by the categories listed here.

One measure of accountability inevitably will be the SOA Report Cards. While it is important to compare schools within the county (and state) using a common standard, it is also important to note that some schools have more special needs students than other schools. The special needs school may make more absolute progress in a year than non-special needs schools, but still have an overall poorer showing on a standardized measure. The school plan, which all schools currently prepare and which will become the basis of the new school-based accountability system, should be disseminated to the same group of people who will receive the SOA Report Cards.

The FCCPTA has also advocated the importance of developing a system of accountability that assesses the schools' accomplishments in light of the defined criteria. An effective system of accountability rewards accomplishments and includes measures to improve shortcomings in staff performance. Since compensation constitutes 85% of the school budget, the schools cannot expect to sustain public support when the schools' employees receive automatic step increases, without correlation to the quality of their teaching or efficiency of their work. School system salaries should be competitively structured to attract the very best. In return for paying top drawer salaries, personnel--particularly teachers who are critical to the quality of education--should be held to high performance expectations. Those who meet expectations should be rewarded at one level; those who exceed expectations should be rewarded at a higher level. Those who don't make the grade should not be rewarded. It is thus imperative that the schools develop a system of accountability that reassures the public, while treating school staff fairly.

Recommendations

1. Commitment to Excellence.

Our schools should demonstrate to the community their continued commitment to educational excellence by:

• pursuing new ways of conducting the educational enterprise that will control future costs, while continuing to pursue the highest standards; and
• ensuring that individual and system performances are accountable, i.e., performance is measured and there are consequences when standards are met or not met.

2. Reporting to the Community.

We are aware that the Office of Community Relations and other offices within FCPS are working on this issue, particularly as it pertains to the release of the School Report Cards. The FCCPTA feels strongly that the supplementary information provided with the School Report Cards must be specific to each school, and recommends that the individual school plan form the basis of this response.

III. Leading our Organizations to Improve Community Support

Support for public education in Fairfax County can be generated from a variety of sources in a variety of ways. In this section we examine the endeavors of the central office of FCPS, the FCCPTA itself, and related organizations. The FCCPTA, as an advocate for increased support for our schools, is willing to make a major commitment to this effort over the next two years.

A. Connecting with the Media

A first step in promoting a supportive public is to provide accurate information about both our schools' accomplishments and problems and their efforts to solve these problems. In the national media, frequently there is emphasis on the failures of educational institutions in the metropolitan Washington area; as a result, many people may be left with an unfavorable image of schools which they unthinkingly apply to Fairfax County schools. The FCPS Office of Community Relations (OCR), which handles media relations for our school system, has been quite successful in presenting a more positive impression of education in Fairfax County. Among other things, OCR generates news releases, produces newsletters and publications, manages programming for the school's cable television channel, and maintains its web page. Positive stories about the schools are contributed by school liaisons--school-based employees, trained by OCR, who provide information about their schools. The MGT management review of the FCPS commended the OCR for its "nationally acclaimed public information program."

OCR's efforts to keep the public informed have been--and must continue to be--supplemented by a network of school supporters, beginning with the FCCPTA and its members. In addition, OCR is cultivating a network of 200 to 400 key people who can be easily reached to help FCPS convey important school developments to the media and the community at large. Ideally, these communicators can assist the schools by providing support and accurate information pertaining to controversies about the schools.

One of OCR's major "consumers" of information has been the real estate profession. When looking for a house in Fairfax County, prospective purchasers are typically very interested in the schools serving that neighborhood. Realtors, however, are limited by federal, state and local fair housing laws as to what they can say about the reputation of particular schools. These laws are designed to prevent realtors from improper "steering" of buyers on the basis of, among other things, race or national origin. It is the policy of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors to recommend to its members that, when a prospective buyer inquires about the schools where property is located, the realtor should refer the buyer to the schools in question and offer to take the buyer to those schools. In responding to inquiries about the schools, realtors are advised to discuss only "facts" as opposed to their opinions about the schools. The realtor may also inform the buyer about sources of information that are available on the Internet. OCR has provided school profiles, at nominal cost, to realtors.

Recommendations

1. Providing "Rapid Response" Information for Citizens.

When a controversial issue emerges in the media (either by media-generated story or letter to the editor), OCR must be prepared to disseminate useful and accurate information to concerned citizens who wish to correct any false or inaccurate information that has appeared. For example, OCR should have "vital fact" documents available and accessible via fax, web page, e-mail, or hard copy so that the communicator will have facts to back up his/her conclusions. In addition, throughout the year, OCR must continue to work to inform the public that there is a web page and other media for securing information about the schools.

2. Fostering Connections with the Real Estate Community.

We are pleased that the director of OCR is meeting with real estate professionals to discuss ways to assist them in providing accurate information about the schools. FCPS, and any school that has a home page on the Internet, should give special attention to putting carefully selected factual information on the Internet that would be of major interest to realtors and prospective purchasers of real estate. FCPS should also consider placing such information on the Metropolitan Regional Information System (MRIS), which is only available to realtors and which has a new program on schools. The FCCPTA suggests that FCPS continue to consult with the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors concerning the type of information that would be of interest to the real estate community.

3. Improving access to school documents at libraries.

While county libraries have computers that can access the FCPS web site, FCCPTA is concerned that many libraries do not have hard copies of current school publications that are easily accessible for interested citizens. We recommend that OCR continue their work with county libraries to ensure that current publications of FCPS are readily available to the public at all county libraries.

B. Fostering Relations with the Business Community

FCPS has developed numerous ties with the county's business community. There is a Business/Industry Advisory Council, composed of 40 representatives from the business community who meet regularly with the Superintendent to advise him of that community's needs and to provide input into FCPS operations, budget and curriculum. In addition, the Education Foundation and the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce's Education Committee provide connections between business and public education. The Superintendent and other school representatives are frequent speakers at business organization events. Finally, the many advisory councils, committees and groups often have business members.

FCPS has also developed a community outreach program with the business community called the Partners in Education Program. The Office of Business/Industry Relations (OBIR) in Fairfax County Public Schools coordinates this program. As of November 1997, OBIR lists 152 partnerships, which include 124 local businesses; federal, state or local government agencies; or civic clubs; in partnership with 115 schools and centers, with a few schools having multiple partners. Business partners and their activities are selected to participate based on the school's plan. OBIR provides assistance in locating partners and provides evaluation services.

In addition to the educational benefit, the Partners in Education Program provides an important opportunity for the schools to connect to the broader community. A significant number of schools, however, do not have partners. In part this may be due to the location of the school; when a school is located too far away from larger businesses (who in the past have been most likely to be partners), those businesses may be reluctant to establish partnerships. We also sense that there has been less active recruitment of businesses, due to limited resources at OBIR. The recent MGT Management Review recommended that a more equitable system of applying the resources of business to the schools be developed.

Recommendations

1. Recruiting New Businesses for the Partners in Education.

The FCCPTA believes there should be more recruitment of businesses for business partnerships, especially at special needs schools. We recommend that it be determined whether additional resources should be given to OBIR so that it can enhance its recruitment efforts or whether its responsibilities should be refocused so that recruitment becomes its primary mission.

2. Outreach to Small Business.

An identification of contact points and forums for reaching various small business associations in the county would be a worthwhile endeavor for the FCCPTA. We believe that the local schools and/or PTAs should ascertain the level of contact between schools and business within their boundaries and then convey this information to the county council or central office of the schools. Furthermore, we should identify possible connections with "regional" business groups (such as the Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce) to determine whether they might initiate their own Education Committees.

C. School-Community Interactions

There are many advisory groups--at the central office, as well as at the area and school level--that invite parents, staff and members of the public to contribute their ideas and reactions to the schools. In particular, we note the Principal Advisory Councils in Area I, where the principal selects members of the non-school public to share information with the school. As management of the school system becomes (we hope) increasingly decentralized, these local advisory groups should prove to be particularly valuable in engaging citizens in public education.

We also note that there are opportunities for school-community interaction that can foster greater understanding of the challenges and accomplishments of our public schools. For example, in Fairfax County, there are 22 community coalitions--organizations (funded by federal grants) that promote substance abuse prevention and a violence-free community for our youth. These programs are tailored to address potential or existing problems within a school pyramid. Each coalition draws its membership from students, parents, the local police, civic, business, faith and ethnically-diverse communities. Coalitions offer an ongoing community-wide awareness and involvement campaign that can increase appreciation and support for our schools.

There may be many other opportunities for school-community interaction as well. Several county-wide organizations (including the League of Women Voters and the Federation of Citizens Associations) and several organizations in magisterial districts (in Mount Vernon and McLean) have education committees that provide critical support for the schools in their communities. We need to ascertain whether other umbrella civic associations could be encouraged to establish education committees that would connect with the community's schools. There are specific task forces to revitalize parts of the county (e.g., Route 1 corridor) that should include school-based representatives who can provide ideas and share mutual concerns. Similarly, on a smaller scale, schools and community groups can help students who are required to engage in community service to identify and work on local needs.

Recommendations

1. The FCCPTA supports the work of the community coalitions.

It believes that we should continue to study this area to determine if other mutually beneficial community-school collaborations can be replicated from the coalition model.

