COM asks in his usual blunt tone the following question: “as a tax payer and Citizen of the City, I’d like to hear your views on the rising crime rate and the huge number of students who can’t speak English and the almost half of our students on the free lunch program.”
The part about the crime rate is a fair question and here is my answer: I’m not worried but I am concerned. Here’s why: Our crime rate over the past few years has been at historic lows. Indicators like this naturally oscillate somewhat. When the rate is low the oscillation is almost necessarily towards the upside. The other reason that I’m not worried is that the Chief of Police indicated during his public presentation that he wasn’t concerned yet. I trust the Chief completely in this matter as he’s a life long law enforcement professional and I’m an IT guy. If Chief Skinner had indicated we had a crime emergency then it’s a very different discussion.
As to the rest of his question, I suppose my answer is that I can’t control who lives here…
From the viewpoint of an elected official I regret that the local paper did very little reporting on the budget that could really compare to the enormous front page article (complete with a picture of the police line tape) they did on the crime rate increase.
UPDATE: Cindy Brookshire passes along the following: There is a School Board Candidates forum Thursday 4/29 at 7pm at City Hall.
April 18, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Andy,
Thanks for the answer. We’ll see how the crime goes, and it has been low, or at treading low before this year.
However, I’m sure one can look at Cities, neighborhoods, etc, and make a connection between crime, quality of living and how many people in that particular area(s) are on some type of social program. There are too many examples of once nice Cities, neighborhoods, etc, from all around the nation that are now in ruin becase of those factors.
I’ll also nit just a bit, on the part about not being able to control who lives in the City.
Having a strong 287G program that weeds out illegals, certainly has an impact on who lives here(I know, we have that program already, and I believe you support it). We can take other steps too in that regard. It simply comes down to the political will of you and the rest of the Council. Money is a factor, and that is why I believe it’s better to push the issue, then it is to just keep blowing millions in the school budget. Possible legal action might be expensive, but how much are we wasting in the school budget?
Driving out criminals with tougher law enforcement practices also can impact who lives here. If we make it harder on the common criminal, they will soon pack up and move to another City that may not care as much about their City as we do ours.
Not investing in section 8 housing is, I believe, another way to control who lives in the City.
Of course that still will not keep out all of the illegals, and assorted criminals, but IMO, those are steps that can be taken to help get Manassas going in the right direction.
April 19, 2010 at 9:40 am
Note that a public hearing will be held
tonight at Manassas City Hall at 7:30 PM
on the proposed FY 2010-11 Annual
Operating Budget and the Five-Year
Capital Improvement Program. This
is an opportunity for citizens to express
their views, pro and con, before the
mayor and council, staff, and local media
and cable TV.
April 19, 2010 at 10:26 am
There is also a School board fourm at the Metz that starts at 7:00 tonight. It’s a shame better planning was not the order, so that we would not have to choose between the two events.
April 20, 2010 at 7:47 am
Citizen, I hope you were at the school board candidates forum last night. Someone asked your same question, and every candidate backed students who receive free lunches and those who can’t speak English. To applause, too.
There were interesting comments about resurrecting a community/school commission — something to harness the community spirit that rallied around Mayfield’s emergency to keep the community at large partnering with the schools, not just people who have children in the public schools.
Sorry to miss the public hearing on the city’s 2010 budget.
April 20, 2010 at 8:04 am
Cindy,
I was there. I found it interesting that not a single candidate was concerned with those numbers. I have more about it on my blog, but it’s clear these people are clueless if they think people are going to move to the City to place their kids in an education system that has those numbers, over a system that does not have such issues.
To a number, they complained about a shortage of money, yet celebrated the fact, we have to spend more money on a student who does not speak English than we do on a student who does. Furthermore, if you look at the graduation rate of ESL students, its a very poor number, something like 40% from our High School. So, even with the extra spending, it does not make a difference.
Yup, that’s something to celebrate.
April 20, 2010 at 8:36 am
Just found out from one of the school board candidates that there is another forum next Thursday 4/29 at 7pm at City Hall.
