A Dog’s Day Out AT
INSIDE:
at
Sunday, February 8th 12-3 pm
We will have “Lost Dog & Cat Rescue” on site with some available adoptions too. 44642 Guilford Dr., Suite 101 • Ashburn, VA 20147
703-858-DOGS (3647) www.adogsdayout.com
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AshburnToday LEGAL NOTICES 32
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DAILY UPDATES ONLINE
JANUARY 29, 2015
NUMBER 33
Educa t io n
VOLUME 8
Budget Gap Narrows As School Board Targets Efficiencies Danielle Nadler
but also of those who oversee instruction, transportation and food services. Williams said weeks before he unveiled his spending blueprint that he asked members of his leadership team to find efficiencies within their departments’ budgets, and, if they have a line item they want to see increased, to find a way to pay for it by cutting somewhere else in their operations. “We want to look at ways that we can improve efficiency while also improving service,” he said.
These savings include small changes, like fewer snacks at staff meetings, less overtime, nixing some longevity and good attendance bonuses, printing and binding employee handbooks in-house and asking C.S. Monroe Technology Center students to design teacher recruitment materials. They also include big changes, such as the elimination of more than 120 positions—some that are vacant and some that would be reduced
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here’s a palpable difference in the latenight budget discussions playing out in the boardroom of Loudoun’s school administration building compared with years past. Words like efficiency, reallocation and costsavings have been repeated in work sessions over the past three weeks as Superintendent Eric Wil-
liams guided the School Board, line item by line item, through his proposed $980.1 million budget for next fiscal year. And among board members, there’s less head holding and more smiles. “We clearly are doing business differently. Thank you,” School Board member Kevin Kuesters (Broad Run) said to Williams during the Jan. 22 work session. The school system’s leadership has a lot of new faces this year. Not only the superintendent’s,
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Continued on Page 21
Students-Turned-Critics Shape Schools’ Lunch Menu C l as si fi e d
Danielle Nadler
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dnadler@leesburgtoday.com
ww w. a shbur nt oday.co m • Thursda y, Ja nua r y 29 , 2 0 15
Ashburn Today/Danielle Nadler
School officials are going to their main customers to help improve cafeteria food: kids. Harper Park Middle School students Friday offered their critiques on eight types of burritos, 11 hamburgers and one beef hot dog as part of the school system’s new “tasting parties.”
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Opi ni on
ake a deep breath. Have a sip of water. Cleanse your palate.” Becky Domokos-Bays delivered that set of instructions to two dozen food critics before motioning toward cooks in the kitchen to present their entrées to be judged. The critics offered varying takes on cuisine. Some were particularly picky about spice. Others crinkled their noses at the suggestion that there might be vegetables. But then they were just seventh-graders. They bellied up to a cafeteria table at Harper Park Middle School and lent their taste buds to help shape Loudoun public schools’ lunch menu. With a pencil in one hand and a burrito—or a hot dog or a hamburger—in the other, the students noted the food’s presentation, smell, appearance, texture and, of course, taste. “It’s a little dry,” one student wrote on a critique sheet about one of the 11 burgers she sampled. “Fantastic flavor,” a boy raved about an all-beef hot dog. “Cool wrapper,” another jotted down, praising a beef-andbean burrito. The students spent their Friday noon hour at the county school system’s third tasting party of the school year. DomokosBays, who took over as the School Nutrition Services Department director in October, plans to invite students from one school each month to sample food from a variety of vendors to help her come up with a menu of items that will not end up in the trash can. As she chooses what to serve in the school system’s 86 caf-
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