2. The FCCPTA encourages other umbrella organizations of civic and homeowner associations within the county to form education committees.

D. The FCCPTA: Connecting with our Membership

The PTA’s mission includes the following objectives: 1) "To bring into closer relation the home and the school, that parents and teachers may cooperate intelligently in the education of children and youth;" and 2) "to develop between educators and the general public such united efforts as will secure for all children and youth the highest advantages in physical, mental, social, and spiritual education." To accomplish these objectives the FCCPTA works at many levels: with the School Board, with school staff, both in administrative offices and in schools, with our constituent PTA boards, and with other community organizations.

We believe that the FCCPTA could also benefit from a rededication to the goal of improving community support for our schools, and address in this section the ways we can best go about this. We focus on what we can do to better support and represent our member PTA boards. We also identify how we can better communicate our views and positions to those outside the FCCPTA, including the School Board and community and civic organizations.

The FCCPTA is composed of the PTA boards from almost all Fairfax County Public Schools. Many on the FCCPTA Executive Board are also PTA presidents or delegates to the FCCPTA from their local PTAs. Even with this overlapping membership between the county-wide level and the local level, the FCCPTA has found it difficult to keep its members involved in the issues before the School Board, the Board of Supervisors, and the State legislature, and in turn to remain fully informed about the concerns of our members. Part of this is inherent in the size of our school district: with 207 schools, centers, and alternative schools there are just a lot of people with whom to communicate. In the past, the FCCPTA has relied primarily on its monthly newsletter to disseminate information, but during critical times of the year, such as the budget season or when the Virginia legislature is in session, this method alone is ineffective. We have also used a FAX system to communicate, but this has proven to have limitations as well.

This year the FCCPTA has experimented with three new methods of communication: a hotline for communicating short meeting and issue advisories, an e-mail communication system with local PTA boards, and a web-site. The first of these saves many "house-keeping" type phone calls, and the latter two offer excellent and immediate two-way communication systems. Parents who are active in the FCCPTA and our local PTAs have a great depth and breadth of knowledge about school, education, and family issues at many levels. We need to find a better way to tap that knowledge and share it with each other.

As a volunteer organization we must be cautious not to place too heavy a load on any one volunteer and to use the volunteers we have wisely. One of our biggest challenges is maintaining regular communications with our local PTAs; there are just too many of them for one person to handle. In recognition of this, the pyramid coordinator position was established. This position needs to become a key link in the structure of the FCCPTA, and not just a link in the telephone chain.

Another group of volunteers the FCCPTA could use more effectively are our liaisons to School Board Committees and Curriculum Advisory Committees. These people also often serve in more than one capacity with the FCCPTA, and because of meeting schedules it is difficult to attend all the FCCPTA Executive Board meetings to report on the activities of the School Board Committees.

Commitments

1. A County-wide E-mail System.

The FCCPTA will expand its e-mail system and solicit e-mail addresses from at least one PTA board member at each school. The FCCPTA will determine in advance how to safeguard these addresses from unauthorized use.

2. Expanded Use of the World Wide Web.

The FCCPTA web site has just been posted and is still under development. All information about the officers, structure, and functioning of the County Council, along with e-mail addresses for officers, will be included on the web site. In addition, the many position papers, newsletters, speeches made before the School Board, Board of Supervisors, and testimony at the state level will be posted on the web site for reference by our members. We also will consider the establishment of a bulletin board or use-net type site to be used to solicit input on particular issues under consideration by the FCCPTA.

3. Repackage our Issues and Policy Papers.

The FCCPTA has produced many research and analytical documents over the past five years. Some have been buried in files; others are still floating around. All are too long for our membership to use effectively. The major focus for the FCCPTA in the upcoming year will be to abstract the most important information and positions from these documents and produce a short series of position papers. We expect that these will be posted on the web and distributed to all PTA members.

4. The Pyramid Coordinator.

We will employ the pyramid coordinator more effectively as a resource person for the entire pyramid.

5. Reporting on School Board Advisory Committee Meetings.

The FCCPTA appointees to School Board advisory committees will submit brief reports on the issues before their advisory committees. These reports will then be posted on the FCCPTA web site.

6. Leadership Training for the FCCPTA.

The FCCPTA is committed to providing quality training opportunities to all PTA members by providing leadership training and continued support to local units. Local PTAs should take advantage of this training and encourage members of their PTA, especially the Board, to attend these training sessions.

7. Media Training for new PTA Representatives.

Each spring as the FCCPTA and local PTAs establish their boards for the coming year, the FCCPTA vice-president responsible for media relations should contact the PTA boards to remind them of the need for a media or community relations representative.

IV. Strengthening Ties with the Community at the School Level

In our efforts to secure the support of our school "community," we recognize that there are many diverse and overlapping communities in Fairfax County. Obviously, there are various geographic communities throughout our large school district (currently ranked the 12th largest in the nation). There are also racial, ethnic, and language communities which cross-cut the geographic and residential communities. While residents may feel a sense of community with their local school and pyramid, they may feel less connection to the county system as a whole. Given Fairfax County's physical size and location within the metropolitan Washington area, some local schools may not have much to connect with if they are located in one area while people's jobs, associations, and social lives lie in other communities.

Within any given location, there are many different communities of people with connected interests: parents, homeowners, community, civic, fellowship and religious groups, business and professional entities, athletic and youth organizations, ethnic groups, and retired people. Some of these "communities" have forged strong relationships with the school system. FCCPTA believes that we must identify opportunities to build and strengthen the ties between our schools and the various communities in the county. This endeavor should be part of a long-term plan to engender community support.

Surveys indicate that most people who don't have children in school receive almost as much information about the schools from their adult friends and neighbors as from local newspapers. Our strategies for sustaining community support must include both media and person-to-person approaches. As will be discussed below, there are many ways to reach members of the community and to increase their commitment to the public schools.

Admittedly, many members of the public are limited in the amount of time and attention they can devote to the public schools. While there are undoubtedly a number of citizens who could contribute more of their time as volunteers or attendees at "Town Meeting" presentations about the public schools, most county residents find themselves very busy, with limited time even to receive information about public education. In suggesting strategies to increase support for the public schools we must accommodate these realities. In the following sections, we address a number of issues and make recommendations that are critical to maintaining public support for Fairfax County Public Schools.

A. Improving Connections with Parents

There are as many different school environments in Fairfax County as there are schools. The ever increasing diversity of students and their families in FCPS should be perceived as a positive component to our communities which enhances the education of our children in an era of globalization. Our understanding of diversity should include race, ethnicity, religion and gender. In many cultures the role of the parent as an agent in the child’s education is not viewed in the same activist light that we in the United States, with our history of local school boards and parent involvement, construe it. Our view of the parent as a partner in the child’s education is a peculiarly American conception of the relationship between school and home. Both school staff and PTA must be open to different conceptions of the home-school relationship as they embark on their efforts to improving connections with all the parents in our Fairfax communities.

A common thread that should exist in each Fairfax County school is a commitment to make "customer orientation" an important priority. Schools must be responsive to the parents' concerns. Responsiveness requires that schools and parents be able to communicate effectively; that school staffs display courtesy and respect toward parents; and that school personnel maintain an attitude of collaboration with parents as they work to resolve parental concerns. School staff must be committed to fostering communication with all parents, and not be content to communicate well only with those with whom it is easiest to communicate.

Our PTAs also have an important role to play in fostering communication between parents, school, and PTA. PTA boards set the tone for interaction between parents and school by conducting all business in an open, professional fashion that demonstrates their commitment to children's needs first. Our PTAs should be committed to the involvement of all parents in all PTA activities. The recommendations that follow address ways that both school staff and PTAs, working individually and in concert, can improve relationships with parents.

Recommendations

1. Foster a Parent-Friendly Culture.

At a minimum, school administrators, particularly principals, should require a parent-friendly culture, particularly in the front office of each school. The school plan should define the specific measures each school will take to ensure that parents from all the diverse communities in Fairfax County are welcomed in the classroom and in the school building. Local school-level follow-up from the School Board initiated diversity training workshops should be undertaken as part of this process.

2. Make our Local PTAs more Reflective of our Communities.

Just as our schools must welcome participation from all parents, so must our PTAs. Our PTAs can demonstrate their commitment to broad participation by translating PTA newsletters into the most common languages spoken by the school population and making interpreters available for PTA Board and general membership meetings. Our local PTAs should be encouraged to participate in school-based activities that are part of the follow-up on the diversity training.

3. Promote Membership in the PTA.

People join organizations and increase their volunteer efforts when they see a benefit from doing so. Our local PTAs should design activities that will benefit all groups of parents. PTAs can "market" their activities to encourage greater participation by defining the benefits to school and home from participation. School-home dialogue should be promoted as a mechanism for empowering parents in their children’s education.

4. Use E-mail and FAX to Communicate.

Many families now have e-mail addresses and/or dedicated home FAX lines. Schools and PTAs should collect e-mail addresses and FAX numbers, as they now collect telephone and cell phone numbers. Both the PTAs and the schools should consider using e-mail as a regular communication method with parents. Some schools may be able to use e-mail and FAXes in lieu of mailings for many parents, which would save both money and time. In turn, the schools should distribute their e-mail addresses to parents.

