Education Issues in Fairfax County
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Fairfax County Public Schools By the Numbers:
FCPS School System
- 10th largest school system
- ~75% of Fairfax County’s 1.1 million residents do not currently have children in FCPS
- 198 schools and centers
- 800+ trailers
- 27.5 million square feet of covered infrastructure facilities, plus another 1+ million square feet in temporary facilities (trailers)
- 1,630 buses, the largest school bus fleet in the United States
- 18.5 million bus miles traveled annually transporting 130,000 students daily
- 15,287 teacher positions
- 24,121 total full-time positions (includes teacher positions)
- ~14,000 additional part-time positions
FCPS School Board
- 12 Board Members – nine by Magisterial District, three at-Large; registered
- 4 total number of Board Members each voter may cast a ballot for, including one by the voter’s Magisterial District and three at-Large. The full Board is up for election in November, 2019 for the next four-year term.
FCPS Budget
- $2,870,278,776 Billion operational budget – primarily funded by Fairfax County residents (70.1 percent). The balance of the funding is from the Commonwealth of Virginia (23.1 percent), other sources (6.8 percent) and the federal government (1.6 percent)
- ~53% of the entire Fairfax County budget is transferred by the Board of Supervisors to the School Board for the FCPS Budget
- $404,874,411 of the $2.9 Billion budget is for retirement
- $155 Million in additional funds is for the Capital Improvement Plan Budget
- $15,318 average cost per student
FCPS Students
- 190,168 students – the upward trend for student population now means an increased projected estimate for fall 2018 enrollment
- 36,019 students (19%) ESOL
- 26,730 students (14.1%) Special Education
- 55,020 students (29.0%) Free and Reduced-Price Meals
- ~200 countries and territories represented in student population
- 160 languages spoken by student population
- 20,287 additional students from 2008-2017
- 2,028 average student increase every year
KEY LINKS:
- Budget Documents: https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/budget/budget-documents
- Budget Questions and Responses: https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/budget/budget-question-responses
- Capital Improvement Program: https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/facilities-planning-future/capital-improvement-program
- School Board: https://www.fcps.edu/school-board
- Cox Channel 21 – Televised School Board Meetings
- School Board Meetings: https://www.fcps.edu/school-board/school-board-meetings
- School Board Meeting agendas, minutes, videos and photos: https://www.fcps.edu/school-board/agenda_minutes_photos
- FCPS Livestream: https://www.fcps.edu/tv
- School Board Meetings on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSz76NCRDYQF3hPS2qS2SGEcoO4__Yd7Z
- Archived School Board Meeting Videos: https://www.fcps.edu/node/32692
- School Board Standing Committees: https://www.fcps.edu/school-board/school-board-committees
- About FCPS: https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps
- One Fairfax: https://www.fcps.edu/onefairfax
WATCH: Parents Defending Education
Parents Defending Education is a new grassroots organization determined to fight woke indoctrination in classrooms nationwide. “We believe our children’s education should be based on scholarship and facts, and should nurture their development into the happy, resilient, free-thinking, educated citizens every democracy needs,” the organization says.
The website DefendingEd.org features a robust IndoctriNation Map, where visitors can “learn about parent organizations, incidents and FOIA’s” in their area. And Parents Defending Education wants to hear from you.
New Poll: Support for School Choice Soars
Parents and families have been on a rollercoaster when it comes to K-12 education in the time of COVID-19. A new poll from Real Clear Opinion Research finds overall support for school choice is increasing as parents need more options than ever.
71% of voters back school choice. This is the highest level of support ever recorded from major AFC national polling with a sample size above 800 voters.
Four Days of In-Person Education? Not So Fast.
The media applauded Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) this week for announcing it will offer four days a week of in-person education to “some” students. Yet within hours of the announcement many schools were alerting families to the reality that the four-day option will be unavailable to most in-person students.
ICYMI: Laura Ingraham Town Hall on Closed “Public” Schools
Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham hosted a special town hall Friday night, devoted to the ongoing scandal of closed government-run, ostensibly “public” schools. Fairfax County parents in attendance shared their frustrations with the systemic failures and visceral hostility they have endured from a school district that spends more than $16,000 per student.
Fairfax County parent Roseanne Nelson expressed concerns
Fairfax GOP Denounces “Woke” Bullies, Calls for Genuine Tolerance
The Fairfax GOP full-throatedly denounced “woke bullies” and called for “genuine tolerance,” in a statement issued today. “We must get back to viewing our neighbors as just that,” said Fairfax GOP Chairman Steve Knotts. “Even if we disagree, we are still neighbors.”
The chairman’s statement follows bombshell news from nearby Loudoun County, Virginia, where teachers and others formed a “secret” Facebook group
Five Days in the Fall? Maybe.
Yesterday’s meeting of the FCPS School Board acknowledged an on-paper goal of allowing students the choice to return to classrooms next school year for five days a week, with a teacher in each of those classrooms. This was followed by a list of caveats with which parents have become all too familiar. We call them “Lucy’s Football.” We look forward to running towards that football yet again over the next few months to see whether Lucy yanks it away.
West Virginia Wants to Change the Game on Education
After 2020, Americans are coming to terms with the fact that the United States is splitting into two different countries culturally and politically. The red-blue divide is a divide between free states and counties and increasingly repressive and authoritarian blue states and counties.
The freedom divide is particularly clear in the area of education. Republican states and counties have been more likely to open up their schools with safety measures
LISTEN: Larry O’Connor Interviews Harry Jackson
Concerned parent Harry Jackson joined WMAL’s Larry O’Connor Show last week, to discuss the Fairfax County School Board’s ongoing war on Thomas Jefferson School of Science and Technology (affectionately known as “TJ”). Jackson recently authored a Washington Post op-ed blasting “paternalistic White liberals” who “don’t think Black and Hispanic students have what it takes to compete on merit”