We support:
- Open schools for in-person education, 5 days a week
- School choice and vouchers so that tax dollars follow the student, and give parents control
- Merit-based admission standards for Governor’s Schools (TJ High School) and academic programs
- High academic standards, such as advanced math & science, so students can compete in a global economy
- Focus on academics not critical race theory (CRT)
Fairfax County Public Schools By the Numbers:
- 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 – all serve 4 year terms
- 4 total number of Board Members each voter may cast a ballot for; , 1 for the voter’s Magisterial District and three at-Large.
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
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
Diverse Coalition Issues Call to Censure, Remove Abrar Omeish
On the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the single greatest terrorist attack on the home soil of the United States of America, the Fairfax County School Board entertained a resolution for a moment of silence to honor the victims who died that day in New York City, Shanksville, Pa., and the Pentagon, those who suffered injuries, and the first responders who rushed to save lives.
In a county with one of the nation’s largest populations of veterans, military personnel, and federal civilian employees…
HEARTLESS: School Board Member Votes Against Honoring 9/11 Victims
Abrar Omeish derailed another school board meeting last night, as the embattled at-large member detailed her reasons for voting against a resolution to honor the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “Why can we not also explicitly recognize the extensive and unwarranted structural discrimination and ethnic and religious profiling following 9/11 that tens of thousands of FCPS students experience on a daily basis,” Omeish asked.
INTERVIEW: Steve Knotts on the Rapid Decline of FCPS
Fairfax GOP Chairman Steve Knotts joined WMAL’s O’Connor & Company this week, to discuss plummeting standardized test results in the county’s government-run schools. “It’s absolutely terrible,” Knotts said on Monday’s program.
New data from the Virginia Department of Education revealed significant learning losses in reading, math and science among students enrolled in Fairfax County Public Schools.
Northam’s DOE to VA Schools: No “American Exceptionalism” on 9/11
On Friday, Aug. 27, 2021, the Virginia Department of Education posted a webinar in which a speaker trains teachers not to discuss Islamic extremism or “American exceptionalism” while teaching about the 9/11 attacks, guiding them instead to focus on “anti-Muslim racism.” Parents in Virginia shared the video with Parents Defending Education, expressing deep concern about the revision of historical facts in the lesson guidelines and the insensitivity of the speaker and the state agency to the trauma and facts of the 9/11 attacks.
Fairfax GOP Decries County Schools’ Learning Losses
Fairfax GOP Chairman Steve Knotts is blasting the “troubling and severe” learning losses now confronting the county’s government-run schools. “The latest Standards of Learning (SOL) results confirmed what anyone with common sense already knew: Fairfax County Public Schools utterly failed to meet the needs of students over these last two academic years,” Knotts said today.
INTERVIEW: Rory Cooper on School Board Recalls
Local parent-activist Rory Cooper joined Thursday’s Vince Coglianese Show to discuss the grassroots, citizen-led efforts to remove Fairfax County School Board members Elaine Tholen, Laura Jane Cohen, and Abrar Omeish.
After more than 5,000 valid signatures to recall Elaine Tholen were submitted, the case to remove the embattled school board member was dismissed on August 20 — at the request of Albemarle Commonwealth’s Attorney James Hingely.
Complexity and One-Party Rule in the Modern University
Large research universities have evolved into amalgamations of housing complexes, food service industries, semi-pro sports franchises, health systems, research enterprises, vocational training centers, and education systems. The administrative design of complex universities is such that they are nearly incapable of being efficiently managed.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Refuses to Advance Tholen Recall Case
“Parents proved today that we can mount a massive grassroots effort to gather thousands of signatures to recall a school board member. We are pleased to have won in court, but unfortunately it appears the fix was in when Mr. Descano handpicked his replacement from Albemarle County, James Hingely,” said Dee O’Neal, Open FCPS Coalition founder.