5. Investigate the School-Parent Contract.

The school system in conjunction with parents should investigate establishing a school-parent contract to be signed jointly by the school and parents that delineates the roles and responsibilities of each for the success of their children.

B. Connecting with the Media.

The Office of Community Relations (OCR) has developed a network of news liaisons at each school to provide positive stories about that school. The principal of each school designates a school employee as news liaison; at the beginning of the school year, OCR trains them to collect information of interest to the media. During the school year, each school's liaison conveys positive newsworthy information either directly to local media or to OCR, which itself disseminates the stories to the media.

The employees who serve as liaisons are, in general, doing a fine job, although they of course have other school responsibilities. Some live outside the school's boundaries and may not be intimately familiar with the concerns of non-parents who live in the area served by the school. They may also be unaware of the other members of the community who are willing to publicly support the schools, through, for example, letters to the editor and to local representatives. Although local PTA members are the logical base of this support, many may feel they lack sufficient information to present and support their positions to the media.

Recommendations

1. News liaison/PTA Collaboration.

OCR should work with local schools to encourage the school-based news liaison to collaborate with the PTA. The FCCPTA should also encourage PTAs to designate one member as media or community relations representative. This PTA member could work with the school liaison to identify relevant news, particularly news that would be of interest to the people in the immediate vicinity of the school.

2. Encouraging Local Voices.

Local PTAs should encourage their members to voice support for the schools to the media. Local community representatives and news liaisons can assist PTA members in voicing their concerns to the media. The local PTA president receives many resources from the FCCPTA Executive Board that can help PTA members prepare letters to the editor and news articles. PTA presidents should make sure that each PTA member knows i) their FCCPTA pyramid coordinator (who can serve as a pyramid resource) and ii) how to contact the various resource people within the FCCPTA.

C. Connecting with Community Associations

In Fairfax County there are several thousand homeowner, condominium, and cooperative associations, which are mandatory membership organizations, and civic associations, which are voluntary organizations. They range from stable, well-financed, and well-organized organizations to associations in name only, some of which only come back to life when a neighborhood issue arises. Some of the smaller groups have only a few active members who struggle to keep the association alive.

What is needed is a point of contact between each school and the community associations located within the school's area. Given the number and variety of associations, identifying associations and their leaders may be a daunting task. Nonetheless, developing a network between the PTA and community associations should prove to be a very effective way of reaching key leaders in the community.

Recommendations

1. Identify Contacts.

The elementary school PTAs should identify the civic and homeowners associations for their boundary area and a contact person for each association. They should share this information with the PTAs at the middle and high schools in their pyramid, thereby reducing duplication. The school principal, at least at the elementary school level, should know which associations are in the school's attendance area and the names of the current presidents.

2. Encourage Interaction.

The principal should invite the local association presidents or their representatives to attend school functions and to serve on the school-based advisory group. The PTA president should encourage the association president (or a designee) to join the PTA. In turn, the local PTA should ask each community association to allow a PTA board member to attend the meetings of the board of directors of the community association. Community associations should be on the PTA newsletter mailing list. The PTA president may also offer to attend an association's general membership meeting. PTA newsletters may include mention of community association activities such as meetings and fund-raisers.

3. Provide Concrete Information.

The beginning-of-the-year information packages mailed to each student's family should also be sent to the community and homeowners’ associations, along with current basic information about the school such as the annual School Profile. In addition, either the school's news liaison or the PTA's community relations representative could arrange to have basic information and news about the school appear in association newsletters. If the public is invited to a school event, the invitation should be publicized in association newsletters.

D. Reaching Out to the Local Community.

Schools need to reach out to the local community to inform it of the school's accomplishments and needs and to secure the ideas and contributions of the public.

Recommendations

1. Open House.

Each school should sponsor open houses in which members of the community are invited to tours and presentations at the school. Open houses for the community might coincide with a federal holiday, such as Veterans Day, to maximize the opportunity for community participation. Target groups can be invited to come to school, take a tour and then meet with teachers, students and PTA representatives for dialogue.

2. Community "Centers."

Neighborhood use of school facilities for athletic, cultural, and community association events fosters a sense of affinity with and ownership of the school and should be encouraged even more than at present.

3. Maximizing Use of School Signs.

Every school should have a marquee sign that enables it to inform the community in a brief blurb about activities at and accomplishments of the school. Principals and PTAs should make every effort to assure that the messages on the signs are kept current. PTAs have contributed significantly to this effort, as most school signs have been purchased by PTAs.

4. Community Partnerships and Volunteers.

Mount Vernon High School and its PTA have developed "Community Resource Committees," which pair non-school persons with expertise in specific areas, such as technology or history, with teachers within the school. This network familiarizes members of the community with the school and helps support school staff in their work while improving their contact with members of the community.

5. Local Business Survey.

FCCPTA believes that the schools need to reach out to the small business communities in Fairfax County. It might be useful for the principal of each school (or his/her designee) and/or local PTAs to canvass businesses within its school's boundaries and to develop an approach for communicating with local business. While local PTAs often do approach local business when fundraising, it is equally important for schools to invite local businesspeople to contribute their ideas and concerns, as well as their dollars.

6. Maintaining Contact with Alumni and their Parents.

As the number of parents of school-aged children declines and the number of empty-nesters grows, public education must increasingly rely on the parents of alumni for support. It, therefore, may be useful for schools to maintain contact with alumni and their parents, as way of keeping them appraised of the innovations and developments at their former schools.

E. Connecting with Older Citizens

Older and retired persons hold a significant number of leadership positions in homeowners' and civic associations and perhaps in other organizations as well. They are apt to think of schools and public education in terms of the schools that they attended and the education that they received years ago. They may need more information about the importance of programs that did not exist when they were in school.

Recommendations

1. Open School Doors.

Principals and PTAs should make special efforts to invite older members of the community to open houses, special school functions, advisory councils and other activities so that these citizens can best appreciate, first hand, the schools that they are being asked to support.

2. Grandparents Day.

Many schools have a grandparents day when children are encouraged to invite their grandparents to visit school. Those children whose grandparents are deceased or who live too far away to attend could invite a local senior citizen to stand in as their "grandparent for the day."

V. Continuing our Efforts to Maintain Community Support.

In recent years public engagement and community support have been major themes in education. Many articles have been written on the subject. The Kettering Foundation has devoted much effort to studying community-building and public support for the schools.

The Annenberg Institute is in the midst of an extended "mapping" project, designed to identify "best practices" of various engagement initiatives. It is a tribute to FCPS that representatives at several other Virginia school districts, when asked what innovations in public engagement they had undertaken, responded that they usually looked to Fairfax County for ideas.

As part of an ongoing effort, the Budget Committee's task force on community support will continue to study ways to increase civic commitment to the schools. A document briefly describing outreach efforts in other school districts would be useful both to OCR and to the FCCPTA's efforts. Furthermore, the continuation of our efforts to understand how to engender community support is itself a key element in sustaining that support for the public schools of Fairfax County.

If the School Board, FCPS, the FCCPTA, and our local PTAs truly make a commitment to involving a wide spectrum of community members and parents by following through on the recommendations contained in this report, we believe our schools and children would greatly benefit. Improved involvement in our schools would demonstrate to our teachers and staff that our community does value their work. It would demonstrate to our communities that our schools are doing an excellent job of educating our children, and that continued excellence is crucial to the well-being of both our children and our community. Finally, a re-invigorated partnership between school and community would help vouchsafe a bright future for Fairfax County.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Carroll, Susan Rovezzi and Carroll, David, How Smart Schools Get and Keep Community Support, Bloomington, National Educational Service, 1994.

2. Kindred, Leslie W., et al., eds, The School and Community Relations (3d edition), Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1984.

3. Lober, Irene, Promoting Your School, Lancaster, PA, Technomic Publishing, 1993.

4. Mathews, David, Is There a Public for Public Schools? Dayton, Kettering Foundation, 1996.

5. MGT of America, Inc., A Management Review of Fairfax County Public Schools 1997.

6. Various articles, Phi Beta Kappan, June 1997.

7. Wadsworth, Deborah, "Building a Strategy for Successful Public Engagement," Phi Beta Kappan, June 1997, p. 749-52.

8. Warner, Carolyn, Promoting Your School: Going Beyond PR.

INTRODUCTION

The FCPS FY 1999 Technology Plan is a significant improvement in format, content, analysis, and approach over the past plans. The $22.5 million in proposed new expenditures, and the $30.1 million in ongoing expenditures to support the Department of Information Technology, represent 4.6% of total FCPS expenditures. With these funds, FCPS is working toward three objectives:

• Superior student learning through technology. Technology should provide readily available tools that are an integral part of the teaching and learning processes.
• Effective and efficient teaching and school management through technology. Technology should be fully integrated into all aspects of teaching and into managing safe, secure, and efficient schools.
• Effective and efficient school division operation through technology. Technology should be used to improve planning and decision making, to increase management efficiency, and to reduce operating costs. Information should flow easily among schools, the community, and central offices.

Both the private and public sectors have made substantial investments in information technology over the past 20 years. Many believe that the recent, long-lasting period of economic growth in the United States is partially attributable to the efficiency benefits being reaped by decades of private sector investment in computers. Although schools have lagged behind the rest of the public sector and the private sector in integrating technology into all aspects of the daily functioning of a school, in the past five years school systems around the United States have more than doubled their investment in information technology.

