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Fairfax County Public Schools employees kept classrooms, transportation, facilities and meal services operating through a week of wintry weather, drawing praise from Superintendent Michelle Reid on January 27. She thanked custodians, maintenance and grounds crews, warehouse and support personnel, transportation teams, office and communications staff, educators, and food service workers for responding to changing conditions.

The week also brought a national honor for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology student Ray Zhang. He was selected as one of 40 finalists in the 2025 Regeneron Science Talent Search from an earlier group of 300 scholars.

Zhang’s project examines biofilm composition in clinical isolates of the fungus Fusarium and develops a multi-targeted antifungal treatment intended to inhibit its growth. He will receive at least $25,000 and travel to Washington, D.C., in March for final judging, a public exhibition and meetings with scientists. The competition’s top award is $250,000.

Reid attended Annandale High School’s girls and boys basketball games against Mount Vernon High School on Tuesday evening. Cheer squads from both schools supported the teams during the doubleheader.

On Wednesday morning, Reid met with faith leaders at the Gatehouse Administration Center. Their discussion covered children’s mental health and resilience, difficult conversations, immigration, diversity, technology’s effects on young people, volunteerism, polarization, stereotyping and changes to the school boundary policy.

Later that day, she attended the Superintendent’s Teacher Advisory Committee meeting at Kilmer Middle School. Each school has a representative on the committee, which gives instructional employees a way to raise concerns and provide feedback to division leaders. Representatives then report meeting results to colleagues at their schools.

The division also convened its Boundary Review Advisory Committee at Gatehouse. The group includes parents, caregivers or community members from all 24 FCPS high school pyramids, along with teachers, administrators, operational employees and other representatives. Its role is to offer input as the school system conducts a boundary review with community participation.

A virtual community boundary meeting followed Saturday. Additional sessions were scheduled for January 27, January 28 and February 10, each from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The meetings were to use the same format and information as recent in-person sessions, with interpretation available and attendance limited to 400 people per session.

Proposed budget seeks $268.3 million more from county

At the previous Thursday’s School Board meeting, Reid presented a proposed fiscal 2026 budget totaling $4 billion. The plan is $297.1 million, or 7.9%, larger than the approved fiscal 2025 budget.

The proposal requests an additional $268.3 million from Fairfax County, a 10.4% increase over the transfer provided the previous year. FCPS said the requested transfer is 5.6% higher than what it sought last year. More than 85% of the proposed spending would support instruction.

The plan includes a 7% salary increase for all employees. It would also direct resources toward students needing additional support, provide microcredentials for educators and continue multiyear programs such as inclusive preschool, certified athletic trainers at every high school, family liaisons and fine and performing arts stipends. Replacement of the division’s Human Resources Information System is also included.

The School Board was scheduled to examine the proposal during a February 4 work session.

During the same board meeting, Reid reviewed the Lighthouse Schools initiative, an FCPS partnership with the International Society for Technology Education and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. The program tests emerging teaching practices and technologies in a group of schools, measures their effects and considers whether successful approaches should expand across the division.

The initiative has involved 17 teams and 1,837 educators. FCPS reported 840 hours of leadership action planning, 12,200 hours of professional development for school champions and leaders, and 15,645 hours of self-paced training for teachers. A total of 17,750 FCPS teachers received access to ISTE membership.

Educators in participating schools are also using tools such as Gemini Advanced, available through a Google partnership, for lesson planning, student engagement and feedback. Teachers and administrators from Madison, McLean and Bryant high schools discussed the pilot in a presentation shared with the board.

Another board update focused on student participation in school menu planning. Food and Nutrition Services gathers feedback through annual food shows and small focus groups and has committed to offering student-tested items. More than 20 new foods prepared from scratch were added during the 2024-25 school year.

Reid also attended Woodson High School’s annual “Dessert on Broadway” production Friday evening. Presented by the school’s Choral Department, the event combined Broadway songs performed with a live band with beverages and desserts.

On Saturday, she spoke at a Chinese New Year Festival at Luther Jackson Middle School. The celebration featured performances, food and a Lunar New Year dragon parade. Its theme was harmony, while the Year of the Snake was presented as a symbol of wisdom, resilience and change.

Facility Manager Sang Huynh shared the Vietnamese perspective on the holiday, plans for the school’s celebration and his appreciation for its educators.

State formula could make graduation results appear lower

Reid also warned that Virginia’s new accountability framework will change how high school graduation performance is reported.

Under the Virginia Department of Education’s 2024 School Performance and Support Framework, graduation accounts for 15% of a high school’s overall performance. The framework uses the federal four-year graduation indicator, which counts only standard and advanced diplomas earned within four years of a student’s initial entry into ninth grade.

That measure excludes applied studies diplomas. It also does not count students with disabilities or multilingual learners who complete diploma requirements over a longer period, even though state and federal law allow some students to continue through age 22.

The previous Graduation and Completion Index recognized every diploma type and students who used additional legally permitted time. It also awarded partial credit for certificates of completion, high school equivalency diplomas and continued enrollment toward a diploma.

Because the new federal indicator counts a narrower group, FCPS expects graduation figures reported through the state accountability system to decline even if student outcomes have not changed correspondingly.

Virginia’s broader on-time graduation rate shows that 94.58% of the FCPS Class of 2024 graduated, up from 91.26% for the Class of 2019. That calculation includes all diploma types and permits additional time for students with disabilities and multilingual learners.

Phonics results rise across five grade levels

FCPS also reported continued improvement among students receiving explicit phonics instruction. The comparison tracked the same student groups from fall 2021 through fall 2024 after as much as two years of core elementary phonics instruction or three years of intervention.

The share performing at or above grade level increased by 32% among current fourth graders, 42% among fifth graders, 41% among sixth graders, 39% among seventh graders and 29% among eighth graders. Across the five grades, the average increase was 36.6%.

The division has since introduced Benchmark Advance, a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade language arts curriculum designed to address vocabulary, word study, comprehension and writing in addition to phonics.