Superintendent Michelle Reid proposed cutting math materials in May because Fairfax County Public Schools was $28.9 million short. In September the School Board voted to spend up to $751,000 on a quantum computer, and Reid cheered it. Seven members said yes.
The machine goes to the new Skyview High School in Herndon. WTOP puts the full price near $850,000. FCPS pays $684,000 over several years. Partners cover the rest. It arrives in December. Students get to use it in spring 2027.
Reid said the computer helps students “discover what is possible.” Translation: it is possible to find $751,000 any time Reid wants to.
Board member Melanie Meren (Hunter Mill) voted no. “We need more teachers, not more computers,” she said. Ricardy Anderson (Mason) joined her. Both are Democrat-endorsed. They lost 7-2.
Here is what Reid put on the chopping block in May. The staffing reserve, cut by $8.7 million. New student devices, delayed to save $5 million. Math materials, reduced.
Here is what never made the list. Seventy-one central-office jobs paying over $200,000, about $17 million a year. Ten chiefs. Ten assistant superintendents. A Chief Equity Officer paid $288,064. An equity office with 56 jobs and a $5.76 million budget. Outside lawyers paid $58.4 million since 2020, a record $14.4 million of it last year.
In the Committee’s view, that is a management chart built for a global company. It belongs to a district that says it cannot afford math materials.
Then there is the campus. FCPS paid $150 million in 2025 for the former King Abdullah Academy, now Skyview, and Board member Kyle McDaniel (At-Large) says building new would have cost $600 million. The Board says the other schools were too crowded. It is still $150 million for a building. Kids in the old buildings still wait for devices. That is the Committee’s point. When everything is a priority, nothing is.
The Committee gives Reid this much. Getting students ahead on quantum tech is a good goal. Buying the box is the wrong way to do it.
IBM rents quantum computing time at $96 a minute. It bills by the second and gives 10 free minutes a month. A rental never loses value on the district’s books. The vendor carries the security load. A district that just delayed new student devices is not ready to guard a quantum lab. That is the Committee’s view.
The Skyview unit is a small teaching machine, not IBM’s cloud hardware. That only makes the case stronger. In the Committee’s view, time on a real machine teaches more than owning a small one.
Reid is not elected. The School Board hired her and extended her contract through 2030 at nearly $470,000 a year. All 12 Board members are Democrat-endorsed. Chairman Jeff McKay (D-At-Large) runs the Board of Supervisors that funds the schools. It is nine Democrats and one Republican. In May it cut 13 high school crossing guards, 9-1. Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) was the only no. In the Committee’s view, nobody in that chain ever says no.
Last week county police charged Darin Thompson, a former Hayfield principal now in a top central-office job, with embezzling nearly $8,000 in school funds; he has not been convicted.
Reid proposed cutting math materials. The Board bought the computer. The district kept 71 jobs over $200,000. It paid lawyers $58 million. It spent $150 million on a campus.
Reid’s contract runs to 2030. All 12 School Board seats and all 10 Supervisor seats are on the ballot in November 2027.