April 20, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Nice to see the School Board candidates woke up an decided to hold a forum on a different night.
Makes one ponder their judgement and awareness of the City to hold their first forum on the same night the Council has its public hearing on the budget. Unless I have misread the documents for the last 15 years, when the Council listens on the Budget, that includes the allocation to the Schools.
And now they want to rally and create a commission to rally the people? What? Our having a Neighborhood Services that just got back its second position in the budget not good enough? Partnering with NS which supports our Neighborhoods that are school-centered to begin with woud not work? The same Board which will not let neighborhood formed interest groups use the facilities? They want to form a commission???
Oh me – I forget…we are talking about School Boards that all think they are stand alones. Pardon my errors in understanding of how a COMMUNITY should work. Somebody ought to read the City Charter and remember that although the Board is elected, in this City, the Charter says the City Council has to approve the members of the Board.
Now, COM has raised two things I ponder further on: the USDA Meal Program at each of the schools for free breakfast/reduced lunch; and tossed in Section 8 housing.
On the meals – in a post on another day I raised the question asking if part of that increase is related to other than Hispanic families that because of the last two years of economic issues had made application for them? These are folks who may have had two incomes, then things changed and they slipped from having liveable wages to one where things get tight. I am smart enough to know it may be a majority of children from ethic groups; but without the School Board showing a breakout, I don’t see an immediate correlation between an increase in English Language Learners and the USDA program. Tough to make a “one swipe hits all” conclusion.
That same form of conclusion cannot be made regarding Section 8 Housing. It is not all Hispanic – we have disabled adults, older adults 60+, grandparents caring for grandchildren, the extremely low income, low income, and moderate low income people and families receiving voucher support. Are some of them Hispanic? Yes. And then go down the list of the other Race/Ethnic categories of the Census and it fits who are receiving the Section 8 Housing Assistance Vouchers in our City. Oh yeah…and on the majority, they are employed or on fixed income. So I supposed we don’t need these kind living here, eh?
April 20, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Raymond,
Based on the numbers provided by the school board, which were in the MJM article, 34% of the student population is English limited and 48%(or maybe it was 49% was in the free lunch program. It did not provide a break down of who was in which program etc.
However, that almost does not matter in the larger picture of what parent would want to put their kids in a school district with those types of numbers?
There has been a lot of talk of late(Manassas next, for example) of how to attract families with kids to the City which involves focusing on our School system.
Exactly how do we market such numbers in order to make it a positive?
April 21, 2010 at 10:21 pm
There are positive aspects across the system which could be highlighted. For instance, 83% of the students meet the No Child Left Behind standards which is just a little below Virginia’s 87%.
Within ELL (all ethnic groups) is 79% to the
Commonwealth’s 83% benchbark. Intersting enough, for the students with disabilities we match the Commonwealth’s 73% benchmark.
When it comes the the Virginia SOL, we have a higher rate of Advanced, Proficient and Passed compared to the failure rate. About 50% of our high school kids go after Advanced Diplomas.
about 14% of our 11th&12th graders take the AP courses with about 12% taking the test. Until it got cut out by the school system, we used to average around a dozen seniors a year in the GMU Guest Scholar Program (dual enrollment is something that should be urged instead of kids wasting their senior year taking “filler courses” – but heck, look at the squak over letting them out early to go take jobs or whatever – School Board drops the ball on this in terms of being a progressive district).
Our percentage of teachers who do not meet the definition of highly qualified under the Federal government is really low…at around 1%.
Our overall drop out rate is about 3%, and comparing that to Hispanic 5% is still not bad compared to other locations. Of course, all the focus is on the Hispanic Dropout Rate.
But taking just the two factors of ELL and Food Program, yeah it does paint a bleak picture. And bleak pictures work best when school systems say they need money – they never tote their achievements to say how well we are doing with resources we got.
April 22, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Ray,
I agree with you on the last point. Everyone it seems in the school system only want more money. They never seem like they are willing to do more with less, or try to find ways to save money. It’s always, more and more money.
Yes, bad news does seem at times to overshadow the positive. However, once the system starts down the road, it’s hard to turn it around.