Mark Spooner | Fairfax Schools Monitor

This article, and several others that will follow, will report on the development and content of two important initiatives for Fairfax County Public Schools (“FCPS”): a new, multi-year Strategic Plan, and a formal Equity Policy.   The two are closely related and will operate hand-in-hand in practice.   The term “equity” will be defined in the Equity Policy, and “equity” is a central component of the draft Strategic Plan.

The two initiatives are being developed simultaneously, but different administrative teams at FCPS are in charge of them.  Strategic planning is being run by the Superintendent’s office; the “equity” process is headed by the Chief Equity Officer.  The Superintendent’s office seems to have a broad view of the overall goals of FCPS for the next few years, while the focus of the Equity Office is much narrower.

The most sensible approach would be to have a single planning process, with the concept of “equity” being carefully defined in the Strategic Plan itself.  But the idea of a stand-alone equity policy had begun before the new FCPS Superintendent initiated strategic planning when she took office last summer.  Large bureaucracies like FCPS often have different teams with different priorities and constituencies.  At FCPS, “equity” planning has taken on a life of its own, and the Superintendent has not, at least until now, consolidated it with strategic planning.

I am a member of a group called the “Core Planning Team” for the Strategic Plan, as well as a member of what’s called the “Equity Policy Steering Committee,” so I have been able to observe what is happening on both fronts.  The strategic planning process has been inclusive and collaborative, gathering and synthesizing input from every segment of the community.  In contrast, the equity process has been responsive to date almost exclusively to the “equity” advocates in the community.   Although the equity team at FCPS has recently scheduled a focus group session with citizens who are concerned about a broad, vague concept of “equity,” the question is whether it is coming too late in the process to have any impact on the equity team’s decisions.

Based on the drafts that have been revealed so far, it appears that the strategic planning team’s concept of “equity” may be  focused on providing additional resources in areas where they are needed, such as extra help to students who need it, adding more advanced courses in schools where they aren’t now available, etc.  In contrast, the equity team’s working definition is broad and vague, stressing perceived racial injustices, and calling for undefined dismantling of “policies, practices and beliefs that maintain a status quo of marginalization.”

One of these concepts may lead to consensus; the other is a formula for deep division and controversy.  The question is whether the concepts will be reconciled, and if so, how.

The next articles in this series will report separately on how the strategic planning process and the equity policy process have developed to date.  We will also follow the progress of the two initiatives in the weeks ahead.

Mark Spooner, a retired attorney, is the founding editor of Fairfax School Monitor, where this article was first published.