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Politics & Government

School Board Approves New Assistant Principal, Talks Budgeting With Mayor

The Manassas Park school board and Mayor Frank Jones talked streamlining the budget process Monday. The board also approved a new assistant principal for Manassas Park High School and voted to ask for exemption from the adequate yearly progress portion of

Manassas Park Mayor Frank Jones stopped by Monday’s School Board meeting to talk greater cooperation between city government, the school board and the community.

The school board also recommended a new assistant principal for Manassas Park High School and discussed giving school employees another day of personal leave.

Jones came to encourage the school board to form two joint committees with Manassas Park City Council: A finance committee and a revenue sharing committee. The finance committee would meet monthly to track actual revenues against anticipated expenses, according to Jones. The revenue sharing committee would determine how revenue was shared between the city and the schools.

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Jones said he wanted the two committees to help steer Manassas Park toward a zero-based budgeting system, where all spending would have to be justified, not just increases. 

“Both sides need to know exactly where we stand,” Jones said. “So there’s never a surprise in what we’re getting for tax revenue  . . .  it would be a monthly opportunity for reconciliation and to have information shared.”

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Jones compared Manassas Park to a college campus, and said he was seeking unity between the various services and departments of the city government. No nominations for committee members were made at Monday's meeting.

The school board also approved Manassas Park Superintendant Dr. Bruce McDade’s decision to hire Manassas Park High School social studies and science teacher Charles Forrest as assistant principal for the school.

“He has distinguished himself as an outstanding educator, a leader in the school building, a leader of the school accreditation team,” McDade told the board.

McDade said that a professor he studied with at the University of Virginia referred Forrest to him.

“This professor said to me, ‘If you’re ever looking for a really good social studies teacher, you have got to call this gentleman, and he’s teaching right now in Alabama,’” McDade said.

Forrest said he was honored to receive the promotion.

“I was involved in a sales job for about a year and the minutes ticked by each day, it went forever and ever. I couldn’t wait to go in my car and go home,” Forrest said. “With teaching, with being involved in students’ lives, where does the day go? We have a great faculty and staff, and I look forward to the great things that are coming.”

The board also discussed giving full-time employees of the school system a third personal day, a departure from the current policy, which gives employees two personal days and gives them a monetary bonus if they don’t exceed that amount.   

“I don’t understand why we would not do this,” board member Ron Gill said. “We have been trying to find a way to reward the employees. We’ve been struck down every time.”

The resolution will be up for voting on June 20, at the next school board meeting.

The school board also passed a resolution directed to the U.S. Department of Education, asking to be exempt without sanctions from the Adequate Yearly Progress portion of the No Child Left Behind Act.

McDade said that they were able to meet standardized testing benchmarks of 85 to 86 percent for Virginia’s SOLs this year, but thinks the district will not have 90 to 91 percent passing in the 2011-2012 school year, nor reach the 100 percent goal by 2014.

The resolution, read by board chairman Michael Wine, called the Act, “A drastic misrepresentation of America’s public schools that does more harm than good” and said that more than three-fourths of public schools across the nation would be labeled as "failing."

"America’s public schools and the students they serve deserve relief from the onerous regulations that are widely acknowledged to be unfair and overly burdensome,” Wine said. “Schools are forced to spend resources on compliance rather than teaching and learning.”

The resolution passed unanimously.

 

 

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