In 2021, Fairfax County voters approved the money to renovate Centreville High School. Five years later, it still hasn’t been built — and the students inside are done waiting.

“This school’s condition is the worst,” PTSA President Thoraia Hussein told WTOP, describing a campus her own sons didn’t want to walk into, one she compared to a jail. A rising junior told the School Board directly: “the Centreville community feels that you have neglected us.” The gym, the music and art rooms, the air conditioning — all failing. The electrical system went out during a graduation. Meanwhile, a brand-new Skyview High School opens this fall in Herndon, exactly the modern campus Centreville was promised half a decade ago.

The Budget Went Up $297 Million. The Students Went Away.

FCPS says it spent $260,000 on Centreville patches and blames a Floor Area Ratio zoning dispute for freezing the design. Hold that answer next to the district’s checkbook.

Fairfax County Public Schools runs a $4.0 billion budget — up $297 million in a single year. Since 2019, per-pupil spending has climbed more than $6,000. And where did the students go? FCPS posted the largest enrollment drop of any district in Virginia from 2015 to 2025 — down nearly 6,900 students — even as the county’s school-age population grew by more than 9,000. The share of Fairfax kids whose families opted out of the public schools doubled, from 8.6% in 2019 to 17.4% in 2025. Over the same stretch, average SAT scores fell 35 points.

So the money is up, the students are down, the scores are down — and Centreville’s building is still rotting. Where in the world is the money going?

The Board Found $469,936 for the Superintendent. Centreville Got a Study.

Some of it went to the corner office. On June 25, 2026, the same month it was still “studying” Centreville, the School Board extended Superintendent Michelle Reid’s contract through 2030 at $469,936 a year — roughly $70,000 more than the $400,000 salary of the President of the United States. The board found the will for that in an afternoon. Centreville families have waited five years.

The twelve-member Fairfax County School Board — every seat Democrat-aligned, chaired by Robyn Lady of the Dranesville District — controls this budget and hired the superintendent who spends it. Superintendent Reid’s Centreville report is due August 28. And in November 2027, every one of those twelve seats is on the ballot. Not some. All of them.