The motivation behind investment in computer technology for schools at all levels are:

• Demonstrated benefits for students using computers to acquire basic skills and practice applications of those skills.
• Expansion of research resources available to students and teachers through multi-media and on-line computers. Student-initiated research and learner-centered activities, critical elements in a classroom emphasizing cross-disciplinary approaches and application of basic knowledge to a broad variety of problems, are facilitated by using computers.
• Demand by colleges, many of which now require a computer as standard equipment for incoming students, and among employers, for graduating students highly skilled in the use of computers.
• Reduction of the teacher's workload through the use of technology to perform administrative tasks, to communicate with other teachers, and to communicate with students and their families.

However, these benefits do not accrue simply because a computer has been purchased and installed in a classroom. Just as employees had to be trained and work restructured in the private sector in response to the changes that technology brings to the workplace, school staff must be trained and curriculum (the student's "work") must be restructured.

This report will review the characteristics of school districts that have successfully integrated a high level of information technology into their schools. Then we will describe the content of the FY 1999 Technology Plan for FCPS, followed by an analysis of how we stack up against the characteristics of a successful technology-rich school system, and what we need to do in the future to ensure that our investments in information technology are used effectively.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE WHEN IT IS DONE WELL?

Moving our students, teachers, their classrooms, and the offices that support them into the information age is a gargantuan task. It takes good planning, lots of money, and a system that assesses and reassesses its progress as it proceeds through its plans. Most of the information currently available on assessment of investment in technology in schools focuses on the classroom and instructional side of that investment. What follows in this section is reflective of the predominant approach in the literature. However, a significant portion of FCPS technology expenditures is for administrative functions. We will discuss these expenditures, but unfortunately have not found any guidelines for recommended balances between instructional and administrative technology investments.

More specific criteria for evaluating the use of technology in schools are presented in the October 1997 School Technology and Readiness Report: From Pillars to Progress (the STaR Report). This report was prepared by the CEO Forum on Education and Technology, a partnership between U.S. business and education leaders formed to make a difference in American schools. This year's report is the first of four annual issues and involved an assessment of the state of technology integration in almost 80,000 public schools. The STaR Report's analysis is based on five areas of performance:

1) Hardware, or the number and type of computers per student, as well as the availability of maintenance;

2) Connectivity, or the availability of a local area network, Internet connections, and connection speed;

3) Digital content, the availability of various computer applications for learning, from drill and practice software to applications for creativity, simulation, research, and networked communication.

4) Professional development, defined by the number of hours of training, the number of years of experience with technology, and the nature of technical support.

5) Integration and use, with the variants being the role of the teacher, the pattern of student technology use, the pattern of teacher technology use, and class length.

These five combined lead to:

6) Education benefits, ranging from the mastery of basic skills in a school with a low tech profile, to student-centered, authentic project-based learning, collaborative learning, and students and teachers communicating with parents, experts, other students, and teachers outside the school in a target technology school.

The STaR Chart, shown in the following pages, uses these six areas to describe technology presence, use, and integration at four different levels of effectiveness, ranging from the "Low Technology" school that uses technology primarily for administrative functions, to the "Target Technology" school that integrates technology throughout the curriculum. The STaR Chart also defines the educational benefits each level of technology integration offers. The chart can help a school identify its current educational technology profile and, based on the educational outcomes it values, target its future profile. These criteria help move the focus of planning and assessment away from hardware and head counts to a more comprehensive assessment of use.

The STaR criteria provide a framework to assess FCPS's progress toward fully utilizing technology to achieve its educational objectives. FCPS can determine its current status in each of the indicators and use that information to plan and budget. The STaR Report authors assessed nearly 80,000 public schools nationwide and found that almost 60% of U.S. schools are "Low Tech," lacking adequate classroom technology. Only 3% of schools nationwide have fully integrated technology into the classroom.

How does FCPS measure overall? Each of these areas will be discussed in more detail below, but an "eyeball" assessment is useful to begin. In the hardware area, FCPS has sufficient high-end and total computers to fall in the "Target Tech" area for middle and high schools but not for elementary schools (see Figure 1). In the other hardware areas, such as students per multi-media computer, students per CD-ROM, and maintenance, however, we are still at a lower level.

In terms of connectivity, all of our schools have at a minimum an Internet connection in the library. Many schools have additional Internet connections in computer laboratories, and all have at least the lowest level of e-mail. Access to digital content is partially determined by access to hardware and Internet connections. In some schools, at some levels, and in some courses, there is access to the full range of digital content shown in the STaR Chart. However, in most schools access to the highest levels of computer uses--simulation, research, and productivity applications--is intermittent.

In the area of professional development, our record is again quite irregular. Some teachers have the level of expertise to meet the STaR criteria for the highest "invention level" skill stage. However, "just-in-time" technical support is not a characteristic of our system. Assessment of the final category, Integration and Use, is far more difficult and cannot be done by the FCCPTA in this report. However, given the inconsistent distribution of hardware and Internet connections, the uneven level of professional development in technology areas, and our consistent underfunding of technical support and maintenance, it is unlikely that as a system we have managed to achieve consistent integration of technology in any one school, with the possible exception of some of our older, well-established magnet programs such as Bailey's Elementary School and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. And even Bailey's was just recently fully connected to the Internet, with connections in each classroom.

This brief assessment indicates not only that there are ongoing equity issues that must be addressed, but that equity is a much deeper problem than just the distribution of high-end computers. Equity must be judged by access to all the components of the target technology profile, and by the successful use of those components to achieve the education benefits described in the STaR Chart. The FCPS FY 1999 Technology Plan should be analyzed with these criteria in mind, and in light of how they help move FCPS towards the Target Technology Profile of the STaR report.

OVERVIEW OF THE FY 1999 TECHNOLOGY PLAN

The FY 1999 Technology Plan is a significant improvement over earlier plans. It includes, for the first time, a statement of goals, objectives, and benefits, and has begun to define measurable indicators for determining if these objectives are met. It has a longer range outlook, including plans for the next six years. It incorporates an assessment of where we are now, including for the first time an inventory of the computers in FCPS schools. It is based on technology profiles for elementary, middle, and high schools, alternative schools, and special education centers, that tie enrollment, programs, and staffing together to define the number and type of computers needed at each school. This targeted level of computers has then been compared to actual numbers of computers in the schools to determine the technology gap.

We commend FCPS staff for the tremendous progress they have made in refining the planning process for implementation of technology in FCPS. However, there are still many miles to go before we reach the goal of a technology-rich school system, and some of the elements key to reaching that goal are not sufficiently addressed in the Technology Plan.

The FY 1999 Technology Plan and related documents can be downloaded from the FCPS web site at http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/IT/pubs/index.htm, so we will not repeat the details of this document here. However, a summary of the key expenditure areas of the plan and a comparison of those with the levels recommended by planners as necessary for achieving a technology-rich school environment are included here. (The data and figures in this report are based on March 1998 information. April 1998 data are now available on the Department of Information Technology section of the FCPS web-site.)

Total FCPS technology-related expenditures are not presented in detail in any one location. Details on the operating expenses for the Department of Information Technology (DIT) are contained in the FCPS FY 1999 Proposed Budget. An overview of the additional proposed expenditures in the Technology Plan is also included, which was supplemented through the later release of the Technology Plan. Staff development funding for technology-related training, much of which is independent of the specific training included as part of the new projects funded in the Technology Plan, is not broken out separately.

Each pyramid has two positions, for a total of 46 positions, that support school-based technology. One, the pyramid technology training specialist, supports local technology staff development needs and the other, the technical specialist, provides maintenance and technical support. The expenditures on these positions are not included in the Technology Plan. The pyramid trainer positions are included in the Area Office budgets, and the technical specialists, for the time being at least, are under DIT allocations in the FY 1999 proposed budget.

In addition, it appears that almost all schools have designated a local staff person as technology coordinator or the equivalent. This has been done in a wide variety of ways. Some schools use an instructional aide position to do this; some have released teachers from some or all of their teaching responsibilities to focus on technology; some use parent and community volunteers; some schools have converted a teaching position to a technology coordinator position; and some schools have assigned the responsibility to other full-time staff members. None of these technology-related expenditures is included in any of the technology budget information.

There are also expenditures on technology-related equipment and infrastructure in the capital side of the budget as well. Unfortunately, we have been unable to identify most of the staff development and technology-related capital expenditures.

We estimate that FCPS has proposed spending $54.2 million for technology as part of its FY 1999 Advertised Budget: $22.5 million through the amended FY 1999 Technology Plan, plus more than $30.1 million for DIT in the FY 1999 FCPS Advertised Budget (see Figure 2). This estimate is based only on expenditures from the School Operating Fund, and as such is lower than actual expenditures. It does not include any school-based staffing that the schools themselves have established. There are small amounts in other areas of the proposed budget, such as in school-based staff development, which should also be considered technology funding.

