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
BLEXIT Virginia Talks School Choice with Steven Mosley
BLEXIT Virginia interviewed Mount Vernon resident Steven Mosley this week on Facebook Live. Mosley, who ran last year for a seat on Fairfax County’s school board, discussed the many benefits of school choice for all students, and for black children in particular.
Parents should have the right to determine “where and how their children are educated,” Mosley said. “When someone says ‘school choice,’ that’s what they’re talking about.”
ICYMI: Larry O’Connor Interviews Zia Tompkins
In late October, parent and education reform advocate Zia Tompkins joined WMAL’s Larry O’Connor Show, to discuss new efforts to recall members of the Fairfax County School Board. Tompkins, who ran for school board in 2019 with the Fairfax GOP endorsement, said that current board members have turned county students into “guinea pigs”
Families File Lawsuit Against Fairfax County Public Schools
Seventeen parents filed a lawsuit against the Fairfax County School Board and Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand for illegally changing the admissions process at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.
TJ, as the school is known, is the nation’s top-ranked public high school, according to U.S. News & World Report.
VIDEO: For School Choice, Vote Republican!
A Virginia-based grassroots project, “Take the Red,” is releasing a series of videos urging voters to consider the GOP in a new light. One video focuses on the power of school choice to supplant the current monopoly in K-12 education.
“We don’t want anybody to be trapped in the government system,” says Heather Rice. “If you don’t believe that your child is getting the education they deserve, we want you to have a better option.”
FCPS Can Learn from Successful Charter Schools
In response to another year where a miniscule number of Black and Hispanic students were admitted to the incoming class at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (“TJ”), Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Scott Brabrand is proposing to scrap the entrance exams and teacher recommendations and admit 80% of TJ’s students by lottery. The other 20% would be admitted on vague criteria
FCPS Spends $44,000 on “Critical Race Theory” Snake Oil Salesman
Over the summer, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) paid Critical Race Theory advocate Ibram X. Kendi $20,000 for a one-hour Zoom call. In addition, FCPS paid Kendi $24,000 for copies of his books on race. The lucrative contract between Kendi and the county schools was uncovered by investigative journalist Asra Nomani.
Kendi recently made headlines with his tweets attacking interracial adoption. “Some White colonizers ‘adopted’ Black children,” Kendi tweeted…
LISTEN: D.J. Jordan on the Value of Adoption
D.J. Jordan joined WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall radio program today, to discuss the value of adoption. Jordan, who is a board member of Virginia’s Kids Belong, is a foster and adoptive parent himself.
Jordan’s interview came on the heels of vicious leftist attacks on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s adoption of children from Haiti. One of the more vile smears came from Ibram Kendi…
Asra Nomani: Woke Leftists “Targeting Asian Kids”
Asra Nomani was on WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall radio program today, discussing last night’s meeting of the Fairfax County School Board, where Superintendent Scott Brabrand unveiled his scheme to abolish merit-based, race-blind admissions standards at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (“TJ”).
If enacted last year, Brabrand’s scheme would have cut TJ’s Asian student body from 70 percent to 52 percent.