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LeesburgToday Th ur
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LEGAL NOTICES 40
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SEPTEMBER 25, 2014
OBITUARIES 51
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LETTERS PAGE 52
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WWW.LEESBURGTODAY.COM
Danielle Nadler
dnadler@leesburgtoday.com
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Leesburg Today/Danielle Nadler
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hree weeks into the new school year, the School Board is taking a closer look at the impact of cuts made during last spring’s budget season. A scaleddown staffing framework has given students less access to libraries and computer labs and has some principals and teachers chipping in to dish up lunch in the cafeteria. As it looked for savings from its initial $950 million budget, the board voted to restructure its staffing model to assign fewer employees to smaller schools. That’s translated to one dean instead of three for seven middle schools with fewer than 1,100 students, no library assistants or technology assistants for the seven elementary schools that have fewer than 300 students and no administrative interns for the 42 elementary schools with fewer than 800 students. The impact of those changes was the topic of discussion during last week’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee. School Board members
sat around a long conference table with school district administrators, school principals and an elementary school parent and asked: “So, how is it going?” Jill Turgeon (Blue Ridge), School Board vice chairman and chair of the committee, said she’s heard concerns from the small school communities about their shrinking staff size, a decision that “on paper made sense—fewer students, fewer staff—but practically doesn’t always work.” “Now we’re looking at this with a holistic view, which I don’t think was done during the budget process,” she said. The new staffing framework, proposed by Chairman Eric Hornberger (Ashburn), was adopted with the hope of not only saving money, but also balancing the level of service provided to the county’s 73,233 students. As it was, a similar number of library assistants, technology assistants and administrative interns were assigned to elementary schools with more than 1,400 students and elementary schools with fewer than 600 students. “This is new. We want to know, did we hit
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Schools Reassess Staffing Cuts Made Under Budget Pressure
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Principal Deborah Lee steps in to help serve lunch at Banneker Elementary School since positions were cut at the school. Lee serves as principal for both Banneker and Aldie elementary schools this year.
For the county’s smallest elementary schools, fewer employees has meant students only have
the right numbers,” Assistant Superintendent Terri Breeden said. “I don’t think we’re going to say we’re smart enough to hit it smack on in the first try.”
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Dr. David Goodfriend District Director, Loudoun County Health Department
students have been immunized. Each student’s paperwork from the Office of Refugee Resettlement includes documentation of a physical examination, tuberculosis screening and the first round of immunizations required for school, according to Byard. A check of these records by
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Supervisor of Student Health Services Nancy Markley showed the students also received hearing and vision screenings. The school district also is working closely with the Loudoun County Health Department to schedule Continued on Page 27
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“We are not aware of any public heath risk or concern because these children are in our community.”
Permit #78 Springfield, VA
he U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has placed 210 unaccompanied children in Loudoun County, and 75 have enrolled in local public schools since classes began in September. Amid a surge of families and unaccompanied minors pouring across the U.S.-Mexico border, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement is connecting children with family members or sponsors while they await immigration proceedings.
“We have experienced a slight increase in the number of students registering in our schools identified as refugees,” school district spokesman Wayde Byard wrote in an email to Leesburg Today. About 2,424 unaccompanied children have been assigned to communities throughout Virginia, and 37,477 assigned nationwide, according to an Office of Refugee Resettlement report. The majority of the students assigned to Loudoun are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. In the past month, Loudoun school administrators have heard from families concerned about the number of young immigrants in the county’s public schools, and particularly concerns about whether the
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Report: 210 Refugee Children Assigned To Loudoun
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