The FY 1999 expenditures represent a slight increase over FY 1998; in FY 1998 technology expenditures were about 4.5% of the total School Operating Fund. This percentage rises to slightly over 4.6% proposed for FY 1999. In the Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States by the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel on Educational Technology (March 1997), it was recommended that at least 5% of all educational spending be earmarked for technology-related expenses on an ongoing basis. If FCPS were to spend 5% of the FY 1999 Proposed Budget, technology-related spending would be at $58.9 million, a difference of $4.7 million.

Most analyses of successful technology-rich schools recommend that approximately 30% of the technology budget be spent on staff development. FCPS does not break down its staff development expenditures in a way that permits precise assignment of expenditures to technology and non-technology subjects. Of the $22.5 in the FY 1999 Technology Plan, only $1.3 million is for staff development. In addition, DIT will spend another $237,000 on training its own staff. There are other technology-related courses included in the regular FCPS staff development offerings that are part of the $2.6 million expenditure on the FCPS Academy Courses, and schools have approximately $3,000 each for locally-determined staff development uses, some of which may be used for technology areas. In addition, the pyramid technology staff positions conduct some training, and many schools have converted a teaching position to a technology coordinator position. This person also trains school staff and provides on-site, ongoing support for technology integration efforts.

At a minimum, FCPS is spending only 6% of its technology funds on staff development, about one-fifth of the recommended level. Even if half of the FCPS Academy courses and local staff development funds are used for technology (probably a high estimate), total technology staff development would double, but still only be 9% of all technology expenditures.

The successful use of technology in schools requires a substantial commitment to staff development to achieve high results from a school's investment in technology. These figures indicate that FCPS is seriously under-funding technology-related staff development, and possibly risking the effective implementation of technology in our schools. Further discussion of this topic may be found in the section on professional development later in this report.

The projects contained within the FY 1999 Technology Plan are categorized into four areas: instruction and learning, supporting technology, technology infrastructure, and replacement. The distribution of technology expenditures among these categories is shown in Figure 3. Expenditures on Instruction and Learning uses will increase over 50% in FY 1999; expenditures on supporting technology will increase slightly, while the other two areas will drop significantly.

The distribution of Instruction and Learning expenditures on technology is shown in Figure 4. High schools received the bulk of the investment in both FY 1998 and FY 1999, although elementary schools will receive almost as much in FY 1999. The increase in this category is due primarily to the establishment of additional technical support capacity, a much needed effort and a key component of the "Target Tech" school from the STaR Report. Of the 24 new staff positions that will be created as part of this effort, 18 of them are school-based. The remaining six will be placed in area offices and central departments. Three additional positions will be out-sourced to provide Help Center assistance. Elementary school level funding also will increase, due primarily to a higher level of funding for the Elementary Model Technology School project. (Additional details on funding are available at the FCPS web-site, referenced previously.)

The major items of expenditure in Supporting Technology are the Human Resources Information System, a new computerized system for personnel and payroll functions and the continued implementation of the Student Information System (SASI). SASI is in its second year of implementation, with full implementation to be completed in all schools in FY 2000. (See Figure 5.) Technology infrastructure expenditures will be focused principally on continued upgrading of FCPS Internet capabilities, and a pilot Internet content filtering effort.

HARDWARE

Because hardware is the first building block in integrating technology into a school system, too many analyses have focused principally on distribution of hardware. As we have emphasized already, hardware is only one of five elements of a successful effort to integrate technology into the daily activities of a school. The overall numbers presented indicate that FCPS as a whole has reached the "Target Tech" level in students per computer, defined by the StaR Report as a computer with a 386 processor. FCPS defines its high-end computers as having a 486 processor or higher, so the categories are not congruent.

In an effort to establish a more precise definition of need--one that determines the need for computers based on a combination of enrollment, programs, and staffing, FCPS Department of Information Technology staff have developed technology profiles for elementary, middle, and high schools. These profiles, although not yet finalized, establish a target level of hardware, including computer work stations, local printers, high-speed printers, servers, and portable keyboards. The target for each school will be a function of the number of classrooms, teachers, computer labs, administrative offices, ESL and special education students, and type and number of course offerings. The profiles are an excellent step toward defining need in relationship to curriculum.

The technology profiles also provide a measure of where FCPS is and where it's going, school by school. The FY 1999 Technology Plan initiatives, summarized by each school's acquisition of computers under each project, can then be mapped against each school's technology profile and inventory to determine its current status and program-driven need. In addition, using these hardware targets, FCPS can compare the current level of hardware in each school with the target level. The results indicate that FCPS still has tremendous problems with equitable distribution of computers among schools.

The data in Figure 6 are based on the most recently revised profiles, but are nevertheless still tentative. Schools and departments are still validating the profiles, which should be finalized by the end of the school year and in place for planning for the coming year. Based on these figures, system-wide we are at only 32% of the target. However, there is a significant difference between elementary, middle, and high school in what percentage of the target goal has been achieved. Middle schools are at the low end, with only 22% of the target, while high schools, alternative schools, and centers are at the high end.

Within each level there are further variations (see Figure 7). Very few schools system-wide are over 60% of target; slightly over half our schools are under 30% of the target. There are proportionately more middle schools under 30% of target than among any other groups; moreover, there is only one middle school even over 40% of the target level, and none over 60%. And on a percentage basis, more than twice as many high schools have reached 60% of the target level as elementary schools.

While the FY 1999 Technology Plan uses the school profiles as a way to define need for hardware in FCPS, the profiles were not used in determining which schools received computers from Technology Plan initiatives. The decision on allocation of hardware is made at various different levels. Classroom computers required to support particular curriculum areas (e.g., the geosystems and biology classes) are assigned to specific schools by the Department of Instructional Services using a lottery system. Computers for more general uses--multi-media workstations for computer laboratories, ESL computers, and the Elementary Model Technology Program--are assigned by the area offices and are also done using a lottery system.

The additional computers anticipated to be purchased under the Technology Plan are shown in Figure 8. Again, these figures are tentative. They are based on January 1998 prices; hardware prices are currently declining and the School Board has modified the Technology Plan in its advertised budget, so the figures should be considered indicative, not exact. These allocation patterns further exacerbate the inequities already described. High schools will receive the bulk of the computers, yet they are already closer to target than any other group. Middle schools will receive the lowest share relative to their gap, yet they are furthest away from target. Given that school-by-school allocations are determined by lottery, there is little likelihood that inequities within each school level will diminish either.

There is a difficult balance to maintain in allocating computers to individual schools. Some schools have many computers because their staff and parents have made a concerted effort to find outside sources of funding, hardware, and software. Other schools may not yet have the physical infrastructure to install many computers in the classroom. Others may not have many computers because computer acquisition has not been a focus of the school's administration or parents. If allocations are made solely on the basis of reducing inequities, then schools that have taken the initiative to acquire computers on their own will be penalized and those that have not made the effort will be rewarded. On the other hand, if equity is not a consideration, the children themselves will be penalized.

For the FCCPTA the bottom line is the consequences for our children. In a perfect world schools would be rewarded for their initiative and children in schools without computers would get them as well. Although the FCCPTA would like to reward those good schools, for the sake of our children we believe that computers should be allocated on the basis of equity whenever possible. Even allocation of computers tied to specific courses should be done, when possible, with equity in mind, giving computers to those schools with the lowest share of target first. At the same time, the FCCPTA suggests that a portion of the Technology Plan funding be set aside as "grant" funds to be awarded to schools with outstanding technology programs.

Moreover, the pattern of technology hardware funding is precisely opposite that recommended by The Harvard Education Letter. We may have good reasons for emphasizing high school funding over elementary funding, but it should at least be explicitly discussed. We are particularly concerned about the middle school technology gap. It appears that many students are leaving elementary schools that have reasonable access to technology and moving into middle schools with very limited access; this is bound to be disruptive to their educational development. The FCCPTA strongly urges the Strategic Technology Planning Council to reconsider its criteria for allocation of hardware to focus on middle and elementary school programs.

CONNECTIVITY

The second of the five components of the successful technology-rich school is connectivity. The "Target Tech" level requires classroom access to a local area network and Internet access through a high-speed dedicated line. FCPS is well along toward becoming a "Target Tech" school as defined in the STaR connectivity indicators, despite ongoing equity issues which must still be addressed. Throughout FCPS over 18,000 computers are now connected to the Internet. The numbers of computers with access to both local and Internet-based networking has increased significantly in the past two fiscal years, and is proposed to increase significantly again in the FY 1999 Technology Plan.

With the accelerating integration of computers into society, the rise in popularity of the Internet and World Wide Web, and the rapid advancements in technology, it is increasingly important that educators effectively integrate technology into mainstream curricula. Network capabilities are now critical for all FCPS sites. In order to provide those capabilities, FCPS has developed an integrated network services delivery model that encompasses three levels of networking service to schools, centers, and departments.

• Level 1 services are the basic services for a site that is connected to the WAN (Wide-Area Network), the network outside of the individual school. Services include access to the Internet, e-mail, electronic bulletin boards, and FCPS and County central applications (student information, finance, human resources, payroll, transportation, etc.). This level provides communication capability with the parent community via e-mail as well as access to Internet resources.
• Level 2 services add multi-purpose servers that provide a LAN (Local-Area Network), and shared access to files, printers, and databases.
• Level 3 services use the servers provided in Level 2 as a foundation for advanced services such as access to shared CD-ROMs and other multimedia resources.

