Change needed after Prince William schools’ misplaced priorities

Letter to the editor

Over the past year, I’ve knocked on countless doors across Coles District, telling voters, “I’m running for School Board to prioritize our budget and put more money in the classroom to educate our students.” It’s a simple message, but a focus that will improve our School System. As we prioritize our students, we will achieve the results our community deserves.

While our school system does a lot with the resources it has, there are a number of ways we can do better.

Fifty-seven percent of our property tax dollars go to the school system. Our county deserves to know that every dollar is being maximized. Sadly, many do not have that confidence, and every dollar wasted is an educational opportunity lost for our students.

Our misplaced priorities have created a formula that needs to change. Currently, Prince William County students are barely scoring above the state averages on most standardized tests, yet we also have the highest paid superintendent and the most expensive high school in the region. Superintendent Walts’ annual compensation package is near $400,000. How many of you knew that Prince William County is maxing out retirement contributions to three different retirement programs for Superintendent Steve Walts? We pay approximately $70,000 a year toward his retirement, a staggering amount, and more than most teachers make in a year.

While the superintendent’s compensation package isn’t enough to solve our budget problems, it’s a striking example of our misplaced priorities. We see similarly misplaced priorities in the original plan for construction of the thirteenth high school. Fortunately, just this past month, School Board member Gil Trenum forced school staff to create a high school design that was $3 million cheaper than the original design. The new design also seats an additional 500 students, all while being energy efficient. One has to wonder, if our school staff is serious about overcrowding, why aren’t they proposing designs like this themselves, instead of being forced to adapt after incessant prodding?

When you look at the data, what you find is that every neighboring county is doing a better job than Prince William County in the area of prioritizing instructional costs. This is true regardless of the number of students, or the dollars per student spent. According to the Virginia Department of Education Scorecard, Loudoun, Fairfax, Stafford, and Fauquier counties all spend between 3% and 5% more on instructional costs than Prince William County. If we increased our spending on educational costs accordingly, that would be an additional $30-50 million dollars spent on our students. This level of prioritization would make a huge difference.

As I talk to parents, taxpayers, and teachers across the district, we’ve discussed some areas where we need to improve. We need to reduce class sizes, which would improve teacher-to-student ratios and increase educational opportunities for our students. We need to prioritize special education, and we need to focus on increasing compensation for teachers and bus drivers, so we can reduce turnover and incentivize veteran professionals to continue investing in our system.
These improvements are all possible if we first prioritize our budget. Our students deserve a school board that focuses on getting results for them, and every taxpayer deserves the knowledge that their investment is being used as effectively as possible.

By electing a school board that focuses on prioritizing the school budget the same way we all prioritize our household and business budgets, we will have the ability to reach these goals and provide a better quality education for our students.

Willie Deutsch is running to become the next Coles District representative on the Prince William County School Board.