Fairfax Eyes Cutting School Health Services to Fund Full-day Kindergarten (VA)

April 4, 2011

Health services in Fairfax County schools may be sacrificed to pay for full-day kindergarten at each of the county’s elementary schools.

“Full-day K” has become something of a Holy Grail in Fairfax, where 25 percent of schools still maintain a half-day kindergarten schedule, meaning less time learning and more dollars spent on out-of-school child care. Both county and school officials agree it’s needed. But as with other items in the schools’ $2.2 billion fiscal 2012 budget proposal, like $76 million in pay raises, tension has arisen over how to pay for it.

Full-day kindergarten would cost about $8 million, according to the schools’ budget proposal. That price tag prompted the County Board of Supervisors, the school system’s funding body, to look for savings in other parts of the school budget. One area suggested by County Board member John Foust, D-Dranesville, is the $4 million the county now pays to maintain health services in the county’s schools.

About $1.8 million of that money has been set aside to pay for 12 new school nurses – a legitimate need, Foust agrees. Currently, there is one nurse for every 3,000 students, though the recommended ratio is one for every 1,000 students.

But that leaves nearly $2 million, which is allocated for training, overhead and health classes for stude nts, items less critical than full-day kindergarten, according to Foust.

“It’s the board’s discretion to send the money to the schools, and if we do, and I think we will, I certainly think it should be designated as a contribution to full-day K,” he said.

Foust’s northernmost district, which includes McLean and Herndon, has 10 schools lacking full-day kindergarten.

School board members, however, maintain that they shouldn’t have to skimp on health services to pay for kindergarten – especially as students’ need for health care is increasing. About 29 percent of Fairfax’s more than 170,000 students have “identified health conditions” such as asthma, allergies and diabetes, up from about 24 percent in 2007-08.

To pull money from health services to pay for full-day kindergarten would force school to cut some other surface to pay for the health services, said school board member Jane Strauss.

“We’re responsible for the education side of children,” she said. “If we also had to be responsible for the medical side, that would be a new and very expensive requirement.”