All Fairfax County schools are fully connected to the Internet at Level 1 or will be by the end of FY 1998. Funds are included in the FY 1999 Technology Plan to make significant progress toward upgrading all sites to Level 2 by the end of FY 1999. The servers being installed in each school to support the SASI student information system will also be used for local networks. The servers already in place in middle and high schools will be able to support local networks when SASI is upgraded as part of its extension to elementary schools.

The tremendous Internet and local-area network capability that FCPS is developing has applications other than e-mail and on-line research. "Distance learning" classes can be offered, making it possible for students in under-enrolled classes at different schools to share a teacher. Staff development courses can be offered over the Internet, allowing staff to save on transportation time and to complete the course work at a time and pace more convenient to their schedules. Homebound students could receive assignments and lessons via the Internet, saving time and transportation expenses.

Parents could take refresher courses in high school level courses to help their students. Members of the community could participate in distance learning classes offered by FCPS, allowing FCPS to extend its services to the community at large and improving support from the community. The FCCPTA recommends that FCPS explore future possible uses of the Internet to offer courses through distance learning. We believe there are many possible applications of distance learning that would allow FCPS to improve the efficiency of its operations.

Internet connectivity can also be used to improve home-school communications. In past reports the FCCPTA has urged establishment of an e-mail system that would allow parents and teachers to communicate via e-mail. This capability now appears to exist in many of our schools, but is not being widely used to enhance communications between teachers, parents, and students. Some school technology coordinators have expressed concern about parent-teacher e-mail, feeling that if it is used to discuss homework assignments it would reduce the student's responsibility for keeping track of assignments. The FCCPTA believes that this is a small risk compared to the tremendous benefits that could occur if e-mail were available to enable teachers and parents to consult on an individual student's academic progress. The FCCPTA strongly supports the use of e-mail to enhance home-school communications, and recommends that schools begin to routinely collect e-mail addresses as they now routinely collect telephone numbers.

There is one additional issue, addressed only peripherally in the FY 1999 Technology Plan, that should be further analyzed before next year's Technology Plan is reviewed. Internet content filtering is a topic that should have been resolved well before our schools were connected to the Internet. However, we now have well-connected schools, and no policy.

The School Board has funded, for FY 1999, a small project for one pyramid that will provide some Internet content filtering. The School Board is also in the midst of a discussion on their policy on filtering. The FCCPTA, acknowledging that this complex topic is at its core a freedom of expression issue, recommends further study by a group of parents representing the FCCPTA Budget, Technology and Education Committees.

CONTENT

Without hardware and Internet connections, there could be no content. With content we begin to get at the heart of the issue of improving educational performance through technology. There are five criteria in the Content area for being a "Target Tech" school. They are the availability of:

• Drill and practice applications
• Applications for creation
• Simulation software
• Research resources
• Networked communications

FCPS uses many different types of computer applications in these areas, ranging from the Success Maker integrated learning system to Interactive Physics to the new GeoSystems programs for high school students and that old stand-by, Claris Works.

In addition, all schools have on-line research capabilities. One excellent approach FCPS has taken to improve access to on-line research capabilities is the service purchased from ProQuest. This on-line periodical library is available to many FCPS middle and high school students and their families, either from their home computer or from a school computer. This tremendous research resource reduces the "seam" between home and school learning. In the area of networked communication systems, all schools now have them, but it is unclear if all students have access to the systems.

We have not been able to conduct a thorough review of the range of computer software applications currently used in FCPS. This subject merits additional study over the next year, and we suggest it be undertaken jointly by the Education and Technology Chairs of the FCCPTA.

Without measurements of the benefits associated with the use of technology in these five content areas, including but not limited to improvements in student achievement, we have no way of determining if our investments in technology are effective. The STaR Report states "there is a pressing need to develop new measurement tools capable of more fully describing the effect of technology on learning." The STaR Report authors are collecting data for future reports to provide some of the information needed. FCPS is also working to develop measurement tools. We recommend that reports on progress toward developing measurement tools, and on the results of the measurements, be included in future Technology Plans. Although we recognize that measurement of the benefits of technology, isolated from the benefits of other FCPS educational programs, is difficult without setting up a proper experimental setting with control groups, nevertheless we believe we must try to do this.

We are also aware that intense professional dispute is occurring over the use of the CCC - Success Maker software. At the heart of the dispute is a fundamental difference in the conception of the role of the teacher and whether the teacher can be replaced--at least partially--by technology. To quote Marianne O'Brien, FCPS instructional technology coordinator, "This issue [that of substituting machines for people] was reflected last spring in the Fairfax County (Va.) Public Schools...The district faced the difficult question of whether to expand access to a software program that helps elementary school students with language arts, math, and other basic skills - help that a teacher might have provided. We just aren't sure it makes enough difference to justify the cost. There are other things we'd rather do with the money - like give more students access to technology and do more creative things with it."

The opposing view point is represented by many Area I principals. One in particular points out that by setting up a computer lab with 15 computers, staffed by an instructional assistant, over 300 children can receive individualized instruction for 15 minutes per day, every day of the week. This represents 75 hours per day of individualized instruction. The same computer program tracks student progress, designs individualized homework or classroom drill assignments, and prepares reports for the classroom teacher in each child's strengths and weaknesses. This is a use of a computer technology which helps teachers more efficiently deliver individualized services to children.

The FCCPTA believes this topic--the use of integrated learning systems software--needs careful investigation by an independent group of parents, teachers, and administrators before the additional funds for computer-assisted instruction included in the FY 1999 Advertised Budget are expended. We must not foreclose any effective options for improving services to our children, even if these options require fundamental changes in our definition of the role of the teacher. The use of information technology has radically changed many of the industries in which it is used; we must be prepared for the possibility that our schools as well may be fundamentally altered.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Good hardware, good connections, and good content are all to no avail if your teachers don't know how to use them effectively in the classroom. Education occurs in the classroom; the professional development of the teacher must be a priority. Nor should the role of the principal as an advocate for and leader in technology integration be under-estimated.

The STaR Report defines four levels of technology skill for teachers. These have been shown previously in the STaR Chart and are offered as guidelines, not requirements. Not all staff will need 71 hours of training or more in order to reach the invention level of skill; some who have an affinity for computers will be able to learn all the necessary skills through self-teaching and experimentation. However, for many people, extensive staff development is necessary to become accomplished users of computers in their own right, and then additional assistance and time is needed to integrate those skills into daily classroom activities.

In the Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education, the Panel states:

What teachers actually need is in-depth, sustained assistance as they work to integrate computer use into the curriculum and confront the tension between traditional methods of instruction and new pedagogic methods that make extensive use of technology. Such assistance should include not only purely technical support, but pedagogic support as well, ideally including observation within the classrooms of successful technology-using teachers, periodic consultation with more experienced mentors, and ongoing communication with other teachers grappling with similar challenges.

Where do FCPS staff fall on the STaR indicators? There is no way to know. At present FCPS has no method for assessing technology skills. However, in three years all FCPS teachers must be competent in the eight Virginia Standards of Technology in order to be recertified (see text box at right). FCPS is now developing the criteria to be used for this certification. Tentative plans are to require the teacher to provide a portfolio which demonstrates both the skills and their application in the classroom. The FCCPTA believes that input from our technologically savvy kids would also be a valuable component of technology skills assessments for teachers.

By the few measures we have available we appear to be seriously under-investing in staff development for technology. We do not have an assessment system to determine what teacher competencies in technology are; technology-related staff development is significantly less than benchmark recommendations. There are more and more Academy course offerings that pertain to technology, both in terms of acquisition of basic skills and in curriculum integration areas. Many of the Technology Plan approved projects include staff development components, but with the exception of the Model Technology Program training, which is said to be excellent, they are often directed at the specific applications. However, the over 40 courses that were offered last fall to train elementary school staff on the new math programs make no reference in the course description to integration of the computer in teaching these courses. What a missed opportunity to reach elementary school teachers teaching a subject that is well-suited for computer applications!

If the full benefit of technology is to be realized, FCPS needs to make a more thorough assessment of its staff development needs in the area of technology. To use technology in an interdisciplinary, cross-curricular fashion to foster a learner-centered rather than teacher-centered environment will require significant changes in teaching style and methods. None of the courses in the FCPS Academy listings approach technology integration in this fashion.

The first step in improving our technology-related staff development offerings is to make a better determination of staff development needs. All staff could take an on-line technology competency assessment. When all staff have completed the assessment, the program could automatically compile a school-wide profile of the technology competencies of the staff. This profile would provide a much better basis for staff development planning, and would be of use to school staff in the development of their own school plans as well. The FCCPTA strongly encourages FCPS to incorporate assessments of staff development needs into the school technology profile. It need not be done in the fashion suggested here, but it does need to be done.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Although technical support is included within the category of professional development in the STaR Chart, we feel it is of sufficient importance to discuss separately. It is also a continuing shortfall of the FCPS technology program, although it is recognized as such and much effort and money has been spent in the past year to improve technical support to schools and offices within the school system.

