Tuesday: FCPS Superintendent Makes Hunter Mill Listening Stop

Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Karen Garza will hold the Hunter Mill-area meeting of her Superintendent’s Listening Tour Tuesday, March 29 at Madison High School.

The stop is rescheduled from earlier this year, when it was cancelled due to snow.

Garza has been holding meetings in FCPS’ various regions to hear what is on the minds of citizens and also discuss what is happening in Fairfax County Public Schools.

The school board will vote on the final Fiscal Year 2017 budget in May. After warning of a large budget deficit, Garza proposed a budget with raises for teachers and no program cuts in January. But that budget depends on full funding from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

The Supervisors recently approved a 4-cent rise in the advertised real estate tax rate (to $1.13 per $100 of home value), which is enough to provide the schools with a 3-percent raise (for a total transfer of $2 billion) from last year, but far short of the 6.7 percent Garza requested to cover such items as capping elementary classroom size and raises for staff.

The schools annually receive about 52 percent of the county’s $3.99 billion budget.

The session runs from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Madison High is located at 2500 James Madison Dr. in Vienna.