Email to Board of Supervisors January 22, 2014 Laura Abbott Members of the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors, I am writing to you because I am unable to speak personally at the board meeting January 22, 2014. I am a 10 year teacher in Chesterfield County and I am very concerned with the diminished quality of education that I have witnessed since the 2008 – 2009 school year. Since that time, class sizes and teacher work load have increased substantially while teacher compensation has decreased. The result of this failed county policy has been a steadily declining quality of education for our students. When I began teaching in Chesterfield County there was a sense of appreciation and respect for teachers witnessed by the fact that they were rewarded for their experience through increased compensation for years of experience. In addition, the county increased salaries from 2004 to 2008 in an effort to become competitive with surrounding counties in Central Virginia. Since 2008 compensation has been cut, steps frozen, and both health benefit and VRS contributions have increased. Teachers are being asked to do more with less monetary compensation leading to incredibly low morale county wide. This has led to a teacher workforce that feels that their contributions to our community do not matter and that they are no longer appreciated by Chesterfield County community. In November Chesterfield County residents declined to support a food tax that would have funded renovations to buildings much in need of improvement. In addition, since 2010 the board of supervisors has refused to raise property taxes to increase funding that would significantly improve the current fiscal deficit within our school system. The result of both of these failures on the part of Chesterfield residents and supervisors has only added to the continuing decrease in quality education for our students. It is the responsibility of the leaders of Chesterfield County to fix this situation and provide our students with the quality education that they deserve and are currently denied. When I was in high school a similar fiscal situation forced county leaders to make drastic cuts in the school system to ensure that students still received a quality education. In order to ensure that class sizes remained manageable for students and teachers alike, our county chose to cut all Junior Varsity and freshmen sports, keeping only Varsity sports. It was my freshman year of high school and the community was outraged that the county would cut their sports programs. The cuts hurt sports for that year only, but saved the quality of education in the schools. The next year the community overwhelmingly voted to pass a bill that increased educational funding bringing back the sports programs while continuing a tradition of quality education. I am sharing this with you because it is the responsibility of our supervisors to make unpopular choices to support a tradition of quality education, even if it means cutting back in the extra -curricular opportunities offered because a quality education for each and every student is ultimately more important. We are being asked to do more with less funding by the community and it isn’t working. We cannot keep offering sports and extra-curricular opportunities while essential skills such as higher level thinking, writing, reading, timely teacher feedback, and teacher student interaction has either decreased or altogether disappeared. Please consider fighting for the quality of education in Chesterfield County by increasing funding to schools by advertising a higher tax rate. It is essential that we raise teacher wages so that they are competitive with other counties, therefore retaining quality, experienced teachers. It is also essential that we decrease class sizes so that each and every student in Chesterfield County gets the quality education that they deserve and that the county expects. Sincerely, Laura Abbott Teacher Cosby High School
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 16:34:58 +0000
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