Within the past three years 46 new pyramid-based positions have been added to support school technology use. The pyramid technology trainers assist in training functions. In addition, 23 new positions were added in FY 1998 to provide technical support. As mentioned before, most schools have designated a staff person as technology coordinator, but the manner in which this position is funded and the definition of responsibilities vary greatly from school to school. Many schools now have a local area network, access to the wide area network, and hundreds of computers, yet the School Board has yet to fund full-time school-based positions for our schools. The FCCPTA reiterates its recommendation from its FY 1999 proposed budget analysis that each school with a critical number of computers be allocated an additional staffing position. The FCCPTA believes this needs to be a professional level position, either on the US or the teacher salary scale. The Fairfax schools that are using technology effectively are doing so largely because they have been willing to make the staffing sacrifices to have at least one full-time technology support person.

THE TECHNOLOGY PLAN: RECOMMENDATIONS ON FORMAT AND CONTENT

The format and descriptive material in the FY 1999 Technology Plan are greatly improved over those of the FY 1998 Integrated Technology Plan. The Strategic Technology Planning Council (STPC) is to be commended for its work in this area, and for its demonstration of how a well-structured team representing the technical, general education, and special education departments of FCPS central staff can together effectively plan and coordinate. The actor missing in this process is the parent. The FCCPTA is sensitive to the belief of STPC members that a major element in their effectiveness has been their relatively small size. Nevertheless, the FCCPTA recommends that a mechanism for obtaining parent input on technology issues be developed. The FCCPTA is interested in working with the STPC to devise such a mechanism.

The major improvement in the FY 1999 plan was the use of school profiles to determine hardware and connectivity needs. While this still results in counting metal boxes, rather than measuring effectiveness of use, it nevertheless provides both individual snapshots and system-wide portraits of the deployment of technology. The next step in the development of school technology profiles is to incorporate assessments of content and staff development.

Some of this may already be addressed at the school level in school plans; many schools have technology plans that are part of their school plans. However, DIT does not at present use the schools' own planning processes or documents to supplement its own plans. Because both schools and departments are working toward the priorities set by the School Board, these plans should be part of a continuum of planning. The DIT plans should be congruent with the school plans, and the school plans with DIT's overall plans. The Department of Instructional Support and the Department of Student Services and Special Education should also have important roles to play in this process as the foremost sources of expertise on integration of technology in the curriculum.

There is also an equity issue; however, determining the minimum number of computers necessary for each school is only part of the resolution of this issue. We cannot simply count computers, as the profiles are still doing--there must also be some measure of effective use. An equitable distribution of technology resources should be the goal, and technology resources include humans and hardware. Future allocations of funds should consider both the human and hardware components of equity, and achievement of equity should be the most important criteria for allocating resources.

The definition of benefits and measurement of benefits specific to projects is also still weak, but this is a very complex area. We know that FCPS staff are working on this area, and will watch with interest as the process evolves. Many educational benefits are "external," that is, they are not capturable by the system. The salary a student receives in an after-school or part-time job may be higher because of technology skills; that is a worthwhile product of our investment in technology, but it is not one the school system can easily measure. FCCPTA hopes that the measurements that are obtained will be reported periodically as meaningful data become available, and that a year-end progress report on both the indicators of achievement and their measurement be made.

Format Recommendations

Implementing the following recommendations would make the Technology Plan a more comprehensive, "one-stop" source of information on technology activities in FCPS. We believe that, given the newness of the emphasis on technology, and the level of funding for technology, this one-stop approach is necessary. In time, as technology funding becomes part of an ongoing process integrated into all aspects of the school system, this may cease to be necessary.

• The Technology Plan should include a budget description of all technology-related funding, as described earlier in this paper and specifically including capital program funding.
• Project Descriptions and the Project Status Reports should include the same information and be in the same format. They should include the following (in addition to their current content of description, indicators of achievement, and expected benefits and result):

a. Project director information;

b. Expenditures by fiscal year for the life of the project;

c. A breakdown of expenditures by major sub-object code, particularly to include hardware, software, staff development, position(s) and benefits, and maintenance costs for the proposed fiscal year; and

d. A project schedule for the proposed current fiscal year.

• All costs for all unfunded items should be included.
• Finally, the release of the Technology Plan should precede the release of the proposed budget so both analyses can be consistent. There were not enough details in the proposed budget document this year to properly comment on the technology expenditures, and the Technology Plan was not released until relatively late in the budget cycle. The Technology Plan should be released at least one month before the budget is released, so it can be read and understood prior to the budget hearings.

CONCLUSIONS

The most important points of this report can be described in three words: equity, staff development, and benefits. Our analysis has shown that equity continues to be a significant problem in the allocation of technology resources--which we define to include not only hardware but technologically capable humans--both among schools and across school levels. Our analysis has also shown that we are seriously under-investing in technology-related staff development. If we are to fully reap the benefits of our already substantial investments in technology, we have to increase our investment in the human side of technology. And finally, we must begin the difficult process of defining the benefits we expect and measuring the benefits we actually reap from our investment in technology.

PTA Survey Shows Overwhelming Parent Support For

Later High School Start Times in Fairfax County

More than 88 percent of parents of children at all grade levels believe that Fairfax County’s 7:20 am high school start time is too early for teens, and a similarly large majority supports a proposal to start high schools around 8:45 am, according to a new survey by the Fairfax County Council of PTAs (FCCPTA).

The survey, conducted from May 30 to July 7 drew responses from 6,040 elementary, middle school and high school parents from almost all schools throughout the county and representing more than 11,000 students.

A Fairfax County Public Schools Transportation Task Force (TTF) in March recommended starting high schools and secondary schools between 8:35 and 8:55 am, rather than 7:20 am. The proposal also included shifting more elementary schools earlier, putting most between 7:50 and 8:55 am. Currently, Fairfax elementary schools start anywhere from 7:50 am to 9:25 am, but more are on the later end of that range. Middle schools, which now generally start between 7:20 am and 8 am, would be shifted to 9:20-9:40 am under the plan. A range of start times is necessary to make efficient use of buses.

Asked specifically about the Task Force recommendations on school start times, 85 percent preferred the recommended schedule to the current one. That included 61 percent who liked the proposal as recommended and 24 percent who said it was better than the current schedule but could still use improvement. Only 15 percent said the current schedule was preferable.

The strong majority of support held true for parents with children at all school levels, among all races and ethnic groups and at all income levels.

On middle school start times, 81% said the current start times are too early. “Parents overwhelmingly agree that teens need to go to school later and that younger children would be better off getting started somewhat earlier,” said FCCPTA President Michele Menapace. “This change is crucial to both student health and learning.”

Perhaps because of the wide range in current Fairfax County elementary school start times (7:50 am to 9:25 am), opinion was more varied about elementary school schedules. While 59% said that putting more schools between 7:50 and 8:55 would have a positive impact on elementary students, another 34% said the impact would be neither good nor bad, and 7% thought it would have a negative impact.

When elementary school parents were asked if they would prefer an 8 am start time or a 9:30 am start time for their youngsters (both within the range of the TTF proposal), 59% preferred 8 am and 33% preferred 9:30 am.

The wide-ranging survey also had these findings:

Sleep/Wake Time:

• Fairfax County high school students on average get 7.5 hours of sleep per school night but 11 hours per weekend night. Such a large difference between weekend and weekday sleep time is evidence of weekday sleep deprivation. Sleep experts say teens need about 9.25 hours of sleep per night to be mentally and physically healthy.
• To get a full 9 hours of sleep and get up by 6:00 am, students would have to be in bed asleep by 9:00 pm, but the survey found that only 1.5% of high school students get to bed by that time. Forty-five percent of high school students go to bed between10 and 11 pm, and 41% at or after 11 pm.
• Parents report that 80% of their high school students have trouble getting up on school days, compared with 75% of middle school students and 41% of elementary school students.

Method of Getting to School:

• Among high school students, only 41% ride the bus, with 54% getting to school by car and the rest walking or using other means. (Middle school: 60% bus, 33% car. Elementary school: 50% bus, 35% car)
• Parents whose oldest children are eligible for the bus but who get to school by car most frequently (61%) cite “more time to sleep” as the reason.

Breakfast:

• 27% of high school students don’t eat breakfast at home or school, compared with only 3.2% of elementary school children who skip breakfast.

Child Care:

• About 15% of families use middle or high school students to care for elementary school children after school.
• Of those who use older students to provide child care, a large majority (62%) said it would be “easy” or “somewhat easy” to find child care to accommodate the proposed schedule change.

Student Work:

• About 31% of high school students work, for an average of 11 hours a week. Of those families, about 5% say they rely on their student’s income.
• Three-quarters of the parents with working students said the proposed later end time would not conflict with their student’s work schedule, and 80% said that adjusting student work hours to the new schedule would be “easy” or “somewhat easy.”

Sports Practices:

• Nearly half (47%) of all parents of high school athletes report that their students have sports practices of 3 hours or more on school days, and about half report practices of two hours per weekday. (4 hours or more, 11%; 3 hours, 36%; 2 hours, 49%, 1 hour, 4%.)
• A large majority (80%) of parents at all levels said that time limits should be placed on sports practices for high school students on weekdays.
• Among parents of high school athletes, 76% favored limits on practice time, with a two-hour-per-school-day limit favored by a majority (another 14% favored a one-hour limit and10% a three-hour limit.).

