LoudounNow Now LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
[ Vol. 4, No. 8 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
[ January 10, 2019 ]
Skate park getting artsy
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Renss Greene/Loudoun Now
Del. Jennifer Boysko greets cheering supporters at O’Faolain’s Irish Pub in Sterling after her election to the State Senate on Tuesday.
Boysko Takes Senate Seat BY RENSS GREENE & NORMAN K. STYER
Renss Greene/Loudoun Now
Superintendent Eric Williams presents his recommended operating budget to the Loudoun County School Board on Tuesday.
Superintendent’s Budget Targets Teacher Raises, New Education Programs BY DANIELLE NADLER Superintendent Eric Williams unveiled his recommended $1.284 billion spending plan for Loudoun County Public Schools’ next fiscal year at a meeting Tuesday. His proposed operating budget for fiscal year 2020 requests $94.6 million more than the current fiscal year—a 7.9 percent increase—and sets priorities for pay increases for teachers earlier in their career, boosting staffing for special education and gifted education, immersing more students in computer science, and creating an elementary arts design school. “This is important for our students,” Williams told the School Board as he outlined the details of his plan. “Students get one shot at a K-12 education, so obviously it’s important that we get it right.”
Roughly half of the revenue hike would be targeted at salary increases. Williams wants to spend about $41.6 million to adjust the teachers’ salary scale to give them better pay earlier in their careers. His proposal would increase the pay of teachers with master’s degrees over their first five years by $6,000. “We want to give teachers more choices sooner, whether that’s buying a home, saving for retirement or just having a modest amount of disposable income,” Williams said. It would also help retain and attract teachers early in their career, when they’re more likely to transfer jobs, he added. He also earmarks $17.6 million to give all eligible teachers an annual pay raise, at an average of 2.2 percent; $6.1 million for raises for classified, administrative, and auxiliary positions; and $4.2 million for a 1.5 percent raise for non-teacher
full-time employees. His hope is to also increase psychologists’ pay, which is lower than any of Loudoun’s neighboring school divisions, making it difficult to fill the positions. He’s also suggesting slightly raising substitute pay from $110 to $112.75 per day to help keep qualified substitutes to fill in for absent teachers. Williams says the division will also need $17.8 million to cover the costs of opening two new schools this fall, Waxpool Elementary School and Independence High School, and accommodate a countywide enrollment hike of 1,277 students. He noted that enrollment of students learning English, students from low-income households, and special education students is increasing faster than the general education students. “This is important to note because it SCHOOL BUDGET >> 38
The 33rd Senate District will stay in Democratic hands as Del. Jennifer Boysko handily won the seat in a special election Tuesday. Boysko faced Republican Joe T. May in the race to serve the final year remaining on Jennifer Wexton’s term following her election to the U.S. House of Representatives in November. The election occurred just hours before the start of the 2019 General Assembly session. While Loudoun will have a full complement of senators for the duration of the session, voters in the 86th House District, which Boysko has represented since 2016, will be back at the polls in coming weeks to pick a new representative. Boysko won nearly every precinct in the Senate district, which has been represented by Democrats since Mark R. Herring won the seat in 2006—also in a special election. In Loudoun, she garnered 67 percent of the votes, totaling 10,657 votes to May’s 5,144. In the portion of the district in Fairfax County, Boysko won 77 percent of the vote, bringing the final vote tally to 14,766 to 6,376. May, a Leesburg businessman who served in the House of Delegates from 1994 to 2014, entered the race with the belief that a moderate SENATE SEAT >> 39
www.baersmattressden.com Leesburg 703-777-1600 Across from Target & Costco, next to Ledo Pizza
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