A clear sign that a school system is facing monetary problems: when the Superintendent holds a conference and asks for as many student reporters to attend as possible. This is one way it is rather obvious that Fairfax County Public Schools are experiencing budgeting issues. Combine this with the fact that there have been a multitude of articles that have been written about the potential budget cuts that FCPS may undergo and it is apparent that this is a big issue.

Now this article is not going to be suggesting any solutions. Instead it will be explaining why some of the potential cuts would be more detrimental then they may currently seem. While nothing has been put on the list of what is being cut for certain, there are many recommendations and possibilities out there. Some of these include but are not limited to reducing late bus days, increase class sizes, eliminate funding from sports, and so on. There are many items that may be cut but these are some of the more severe.

As it is, our school already only has one late bus day. With only one day it is hard to decide what teacher to stay after with and it minimizes the amount of help a student can get. Another recommendation to help the FCPS budget is to increase class sizes. A lot of classes are already full; some have as many as 30 plus people in the class. Due to having so many students in one class, it can be hard for a teacher to give everyone a fair amount of attention. If class sizes were to increase then students would receive even less support and that would be very harmful to their grades. The final change that was mentioned above was eliminating the funding from sports. This would not be worth the money it might save because it would lessen the number of students who could do sports which in turn would affect a person’s ability to have extracurricular activities. Many students are passionate about sports and to cut the funding the programs receive would be harmful to students’ health and the schools spirit.

Overall, one thing is clear; the FCPS budget needs a lot of help. Some suggestions may be made over time that could lead to the solution but at the moment, a lot of the options that people have suggested get cut would impact the school system in a very negative way. While certain changes may help save money, they have a higher probability of impacting students’ health and academics in a destructive way.