A full report and analysis of the FCCPTA survey was prepared by George Mason University professors Dr. Adam Winsler and Dr. Henry Tran and student Drew Solyst. The report is on the FCCPTA website at www.fccpta.org. A summary and complete catalog of comments will be available soon. The FCCPTA and the Virginia state PTA support later high school start times. In May the FCCPTA general membership also endorsed the recommendations of the Transportation Task Force. For more information, go to the FCCPTA website at www.fccpta.org.

The Transportation Task Force, chartered by the Fairfax County School Board in 2007, consisted of 67 parents, teachers, students, administrators and community organization members. The Fairfax County Public School staff has been working on school-by-school bell schedules that try to accommodate the Task Force’s recommendations to take to the public for review.

During the early summer of 2008, the Fairfax County Council of PTAs (FCCPTA) conducted a wide-reaching survey throughout the county to assess the views of residents on the issue of school start times. One particular goal was to get feedback from the community about recent recommendations from the school board’s task force regarding school start times. The survey was distributed in both website and hardcopy format (in both English and Spanish), and together with principals, school staff, and the FCCPTA, notifications were distributed through various media for people to complete the survey. A total of 6,040 respondents completed the survey (one per family), representing a diverse set of 11,109 students attending 196 different elementary, middle, and high schools throughout all parts of Fairfax County Virginia.

The results described in the report give clear evidence that the majority of parents believe that the current start time for FCPS middle and high schools is too early and most report that their high school- and middle school-age students have difficulty getting up on school days. Sleep schedules on weekends compared to weekdays suggest that adolescents in Fairfax County are indeed sleep deprived and having to wake up during hours that research states they should be sleeping. Parents report liking the later school schedule proposed by the School Board’s Transportation Task Force better than the current school schedule. This was true for parents of high school students, middle school students, and elementary school students. The small number of parents who have student who work or provide childcare reported that it would be easy to make changes to child care accommodations and student work schedules to accommodate a later middle or high school schedule and that they would be in favor of doing so. School start time preference did vary slightly by family income level and ethnicity but it still remained the case that a large majority of parents, regardless of income level or ethnic group, reported that the current school start times for high school and middle school are too early.

Please Click HERE To Read The Entire Report.

From late May through early July 2008, the FCCPTA conducted an online survey of Fairfax County parents. The purpose of this survey was to get input from a broad cross-section of parents on school start times and related issues. We heard from over 6,000 parents representing more than 11,000 students at 196 schools of all levels: elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, secondary schools, and centers or other special schools. These families also include a variety of racial/ethnic backgrounds and income levels.

The heart of our survey was parents’ feedback on current school schedules versus the proposed schedule endorsed by the Transportation Task Force (TTF). This schedule has middle and high school start times an hour or more later than they are now, with elementary schools spanning a broad range of start times. We found that an overwhelming majority – over 80% -- feel that the current middle and high school start times are too early, and an even larger majority – 85% -- favor the TTF proposal over the current schedule.

The survey also provided an opportunity for parents to make comments, in their own words, about school start times. Some of the thoughts expressed by the large majority who feel that start times should be later include:

The early schedule causes family stress and logistical problems:

• “The present high school schedule has caused lots of stress for our family which has affected attendance, especially senior year.”
• “The early start time of high school has been incredibly difficult for our teenager. She is regularly late for school. She never makes the bus. It has been a logistics problem for our family for two years now. We would be so happy to have the change in time! I hope the school system will adopt it!”
• “Not only do children learn more with more sleep, there are less disciplinary issues in a well rested child. For some of us parents that work the 9 to 5 time shift, this later schedule works better.”

Sleep deficits are causing problems for children’s physical health, mental health, safe driving, and academic performance:

• “As a sleep physician, it makes a lot of sense to take advantage of teenagers' delayed sleep cycles to help them get the most out of school times rather than having them be asleep during the first half. Our goal is their education and intellectual stimulation after all.”
• “Puleeeeeze change the high school start time!! It's completely out of sync with my son's natural sleep cycle, so it's like pulling teeth to get him to bed at a reasonable hour (and he often can't fall asleep so "early," anyway) and then to get him up in the morning. He'll sleep through 1st period next year. I'm concerned about this affecting his school performance (it's starting to, already).”
• “While I don't like the idea of school starting later than 9:00, I understand the time span need. As my children have gotten older, the mornings have become increasingly difficult for the two oldest, while the youngest continues to wake up on his own every morning. I see clearly the change in sleep habits as they get older, and sincerely appreciate your attempt to match the school schedule to sleep patterns.”
• “Starting elementary kids after 9:00 so that they are still in school at 3pm doesn't make sense, especially for the younger children. Their prime learning hours are early in the day. For high school, starting before 9 am doesn't make sense; all studies show that their prime learning hours are later in the day. The early bus times for high school and middle school students have been shown scientifically to be unhealthy. How can we put high school sports or after school jobs ahead of the health of our children?”
• “A later start time for high school needs to happen. It's what's best for the health and safety of these teenagers. My daughter was rear-ended last year by a drowsy student in the morning who was not paying attention to the road.”
• “I fully support the time change suggested for high school starting time. That one hour extra time to sleep in the morning would make a lot of difference to children that age. I have observed that when my son gets extra time to sleep how his mood and attention/focus is favorably affected.”
• “My high schooler has suffered academically, emotionally, and physically from insufficient sleep. He falls asleep in class, wants to take naps after school, suffers depression, has poor grades and poor focus, and had to drop out of sports. It is my opinion as well as his doctor’s opinion that he needs more sleep than he's able to get on a school night. Taking sleep aides to fall asleep earlier only makes him groggy during the day. The high school time change is the most important and should take priority over all others.”
• “The extra hour that my high schoolers got this past school year on Wednesday mornings was VERY beneficial. They had more energy, were in better moods, had more time to get organized for the day.”
• “The current start times are too early for my high school students. Their bodies are not in sync with the schedule. They naturally need to stay up later and get up later than adults and are chronically sleep deprived. Their focus is affected and homework is a challenge. Asking them to do chores on top of that feels like so much stress. It would be healthier for the family if they could start school a bit later.”

A later schedule can still accommodate sports and extracurricular activities:

• “My high school child has 1 hour between school and her sports (she is a 3 season athlete). I think 6am buses are too early and high school kids need more sleep. Also - critical is having sports start earlier so kids can ride the "late" bus home after sports practices.”
• “School ends at 2:10 but sports/theater doesn't start until 3:15--why the wasted hour?--home at 5:30 or 6:00, dinner, shower, then homework until she goes to bed. If high school ends at 3:15 and extracurricular activities started immediately, I would definitely support the later start time.”

A later schedule would mean less unsupervised time after school:

• “Later starts for middle and high school kids will help keep kids out of trouble after school. Now gangs of kids are hanging out at empty houses from 2 pm to 6 pm.”
• “Later start times for middle schoolers, which I understand would be necessary to make available buses for high school students, would have the added benefit of leaving latchkey kids home alone in the afternoon for a shorter period of time. I would rather have my middle schooler get himself to the bus in the morning than spend so much time home alone in the afternoon.”
• “I don't like having the older kids home so early - they are a real discipline problem in our neighborhood! If the kids need time for sports - make them get up in the dark and go, not my child. I resent having everything planned around sports practices - my children's activities do not require a sacrifice by everyone else and theirs shouldn't either. But, ultimately, my biggest concern is the unsupervised older students. We have too many latch-key kids who just wander the neighborhood and get into trouble. I actually plan my day to be home when they get out so they don't vandalize my home/yard/pets.”

The experiences of other school districts show that later start times work:

• “Loudoun County has later school start times and it has been very successful. My recent graduate always performed worse in his early morning class. My daughter struggles with the huge shift in time change from elementary to secondary. As a former teacher in Loudoun County, I highly support the change.”
• “We moved here from Florida where school started at 0900 and got out at 4:30 pm. It was wonderful, the boys were well rested and still participated in after school sports and other activities. I think later start times would be in the best interests of the students and that's what school should be about, the student not what is convenient for working parents. Let's keep the students at the top of the list for the pros and cons to this decision. Aren't there numerous surveys and scientific data to support a later start time? I'm sure I've read about the benefits of starting later. I know from personal experience that for our family it will be a wonderful change.”
• “We fully support later start times - we've lived in many states (military) and most schools start later yet still succeed with sports/work/family/etc. We all adapt to schedules - the children need their sleep!”
• “All the info and statistics are in, the parents want later starts for high school, it has been a success everywhere else- our school board needs to LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED YOU!!!!”
• “Fairfax County needs to catch up with the rest of the United States in terms of the research that is available which shows that teenagers' developing brains need more sleep! Make this change now! My 21-year-old suffered through your punishing schedule & slept through his 1st period classes. Now my younger 2 daughters are almost finished with their HS careers and are sleep-deprived 9 months of the year. Complete your research and MAKE the change. You cannot make everyone happy with the change, but do what they did in Minnesota & other parts of the country (including Loudoun County) and change the high school start times today!”
• “This is very important to our family. The kids are not getting the sleep they need to do their best in school. Other districts that have changed to later start times have seen great improvements in many areas including academic performance, happier students and teachers, fewer auto accidents involving students, and fewer sick days.”